How To Find A Webhosting Company To Hold Your Website

Home The Webmaster Biz Web Site Basics HTML/XHTML CSS PHP Visual Basic FREE Scripts SEO Site Promotion Media Center Site Map Free Templates

Bookmark this page and share it with others! (Or press Ctrl/D on Firefox)

How To Find A Webhosting Company To Hold Your Website

Once you have an idea for a website and bought a domain name you will need to find a webhosting company. This is a webhosting review to let you know what options you have and what to look for in a webhosting site.

There are many free web webhosting sites such as Angelfire, Maxpages, Geocities and such. These are great practice sites. They even offer upgrade packages which allow you to have a proper domain and remove their ads.

These webhosting services can help you get use to how to design a site. However on a practical level they don't look professional. You are being shrouded by whatever ad these sites want to present to the visitors you worked hard to bring to see you, not your webhosting sponsors.

Even if you pay for the upgrades on these webhosting sites, you get very little for your money in terms of storage and bandwidth allotment.

A really good reason not to use a free site for a professional presence, it reeks fly-by-night! When you have an online business, you want to convey to potential customers that you plan to be around for awhile. Too many people have abused such sites and sites connected with them are automatically under spam suspicion which does not hold very well for search engine rankings. Even if you buy a webhosting package from these site, the reputation will still haunt your website tied into that IP address.

If you bought your domain name directly from a domain name site, you will need to find a place to host it. You can also find a webhost service which will give you a very low cost domain name or include it free when you sign up. The drawback to doing it that way is it is harder to transfer to a different web host if you are dissatisfied with the service.

With your name in reserve, you will need to make plans on how you will host your site. Will you keep your computer on 24/7 running up your electric bill and running into problems with hackers if you don't know security measures and the need to constantly back things up in case your computer crashes and if your computer crashes, you will have serious down time.

If you have the equipment, time and resources to handle it, that is the best way to go. If you know what you are doing, this is the cheapest way to host your website. You have more control. If you don't know what you are doing, you will have the problems mentioned above.

If you don't know how to set up your own server, you will probably choose to have someone else host it for you which is easier and causes less problems in the long run. Many webhosting companies have computers whose sole purpose is only to serve web site files. They have larger computer memories, extra backup units, better and stable connections, and technical support.

Always compare the options. Sometimes webhosting companies will have random special offers to offer lower monthly prices, rebates, and even buy one year get another free.

If you are just starting, you really do not need thousands of e-mail addresses or huge amounts of bandwidth. Buy the lowest amount of package available and after a month, look at your statistics. If your efforts are bringing in less than 1% of your bandwidth and available space, chances are great you will probably not max it out in the next year. However, if after a week you have maxed out either, opt for the next higher up until you find what works for you.

When you do find the webhosting package that fits your needs, you can save money by signing up for longer terms such as 6 months or up to 2 years. You pay for these in advance, but are given a huge discount on the price. Plus you don't have to worry about remembering to pay each month and risk getting cut off.

If you buy a webhosting package on terms of more than a year, make sure they have a policy in place to give you a free automatic upgrade should technology changes.

I had a bad experience with a webhosting company. I bought into it for 3 years for a good price. However, as technology upgrades were implemented and they would not service malfunctions of old technology I paid for almost 3 years ago, they said I must pay a $50 upgrade fee or would have to settle for a malfunctioning control panel and cgi scripts which no longer worked. The point is I paid for certain features in advance and they should have made sure those features were in working order for the entire period of time.

There are big companies which can charge anywhere from $25-$150/month for professional webhosting packages which would break the budget of most budding business people. Unless you have a proven track record to generate the traffic and popularity of web sites such as Yahoo!, Google! or MSN, you probably will not need to get those expensive webhosting packages.

There are low cost webhosting alternatives if you do not have a big budget. Try some of these reliable and reasonably priced webhosting companies:

Easy CGI

Easy CGI webhosting site gives you 6000MB disk space, 150GB data transfer, 500 POP e-mail accounts and more all for $7.96/month. It also allows you to transfer to an intermediate account when your website needs grow.

Globat
Globat Web Hosting
This is also another of my favorite webhosting sites. I use it for six of my websites. It is very low cost and a fairly reliable service. Customer service is friendly and they do get to your questions by e-mail roughly within a few hours.

1 & 1

Live in the UK or EU area and looking for UK webhosting options? Consider 1 & 1. The 1 & 1 Home Package. 1 & 1 web hosting service offers everything you need to create an attractive Internet web presence for your family or hobbies and is great for beginners. On the other end of the spectrum is the 1&1 Professional package which is the ultimate Linux shared hosting solution, containing everything you need to create a Blue Chip web presence which is meant for the serious professional.

Packages range from £3.99 - £15.99

What To Do After You Pick Your Host?

If you bought a domain name from a domain registration company instead of your webhosting company, you will need to contact the domain registration company with the details of your webhost's unique IP number so the domain name will point to where your website will be found. It usually takes under 24 hours, but in some cases can be up to 72. Often it can take a few minutes if you use e-nom.

Your webhosting welcome package will also include vital information on how to upload pages if you are using an FTP client [File Transfer Protocol]. I use Ipswitch which has been very reliable. You can also transfer by a drag and drop method if you have a Windows system. Both methods will require the log in information.

To do it by drag and drop, open your web browser and type in the ftp address to your site. It will ask for your log in information and sign you in. Click on the files you want to show up on your site and drag them into the web browser window [or press control and C to copy your selected files and press Control and V on the web browser to paste it or click Publish To The Web in Windows XP.]

With an FTP client, each has a different method of access your site, so be sure to read the instructions.

Some webhosts allow you to upload directly through a control panel page on their site. Still other webhosting companies have a control panel where you can use their WYSIWYG panel to design your site or opt for pro where you will need to know what you are doing. Many webhosting companies even have templates ready made for your use, but use with caution.

Once you pick a webhosting company, be sure you are getting what you paid for! There are watch services that will keep tabs on your website and notify you if your website is not live. When your website is down, all the hard work you put into promoting it is lost when people come to visit it and find nothing. You cannot assume that the person trying to visit your site at that time will be back again. If you have affiliates or others who are doing business with you, or are considering doing business with you, if your website is down when they check up on you they may decide to drop you.

Carefully weigh your options when it comes to finding a webhosting. There are so many out there and they should be competing for YOUR business.

Webmaster Resources - Create A Successful Web Site

I Support

Web Site Contents

Music Lovers Bar

FREE Download

Listen to the radio while you surf; featuring a variety of stations and genres from around the world.

How To Find A Webhosting Company To Hold Your Website

Easy CGI

Globat

1 & 1

What To Do After You Pick Your Host?

Webmaster Resources - Create A Successful Web Site

Web Site Contents

Music Lovers Bar

Find It Now