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General Considerations A Word of Caution If a web hosting plan offers a free domain name as part of the plan, be aware of the fact that it may be registered the hosting company’s name and not in your name. This means you do not own the domain and if you spend time and money enhancing the value of that domain, you will be working for the web hosting company. Valuable domains sell every day for thousands of dollars, and a hosting company can charge any price they want to transfer the domain to you, or they could even refuse to transfer it. In my own experience I was charged $99 in one case and $50 in another to transfer a “free” domain to my ownership, whereas I could have registered the domain myself for less than $8. Be sure your domain is in your name. For each of the web hosting companies listed on this web site we identify in whose name the free domain names are registered. Host Multiple Domains When you sign up for a hosting account it will be listed with your host under your main domain name. If you plan to have more than one web site, choosing a plan that allows you to host multiple add on domains (or addon domains) can save you considerable money. Just be sure that the plan has sufficient storage and transfer to accommodate the multiple web sites. A hosting plan with 100 GB of storage and 1,000 GB transfer should be sufficient for quite a number of web sites even with video and/or sound. Be aware that when you host multiple domains the addon domain’s site statistics may not be provided. You might be able to pay extra for addon domain statistics, but it is not necessary. Two web sites that offer free web site statistics are: http://www.statcounter.com and http://addfreestats.com. By using them for site statistics you can host multiple web sites for very little money. Storage In choosing a hosting plan, the paramount factors will be storage and bandwidth. For most personal and small business web sites 5MB of storage will suffice if you do not use sound, video, or a lot of pictures, all of which are memory intensive. Bandwidth or Transfer Most web host's web sites use the term "Transfer" to indicate the amount of traffic allowed per month in their plans. It is the same as bandwidth except that it is measured in bites per month, whereas bandwidth is usually stated in units of bits per second. See Storage & Transfer Explained for the definition and a discussion of bandwidth. The transfer required for a given web site varies with the size of the web site (memory used) and the number of visitors to your site. Most web hosting plans set a limit on the number of bites of information transferred from your web site on the host's servers to the internet each month. For most web sites without sound, video, or hundreds of high definition pictures, 5GB of transfer should be more than adequate. Even the most basic web hosting plans meet this specification. If you have streaming audio or video, you are going to use much more. When a hosting plan lists the transfer provided as “unlimited” or “not metered” they only mean that they are not keeping track of everyone’s usage, and not that they don’t care how much transfer you use each month. Use too much and you will be contacted by the host asking you to pay more for your hosting. For the usual web site, however, this is not a consideration. The transfer offered in today's web hosting plans has increased to accommodate the multimedia presentations of most web sites. Web Building Software Virtually every host has web site building software. This may be free or offered at an additional price. If you use their software, be aware that your web site will probably not be transferable to another host if for some reason you have to move. FrontPage and Dream Weaver Support If you use independent software such as FrontPage, Dream Weaver, or Coffee Cup to prepare your web site, be sure that you have FTP access in your hosting plan, otherwise you will be inconvenienced by having to have the technical support personnel involved to set up and make any changes to your web site, often at their convenience. Web sites produced with independent software can be transferred from one host to another. Technical Support The technical support offered by your host can be either a blessing or a curse. Since good technical support is expensive, there is a tradeoff between low cost hosting and good technical support. If you ask them, every host will tell you they have excellent technical support. They may answer the phone or emails quickly, but if their support personnel are not knowledgeable enough to solve your problem you are in for big time frustration. You can check out what other webmasters say about their hosts in webmaster forums (search Google to find them). Reliability Most hosts guaranty 99.9% or higher up time, but you may have trouble collecting on any guaranty. Don't take a chance on a new internet hosting service provider since around 95% of new web hosts don't last a year. Find out how long your potential web host has been in business by searching the whois regestry on the host's domain name. The longer a host has been in business, the greater the chance that they will stay in business. Control Panel Access If you are going to be your own webmaster, you need control panel access. This gives you access to raw logs, files, email accounts, passwords, autoresponders, and many other functions related to your web site. With control panel access you can perform many operations yourself that would have to rely on tech service to do without that access. Unless you have considerable knowledge and experience with computers and their programs it is probably best to let technical service help you with most operations in the control panel at least in the beginning. Most hosts have tutorials to help you learn how to use their control panel. Local vs National Web Host If you have a web site
built for you by a local firm, they will probably want you to host your web
site with them. Although this may work out just fine, in all
probability the local firm has a low bandwidth connection to the internet,
or is a reseller of hosting service from a larger host. A slower
connection to the internet is not a problem until the bandwidth of that
connection is oversubscribed, then everybody’s traffic slows down. If
your local host is a reseller, there can be problems if you have to contact
the reseller for technical service. Only the larger firms can afford
to have 24/7 technical service, so when problems occur on Friday evening,
you may have to wait until Monday morning to address them. You should
avoid hosting your web site with a host that sells dial-up service.
Since they are mainly selling internet access, they may be less responsive
to the needs of customers with web sites to host. All in all, your
best bet to avoid problems is to pick a highly recommended national host for
your web site. |