I know that a lot of you are trying to start your first domain and buy web hosting and don’t really know what to look for. Since I’ve been through a shipload of different companies, here’s some tips that should help you know which company to buy from and what to look for:
1. First thing you should know is that whether or not you want to look for shared, reseller, vps, or dedicated. Shared is for the all webmasters. It’s very simple and managed and it’s for sites with a widerange of traffic. Reseller hosting for peole who want to sell web hosting to other people. You have to sell a lot in order to make some profit and that’s not even much. Reseller accounts come with multiple cpanel accounts or whatever control panel you’re using. Vps is for the advanced user who wants their own server at a lower cost. Dedicated servers are the most expensive. It’s for very advanced users and is like a vps but you get to control your kernel. Dedicated and vps both come in managed or unmanaged. I personally think that buying unmanaged hosting is like suicide because you have no scripts installed, your server isn’t secure or firewalled (meaning someone can hack in and steal all your stuff and possibly money), you have to install everything from scratch, and you have to config everything too. If you do buy unmanaged hosting, your host MIGHT help you install things but 90% of the time, they don’t. Keep in mind that if the site doesn’t mention the word managed anywhere, it most likely isn’t. If that’s the case then, send a pre-sales email to the company. Pre-sales emails get answered super fast most of the time.
2. Know how much space you’re gonna use. A normal graphics site usually take up 500mbs once you get everything settled and host all your images but to be on the safe side, get at least 1gb but not over 5gbs if you’re buying shared. You will never even use up 3gbs unless you have a scans site. If you want to get a reseller account, get at least a 5gb when you’re just starting out. If you’re host doesn’t allow overselling, you’re gonna have to get like 30gbs which is costly. As for vps and dedicated servers, just the control panel and operating system take up at least 4gbs so get lots of space! At least like 20gbs. Keep in mind that if you enable backups, it’s gonna take up at least 1/3 of the space you’re already using.
3. Bandwidth. A site with the average traffic of about 60-100 visitors a day uses up about 3-4gbs a month but buy 5gbs just to be on the safe side. A medium traffic site that gets around 300-500 visitors a day uses up around 15gbs a month. A high traffic site like a myspace site may even take up 100gbs a month. Know how popular you are and get the correct amount. If you go over the bandwdith that you paid for, your host is gonna charge you money. As for as I’m concerned, most companies make you pay $0.50-$1.00 per extra gigabyte.
4. Support. You have GOT to buy hosting for a company with top notch support. If you don’t, tough luck. It’s gonna take days for them to answer and they may not even answer it right. A good support would be an answer within 3 hours. An outstanding support would be an answer in 15 minutes! <– There’s actually a company who does that.
5. 30 money back gaurantees. Buying hosting for a site that offers money back gaurantees is an absolute MUST. You never know if you will like the hosting company or not and if they will be good or bad.
6. Uptime. Most host companies advertise for a 99.9% uptime. You want the highest percent. Some even advertise 99.99% or 99.999% which is exactly what you want. A 99.9% uptime would mean a 7.2 hour downtime EVERY MONTH. 99.99% = 43 minutes. 99.999% = 4%. Make sure to read the TOS to see if they offered refunds or discounts if you were to receive less uptime than gauranteed.
7. Before you buy hosting from any company, look for reviews on the internet. See what people have written about them before you buy. Keep in mind that no hosting company have 100% positive reviews. It’s just impossible. I site that I would recommend that you look for reviews on is web hosting geeks. They have good reviews on the top hosting companies.
8. If you have a large site (over 100mbs or have a lot of configs in cpanel) and you want to move to another host, it is a MUST that you ask your new host BEFORE buying hosting from them if they do FREE transfers. It would not be fun uploading 500mbs and making 10 databases. It is even more of a must if you are a reseller. You would have to upload EVERYTHING of your customers and redo their databases and remake their cpanel accounts and you don’t even know how they configed so it would be a near suicide if that were to happen.
Since there are like millions of hosting companies out there. I would recommend you check out Bluehost. I was with them for a full year and never had any complaints. If you have a tight budget and want to go with the most popular host, 1and1 is the way to go. The only thing I have to say about them is that their support is phone only and they people on the phone most of the time have accents that make what they’re saying hard to understand. Keep in mind that 1and1 runs on plesk and any configs you do to your domain take hours to process.
Please please PLEASE don’t buy hosting from sites run by “teens” who think they know what they’re doing. Most of the time the responses you get aren’t professional and take HOURS to get an answer. Also they might just stop hosting all of a sudden and you have to find hosting somewhere else. It’s just ridiculous. Don’t be fooled by their super cheap prices, as I always say, you get what you pay for.
