Choosing A Web Hosting ProviderIntroduction More than any other decision you make about your web site, choosing a web host is going to be THE biggest one you will have to make. What we are going to do is take a quick look at some of the things you will want to check out for choosing a hosting provider. There are definitely other categories – like commercial sites and paid hosting sites, but cheap web site hosts are popular for just starting out smaller businesses (or personal web sites). Obviously, when choosing a provider, budget is the main consideration. If you already have an established website, or are looking for a package that offers more products and services, you will want to read our article on Dedicated Web Hosting. Choosing A Web Hosting Provider If you think you might grow your site somewhere down the road, then you need to ensure the web hosting provider has enough space to accommodate you in the future. Basic sites use less than 5 MB of space. Remember, this does not cover a lot of pictures, sound clips or videos. So make sure you check that out. You do not want to be moving your site to another web hosting provider or redoing it later because you did not check what was available. So, you have chosen a web hosting provider, and you want to get your site up there. Now you find that the problem is.....you have to use their online site builder! Guess you needed to find out about that before you did your site. Two choices here, use the web hosting provider's online site builder or go looking for a different company for your web site hosting. Say you opt to redo your site online at the host site. Generally, your site will not be as stylish or functional as you would maybe like, but it is portraying the message you want for your company. However, with time you will want to make more advanced change and developments, that aren't available with your current web site hosting provider's software. At this point, you will need FTP access. FTP meaning file transfer protocol – the ability to upload files to a site. FTP is in the category of MUST HAVE if you want your site to have credibility and look good. Watch out for restrictions on file sizes of the types of files you can use. Nothing puts a crimp in your design plans like not being able to use more than 200 KB of space. Next check out the web host's reliability. Are they down a lot? If so, this is not the one for you. Stats are generally available on downtime if you ask them directly. If your site is down, you lose business – period. And you can bet the web site hosting provider isn't going to pay you lost revenue for down time. Also check the speed of access. If your upload time is slow and your download times is also dawdling, this is not the place for your site. Last but not least, see if there is CGI-BIN access/PHP. You might not even need to use it since there are so many other places on the Net you can get things like counters, forms and poll scripts in PHP – for free. But it's always nice to be prepared for the future.
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