Choosing a good web host is also very important like buying a good Domain. There are many hosting services in the market. Some are free, some are not. In this post I will guide you to choose a web host that you need.
What do you want in a Web Host?
To run a website you need a CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla etc… and these CMS have minimum requirements. For example, latest release of WordPress (Version 3.2 on 5 OCT 2011) has minimum requirement of PHP 5.2.4 and MYSQL 5. Check with CMS you plan to use for its minimum requirements.
You may have some special requirements depending on what you plan to do with your site. If you plan to sell something on your site, you may need SSL (Secure Socket Layer). SSL is an anther subject. Since I’m writing this guide for beginners, I’m not going to bother with it on this post. However, most of web hosting companies have these basic features. But it’s a good idea to check it before you buy. A Commercial host must offer basic features like FTP, PHP, Perl, .htaccess, MySQL and Corn.
Beware of Free Web Hosts
Don’t use free web hosts for your personal or commercial site. They will impose advertising on your site. Some need you to place a banner on your pages, while others use pop-ups or framed advertising. These advertising is use to cover their cost of maintaining servers. But for you it will be very disturbing. However it can be use for testing purposes
Reliability and Bandwidth
Search engines don’t like sites that are going down regularly. Check if your host guarantees their up time. If it’s not guaranteeing at least 99.5% up time, that’s not a good host and try to get unlimited bandwidth to avoid downtime. However bandwidth you need is depending on amount of traffic your site gets and number of media (Images, Videos, Audio, etc…) file hosted on your Server.
Disk Space and Technical Support
Most of sites on internet use only 50MB-100MB disk space to run. So you don’t need unlimited or 100GB-500GB disk space to host your site. So select a plan that has 10 GB-30GB. But if you plan to host Sound files or Video files, you should go with unlimited plan. Otherwise you are fine with a little disk space.
Disk Space and Technical Support
There are lots of Commercial Hosts in the market like DreamHost, GoDaddy etc… But I recommend NameCheap as good reliable host. With 24/7 live support and support for all major CMS. And with NameCheap’s cPanel, you can automatically install your favorite CMS to your hosting account within few minutes. It’s a great option for beginner who wants to start his first site.
