Choosing the Right Host To Suit Your Needs If you are like many of us, you are thinking of getting a web site for your business or hobby (or what-have-you).
You've snatched up a fabulous domain name, and have a designer all picked out, or you possibly worked hard to create your own site. Now you need a web hosting company to host your web site.
If you go to Google and type in "web hosting", you will get over 385,000,000 search results. Whoah, that's a lot!
Even if you narrowed it down to your local and revised your search to be for just "web hosting in Minnesota", you'd still get 22,000,000 results, only shaving off a little over 239,000,000. You might have to bookmark your search, and come back later, or spend a few minutes a day just sifting through all those listings, to find the one you want to research. How daunting!
Like many people, you are likely having trouble finding a good web site hosting company that will provide you with many features and lots of space but be inexpensive.
The following guide might help you decide:
The differences between types of hosting
Features to look for in a web host, and why or why not you might need them
* Explanations of some web hosting terms
* A brief introduction to web hosting email accounts
Shared? Virtual? Co-Located? Dedicated? Eh?
What is the difference between dedicated and shared (or virtual) hosting?
Co-location and dedicated/VPS
These are both terms used to describe a web site that is the only web site on a computer (called a server) all by itself (dedicated), or sometimes with one other web site (when this happens it is called co-location). VPS is when your site is on what's called a virtual private server (VPS) and has the same result of dedicated, but really is a reserved, private cordoned off zone of a grid which your site(s) are on solely and not shared with other websites not related to your account.
Pros:
1) Your web site will typically have a more stable and dedicated connection to the Internet and will be less likely to crash or go offline, and
2) Your site is monitored by software and humans, to ensure that #1 happens 24/7.
Cons:
This option tends to be more expensive because of both of the above-mentioned things.
Also with dedicate/VPS hosting, you need to have the skills and knowledge of maintainign a web server environment. Or hire someone who does = additional cost.
Another con is that for the less technical person, upgrades to server and software do not take place automatically by staff/resources and you will need to know about doing this yourself if faced with the necessity.
Virtual/shared Hosting
This is where the web site resides among many other web sites on a computer (server)
Pros:
Virtual/shared hosting is less expensive mainly because of the fact that your site is stored among other web sites but also because sometimes you cannot choose the type of computer (server) your site will reside on. It is always more often frequently oversold by large companies* who may or may not have the sufficient support and staff to really provide the best service.
Cons:
Virtual/Shared hosting is not monitored and can be risky as you are sharing your webspace with anywhere between 50 and millions of users, where dedicated hosting is more controllable and can be set to be private/partitioned off to be used only for your site.
HDD? Huh? What the heck is a bandwidth?
What do I get with a hosting plan and what features should I watch for?
Both dedicated and shared hosting options should include a fair amount of features, such as:
* E-mail box(es)
* Free domain name
* A fair amount of disk space to store files (100-500 megabytes should suffice if you are not going to have a lot of rich media such as videos, photos and Flash and your site is pretty much comprised of text and otpimized images)
* A good amount of bandwidth, which is a frequency that is measured in bytes and is the amount of traffic and hits a site can support.
The above are just examples, and will vary. Not all the same features are offered by all companies across the board.
How do I know what features I need?
To determine how much disk space is needed, you will be able to better make the choices between features offered by hosting companies if you are well informed of what your web site will contain, what it will do, and how it should behave.
Some example of this:
If you are a professional photographer and want to place a large photo gallery on your web site, which includes a slide show, chances are high that you would want a site that offers a large amount of disk space to support all your images/photos.
However if you are a professional photographer with a small gallery of photos to showcase, you would not need as much space.
By the same token, If you are a small company or organization and just want to post a few pages containing basic info such as your bio/company history, contact information, and a page about your products or projects, again you would not need so much disk space (about 10-30 megabytes would do)
Windows NT? Linux? UNIX?
What the heck are these and how do I know which one to pick?
To determine the kind of server operating system needed for your web site (Windows, Linux, or UNIX), here are some case scenarios:
In the case of the small-to-mid-sized company or organization, let's say you want to offer
* An online event calendar on which your staff can input dates and details of upcoming events, and
* An online forum for visitors and staff to discuss things related to your site/company
Then you would want to check and see what kind of server technology the event calendar software and forum software would require.
Find out if the script or software for the calendar or forum is written in .PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), Active Server Page Technology (.asp), Perl .pl, Cold Fusion (.cfm), etc. You can find this out from your designer, or in many cases, you can usually find out this information at the web site that sells or distributes the script or software that you are interested in. You should then ask your hosting support team about whether they support that technology on your future website's server.
It is up to you to do the above research to determine which type of server you are going to need, but if you picked a type of server already, there are many scripts and software available in many formats, so you could certainly find one to be compatible.
If a script or software is written in .PHP or Perl (again, you can find this out from your designer or the company from which you purchased it), you would want to choose a host that runs computers (servers) using UNIX or Linux operating systems.
If the script or software you want to use is written in .ASP or Cold Fusion (.cfm), you will need to choose a host that runs computes (servers) using any kind of Windows operating system, including Windows XP, and Windows NT.
Again, to find out if it is ASP or Cold Fusion, you should check with your designer or the company which you purchased it from.
I'll need e-mail services for my web site. How much is too much and what to look for?
If your company is looking to have a network of computers which all communicate with one another you might want to opt for Microsoft Exchange hosting service, where you have a company messaging system, access to Outlook email, calendar and contact info sharing, and other features, all secured and protected from anyone outside the company viewing the info within.
To determine how much e-mail support you need:
If your company wants to provide an email address and inbox account for each staff member to login and check their email and you have 10 staff total, you will want to ensure that the web site hosting company can accommodate that.
In many cases you would be offered 1 email address and inbox account for it, and then have to pay a bit extra for any additional email addresses at some website hosting companies. Others do offer multiple email accounts/inboxes.
Hope you find this advice helpful. Thanks for reading :)
Bobbi Jo Woods, CEO/Fanatic
B. Woods Design - Steering Professional Managed Websites for Business
© Bobbi Jo Woods - B. Woods Design
* This is only the opinion of the author
As originally publised by B. Woods Design at: www.bwoodsdesign.com
