Looking for a suitable web host is one of the most important decisions taken by a business but often one to which little time is given. With so many options for hosting your website from companies that charge a small amount to bills that run into thousands of pounds a year, it is not an easy decision if you lack information.
It is also difficult to check up on the reputation of a web host in the Internet, because many of the larger and best web hosting providers have a lot of negative feedback. However, any company that deals with hundreds of thousands of customers will inevitably have a certain amount of negative feedback.
So here is a small check list of what I consider to be the most important considerations when looking for a web hosting company.
Web hosting is generally provided on a Windows or Linux platform. Windows can host the most common types of websites whereas Linux hosts a more limited range. However, I would recommend that you go for Linux if at all possible.
If your website is written in ASP or .NET then you have no choice. You must use a Windows hosting platform that supports the appropriate technology.
If your website is written in plain HTML or dynamically written in PHP then I would strongly recommend you use Linux. Whilst Windows can support these types of websites, Linux hosting is much more reliable and happily, much cheaper.
It is easy to find a web host who apparently provides unlimited hosting capabilities for just a few pounds per year. However, what is their support like if things go wrong. If your website is down for more than a few hours then the consequences to your business can be catastrophic.
If you are a UK business, it is important that your website is hosted from within the UK. If not, it could harm your results in the search engines.
Once you have established these matters, if you have registered your domain name with a company other than the web host, it means you can quickly move your website to another web host if you find you have made a bad choice.
Well I am inevitably biased. But if you choose to host your business website with us, we provide you with a local service with telephone support. But more importantly, we hire out servers from a range of reputable companies. If any of those companies starts to offer a below average service, then we can quickly move your website to a new company's server with minimal or no downtime. So we can take out all of the hard work in finding a web hosting service for you.