| What to Look For in Web Hosting Plans
With the many different types of web hosting providers available today, deciding which one is best for you can be overwhelming. There are literally thousands of different services that are offered to internet users and selecting the right one for you can take a great deal of research and time. Many of the web hosting services offer many different types of features, but in order to find the service that is best for your needs, you have to know what your options are. Here is a quick look at some of the common web hosting providers and what they have to offer.
}Free web hosting is offered by many different companies. The most well known ones are Yahoo, HubPages and Squidoo; however there are others. Free hosting means that you do not have to pay anything upfront to use the web hosting service. As a result, there is generally very limited web hosting pricing information available on the company websites.
When comparing web hosting companies, one of the most important characteristics is the cost per month to use their servers. Web hosts typically offer two methods of payment. The most popular method is through a service such as PayPal that requires an initial deposit to open the account. Other companies may offer other methods of payment. These include credit cards, electronic checks and online shopping carts.
In general, web hosting pricing information is broken down into three categories: domain name, servers and plans. Domain names are the names you enter into your web hosting account. They are not attached to your web host, so they are entirely up to you. Domain name prices range from ten dollars to about twenty-five dollars per name.
Servers are the storage areas for web hosting services. They are usually inexpensive, ranging from five dollars to about ten dollars per month, depending on the size of the server. Although these are small in size, they can have a tremendous effect on the amount of bandwidth that you have access to as well as the amount of data that can be stored on them. These costs can change between providers based upon the type of server resources they utilize.
An uptime guarantee refers to the time frame that the web hosting platform has been available to use without a problem. You will need to request a free website speed test from each provider that you are investigating. The speed test should provide you with accurate information about the uptime guarantee that each company offers.
Other important characteristics to look for are bandwidth and storage. It is not uncommon for providers to offer unlimited bandwidth and disk space. However, you should make sure that it is worth the cost of this service, especially if you expect to have a high number of visitors to your site. It can be a good idea to compare the price per month versus the price per transfer, which can help you determine whether you would be better off paying for more transfer data rather than having unlimited bandwidth.
The hosting plans that you are evaluating should have all of the important characteristics listed above. If you do not find all of these characteristics in the price that you are quoted, then you may want to move on to another provider. There are many companies out there that offer hosting plans that have all of these types of features. If you find one that does not have all of these features, then you should ask for a discount or consider switching to a different provider because you may find a company that offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth for less money. When you compare hosting plans, you can easily see how important it is to find out what each of the important components on the site you are looking at includes.
