How to Select a Best Web Hosting Site?

If you have decided to create a web site, there are still many decisions yet to be made, and at the top of the list is selecting a host site.

 

A host site, or server, is a computer somewhere on the internet that will contain all of the files and programs necessary to present your web site to the world. While, in theory, you could host the web site yourself, this requires a lot of equipment, software and expertise and will most likely cost more in the end than working with a commercial hosting service. Especially since many of those services are free.

Domain Names:

To use many hosting sites, you will need to have a domain name in place. A domain name is a unique web name, like ‘mysupersite456.com’, which will take a person directly to your web site, wherever it is hosted. It is an easy way for people to find you on the web and allows you to brand your web site and its content. There is a fee associated with creating your domain, which must be renewed, usually on an annual basis. Depending on where you registered your domain, there may be additional charges if you change the address of the web server it will be pointing to.

Web Hosting Services:

At its most basic, a web hosting service provides space on an Internet enabled computer for you to put your web site. The service will handle the job of processing page requests from the internet, assembling and delivering the code required for displaying your pages on the end user’s browsers. They may provide additional products and services, which will be discussed below.

Things that a good hosting service should provide include:

• Good Uptime: A good web hosting service should not go down often, and should have redundant systems in place to insure Uptime.

• Backups: Your content should be automatically backed up on the server on a regular basis.

• Capacity: The service needs to provide sufficient disc space for your content and data files, and adequate Internet bandwidth to handle your expected traffic. Typically increased capacity costs more.

• Data Base: Most commercial hosting sites will provide you with a data base service to store information pertaining to things like clients, products, and orders.

Free Self Service Sites: Sites like Google’s blogger.com allow you to create and maintain a fully functional blog or web site using their built in setup program, which has a variety of themes and designs to choose from. These sites are often free or low cost and are a good way to produce the first web site for personal use or for a small business. 

Pro: Low entry cost and does not require learning web coding or hiring programmers. They can be monetized using advertising and links to sales sites like Amazon.com 

Con: You are often limited to what the site setup can do for you, and your capacity will also be limited as well, especially for the free services. Also, the URL to get to your site usually references the service, which advertises that you did not create this site yourself. This is not as big an issue with informational blogs and web sites but may be a stigma for businesses.

Commercial Hosting Sites: These sites are better suited for high volume commercial sites where traffic and data storage is usually high. Things you should look for include:

• Graduated levels of disc storage and web traffic.

• Support for one or more web hosting languages like PHP, Java, or Python

• Support for one or more content management systems such as Drupal or WordPress