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Reliability:
Don't automatically sign up for the cheapest web host you can find.
Web hosting for $1 a month may seem tempting, but you DO get what you pay for.
Generally speaking, you can find a top-quality webhost (such as Yahoo! Small Business Hosting) for around $10 per month.
Choosing a reliable web host is critical - The few extra dollars you spend will save endless hours of frustration and costly downtime.
If you take just one bit of advice from this site, make it this one:
RELIABILITY PAYS FOR ITSELF.
Cost:
Before you determine how much you want to spend on web hosting, determine your needs.
A basic shared hosting plan with DB access, CGI/ASP/PHP support, 1-2gb storage and 40gb of bandwidth should cost about $10 per month.
The biggest factor affecting the cost of a plan is the type of plan: Shared, Semi-Dedicated, Dedicated, or Colocation.
For a full definition of these terms, see the section below on "Types of Web Hosting".
In brief, the fewer customers on a single server, the higher the cost.
The more websites a single server is handling, the more likely it is to go down.
Why? For starters, a server is only designed to handle so much traffic at a time.
If several sites start spiking at once, the server can overload and stop serving pages.
In addition, a bug in someone else's site might cause an error that affects the entire server.
If you run an e-commerce website, paying extra for a dedicated server is highly reccommended.
Features:
Make sure you're familiar with your site's language and database requirements.
Also look for free domain name registration, unlimited bandwidth, and e-commerce features such as shopping carts and gateway-enabled checkouts.
Many plans include these items for free.
Make sure that the included system works for you, or you'll end up paying more down the road.
If you don't know what language your site was written in, ask your programmer.
If you don't have a site yet, don't worry too much about it - most quality hosting plans include support for most languages.
Databases are another story.
Make sure that your hosting agreement includes the use of the host's server liscense, there is enough storage available, and you have easy access from your computer.
Types of Web Hosting:
Shared Hosting:
Your site is one of many broadcast from a single computer (web server).
This is the cheapest type of web hosting, and you are limited to a relatively small allotment of server space, usually 1-2gb.
Shared hosting is ideal for smaller non-commercial web sites such as family websites.
Semi-Dedicated Hosting:
Like Shared hosting, semi-dedicated hosting plans put your site on a web server with other sites.
The difference is that you are typically only sharing server space with a few other sites instead of hundreds, reducing the risk of downtime due to someone else's site crashing the server.
Semi-Dedicated plans are good for small businesses with a non-mission-critical web presence.
Dedicated Hosting:
Dedicated hosting plans allow you to effectively rent an entire server (or servers) solely for your own use.
These are the most expensive hosting plans, and offer those with technical experience the ability to configure and run their own web server without incurring the cost of buying the equipment.
A dedicated server ensures that there will be no "trouble with the neighbors" and is good for small to medium sized businesses with mission-critical web applications such as e-commerce web sites.
Colocation Services (Colo):
Colocation is not generally considered to be a hosting plan per se.
Instead, it is the rental of "rack space" in which your own servers can be installed and connected to the Internet.
Colocation is expensive, but is generally considered the best solution for mid to large sized companies with a dedicated IT staff and high-traffic web sites which require many servers to maintain peak efficiency.
For more information on specific features of our hosting partners and a description of each, visit our Web Host Comparision chart.
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