Web Hosting LaMaTa

For many people who are new to web hosting, the options can be overwhelming. Should you choose free or paid hosting? Do you need a shared or dedicated service? Whether you’re seeking a hosting service for personal use or you’re working on behalf of a business, there is a variety of choices. The main consideration should be which features you need to accomplish your goal.

Free Hosting — In difficult economic times, this can be a decent service if you just need a personal or small-business site. If you don’t mind the ads and don’t need too many software options, free hosting could be well suited for your needs. However, also bear in mind that this option limits your abilities to add software and expand files. Security might be questionable, too. You don’t get a domain, though you will get a sub-domain (i.e. as yoursmallbusiness.contentpage.com).

Shared Hosting — This is a very popular option for people that need more functionality and space for their sites, but they also need to watch their budgets. It’s suited for individuals, small businesses and midsized companies. There’s a monthly cost but it’s low. You get your own domain and you can get add-on tools and programs. Other advantages are that you don’t need a technical staff and there’s good customer support. However, you might be restricted with software languages that your host provides and file types that it allows. Also, if you start to get increased traffic, you may have to move your site. On the other hand, you could potentially get a return on your hosting fee through ad placement.

Dedicated Hosting — This type of hosting is ideal for large companies and high-traffic sites. It’s also good for people or companies that need full control over their server and how it’s used. The only downsides are that, although you get more flexibility with dedicated hosting, it’s expensive and you (or someone else) need to be very skilled.

Those are the most frequently-used services. So, how do you know which provider to choose? Questions to consider before choosing a host are:

What is the cost? Does the plan include features that you don’t need (something that will definitely factor into the cost)? Additionally, you might be able to get a cheaper plan if you’re able to pay an entire year up front.

Does the host offer the features that you can’t do without? Many businesses need items such as webmail, email auto-responders, shopping carts, web site statistics and SSI (Server Side Includes). Make sure your plan includes everything you need.

How much space and bandwidth do you need?; Most plans will include space that’s well more than what the average user needs. However, you’ll need to take a closer look if you expect users to download e-books, videos or audio files from your site. Just remember that, while many services offer a large amount of disc space, the average user doesn’t need it.

Is the company stable? There are resellers that have large accounts through major hosts, so be sure to do research before you commit. Also, has the service provider been around for a long time? A solid history is much preferred over a host that might be gone the next day.

How is the customer support? A little more research on customer testimonials may be in order here. If the service provider doesn’t have favorable reviews and you don’t have the know-how, it might be best to move on.

With some research and planning, choosing your web hosting service and plan doesn’t need to be a daunting task.