How to Pick A Web Host that Works!
These days, every web host you see claims to be the best.
But how do you REALLY know `which is the best web host?
At the beginning, you need to break it down to what you need, which is either three types of web hosting: Shared web hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting or dedicated web hosting.
But you are most likely after shared hosting, which is entry and medium level hosting for small to medium sites. Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting and also Dedicated Hosting are both more pricey but can handle the resource demands on more large websites.
An A-Grade Web Hosts Control Panel:
This is the online software that will let you tweak your site settings and even view your visitor statistics, such as which web site they came from, which country they are in and some other details. Without this, everything becomes 15 times more difficult. Creating an email account to use will suddenly take an hour of research instead of 20 easy seconds and will suddenly necessitate almost programmer level skill requirements without this easy interface. Your Control Panel makes doing any of this, easy for absolutely anyone. Only go with web hosts offering cPanel (or possibly even, DirectAdmin). If they dont offer these, look somewhere else.
An A-Grade Web Hosts Support:
Anyone looking online for a host, wants top web hosting support that will answer their questions fast. But if you are paying $4 per month, you cant expect support thats going to be that good. But some support should be available. Check if they have a number to call (most wont which isnt that much of a bad thing), but if they have a Live Support chat button, thats a huge plus, and a very valuable thing to have accessible to you in case you need to contact them quickly.
An A-Grade Web Hosts Uptime and Reliability
If they are simply not offering a 99.9% Uptime guarantee, look somewhere else. Downtime is aggravating and costly for anyone advertising their sites. Web visitors that come to your site when its down, will be very turned off to ever coming back. The simple way to learn of of their reliability is to read reviews and other peoples views. However a fast way to test speed (but not quite dependable) is to see how fast the hosts own web page loads up for you, which can give you an indication of what kind of speed your site can expect.
An A-Grade Web Hosts Free Scripts
If the web host you want to run with is running cPanel, they will very often provide you with over 50+ free easy-to-install scripts through an attachment known as Fantastico. This is quite useful, as it contains entire e-commerce shopping carts, blogging software, forum scripts and heaps of extras, all installable with one mouse click. Not absolutely required, but certainly comes in handy.
An A-Grade Web Hosts Per Month Pricing
Now if you are like the majority of people. You want good value, and dont want to use up your bank. Web Hosting has become a commodity item with loads of competition. You can even find web hosts offering hosting for a measly $2 a month. However, you can expect downtime and slowness and emotional distress with these cheaper-than-a-soft-drink web hosts. End result, not worth saving a couple of bucks with these cheaper than chips web hosts. Go for something around the $8-12 mark. Yes thats over 3 times the amount of our 2 dollar comparison. But this means the host can actually afford to give you top support and put your account on a server that will always be up, and actually run with speed.
In reality, you TRULY pay far more with a super-cheap web host because of downtime, unusual slowness, lost visitors and lost revenue, poor support, and your own frustration when you check and see your website is down and your host is out of reach to help or are very slow to respond. Web hosting is truly something that will get you in the behind if you go with the lowest-cost is best mentality and thats the rock-hard.
About the author:
James Collinsworth has been online late 1996, and has time-tested many different web hosts and gives away Discount Hosting coupons for proven to be quality web hosts.
Visit his website for more information: http://www.HostgatorReview.info
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