Tips and Tricks for Selecting a Website Host ©2011 Chris K. Houg You just created a killer website or maybe you have a client you just created a website for. What you need now is hosting. A quick search on Google produces 120 million results. You have an endless choice of hosting companies, so how do you know which one to select? First, ask people you know who they use for hosting. I can't think of a better way to narrow down the choices for any product or service.  Websites are people's businesses in a lot of cases. A personal  recommendation is much better than trying blindly to select a host. Typically, a hosting company will provide: • Drive space • Bandwidth • A control panel • FTP access • Email accounts/Fowarders • Databases • PHP and CGI • Crons • Multiple domains • Subdomains • Easy Script installation of common open source scripts • Backups Read the fine print. No matter all the hype they have on their sales page, unlimited this, unlimited that, the fine print may say otherwise or have some other limitation that would prevent you from ever using a significant amount of bandwidth or drive space. Typically, the claim will be you are using too many server resources and suspend your account often without any notification. The server resources would be CPU cycles and to a lesser degree, physical memory. Static pages not using any server side scripting use very little resources. An HTML page with associated images, videos, audo, are just files that are transferred to the visitor's browser and the browser does all the work in the formatting and displaying of the content. There isn't much in the way of server resources being used. A busy forum or blog, for example, does a lot of processing and typically uses a MySQL database, which can use a lot of server resources. Another claim may be that video or audio files are against their policy.  These files are typically quite large and use not only a lot of drive space, but, a lot of bandwidth. It is common for the drive space to only be used for files related to running your website and NOT for file storage or backups. Are backups done daily and do you have access to them? First of all, I can't stress enough on keeping your own backups. With a website that uses static pages, this typically isn't much of  a problem. You normally  make the changes, publish or upload your site and the data doesn't change. And you have a copy of the site on your computer. Most hosts put a limitation on the number of emails going out by the hour or by the day. Sending an email to a large list puts a strain on a server. Limiting the number of emails going out can prevent damage control on a compromised site that is sending out Spam. 500 emails per hour is a common limit but this number will vary with the host. Such a setting would not present any problems with a typical site but may present a problem for a site sending a newsletter to a list of members. A site using a database, such as a forum, blog, membership site, or an e-commerce site, has dynamic data changing daily. Backing them up yourself daily can be a chore. It's not uncommon for daily backups to be done by the host on a secondary drive attached to the server used solely for the purpose of backups. Depending on how critical the site is, you may want to invest in an off server or even off site backup. Your host may offer such a service and may well be worth the insurance.   Having access to it is important also. I field a lot of requests where the client requested a certain file on their site as they accidentally deleted a file or changed a file and don't have a backup of the original.  Typically I'll restore or send the file to them from a backup, but, at a minimum, the host should be able to give you the backup so you can extract the file yourself. TIP: Upload your Xara .xar or .web file to your hosting account. There is typically space that isn't accessible to visitors, called the home directory. Create a new directory and upload the Xara file to it. If for some reason you later can't find the file or lost the file, you simply need to download it to work on the web site again. The three most common website hosting options are: 1. Shared Hosting 2. Virtual Dedicated Server 3. Dedicated Server Shared Hosting. Shared hosting is sharing a server with other hosting accounts. The server is maintained by the hosting company. One hosting account could affect the performance of other hosting accounts on the same server. You may have experienced this yourself with some site you are visiting having a slow response time and sluggish on one visit, and then be normal the next time you visit. Virtual Dedicated Hosting. Virtual Dedicated Hosting, often called simply VPS, is a step between shared hosting and your own dedicated server. A VPS is a self-contained "Virtual Server". It operates like a full dedicated server, with limited drive space, bandwidth, and CPU but anything else on the same server will not affect the performance of the hosting sites on your VPS. You may have as many hosting accounts on your VPS as your resources allow. You normally have a choice of operating system and control panel to be installed on the VPS. A server may contain other hosting accounts and/or other virtual servers and also requires management for configuration, updates, and performance tweaks. A host will commonly offer management at an extra monthly cost. Dedicated Server. Your very own server. The only sites on it are the sites you put there. You determine the number of processors and the type/speed of the processors, the amount of ram, size and quantity of the drives, and the amount of bandwidth the server has (typically 2,000 to 3,000 gigabytes come standard). You also determine the operating system, control panel, and other software to be installed on the server.  The server will require configuration. Most website hosting companies say they offer the best technical support in the business. But do they? Technical support is one of the most important considerations for any website hosting companies. If they list an 800 phone number, call it, and ask a question such as do I need to publish my files to a specific directory. If you receive a prompt easy to understand response, then this is a good sign. If the person talks to you as though you are an idiot, then shop elsewhere. If you can, submit a support request from the website and see how quickly you get a response. Good support is important. Timely support is essential.