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There are literally hundreds of thousands of companies offering on the internet and choosing which to use can be quite a challenge. Many of these are solid, reliable companies providing good, reliable hosting. Many however are not. Choosing wisely from the former and avoiding the latter is what you need to aim for. Let's look at the good ones and why they are not all equal.
A solid hosting company provides you with the following:
Uptime of at least 99%, but not 100%
Support if and when you need it
Reasonable cost
Resources necessary to manage your website and business
Speed
Only five things, yet these encompass a lot more than they may at first appear to. Within these five items there are a lot of possible variables and permutations that can make the difference between a solid hosting company and a good one, and between a good one compared to one that is best for you.
What does this all mean? - Let's take a quick look at each of these components:
Uptime
This relates to the reliability and stability of the servers. It means that they are maintaining their servers in a proper environment that is secure, with precautions taken against fire, flood, human sabotage and as many other conceivable threats as possible.
It also relates to the age and reliability of their servers and hardware components, plus how up to date their software is in terms of the latest stable releases.
Next it relates to how well their server settings have been done and the day to day-management of these.
Finally, it relates to the level of technical and human monitoring and intervention. - If the server is well monitored and response times are quick, then the odd problem does not become a major disaster.
So how do you check this?
A solid hosting company will clearly and unambiguously make this information public. They will state their server specifications as accurately as possible (if they have many servers then they will list the general specs or the specifications of the server with the minimum specs).
They will also give you an idea of the hosting environment. Look out for things like building security, floor levels (should be raised), smoke detectors, early warning systems and human security presence, for example.
You will also be able to gain an insight by reading through their TOS (Terms Of Service). If they say nothing about prohibited user behaviours then there is a chance that their server security is not a top priority. A good hosting company will not allow any individual client to put other client accounts at risk. They would therefore take a dim view and strict approach toward spammers, fraudsters and any illegal activities that could have negative repercussions on the server.
Finally, the reason that we say that server uptme should not be 100% is because this is physially impossible on a properly maintained server, which occassionally needs to go offline, even if just for a few minutes, for upgrade or maintenance purposes.
Support
This should be clearly stated on their website. Your preferences will largely dictate what sort of support you prefer, but there MUST be support where you can get hold of them quickly and easily if there is a problem.
The methods used by hosting companies typically include any one or combination of the following:
email
support ticket
live chat
telephone
In addition, they should provide support for emergencies outside of their normal office hours.
A hosting company that does not have a method of contacting them other than a form with a hidden email address should be approcahed with caution. It does not mean that there is anything wrong with their service, but does mean that you have no way of contacting them apart from their form. In an emergency situation, this can be a serious problem.
Many cheaper hosting companies will only offer this form of contact because this is one of the ways in which they are able to drastically cut costs. Their actual service delivery may be just as good as the more expensive hosting companies, but the sense of security that you get from knowing you can reach someone easily if you have a problem is what you are trading off against price. There is however absolutely no reason for more expensive hosting companies not to have direct contact support. If you are paying an average rate or higher, you should expect no less.
This brings us directly to the enxt point ...
Reasonably Priced
What is a reasonable price? - Comparing apples with apples, the cost should be within the average range compared to their competitors. A company that is too cheap is trading off somewhere, on service, on facilities or on support. A company that is way over the top without offering anything notably better than the next company, is simply over-priced. You will need to do some homework here so that you truly are comparing like with like.
This comparison will include factors like:
Diskspace
Bandwidth (traffic)
Email features
Guarantees
support
Please also remember to check for any hidden extras. If something is not mentioned as being included in the price, do not assume that it is part of the package being quoted. We have seen hosting companies charging extra for all sorts of things that we consider standard and essential. Many companies do this intentionally to offer what at first glance seems to be a very good deal, but once you are up and running you find that you have been cut off at the knees unless you fork out for critical extras.
If you are unsure - ask. Nobody will think you are ignorant because every hosting company operates differently and you will best serve your own interests by assuming absolutely nothing.
This leads us to ....
Resources Required to Get the Most out of Your Website
This will vary from one person to the next, but there are some essential items for people who want the most from their website.
Website statistics: this should be a standard part of the package being offered and should be available to you on tap. You should not be required to ask for it and should not have to pay extra for it. You should be able to log in and access your stats any time that you wish and these should be up to date within at least the last 24 hours. They should also give you meaningful information about where your visitors come from, how many visitors you get per day, how many unique visitors you get per day, where these visitors are coming from, how long they are staying, which pages are being viewed, how many people are bookmarking your site, which search engines or other websites are referring visitors to your site and more.
This provides you with information that gives you an insight into how well your sit is performing and where its strengths and weaknesses are.
Tutorials: Your hosting account should give you access to tutorials that assist you in using the various features that are being offered to help you get up and running as fast as possible. Without these, you may have many features at your disposal, but have no clue how to use them. Tutorials should be written in such a way that even a technophobe could stand a chance of figuring it out.
Control panel: this may not be essential when you first start out, but as you become more involved with your website, you are going to want to be able to do more. Without a high quality control panel you will be extremely limited. The control panel is what allows you to access and use the various features provided by your host and is the single feature that determines how much control you or your webmaster are able to have. Purely giving you ftp access is not enough.
Email management: if your email address is or is going to become a key aspect of your business communications, then the ability to easily self-manage your email accounts is extremely important. This feature should allow you to add, change or delete email addresses, set up auto-responders and forwarders and perform the various basic tasks associated with email.
Webmail: This allows you to check and send your email from any online computer in the world and ensures that you are never out of contact just because you are away or because your PC has crashed.
Spam filtering: Almost everybody these days has been exposed to the growing spam problem. Your hosting company should therefore offer robust spam filtering to ensure that as much of this as possible never reaches your inbox. There is mhowever more to it. Numerous hosting companies do provide good spam filters, but they apply these filters globally.
We know from experience that different clients have different needs when it comes to spam filtering for various reasons. The tourism and hospitality industries are two specific examples of this, where they tend to subscribe to different directory websites and these subscriptions are critical to their business operations. The emails cannot be whitelisted and normal spam filtering will block many of them.
Because of this, spam filtering should NOT be global, but should be on a per-client basis, with you being able to control this yourself if you wish to. It should also allow for the storing of spam so that it can be checked for legitimate emails. Many hosts simply delete all spam arbitrarily, meaning that a critical email could be lost forever, when this does not need to be the case.
Other: There are many additional features that may or may not be important to you, including things like the ability to run different types of scripts on your website. If you are finding your own hosting company and using an independent website developer to create your website, it may be a good idea to speak to them about what specific resources, if any, your website will need.
Remember, if in doubt, don't be scared to ask. |
