In a nut shell , Web Hosting is a service that is provided by a company that allows data (your files) to be stored on remote servers. These servers are connected to the internet via high speed links, therefore making your data available across the globe.
Choosing a Web Hosting supplier can be a daughnting task in itself. There seems to be so many available nowadays all wanting your business. They are all providing many great looking features, storage space, bandwidth and special offers to lure you into their services. You may find yourself spending hours trying to just find the best deal on offer, that your head is banging and you feel like giving it up.
A few basic things that you can take into finding a good host are:
- Cost
- Quality of Service (QOS)
- Make sure is has the basic features that YOU want, anything else should just be treated as a bonus.
- Support
- Datacentre
Web Hosting costs
Cheap web hosting is great, there are plenty of web hosting providers out there offering lots of features, which makes making the right choice more difficult. Keep a check of the cost on these items. Check carefully any packages or domains that are on offer, ensuring that you are not taking it on face value. An often trick is to price .UK domains really cheaply, say “BUY A DOMAIN FOR x pence”, but what they dont initially tell you is that you have to buy them for 2 years and there is an extra charge on top, also don’t forget about the good old VAT.
Quality of Service
Its all well and good having bargain basement web hosting, only to find out the service isn’t up to scratch. Slow speeds, downtime, little support are a few examples. Try asking a potential host for a test account so that you can trial their services. Our affordable web hosting packages all come with a 30-day money back guarantee, so if you’e unhappy, we’ll refund your hosting package costs.
Features
Have in mind exactly what you want from your hosting provider before you start looking. All providers have a host of features on their packages, and you may find a lot of them are totally not required. The main items we belive are:
- Email - The ability to send & receive email from your domain
- Webmail - Be able to access your email accounts from anywhere in the world using an internet connection.
- Databases - A backend database, so that items can be stored if neccessary.
- Support - You have a good support. Its no use if your stuck and you can’t get any help.
- FTP - The ability to upload / download files to your server space 24/7
- Storage space - Your online disk space.
- Bandwidth - How much you are allowed to download from your server space.
Of course, this is our opinion, and you should draw your own conclusions.
Support
Ensure the web hosting supplier has a good support system. If you need help, you want the confidence that you are going to get it. At Lincwebhosting we provide our clients with a comprehensive online support area. If this doesn’t solve the problem we are ALWAYS at hand to help.
Datacentre’s
Make sure you Web Hosting Provider has a reliable data centre. This means that they are housed somewhere in a secure, air conditioned room, that can be self generating in case of power failures. The data centres should be built to a high specification, afterall they’re handling all your data. They should have multiple connections to the internet, so any connection failure on the hosts side can be automatically re-routed, this also helps the servers in choosing the fastest path. Make sure the technology is up to date, its no good having loads of features, but running them on a server with the power of a pocket calculator.