What do I look for in a web host?

By: JP Smith | Published: June 24, 2009

Categories: Internet, Business

I am by no means a web hosting expert.  There are some who are way more involved in it than I am.  However, I have dealt with enough good and bad hosts to have picked up a few good nuggets of information.  If you are looking for a host for your web site(s), here's a few things that I have picked up over the years.

What types of hosting are there?

There are several kinds of hosting but, the most common types I've seen are shared hosting, virtual private servers and dedicated hosting. Below is a brief definition of each.

1. Shared Hosting - what this typically involves is many different accounts on one server.  There are different configurations but, often, you are given a certain amount of disk space and a monthly allotment of bandwith you can use for your site(s).  However, you are sharing the resources on this server with everyone else.  The upside is that this sort of hosting is more user-friendly and less-expensive.  The downside is that if another user on that if you are on a server where some moderately popular sites exist or if someone has some badly performing scripts, you'll be negatively impacted by this, as well.
   
   
2. Virtual Private Server Hosting (also known as a VPS) - think of this as several mini-servers running inside of a real server.  If you have ever run VMWare, VirtualPC or VirtualBox, you know that you can run a separate operating system inside your current operating system.  This is handy for people like me who need to run Windows inside of Linux on occasion.  A virtual private server works along these same principles.  There is an actually physical server and on it resides several virtual servers.  The differences between this and shared hosting are many but, the main ones are that each environment is separate, meaning that if another person uses up the resources for their server, you won't be impacted, you have a lot more control over what software/processes run on your server and you can tweak settings to meet your needs.  The downside is that, many times, you either have to know something about administering a server or pay a little more for the hosting company to do it. 
   
   
3. Dedicated Hosting - In this type of hosting, the whole server is yours to use.  Of course, you can pretty much do what you want with it in terms of setup and use server resources as you wish. As with a VPS, you'll need to know something about administering a server or pay your host more to do it for you.  Typically, this is the most expensive of these three types of hosting.

What type of hosting is best for me?

You need to know what type of site(s) you'll be running.  If you have a relatively small site with not too many visitors or if you don't need much control over your setup, a shared host might work for you.  Just be aware if your site gets too popular and consumes too many resources, you host may politely ask you to upgrade to another type of hosting.

If you have a site where you do a moderately high amount of traffic, conduct moderate level of online payment transactions or need a lot of flexibility for your setup and price is a concern, you might look at a VPS.

If you have a lot of traffic to your site(s), offer downloads or video or conduct a lot of transactions and a have the money, you might want to look at your own dedicated server.


How much are we talking?

Prices vary but, you can get a decent shared account for < $20/month, you can get a VPS for around $20-100+/month (on average, you can get a really decent VPS for about $50/month). This range is based on configuration and what tier of service you'll want.  A dedicated server is usually $100 and up per month.  Again, this is based on configuration and tiers of service.


What are some pitfalls to avoid?

1. Overselling - I have seen hosts offer you the moon for a few dollars.  I've seen the most with shared hosting.  Often, the offer is unlimited space and unlimited bandwith for less than $10.  This sounds great but, in reality, many are looking to pack as many accounts on one server as possible and bank on the fact that users aren't really going to use a high amount of resources. In reality, most people won't use much.  However, I would suggest that you don't actually put the "unlimited" offer to the test or you could find your site being taken offline and find yourself looking for a new provider.
   
   
2. Bad reputation - Find out what other people are saying about the hosting company.  Personally, I go to the forums at Web Hosting Talk to see what's being said.  A lot of times, the owners of hosting companies are there, too, getting the latest on what people are saying about their service.  On more than one occasion, I have either saved myself the headache of dealing with a host or confirmed that others were dealing with the same issues that I was having with a host.  Usually, I would find out that Company X had bad customer service, poor maintenance or support or, sometimes, that the owners were straight-up crooks.  It's important to know the reputation of your host before you begin spending your hard-earned money with them.
   
   
3. Inability to provide advertised uptime - What good will it do to save money if your sites always unavailable?  Most host offer you something lik 99.9% uptime, excluding any scheduled maintenance they perform.  If you look at what this really means is that your site should be down no more that 8 hours during the entire year.  The reason why I switched to a VPS from shared hosting is because my last shared hosting account was on a server that went down and it took the hosting company over 24 hours to get us back up and running.  This was after weeks where the site was down for about 20 minutes every day because they would have to reboot the server.  If you have a popular site, this could cause you to lose a lot of ad revenue money or cost you sales with your customers.

Conclusion

Just like with any other business, you need to know who you're dealing with to make sure that you aren't wasting your money or putting your own bottom line at risk because you are dealing with an unreliable and/or unresponsive web hosting provider.  Do your homework.  If you do, you'll be saving yourself time, money and heartache.