 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Archie Lubman Choosing a good web host is relativlely easy. Thankfully there are many affordable, top quality web hosting services available. However, you must take into account several important considerations in order to find the right web hosting company.
If you are new to choosing web host, I recommend that you read entire article. Those of you
interested in particular subject can use article outline below to go directly to the topic
of your interest.
Disk Space (Web Hosting Space) is measured in bytes. 1 megabyte (MB) is roughly 1,000,000 bytes. 1 gigabyte (GB) is about 1000 MB.
Calculating disk size needed for your web site is not difficult. First, you must add all your files
to find out how much space your site needs now. Then, you must consider future additions and updates to
your web site.
Data Transfer measures how much data was transmitted from your site to the visitor and back.
If the web site has several pages for a total of 4MB, and there are 5,000 visitors a month who visit
every page, then amount of data transferred is 4 * 5,000 = 17,000 MB. Since probably not every visitor will visit
every page of your site, the best formula to calculate monthly data transfer is the following:
Of course, number of visitors and page viewes will differ from month to month, and so is amount of data transferred. Flash, video and music files usually account for most data tranmitted to and from your site. Most web hosting services use Linux operating system. Some offer Windows or other operating systems. Your choice of operating system should be based on what programs you plan to use. Both Windows & Linux are fine for HTML files. However, Windows is best for ASP while Linux is fine with Perl/CGI. Take a look at what software and databases your prospective host is supporting. Usually Windows hosting is more expensive. Some people wrongly believe that you must use the host that has the same operating system as your computer. Actually you can use Windows on your computer and have Linux host, and vice versa. Uptime is a percentage of time your site is available online. Sometimes even the very best web hosts shut down due to numerous reasons (outage, maintenance, human error...). However, your uptime must be at least 99% to 99.5%, and top web hosting services provide it. It is very important to have professional help if something is wrong with your site. All web hosting companies in Web Hosting Services Directory offer at 24/7 phone support. Naturally you want to pay the lowest price possible for web hosting. However, in many instances cheap or free isn't necessarily good. You want to make sure that your web host offers enough web hosting space, adequate data transfer and good customer support even if it means paying a little more. This is especially true for E-Commerce web sites. If your site is too slow to load or is down for some time, you lose customers and money. I don't recommend free web hosts because they often place banners and other ads on your web pages. Many of them go out of business on a short notice or no notice at all. Also some free web hosts won't let you use your domain name and you will have to use their domain that can make your address too long and hard to remember. I use two web hosting services for my web sites - iPowerWeb and StartLogic. I am very satisfied with both services. You can read my detailed review of iPowerWeb and StartLogic at Web Hosting Services Comparison Chart. Your choice of web host depends on a combination of factors described in this article and your web site's goal. By now you probably understand issues involved and are closer to making decision. P.S. Read more web hosting articles and how to promote and create content for your web site at Articles section. |
| Web Hosting Comparison Chart | Articles | About Us |