6 Tips Of A Good Web Host

Previously in my other host, I realized due to overwhelm of people visiting my website it slowed down recently as I was using quite a cheap web host which then later I decided to migrate over to HostGator.

There are various things you must know before you decide which web host you should go for.

1. Support is the No.1 Key

Why support is because I had my website down quite a lot of times, but because there was no way to contact my host either then submitting a ticket I could not get to them when I have some urgent launch sometimes on my websites.

So it VERY important to get a good host with great support and HostGator actually not only have a LIVE Support 24/7 but also a free Skype line where I can call them through Skype for free for support which is SUPER GREAT!

2. Price

My previous host cost me about US$39 per year, which is fairly cheap but what I did not like with that host was there was no online support but other then that the services were great. Because I am now more seriously in my online business I would need online support.

HostGator had what I wanted with support and they only charge about US$9.95 per month which is super affordable with the great features they had in the plan!

3. Features

There is one thing about web host not many would know is that, if you sign up with a plan that only allow you to host 6 domains you are been cheated by what you actually should have. It is because in their WHM panel they can simply change the 6 to unlimited but they choose not too and some even worst they only restrict you to 100 emails.

What you want to look for are unlimited features in all areas. There are some things you need to look for

- Unlimited Emails

- Unlimited Add-On Domains (adding more domains on the same account)

- Unlimited Database

- Fantastico (A set of great script a MUST HAVE)

- Support PHP files

- Unlimited FTP Accounts

- 30 Day Money Back Guarantee (If they don't have this means they are not confident in their services)

- No Contract

- 24 x 7 Support

- Diskspace of at least 10 GB

- Bandwidth of at least 100GB

I am currently using the Baby Plan by HostGator which have even better features that I mentioned above for only US$9.95 per month you have 100GB of space and 1,000GB of BANDWIDTH which is A LOT!

4. Location of server

Some people are not aware that the location of the server really matters a lot! I think especially after the Taiwan Earthquake a lot of server were down due to lousy rerouting of servers on the Internet Network.

You can go to http://www.dnsstuff.com do a trace route of the server and see the number of hops to reach your computer.

What the table shows in the website above is the number of computer terminal it takes to actually route to your computer to get to my website.

The lesser there the better the web host is, there are some lousy hosting takes up to 24 hops just to reach your computer! Where as HostGator is sometimes 7 hops only! or 14 hops! Which shows the server can connect to the user faster!

5. Disk Space

Having a web host is like having your personal C Drive but it is on a virtual drive on your web server. Example if I sign up a host that give me 100GB like HostGator. What that means is that I can store 100GB of information to be shared online with my visitors. The more the Disk Space you have the better as you can store more stuff online.

6. Bandwidth

Alright this topic some people actually got confused this with Disk Space. Bandwidth is basically the number of information you can download from your server which is normally calculated by kb.

This is a break down of what is KB, MB and GB.

1,000 KB = 1MB

1,000 MB = 1GB

So when I say 100GB it mean 1,000,000 KB which is a lot. Why? One word document for example is about 50kb. If lets say you have a word document you want to share online name as GatherSuccess.doc which is about 50KB

I put a link for GatherSuccess.doc on my server at 50KB and I have 100GB of bandwidth it means that

1,000,000 / 50 = 20,000 visitors can download my document file for the month.

Bandwidth will be reset every end of the month by the web host, if you overshot the bandwidth most of the time they will just charge you what ever excess you use.

If you are looking for a web host I strongly recommend HostGator as it's very reliable and they response to you in an instant.

Source: http://web4u.wordpress.com/2007/02/19/6-tips-of-a-good-web-host/

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