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Top 10 Hosts - Oct 06 |
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5
Steps To Choosing A Great Host
Follow these 5 simple steps to find the right package for you. 1. Storage space and data transfer. A small information site or personal site will usually only require a few megabytes of disk space, however, data transfer depends on the size of the pages your are offering your visitors multiplied by the number of visitors. Therefore, a popular and graphics heavy website (such as online art gallery http://www.clickart-gallery.com ) requires a greater monthly transfer than a mostly text site (such as http://www.brealweb.com). You should look at a minimum of 2 GB (2000 MB) data transfer a month. Check with the company that they can upgrade your account if your site increases it's need for storage or monthly data transfer. 2.
Added Features. Make a list of the features you want before you
start your shopping. Many features such as e-commerce shopping
carts and real time credit card processing will cost you a lot
of money. Pre-installed scripts such as email scripts and page
counters and use of a secure server (SSL) should be included for
free. If you can get a browser control panel and browser mail,
this allows you extra flexibility with your site. 3. Technical Support As most hosting companies offer inclusive technical support, you shouldn't pay extra for this. If you're not offered 24 hours/7 days you should look elsewhere. The test is to contact the company and ask questions. If they don't reply within 48 hours, or don't reply at all, consider another hosting company. A good company should reply within 24-48 hours. 4.
Reliability. How reliable is a web hosting company? Most claim
99.9% uptime, but due to the nature of computers and communications
equipment, outages will and do occur occasionally. You can contact
a company and ask, but they will tell you they're very reliable.
Instead, ask for a couple of sites they currently host, that you
can check out for yourself. 5.
Price and Guarantee. If the previous four steps check out, then
you need to consider price and this can vary widely. You need
to consider setup fees, monthly fees, plan discounts and optional
extras in your calculations. Some companies offer you ridiculously
low or no monthly fees, but check the fine print before agreeing
to anything. Free sites almost always have popups or require space
invasive banners. Cheap hosting companies often fail on steps
3 and 4, so check them out first, or you may find your site is
often not available to your visitors. Setup costs vary widely
too. Basically, this is the cost that a company will charge to
set up an account for you. So,
if you follow the steps listed above, you should find the perfect
hosting company for your needs.
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