Finding the Best Hosting Provider Part 1

Looking for a new hosting provider? Here's some great advice on what to look for and what to avoid.

Web Hosting Dos

Follow these guidelines and you will have a better chance of finding a reliable hosting solution.

Research

Spend time reading what others have to say about the hosting companies you are looking at. Read reviews and investigate into the history of the company. How long have they been in business? What data centers are they located in? How many customers do they have and do they have enough employees to support them? These are all questions you should know before choosing a web host.

Contact Support

Contact your potential hosts and ask them a few simple questions about their service. The main goal is to gauge their response time and the quality of their reply.

Know Your Requirements

You may WANT gigs of space and bandwidth, but do you really NEED them. If not, do not waste money paying for bandwidth and storage space that will not be used. On the other hand, if you use a lot of resources you should purchase hosting with a little head room just in case you have spikes in traffic. This way you can avoid any overage charges.

Have a Good Backup Plan

Do not rely on your host to keep backups of your sites. Most don't and if they do they could be weeks or even months old. If you keep good backups you will suffer little downtime and data loss if you ever do have problems with your host and need to move elsewhere.

Part 2 of this article will follow in the next post...