What do I need to know before choosing a web hosting company?
The breadth of web development tools and the increased online presence of companies and organizations makes website design and development easier and more accessible.
However, finding the right place to host a website can be a daunting task, especially due to the large number of reputable services, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. You can pay big for things you don't need or miss something important to your business.
Here are five questions to help you evaluate your web hosting platform service and find the one that suits your needs.
Which content management system is supported?
One of the most important things you need to know before signing up for a web hosting company is the content management system (CMS) they support. We recommend that you set up your WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal website, depending on your goals and available assets. However, your needs may change in the future and you may need to switch to another CMS.
"A great web hosting platform allows you to set up any number of websites with your CMS of choice, with an easy-to-use interface like a step-by-step wizard," said software engineer David Foster. I am. Web hosting company HostGator. "Ideally, you need additional tools that allow you to customize the structure of your site to your specific needs. B. E-commerce websites or discussion forums-and customize it for your business with minimal effort.
HostGator supports Softaculous, an application that makes it easy to install over 190 CMS platforms and scripts, including WordPress, AbanteCart, PrestaShop, Joomla, phpBB, OpenRealEstate and more.
Important Part All hosting services come with migration support. Do you support website transfers from another service? Will it help me migrate from one CMS to another?
"The automatic migration tool is basically needed, but it's rarely enough. Your website has been around for years and contains legacy code and assets," Foster said. He added that a good hosting platform needs a support team to help simplify the migration process.
How much adjustment can I make?
Website access and server configuration granularity can be important when choosing a hosting service. Some companies offer only basic site-level management. B. wpadmin access to the WordPress website. This is fine for very simple use cases, but it is a limitation if you want to extend the functionality of your website to meet your organization's needs.
“A good hosting platform needs to offer different levels of access and customization to meet its needs,” says Foster.
For example, HostGator's cPanel contains FTP access to the file manager and website backend. “These options ensure that we cover everything from basic to advanced,” says Foster.
Foster is also encouraged to look for advanced features such as DNS, SSL / TLS certificates, and email hosting support that match your domain. "It gives you a central hub to manage everything related to your website," he says.“If you’re setting up a new website for an established business, the hosting service should be able to integrate certificates and DNS record management with what you already have in place.”
What is the uptime agreement?
If you’re deciding to make your website the main medium for your business, then uptime will be a major factor in choosing a hosting platform.
“Say a hosting service states in its contract that it will provide 99% server uptime guarantee in their contract. This might sound like a fair deal, but what it means is that, in a year, they can get away with 1% downtime without any obligations toward you; that’s ~87 hours—or nearly three days—of your website being inaccessible to your visitors!” Foster says.
Otherwise said, if you have an average of 50 visitors per hour, that’s 4,350 lost visitors, and if you have a 1% conversion rate, that is 43 lost customers. And calculating other types of damages such as search engine penalties and customer churn due to server inaccessibility are harder to calculate.
At face value, a 99.9% uptime guarantee might not look like a big improvement. But in effect, it means that the downtime is cut down to a tenth, which can make a big difference for a hightraffic website.
“First, make sure that your hosting provider has a clause where it explicitly states its uptime commitment. And second, while nothing replaces an inaccessible website, something else to look for is the reparations your hosting service provides in exchange for downtime that goes beyond the contractual agreement,” Foster says. “If a hosting service provides hosting credits or free hosting in exchange for downtime, it shows their sincerity in making sure they remain true to their promise.”
What is the level of support?
No website is a oneman effort, so regardless of how good you are at your craft, you’ll need help from your web hosting company at some point. The question is, how ready are they to support you?
“Make sure your hosting service has live customer support and doesn’t direct you to a hardtonavigate FAQ page,” Foster says. “Also verify that the plan you purchase includes live customer support (some companies don’t provide this service to basic plans).”
Also relevant is responsiveness. How fast is the hosting company’s support team in responding to customer queries? How qualified is the staff in answering technical questions? What level of support do they provide (server configurations, sitelevel customizations, coding support, etc.)?
“Obviously, you can’t expect a support staffer to be able to answer every question you have, but a good support team should be able to respond quickly on general queries and have a workflow to get back to you on more technical issues,” says Foster.
“One of the hallmarks of good hosting support is an extensive knowledge base,” he adds. “Support staff should, at a minimum, help find and find the right answers in the knowledge base.Things You Should Know Before Choosing A Web Hosting Company?
Designing and developing websites is becoming increasingly easier and more accessible thanks to an expanding array of web development tools and a growing demand for businesses and organizations to have an online presence.
But finding the right place to host your website can be a daunting task, especially as there are a number of reputable services, each with their own benefits and tradeoffs. You might end up paying too much for things you don’t need or missing out on things that are vital to your business.
Here are five questions that will help you evaluate the services of web hosting platforms and find one that fits your needs.
Which content management system is supported?
One of the most important things you need to know before signing up for a web hosting company is the content management system (CMS) they support. We recommend that you set up your WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal website, depending on your goals and available assets. However, your needs may change in the future and you may need to switch to another CMS.
"A great web hosting platform allows you to set up any number of websites with your CMS of choice, with an easy-to-use interface like a step-by-step wizard," said software engineer David Foster. I am. Web hosting company HostGator. "Ideally, you need additional tools that allow you to customize the structure of your site to your specific needs. B. E-commerce websites or discussion forums-and customize it for your business with minimal effort.
HostGator supports Softaculous, an application that makes it easy to install over 190 CMS platforms and scripts, including WordPress, AbanteCart, PrestaShop, Joomla, phpBB, OpenRealEstate and more.
Important Part All hosting services come with migration support. Do you support website transfers from another service? Will it help me migrate from one CMS to another?
"The automatic migration tool is basically needed, but it's rarely enough. Your website has been around for years and contains legacy code and assets," Foster said. He added that a good hosting platform needs a support team to help simplify the migration process.
How much adjustment can I make?
Website access and server configuration granularity can be important when choosing a hosting service. Some companies offer only basic site-level management. B. wpadmin access to the WordPress website. This is fine for very simple use cases, but it is a limitation if you want to extend the functionality of your website to meet your organization's needs.
“A good hosting platform needs to offer different levels of access and customization to meet its needs,” says Foster.
For example, HostGator's cPanel contains FTP access to the file manager and website backend. “These options ensure that we cover everything from basic to advanced,” says Foster.
Foster also suggests looking for advanced features such as DNS, SSL / TLS certificates, and email hosting support that match your domain. "It gives you a central hub to manage everything related to your website," he says.
Will you be protected?
No web hosting plan is complete without protection against common cyber threats. To be clear, at the end of the day, you are responsible for the security of your digital assets. And if hacked, your digital assets, customers, and reputation can suffer irreparable damage through monetary compensation.
However, it's good to know what kind of help you can get from hosting services.
“At a minimum, a good hosting service should provide automatic updates for major CMS platforms such as WordPress. At a deeper level it should also make sure the underlying services such as Apache, MySQL, and PHP are secure are patched for known vulnerabilities,” Foster says. “In most cases, updates are the first line of defense against most web attacks, such as SQL injection and crosssite scripting (XSS).”
Foster points out, however, that there are some things that no hosting service can protect you against, such as vulnerabilities in custom themes written with poorly written code, or themes with intentionally implanted vulnerabilities downloaded from illegal websites. “I can’t tell you how many times I talked with someone who had installed a custom theme they had downloaded (torrented more often than not) and had inadvertently installed a backdoor into their account as a result,” he says.
Some of the better hosting services have specialized features that scan the source code of your web applications for known vulnerable coding patterns and malware. The HostGator plan includes SiteLock, a web security technology that includes a web application firewall and protects your website from outdated vulnerable code, SQL injection and other threats.
The
bonus is protection against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. In this attack, a malicious botnet attacks a website and floods it with bogus traffic so that no one else can access it. Not all websites are subject to DDoS attacks, but if you are afraid that you might be the target, check with your hosting service to see if they have a DDoS mitigation plan or if they have a partner who can help you with support.
What's your plan?
Not all websites have the same resource requirements. Some might end up attracting millions of visitors each month while others will become more specialized in their field and get less traffic. Some organizations might require dedicated servers due to their regulatory needs, while others might be content with sharing resources with other websites to cut down costs.
“A good hosting service should have a flexible pricing plan that responds to the needs of every type of customer,” Foster says. “Pricing plans should provide discounts for users who make longterm purchases. The hosting service should also be transparent about what they charge you for, what their plan doesn’t include.”
Equally important is a support team that can guide you toward the best pricing plan that suits your needs, not the most expensive one