There are numerous website hosting plans available from lots of providers big and small, as a web search will show. It can be difficult to compare them as they offer differing services at different prices. How do you go about deciding which to go for given this overwhelming choice?
Will Your Site Be Used For Commercial Purposes?
The first question to consider is will your site be used for any purpose that might be considered commercial, now or at any time in the future? If you are sure that this will not be the case, you should consider using a Squidoo Lens or a blog on WordPress.com, which are free, instead of buying your own domain name and setting up your own hosting. Whilst going down this route will limit your flexibility, and you are on their domain, this can be a good way to get started.
How Important is Price?
If you have decided that the free services are not suitable, the next step will be to consider the various website hosting plans that are available. Low priced deals are quite easy to find (and some advertising supported free deals) so does low price mean poor service? Becoming a provider of website hosting plans is quite easy as this can be achieved by "reselling" the services of a large supplier. In this case the infrastructure will be provided by a large provider but your agreement will be with the reseller who will be responsible for their own pricing and customer support. Obviously a small reseller cannot provide the same level of support (24/7) as a large provider and this may present a particular problem if provider and user are not in the same time zone. Despite this a small supplier may still be able to provide a good service but it is a risk. However, if your site is more of a hobby it may be worthwhile trying out one of the cheap services.
Other Important Aspects of A Hosting Service
As well as the price you need to consider:
- Do you pay monthly, annually etc.?
- How long are you locked in for?
- Is there a money back guarantee?
- How many domains are you allowed?
- Does the plan include a domain name?
- How much bandwidth are you allowed?
- Is disk space limited?
- Is speed and uptime guaranteed?
- Linux or Microsoft based hosting?
- Does the Control Panel have all the functionality you need?
- What level of support is offered?
For more information on each of the above please visit our Hosting Facts page.
My view
I recommend that any commercial site, or indeed a non-commercial site providing a service, should be hosted with one of the big name companies. They are not likely to disappear, will provide all the services you need (including uptime guarantee) and will be able to support you if you have problems.
