How to Choose a Good Website Hosting Company
- surajjgm13
- Jul 10, 2020
- 3 min read

There are many different things to consider when choosing a hosting company. So, we decided to give a basic overview of what you should look for when picking the perfect hosting company for your website. For the sake of brevity, we will focus on Shared Server Hosting.
Shared or Dedicated
There are two main types of hosting: Shared and Dedicated. The big difference between the two is speed, resource demand, and control. For most small businesses and individuals shared hosting is sufficient. For large businesses that need complete control over the entire server, a dedicated server plan allows you to have full root (superuser) access to the server to configure it however you want or need. Again, most shared servers are sufficient for common websites. Also, the difference in price could be anywhere from $150-$300 per month!
Operating System Type
There are two primary operating systems you might confront in your search for website hosting: Linux and Windows. Some of you might have an immediate desire to choose a Windows server because you are familiar with a Windows PC. However, the interface is not exactly like your computer. The main reason to go with a Windows hosting plan is if you use a Microsoft scripting language like ASP.NET (webpages that have an .aspx or .asp at the end). Linux is a free and open operating system which makes Linux hosting plans cheaper. Also, most Linux plans provide you with an easy-to-use control panel (like cPanel).
Disk Space, Bandwidth, and Databases
Many companies offer "unlimited" disk space, bandwidth, and databases. This is just a marketing ploy to make it sound like you get more than you really do. In fact, it is always a good idea to read the hosting company's Terms of Use (TOU). For example, you may have unlimited disk space but have an inode limit. You can think of inode like an individual file. For large websites, it doesn't take long to meet this limit. click here for more DIY websites
Unlimited bandwidth is also a myth because the hosting company will limit this - either by saying you are using too many server resources or that you have a script/website that violated part of the TOU. Now, just because a company says "unlimited", it doesn't mean that the company is not a good host, but it is a definite flag to tell you "carefully read our TOU."
Uptime
Every hosting company should have a minimum uptime guarantee of 99.9%. If the hosting company does not say this, make sure to do more research. Afterall, the whole purpose of a website is for it to be seen! If you believe you are having a problem on your current hosting company, you can use a free tool like montastic.com to monitor your website for you.
Addon Domains
Addon domains are useful if you want to use the same hosting account for multiple websites. If you only have one website, this is not necessary. However, if you run two or more websites make sure you check on how many addon domains are allowed and how much they cost.
Private SSL
Does your website transmit any potentially personal/private information? You may want to make sure you get a Dedicated IP address and a Private SSL certificate. Many shared hosting plans include a Shared SSL but we would definitely pass on this because if you use it, your users will get a notice on the website that says something like "This connection is untrusted... " or a security alert. Seeing something like that is the fastest way to get a user off of your website. Private SSL certificates require a dedicated IP address. Some hosts will include this in some of their plans and others charge up to $10 per month.
Customer Support
Having poor customer support is the fastest way to cripple a hosting company. Even if you have a great hosting company, at some point you will need to contact them. We have personally seen some hosting companies take two weeks to complete a task that should take less than two hours and this was entirely caused by poor customer support. A good way to check a hosting company's customer support is to contact their Technical Support (not Sales!) and ask some questions about scripting languages, hardware, FTP, etc. The speed at which they respond and willingness to help can give a good representation of the service you will get later on.
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