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5 Tips When It Comes To Choosing Your Host

Unless you have the most powerful computer system in the world with huge amounts of storage space, and are knowledgeable enough when it comes to ensuring the system remains up 99.99% of the time, you would need to take the time to choose a host for your website or blog. Web hosts simply allow one to purchase storage space on the WWW so as to have their website accessible to their target audience. Here are some tips to help you choose the best host for your website.

Disk Space

Disk space is simply the amount of space that each website is allocated on the host’s server. Most web hosts would offer unlimited disk space, while others would allot space based on the amount of money one pays. Whatever option you choose, always ensure you get a plan that provides a minimum of 20% more disk space than what you currently have so as have enough room for expansion. Never assume that unlimited space is better than limited space since there are always some tradeoffs.

Customer Service

Almost all webmasters have been seduced by the allure of extremely cheap or even free web hosting. However, the moment something goes wrong as it sometimes will, the webmasters discover when it is already too late why choosing a hot based solely on price is never a good idea. A good web host should give you 24/7/365 round the clock customer support through phone, email, chat etc. There should also be online documentation as well as online support forums with responses and reviews from the hosting staff.

Bandwidth

This is the amount or speed at which information on your website is accessible by your target audience over a given period of time. Just like disk space, there are web hosts that offer unlimited bandwidth and others would charge a certain amount for the amount of bandwidth used. Ensure you know what happens should your website exceed the allocated bandwidth and that you have enough bandwidth to support the amount of traffic that your site receives.

Uptime

This is the percentage of time a hosting server is up. Most web host providers will announce an uptime of 99.99%. Truth of the matter is that all hosts have to go down every now and then due to technical hitches and stuff.  Take the time to determine exactly what you are getting should a server go down. The reason for this is because some hosts have better compensation than others.

Price

While it is strongly not recommended to use cost as the only evaluation when choosing your host, it should not be the main determinant either. More often than not, you can be able to find a host with all what you need for a reasonable price. Free web host may look attractive, but most hosts would make up for the free service by placing advertisements on your website… advertisements you may not have control over.

While you could be having the best and most fancy website in the world, with the most attractive and informative content, if it is not accessible on the WWW, the website is as good as nothing. However, your choice of a host is what would determine whether or not your website becomes a success

 

Kevin Pritchard is a freelance writer that contributes to Click Discounts where you can get some useful vouchers to help you save money on your purchase.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Top Rated. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.