subject: 5 Step For Choosing A Best Web Hosting [print this page] If you want to having your own self-hosted blog or web site, then choosing the best web host to park your domain is mind boggling. There are a bazillion and one web hosts out there (and I don't really think that's an exaggeration on numbers) and all of them claim to be the best and/or cheapest. Things get confusing very quickly, if you don't know what to look for to sort through the hype.
There are really only five key things you need to look for when choosing a web host:
1. Uptime What is their guaranteed percentage of time that their servers will be up and running. If they don't list a percentage of up-time, move on.
2. Customer Service While with the top web hosts you should not need to use customer service much at all, when you do have a question or need assistance with anything, the customer service personnel should be top-notch. Most of all - they should be available. You'd be surprised at the number of hosting companies that simply have no readily available customer service department, and what they do have available are rude and of little help.
3. Ample Features This would include plenty of storage and bandwidth, email accounts, databases and access to do what you need to do with your hosting account. If you are too restricted, whether you personally know how to use these features or not, there may come a day or time when you may need these features and might need to hire someone who does know how to use them and will need to access them on your behalf. Believe me, it's easier to have them as your disposal, than to have to move your site because what you need is not available to you.
4. Cost Are you surprised that this was not further up the list? Cost is usually first on most people's minds, and while it is something to consider overall - it should not be the driving consideration in choosing a web host, because if you go for cheap, well... you get what you pay for, and that's not always a good thing.
5. Reputation This falls a bit under customer service, but if you find a company that meets the criteria for the other four items, do a Google search for the company by name and see what you find: good and bad. Read the reviews. Expect there to be some bad - there always are; but are the majority good. Ask on forums you belong to, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, to get opinions on what web host others recommend.
