| If you are looking for the best web hosting | | | | a given host by its actual users, by searching |
| service, what factors should be the most | | | | blogs and forums, or by looking for reviews. If |
| important? | | | | you are just starting with hosting for the first |
| Usually when someone is looking for good web | | | | time, check how long the host you are |
| hosting they will compare the same sort of things | | | | considering has been in business too - poor hosts |
| for each hosting service - the monthly price, the | | | | don't usually last long. The best web hosting |
| bandwidth and disk space available, features like | | | | service is the most reliable hosting service. |
| MySQL, good statistics, domain parking, FrontPage | | | | The next critical issue to consider is the support |
| extensions and so on. | | | | on offer. Here we are talking only about shared |
| While these are important, and everyone will have | | | | hosting (the most common type). With dedicated |
| different requirements depending on the scripts | | | | hosting, you are likely to be paying for support at |
| and software they intend to run for their web | | | | various levels anyway. |
| site, there are a couple of things which if done | | | | You may believe that you have sufficient |
| well can turn an average web host into the best | | | | webmaster skills to cope with most issues |
| web hosting service available. These are issues | | | | already, and that support is not vital. But consider |
| which are not apparent from the hosting feature | | | | this: most support issues which affect hosting |
| lists which hosting services use to entice you to | | | | customers who are not absolute newbies are to |
| sign up. | | | | do with server configurations, downtime, file |
| The first of these critical issues is reliability. There | | | | paths, file permissions, and hosting restrictions, |
| is nothing more frustrating than finding that a web | | | | which are all specific to the particular host service |
| site you have been building and promoting for | | | | itself. You will inevitably need the help of a human |
| months is regularly not available, either to visitors | | | | being with your hosting at some point; if they |
| or to search engine spiders, due to server | | | | don't reply to emails or answer the phone your |
| downtime. Most hosting services will prominently | | | | website or your business will suffer. |
| feature uptime guarantees, but there is no | | | | The best web hosting service will have the best |
| industry standard for what 'uptime' actually | | | | support, and will be putting just as much effort |
| means. Some hosts consider the server to be 'up' | | | | into keeping customers happy as they do into |
| is the power is on, even if is not serving pages. In | | | | recruiting new customers. Again, it is hard to |
| addition 'scheduled maintenance' time is often | | | | assess what the support is going to be like before |
| excluded from the guarantee. If the company's | | | | you sign up with a web host, but you can get a |
| guarantees are meaningless, how to you assess | | | | sense of how good it is by doing some research |
| the real reliability of a host? | | | | on the hosting service's name. |
| You can only do this by getting information about | | | | |