Introduction
If you have your own website, you will have some form of a webhost providing the service that allows you to store the information contained within your site to be accessible over the internet. Some ISPs supply free webspace, which is not the sort of hosting this article covers. If you own a domain name, you will need an independent hosting provider.
You will need a domain name (the address you would type in to access a website, i.e. www.pcreview.co.uk), which can be registered from domain registrars. The price of a domain name depends greatly on the domain type (.com, .net, .co.uk, etc...) and the type of registrar. Registerfly and GoDaddy are popular registrars that have some of the best prices and features.
Hosting Features
Once you have your domain name registered, you need to find a suitable host. You will need to make a few calculations and choices about the sort of host you will require.
If you have a very large website which has over 5,000 visitors per day with active forums and several intensive scripts, you may need a dedicated server. This is your own server based in a data centre, you own/rent the whole server and can choose your own operating system and utilities. This is only recommended if you either know a lot about website management or employ someone to do this for you.
If you have a small/medium website you will probably want virtual/shared hosting. This means that several hosting accounts are stored on a single server and the accounts share all the resources available, yet are completely separate to each other. This is the most common route for hosting, as there are plenty of specifications and prices to suit all.
A more uncommon form of hosting is Virtual Private Servers (VPS) or Semi-Dedicated, which combines the previous two types. There are several "virtual" servers on a single server - which means each user can install "modules" independently to each other and also have a set proportion of all the system resources (i.e 25% of the CPU, memory and hard drive).
Although most users will almost certainly need a shared hosting account, there are several factors you will need to consider to choose the correct package. Operating System, Bandwidth, Disk Space and Control Panel options are the most important points to consider:
Operating System:
The two standard webhosting operating systems are Windows and Linux. Linux is often significantly cheaper and has the greatest compatibility with most scripts. Unless you specifically need a Windows host, I would suggest Linux. Even if you have never used Linux, there will be no need to learn now, as this is simply a platform to host your files. If you want to use ASP or use Windows applications, Windows is of course the ideal choice.
Other Features
There are many other factors that will influence your host and package choice, other than the majoy factors outlined above. If you intend to use a forum or some other database scripts you will need a database service running, the most common being MySQL. This is included with many Linux hosts as standard, and is able to run almost any database application you would wish. There are other services such as MSSQL which are very costly, luckily this one is free! Hosts often limit the number of databases and increase the amount with higher plans - in reality 3 would be enough for anyone! If you do need more, you can always store 2+ databases in 1 by prefixing the tables.
POP3 accounts are important for e-mail sending and receiving. These are the accounts which you can assign to individual users as e-mail addresses. You will need enough accounts for the amount of e-mail addresses you wish to assign. This number will often be quoted as "unlimited" as there are only so many accounts you can create.
PHP or ASP should be included on Linux/Unix and Windows based systems respectively. These are very common coding languages, and many scripts will require one of these (depending on your OS choice). Almost every host will include this, along with CGI access.
Other features that may be quoted could be autoresponders, spam filters, etc... all of which may be useful to you, but vary from host to host. These are basically "freebies" that the host can give away to you with the accounts, as they take up very little resources. If a plan doesn't quite have enough, the host may be flexible when creating your account.
Further Selection
When you have narrowed down your potential hosts that meet your specifications, there are several other factors that can significantly effect the choice of selection. Burstable bandwidth, transfer speeds and server location are all important factors to consider.
Unless you have an extremely small site, you will want bandwidth that is burstable. This means that you can download for a huge speed for short periods of time as well as download at a constant low speed for a longer period of time. You will still use the same amount of bandwidth, but the data transfer speed to the client computer can be increased. Almost any host will use this method.
Transfer speeds can be an important factor if you have large pages or downloads available on your site. There is no point in having a fast server if the transfer will be lagging at 56K speeds on an ADSL connection. Check with the host to see if there is a test download you can try out, and measure the download speeds you get in comparison to other sites. Sub 200k/s would be no good for a large site, as users on fast connections would not see the benefit.
If your site is local to a particular area or region, it is always best to locate it there. For example, if you have a "UK Fishing Site" it would be best to locate the server in the UK if you want to achieve the best server performance. Having the server in the same country also means that you will end up with support based in that country (usually), so if something goes wrong, you can always give them a call. The shorter server distance correlates with a lower ping time, meaning that the site is more "responsive" (a 30ms "ping" is achievable from the UK-UK on a good connection, whereas 150ms may be closer from UK-US).
If you have a site that has large downloads or you need to host on a budget, a US host may be the best option. Many hosts that have offices in countries like the UK, France, Australia etc.. also have servers in the US, but managed from the office in another country. This allows a much cheaper package with a high level of service, mainly as the bandwidth costs are much cheaper in the US. This option may be a good compromise for speed/price.
Conclusion
Once you have you final list of a handful of hosts, now is time to pick the final one. This may sound like overkill for choosing a host, but as many people find time and time again, it is easy to go wrong! Many hosts are willing to be flexible to suit your need, even if the plans look pretty rigid. Remember, these are month on month costs, and can sometimes be quite expensive, hosts are willing to be flexible to gain extra customers.
The last items to check that your host is up to the task would be the customer service and uptime. Both of these are surprisingly easy to check. A quick search in the Webhostingtalk forums will give you hosting feedback from many people, almost any host will be mentioned there. Uptime can be monitored by Netcraft, and should be run on the main URL of the hosting company. Uptime should be almost 100%, anything like 98% just isn't worth it (that is almost 1/2 a day per month!).
It is worth checking out the support forums of the host (if they are offered), as it will be plainly visible if there are service problems from disgruntled customers. It will also let you judge if there are a reasonable number of customers signed up. Checking the about page should also let you know the support arrangement, 24/7 support should be available for any non-personal site, some hosts even offer free text messaging support updates.
There are several hosting companies about that are no more than a fast internet connection connected up to a personal system, or perhaps a simple server in someone's spare bedroom. These type of services should be totally avoided, as there is no service level agreement with the customer, and a no-doubt sub-standard service (slower connection, no instant hardware replacement, limited support hours, etc...).
If you plan to run your own online store there will be a few other factors involved in your decision. You will need a SSL certificate for your site, so you will be able to process credit card transactions. There are other 3rd parties who will take care of the transactions for a 2-3.5% fee, saving the need for extra server security. You will also need to make sure the server and software are capable of running your shopping cart script.
Some factors to remember when making your choice:
You get what you pay for :
Generally, the more you pay, the better the service. But of course, there are always exceptions to this rule! Avoid services with super low costs, as you will get a service run from a teenagers bedroom (literally!) on a Cable/ADSL connection. There is often a happy medium with packages for average sites available for under £10/month, there is no need to pay £50+ for a medium site, nor any excuse to pay under £3!
Service is everything :
If you have a site which you rely on for income or store important data on it, then you should make sure you go with a host that can offer a high level of customer support (i.e they will minimise downtime and inform you directly of service problems). Many hosting companies will offer support forums as well as a contact number - these forums can be invaluable when dealing with small service problems.
Bandwidth:
This is the amount of data transfer (usually in GigaBytes) that your account may use in a month. This includes web traffic, e-mail and ftp, and the usage depends greatly on the type of site. Every time an image or webpage is served from the server to the internet browser, data is transferred, hence bandwidth.
As a rough guide, 2GB bandwidth should be sufficient for a very small personal site (including any e-mails you get). 5GB should be suitable for a medium site with images and text, but no large downloads. For Large sites, 30GB is the maximum you should choose on a virtual/shared account, otherwise you would no doubt need many more resources to go with the account (a VPS account may be the best interim solution).
All good hosting companies should give send you an e-mail if you are about to outgrow your current bandwidth quota, as your site may go offline if you exceed it. Some hosts may chage you per GB over the quota at an increased rate (if you did not ask to upgrade plans). One important point to remember is do not go for so-called unlimited bandwidth plans, there is quite simply no such thing! They assume you will only use a small amount of space, but as soon as them deem your usage as too much they will penalise you under a "fair usage" policy.
Disk Space:
Disk space determines the amount of data you can store on the server and includes files uploaded to the FTP, e-mails waiting to be delivered and Database sizes. Even for a small site, at least 20MB is recommended, as you may receive a few large files via e-mail which need to be stored on its way to being delivered when you check your mail. The disk space an individual site requires does always depend on how large the site is before you upload it, so it can be easily calculated. Large downloads will obviously require more space.
If you intend to run a forum on your website, you will have to allow plenty of extra space for expansion of the database. It is a good idea to have at least 50MB free for a medium sized forum, and plenty more for a large one. You must keep track of the current free space periodically, as once it is full you may not be able to enter any more forum information into the database.
An important thing to note is to check if the disk space is "oversold". This means that the server may have 100 plans with 1000MB quotas (100GB total), but only a 60GB drive installed. This works on the basis that not all plans will have the full space used. If you have a small, static site, this may not matter too much.
Control Panels:
All hosting packages will come with some sort of control panel, this will enable you to configure your hosting package and settings without having to learn how to use the operating system. These control panels can be accessed via a secure webpage, and then appear in your web browser.
The popular control panels are : Helm, Cpanel, Hsphere, Plesk and Ensim (although there are plenty of others). The most common of these is by far Cpanel, which is Linux only for the time being. Most users would be suited to Cpanel as it can run on the cheaper Linux platform and has quite a few advanced features, yet still user friendly.
If you have your own website, you will have some form of a webhost providing the service that allows you to store the information contained within your site to be accessible over the internet. Some ISPs supply free webspace, which is not the sort of hosting this article covers. If you own a domain name, you will need an independent hosting provider.
You will need a domain name (the address you would type in to access a website, i.e. www.pcreview.co.uk), which can be registered from domain registrars. The price of a domain name depends greatly on the domain type (.com, .net, .co.uk, etc...) and the type of registrar. Registerfly and GoDaddy are popular registrars that have some of the best prices and features.
Hosting Features
Once you have your domain name registered, you need to find a suitable host. You will need to make a few calculations and choices about the sort of host you will require.
If you have a very large website which has over 5,000 visitors per day with active forums and several intensive scripts, you may need a dedicated server. This is your own server based in a data centre, you own/rent the whole server and can choose your own operating system and utilities. This is only recommended if you either know a lot about website management or employ someone to do this for you.
If you have a small/medium website you will probably want virtual/shared hosting. This means that several hosting accounts are stored on a single server and the accounts share all the resources available, yet are completely separate to each other. This is the most common route for hosting, as there are plenty of specifications and prices to suit all.
A more uncommon form of hosting is Virtual Private Servers (VPS) or Semi-Dedicated, which combines the previous two types. There are several "virtual" servers on a single server - which means each user can install "modules" independently to each other and also have a set proportion of all the system resources (i.e 25% of the CPU, memory and hard drive).
Although most users will almost certainly need a shared hosting account, there are several factors you will need to consider to choose the correct package. Operating System, Bandwidth, Disk Space and Control Panel options are the most important points to consider:
Operating System:
The two standard webhosting operating systems are Windows and Linux. Linux is often significantly cheaper and has the greatest compatibility with most scripts. Unless you specifically need a Windows host, I would suggest Linux. Even if you have never used Linux, there will be no need to learn now, as this is simply a platform to host your files. If you want to use ASP or use Windows applications, Windows is of course the ideal choice.
Other Features
There are many other factors that will influence your host and package choice, other than the majoy factors outlined above. If you intend to use a forum or some other database scripts you will need a database service running, the most common being MySQL. This is included with many Linux hosts as standard, and is able to run almost any database application you would wish. There are other services such as MSSQL which are very costly, luckily this one is free! Hosts often limit the number of databases and increase the amount with higher plans - in reality 3 would be enough for anyone! If you do need more, you can always store 2+ databases in 1 by prefixing the tables.
POP3 accounts are important for e-mail sending and receiving. These are the accounts which you can assign to individual users as e-mail addresses. You will need enough accounts for the amount of e-mail addresses you wish to assign. This number will often be quoted as "unlimited" as there are only so many accounts you can create.
PHP or ASP should be included on Linux/Unix and Windows based systems respectively. These are very common coding languages, and many scripts will require one of these (depending on your OS choice). Almost every host will include this, along with CGI access.
Other features that may be quoted could be autoresponders, spam filters, etc... all of which may be useful to you, but vary from host to host. These are basically "freebies" that the host can give away to you with the accounts, as they take up very little resources. If a plan doesn't quite have enough, the host may be flexible when creating your account.
Further Selection
When you have narrowed down your potential hosts that meet your specifications, there are several other factors that can significantly effect the choice of selection. Burstable bandwidth, transfer speeds and server location are all important factors to consider.
Unless you have an extremely small site, you will want bandwidth that is burstable. This means that you can download for a huge speed for short periods of time as well as download at a constant low speed for a longer period of time. You will still use the same amount of bandwidth, but the data transfer speed to the client computer can be increased. Almost any host will use this method.
Transfer speeds can be an important factor if you have large pages or downloads available on your site. There is no point in having a fast server if the transfer will be lagging at 56K speeds on an ADSL connection. Check with the host to see if there is a test download you can try out, and measure the download speeds you get in comparison to other sites. Sub 200k/s would be no good for a large site, as users on fast connections would not see the benefit.
If your site is local to a particular area or region, it is always best to locate it there. For example, if you have a "UK Fishing Site" it would be best to locate the server in the UK if you want to achieve the best server performance. Having the server in the same country also means that you will end up with support based in that country (usually), so if something goes wrong, you can always give them a call. The shorter server distance correlates with a lower ping time, meaning that the site is more "responsive" (a 30ms "ping" is achievable from the UK-UK on a good connection, whereas 150ms may be closer from UK-US).
If you have a site that has large downloads or you need to host on a budget, a US host may be the best option. Many hosts that have offices in countries like the UK, France, Australia etc.. also have servers in the US, but managed from the office in another country. This allows a much cheaper package with a high level of service, mainly as the bandwidth costs are much cheaper in the US. This option may be a good compromise for speed/price.
Conclusion
Once you have you final list of a handful of hosts, now is time to pick the final one. This may sound like overkill for choosing a host, but as many people find time and time again, it is easy to go wrong! Many hosts are willing to be flexible to suit your need, even if the plans look pretty rigid. Remember, these are month on month costs, and can sometimes be quite expensive, hosts are willing to be flexible to gain extra customers.
The last items to check that your host is up to the task would be the customer service and uptime. Both of these are surprisingly easy to check. A quick search in the Webhostingtalk forums will give you hosting feedback from many people, almost any host will be mentioned there. Uptime can be monitored by Netcraft, and should be run on the main URL of the hosting company. Uptime should be almost 100%, anything like 98% just isn't worth it (that is almost 1/2 a day per month!).
It is worth checking out the support forums of the host (if they are offered), as it will be plainly visible if there are service problems from disgruntled customers. It will also let you judge if there are a reasonable number of customers signed up. Checking the about page should also let you know the support arrangement, 24/7 support should be available for any non-personal site, some hosts even offer free text messaging support updates.
There are several hosting companies about that are no more than a fast internet connection connected up to a personal system, or perhaps a simple server in someone's spare bedroom. These type of services should be totally avoided, as there is no service level agreement with the customer, and a no-doubt sub-standard service (slower connection, no instant hardware replacement, limited support hours, etc...).
If you plan to run your own online store there will be a few other factors involved in your decision. You will need a SSL certificate for your site, so you will be able to process credit card transactions. There are other 3rd parties who will take care of the transactions for a 2-3.5% fee, saving the need for extra server security. You will also need to make sure the server and software are capable of running your shopping cart script.
Some factors to remember when making your choice:
You get what you pay for :
Generally, the more you pay, the better the service. But of course, there are always exceptions to this rule! Avoid services with super low costs, as you will get a service run from a teenagers bedroom (literally!) on a Cable/ADSL connection. There is often a happy medium with packages for average sites available for under £10/month, there is no need to pay £50+ for a medium site, nor any excuse to pay under £3!
Service is everything :
If you have a site which you rely on for income or store important data on it, then you should make sure you go with a host that can offer a high level of customer support (i.e they will minimise downtime and inform you directly of service problems). Many hosting companies will offer support forums as well as a contact number - these forums can be invaluable when dealing with small service problems.
Bandwidth:
This is the amount of data transfer (usually in GigaBytes) that your account may use in a month. This includes web traffic, e-mail and ftp, and the usage depends greatly on the type of site. Every time an image or webpage is served from the server to the internet browser, data is transferred, hence bandwidth.
As a rough guide, 2GB bandwidth should be sufficient for a very small personal site (including any e-mails you get). 5GB should be suitable for a medium site with images and text, but no large downloads. For Large sites, 30GB is the maximum you should choose on a virtual/shared account, otherwise you would no doubt need many more resources to go with the account (a VPS account may be the best interim solution).
All good hosting companies should give send you an e-mail if you are about to outgrow your current bandwidth quota, as your site may go offline if you exceed it. Some hosts may chage you per GB over the quota at an increased rate (if you did not ask to upgrade plans). One important point to remember is do not go for so-called unlimited bandwidth plans, there is quite simply no such thing! They assume you will only use a small amount of space, but as soon as them deem your usage as too much they will penalise you under a "fair usage" policy.
Disk Space:
Disk space determines the amount of data you can store on the server and includes files uploaded to the FTP, e-mails waiting to be delivered and Database sizes. Even for a small site, at least 20MB is recommended, as you may receive a few large files via e-mail which need to be stored on its way to being delivered when you check your mail. The disk space an individual site requires does always depend on how large the site is before you upload it, so it can be easily calculated. Large downloads will obviously require more space.
If you intend to run a forum on your website, you will have to allow plenty of extra space for expansion of the database. It is a good idea to have at least 50MB free for a medium sized forum, and plenty more for a large one. You must keep track of the current free space periodically, as once it is full you may not be able to enter any more forum information into the database.
An important thing to note is to check if the disk space is "oversold". This means that the server may have 100 plans with 1000MB quotas (100GB total), but only a 60GB drive installed. This works on the basis that not all plans will have the full space used. If you have a small, static site, this may not matter too much.
Control Panels:
All hosting packages will come with some sort of control panel, this will enable you to configure your hosting package and settings without having to learn how to use the operating system. These control panels can be accessed via a secure webpage, and then appear in your web browser.
The popular control panels are : Helm, Cpanel, Hsphere, Plesk and Ensim (although there are plenty of others). The most common of these is by far Cpanel, which is Linux only for the time being. Most users would be suited to Cpanel as it can run on the cheaper Linux platform and has quite a few advanced features, yet still user friendly.
