WEB HOSTING SERVICES PART ONE

One of the most important decisions you have to make is choosing a web hosting company. You need a reliable company, with 24/7 tech support and who guarantees to be up at least 99.9 % of the time. If your website is not up, then it doesn't matter how good your site is, because no one will see it.

For purposes of this discussion we will presume that you do not have a business that is so big that you need a dedicated server. Hopefully one day you will !

There are several questions to ask yourself before choosing your web hosting company. Personally, I use several different ones, each has it's own pros & cons.

First ask yourself do you want to build your site with your own tools or do you want a site that provides a large variety of tools for you.

Second what are the various hosting plans and how easily will the company let you change plans and services if you want or need to.

Third, do they provide live 24/7 tech support?

Fourth, do they offer a user friendly interface? Is it easy to figure out? What kind of guides to they provide for their services? Can they be printed out?

Fifth, if you do not already have a domain, do they have a "package" that gives the domain for free or at a discount.

Sixth, how many years will they let you register the domain for? This is a lot more important then you may realize for two reasons. First of all the search engines like your web site a lot better if you show you are there for the long haul. If you can register it for 10 years, that is your best bet. I am not aware of any web hosting companies that will allow you to register for more than 10 years. Second the longer your domain is registered for, the longer you are protected against price hikes. I read in an issue of CPU magazine (which is generally of very reputable source) that top level domains (ie .com, .net, .us, etc.) were going to be dramatically increased in price, and that you will be able do get an extension ( the portion of your domain name to the right of the "." .

Seventh, how safe and secure are they? Do they offer SSL encryption or VeriSign, or some other equivalent?

Eight, do you have to pay them to be an affiliate? Sounds outrageous? Several of the big name web hosting companies actually charge you to be an affiliate? Do you really what to pay someone to promote their company? Surprisingly a lot of people do, but that is really a waste.

Nineth, do they offer a reseller program, and how much do they charge? Do they provide you with the tools to promote your reseller services?

Tenth, how much advertising of their company do they do? Both on and off line.

Next we will discuss specific companies, several of whom I personally use and others which I do not. We will discuss the pros and cons of each. I use 5 of the companies, which enables me to test different things for my sites and see who is performing best for me for the particular needs of each site.