What if you had problems with your website, but couldn’t use your control panel to fix it? A good web hosting company makes it easy even for non-techie people to build and maintain their own websites. Keep reading to see how to pick a good web host that can help you maintain your site.
Find out which plans are offered by each potential web host you’re considering. A lot of free services will only provide you the tools necessary to build your own pages or let you use their templates, but not add overly dynamic personal scripts. If you require a page with dynamic scripting, it would be better to find a paid hosting service that you can afford.
Find out each potential web host’s uptime–the percentage of time the server is up and working correctly–and avoid web hosts that have a lot of outages. Even if a company can offer you explanations for frequent outages, you might want to avoid that company. The company’s lack of attention to outage problems suggests that the company is not reliable and that your website may be frequently inaccessible if you use that provider. Constant outages show that they’re unprofessional, so don’t join one of these.
Be sure to register the name of your domain separately from your web page hosting service. In case the service shuts down, or you have conflicts with the company, you will still own your own domain name and can just change to a new host. Your host would actually have a tighter grip on the controls of your domain than you!
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When choosing a web host, ask what kind of security precautions are in place. Websites are vulnerable to a number of different types of attacks, making security a reasonable concern. It’s important that your host will protect you by upgrading your software, advising you of security holes and taking care of DDoS attacks. Always find out what risks your website faces, should your web host come under attack.
Think about and list down priorities before you look into different web hosts. Match your ‘must have’ list with services offered by the companies that you are considering. Using a priority list will prevent you from choosing a provider based on a single factor, like price, instead of shopping around for a host that meets more of your needs.
Be wary of hosting packages that tout unlimited services. For instance, if you’re offered unlimited disk space, the caveat might be that not all file types are included. Unlimited bandwidth will usually mean that you can get all the bandwidth you need, but there will be additional fees for overages at the end of the month. Try to get complete information on these different plan types. Don’t just automatically assume unlimited actually means unlimited.
If you do not have much experience in web design, pick one of the web hosts that has excellent customer service instead of a lot of other extras. As a beginner, you may rely on the helpfulness of the web hosting company to get you up and running with your site. You can benefit more from their technical support versus the fancy applications that many hosts offer.
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Your web host should be the recipient of plenty of hosting awards. If a company has numerous hosting awards, for example, this can give you a good sense of the support and service they provide. Even though these can be faked, most sites that have these awards have many visitors that cast their votes for the winners. A site with many awards from its customers is one you should consider using for your web host.
As you’ve read, hosting companies have many different benefits and features. Use the information from this article so you know what you need and what features are important for your website. A little bit of homework will let you compare and find features economically, saving you some money. What more could you possibly want for your website?