Best Website Host - Key Criteria To Apply If you are starting an online business it is essential that you sign up with the best website host for you. By using a well established and reliable provider you should have few problems and will be able to offer a good service to your customers by your website always being available and loading quickly. Google are now taking loading speed into account when generating their search results so, if you will be aiming for a good search engine ranking, top website hosting is even more important. Forget about free hosting (and cheap hosting), you will have to pay for the standard of service you will need from your best website host. There are plenty of website hosting providers which can provide the level of service required and a web search will find several sites which list the top suppliers. However, this can still be confusing because there is no consistency about which providers are considered best and reviews usually emphasise certain features of each package making a detailed comparison different. Before looking at any potential hosting providers it is essential to have worked out what you want: Linux or Microsoft Hosting- This is something your site developers will advise on, if you are having a site built for you. If your site requires a Microsoft environment then you must get a Microsoft hosting package. If you are building your own site it is best to go for a Linux package. Level of Service- This starts with space on a shared server and goes up to having your own dedicated server, the higher the level of service (and the more you pay) the less competition there is for resources (e.g. bandwidth). If you are starting a new site a basic shared package will be fine. This just means that multiple users are hosted on the same server and share all the resources. Reputable companies will not overload their shared servers so you will be fine. Reliability and Speed- A site that is not available is a sure way to lose customers and a site that loads slowly will result in frustration for your customers. It is worth looking for recent user comments on potential suppliers and also checking that they give a guarantee of 99.9%+ uptime. Customer Support- This might be overlooked at the outset but it will become very important if problems arise. You should expect to see support provided 24/7 by email and phone. Bandwidth and Disk Space- Most hosting providers now offer unlimited website hosting with unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth. Clearly this is just marketing as it is impossible for these things to really be unlimited and you may well find that the terms and conditions do include some sort of limitation. Having said that, these resources will not be an issue for a new site in the short term and probably never will, unless it becomes very busy.
Domains/Databases- The basic sharing packages of many hosting providers limit these. If you are only interested in creating a single website these packages will be fine - you can always upgrade later. Cost- You might think it odd to put cost last but the price differences between the top website hosting providers are small enough to make the above factors more important when selecting your best website host. It is worth noting that whilst all hosting providers advertise a monthly cost, only a few actually let you pay monthly. Most require payment a number of months in advance. Once you are clear what you need you can look for the best value package from the major suppliers.