subject: What To Look For In A Website Hosting [print this page] It is very important to know what your goals and needs are for the website or domain you own. For example, if the website is simply informational and there for entertainment purposes, a shared web hosting service might be the best pick for this type of website.
This keeps overhead costs low and if the purpose of the website is not to make a profit through e-business, then shared hosting is always a good option. A virtual private server is also good in this case, since it allows the website to grow over time, giving it a little bit of "wiggle room."
Ecommerce websites that produce plenty of sales might need something larger than shared hosting, such as a dedicated server. This can be costly, however it's very important to know what the goals are for the website, and how to achive your goals through the website's functions so that you will be able to afford the higher costs of dedicated servers.
High traffic websites usually need a dedicated server just to support the number of views or hits it receives everyday, much less the amount of information being communicated to the server if there are monetary transactions being made or forms being completed by visitors.
Of course, the type of website is not the only factor in determining which type of web host you'll want to use. There are other important factors that should be counted. First, think about the amount of space you will be allotted from your host.
For example, regular information websites use about 5MB of space, and this is generally enough to support the basic format of a site online. However, if your website need extra bandwidth and web space to function well, you may have to require much more.
Video and photos clips tend to take up more space, as do interactive features. Remember to keep in mind that plenty of space is great, but stability is even more important. If your web hosting provider is down often, you can lose business and hits to your website, so keep this in mind.
Another important factor when choosing on a web hosting plan is the number of domains that you will be allowed to have. For example, if you sell shoes but you want to do so at yourshoesstore.com and coolshoesstore.com, you'll need to make sure the hosting provider allows multiple domain names registration.
It's very important to register these domains ahead of time before you pay for a "reserved spot", otherwise you might end up paying for undesirable domain names.
The more domain names you own, the more exposure you'll get. Promoting multiple sites gets more visitors and increases traffic to your website. Many web hosting companies charge a flat fee for each domain per year, while some may offer free domain names when you host your website with them, so do your homework.
