7 Points to Remember in Choosing Your Web Host Partner
Web hosting, in layman’s language, is a business of keeping websites and databases in servers to keep them available and accessible to public or intended users. Due to the continuous increasing demand for digital publication, web hosting companies must keep the pace of upgrading their servers and services.
According to the latest data from webhosting info.com, there are a total of 142,060, 121 domains hosted in all websites and almost half is hosted just for the Top 10 Web Hosts Worldwide alone, broken down to these statistics:
GoDaddy.com, LLC: 37.9 Million
1&1 Internet Inc.: 4.8 Million
Hostgator.com: 3.07 Million
Bluehost.com: 3 Million
Network Solutions, LLC: 2.3 Million
OVH SAS: 2.01 Million
Rook Media, Inc.: 1.8 Million
Namecheap, Inc.: 1.7 Million
wixdns: 1.3 Million
Google Inc: 1.3 Million
The web hosting industry has no doubt, been dominated by these companies. What are their secrets to putting such big numbers of websites in their servers? What are the qualities of a great web host partner?
Metaphorically, entrusting your website in a web host is the same as depositing in your money in a bank. The keeper must be reliable, secured 24/7, and flexible for your business’ growth.
We listed the things you must put into consideration whenever you decide what hosting service or hosting plan you should choose.
1. Review the cost and inclusions
Your web host must clearly define the inclusions and span of hosting in their defined cost. First, you must know your hosting needs. Is your website a Wordpress type? How much “space” does it need? Moreover, does the hosting plan offer special features like add-on domains?
2. Customer and Tech Support
Your web host’s customer and tech support must be available 24/7. Failure and security attacks might occur anytime, so they must be on the lookout as much as you do with your website.
3. Storage Flexibility and Limitations
All web hosts must explain to their clients about their limitations, and scalability, if they are willing to expand if your website gets bigger influx and traffic. Needless to say, they are affirmative on growing their business with you, but up to what extent? As a client, you also have to be familiar with the best servers, or hardware, in terms of speed and productivity. Could their servers handle big data processing?
4. Script support/compatibility
It is also important to ask if their servers are compatible with your website. In analogy, an old version of software or application might not be compatible with the latest iPhone. Same goes with servers and websites, there are server compatibility checks to undergo. Mostly, the developer could adjust with compatibility issues, but you must know as early as possible.
5. Reputation
Is the data center with the most number of clients considered to be the best web host? The reputation does not only lie on quantity. Try to dig deep on how they managed a serious situation in less time. Also, you can research the internet about their service and how satisfied their clients are.
6. Account suspension
If it happens that you no longer wanted to pursue your web hosting with your current data center, or you wanted to transfer, would they still give you the maximum support? Moreover, remember that if your account is about to be suspended or expired, they must give you a warning.
7. Server Location
It is important to know where the server, which will contain your website, is physically located. Simply put, the nearer, the better. However, you must also consider the connectivity of the server (like internet speed) if you plan to get servers abroad. You must also consider where your website is localized. For example, you are a Japanese investor, and your company website is for Taiwan. The server you must choose, logically, is the one near to Taiwan.
Conclusion:
Assessing your web host is important in putting up a website. It is like entrusting your money to a bank—it grows and earns, but certainly needs to be audited. It must also have an unprecedented security feature, above all. You also need to be keen in maximizing your website through your host.
Do you have a web host to recommend? How’s their service? Let us know in the comments!
Tags: web development, web host partner, Web hosting, Web Outsourcing