Simple Ways To Determine Your Web Host Reliability

When it comes to choosing a reliable web host

, there are a number of options, including free web hosting services. You have to be careful, because you often get what you pay for. The free web hosting services are good for home use where you don't plan excessive broadband width or lots of use, but they can be full of advertising pop-ups or require you to do advertising because they have to pay for their server, somehow. For businesses, you need to consider a reliable commercial web host. There are 8 simple guidelines to choose a web hosting service for your business:

1. Speed and reliability are important because you don't want customers getting messages about the server not available. A reliable web hosting service should experience very little downtime, with a 99% or better up time being important. The web host should be willing to give you customer references and a written guarantee gives them incentives to stay reliable. These are a couple things you can look for when choosing a reliable web host for your commercial website.

2. Watch out for unlimited bandwidth advertisements and read the fine print. You don't want to get a bill for exceeding the "unlimited" amount, but it happens, so read the fine print. You need to have the ability to use the bandwidth you need and it can make your data transfers more reliable and quicker.

3. Disk space is important but don't pay higher costs for large amounts of MB because the average website needs less than 10MB. There is no sense paying for a lot more space than you will ever use, but you want to be sure you have enough to accommodate growth, as your business grows.

4. 24/7 technical support is something you should look for when choosing a reliable web host. You want to be sure that your hosting service isn't down all weekend.

5. Supporting different features you might need, such as MySQL, .htaccess, telnet and others like FTP, PHP, Perl and SSI can be important, depending on your website and your business, so you will want to see if they are supported.

6. Shopping cart and Secure Server or SSL might be necessary if your business will be transacting sales over the Internet. To collect credit card information, you will at least need SSL or secure server, to do so.

7. Mail forwarding and other email features such as autoresponder, might be important if you have email addresses that you want forwarded to a central email account or you want an automatic response sent to customers.

8. Server type and compatibility, control panels to administer passwords and the ability to have multiple websites hosting are some of the other features you will want to look for. You want to find a web hosting service that has room to grow with your business.

The important things to remember when choosing a web host for your business website is that you want one that has enough space for the growth of your business and your website. As your website becomes more complicated and larger, you don't want to find yourself changing web hosting services and changing domain names at a time when your business is growing the most.

by: Nikki Patrick

POST COMMENT

Choosing A Managed Hosting Provider Essential Features that your Web Hosting Package Must Possess Reliable Web Hosting Web Hosting - How To Save Money Web Hosting Companies Explained And Why You Need To Know How to Know When the Time Has Come for a Dedicated Server How to Choose a Dedicated Server Benefits of a Dedicated Server How do I Obtain a Dedicated Server? Dedicated Server: Is it That Time Already? What is Shared Web Hosting? Is a Shared or Dedicated Server Better for Me? Is a Dedicated Server Safe?