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What to Look For in A Good Host

by Mahesh Kukreja on February 8, 2009

Good hosting doesn’t always come cheap, especially if your site would require a lot of space and bandwidth to support the growing site. A good web host should provide credible and quality server, rather then just ignoring their customers needs. Choosing a good web host can be quite a headache since there are so many of them out there. Remember, whenever you choose a web hosting provider always look for the up-time. You don’t always want your site going down, do you?

Here are a few tips that can help you find a good, reliable web host. Be sure to read the part about about getting unlimited hosting also. :)

Tip #1

Server Hardware

A good web host always keeps their hardware maintained and well up to date. Imagine, if you will, joining up with a host and your site crashes, with all data lost because the hardware of the server was 10 years old. A Good host will always replace any old hardware that has any chances of failing. The system administrators should always be quick and knowledgeable if or when there is ever a hardware failure. Most hosts manage to get the failure fixed within a few hours, or 24 hours for the smaller hosting providers.

Ensure that the server can handle your site, if you plan on running a forum you may wanna check the servers hardware specifications if there are any. Especially if your forum is going to have over 100 members, that’s quite of a load on the server itself.

Tip #2

The Web Host’s Connection Speed

The hosting package you choose to sign up with should contain more then just one connection to the internet in-order to resolve any connection problems that may occur. Thus, if one of the connections go offline the other one would keep your site up and going.

A good hosting provider will always have a connection speed of T2, T3 or higher running below 60% of its maximum bandwidth it can use. When you sign up for a hosting package you should only choose the package you would need, make sure you think ahead into the future when choosing the package. Would you need more bandwidth, How about some more web space, Would you ever require mySQL or PHP. Perhaps you would one day want to run Ruby on Rails. That’s some things to think of when choosing a package. Some hosts even offer unlimited space hosting. But there may be a limit on how much CPU you can use at one time, such at 20%. If you ever choose to get unlimited hosting be sure to check for limitations on your site.

Most unlimited hosting providers offer little limitations on your site. Most of them may just restrict some certain file types as .MP3 files. And all host are starting to not allow that type of file anyway due to copyright matters. But if you do get unlimited hosting I have one thing to say.

I have, I love it, and I’m glad I got unlimited hosting because my site pulls about 17GIGs a month in bandwidth. That’s a lot! And I never had any problems yet. Never went over any limits, in my case 20% CPU usage at one time.

And I never will, unless I run some huge PHP application for 30 minutes running in a never ending loop. But that will never happen, because PHP has a max execution time that some host allow you to set.

Some host will also allow you to upgrade your hosting package as needed for your website, I have not seen many hosts that say they do that, but I’m sure they will help you out if you contact them. Most hosts always have phone support, or live chat.

Tip #3

Documentation

If, or when you ever buy web hosting you should always document any payments that are being made to your hosting provider. If you ever get over-billed by the host — and that rarely happens, you may need some proof that you were over-billed by that hosting provider.

Although, the hosting provider should always have records of all the payments they are getting, there may have been an error that was not their fault. It could of been a computer error, bank error, or anything could of went wrong if you ever were over-billed by the provider. Remember, a good host will always work with you to help you correct any problems that may occur.

Tip #4

Backups and Domains

A good host will always make backups of their hard drives in-case something go’s wrong. This will also allow you to restore a server backup to your site if you mess up the root folder of your site, like deleting an important folder that you are unable to restore. You would then be able to restore from the hosts backup file of your site.

You should also make sure you have full ownership of the domain name that you would be getting. You should never let anyone control the domain but you. The host should not have to require to take ownership, or have administrative control over the domain that you bought and own.

A good host will have these features taken care of and will always have a weekly or less backup of your site, leaving you to focus on your business and website in peace.

Hope this information is helpful and is of your use.

-Mahesh.

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