How to Choose a Web Host
by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com
What are some of the things you should look for when choosing a web host? The criteria for choosing a free web host and a commercial web hosting solution are slightly different although they do overlap. Sincethesitewizard.com caters to people who might be looking for either of these types of hosting, I will deal with each of these in turn. If you are only interested in one of these types, you can simply skip to the appropriate section. I have written these sections to be as independent of the other as possible.
Choosing a Free Web Host
Advertising
Most free web hosts impose advertising on your website. This is done to cover the costs of providing your site the free web space and associated services. Some hosts require you to place a banner on your pages, others display a window that pops up every time a page on your site loads, while still others impose an advertising frame on your site. There is really no hard and fast rule which is to be preferred: some people hate a pop-up window, other webmasters dislike having to stuff banner codes into their pages, and many people cannot stand an advertising frame (which may cause problems when you submit your website to search engines). Whichever method is used, check that you're comfortable with the method.
Note that free web hosts without forced advertisements aren't necessarily good news. Without viable means to recover the costs of running their server, such hosts close with alarming frequency.Amount of web space
Does it have enough space for your needs? If you envisage that you will expand your site eventually, you might want to anticipate future expansion. Most sites use less than 5MB of web space. Indeed, at one time, one of my other web sites, thefreecountry.com, used less than 5MB of space although it had about 150 pages on the site. Your needs will vary, depending on how many pictures your pages use, whether you need sound files, video clips, etc.FTP access
FTP is the most common method used by people to transfer their web pages and other files from their computer to their web host's computer, so that it can be viewed by anyone in the world.
Some free hosting providers only allow you to design your page with their online site builder. While this is useful for beginners, do you have the option to expand later when you become experienced and their online page builder does not have the facility you need? Online site builders also have significant disadvantages, a subject which I discuss at length in my article comparing online site builders with standalone web editors.
FTP access, or at the very least, the ability to upload your pages by email or browser, is needed. Personally, I feel FTP access is mandatory, except for the most trivial sites.File type and size limitations
Watch out for these. Some free hosts impose a maximum size on each of the files you upload (including one with a low of 200KB). Other sites restrict the file types you can upload to HTML and GIF/JPG files. If your needs are different, eg, if you want to distribute your own programs on your pages, you will have to look elsewhere.Reliability and speed of access
This is extremely important. A site that is frequently down will lose a lot of visitors. If someone finds your site from the search engines, and he/she tries to access it but find that it is down, he/she will simply go to another site. Slow access is also very frustrating for visitors (and for you too, when you upload your site). How do you know if a host is reliable or fast? If you can't get feedback from anyone, one way is to try it out yourself over a period of time, both during peak as well as off-peak hours. After all, it is free, so you can always experiment with it.PHP and/or Perl
(In case you're wondering: What is PHP and Perl?)
It's quite possible for a website to work even without PHP or Perl access. For example, you can always use one of the many free script hosting services available that provide counters, search engines, forms, polls,mailing lists, etc, without requiring you to dabble with Perl or PHP scripts.
However if you really want to do it yourself, with the minimum of advertising banners from these free providers, you will need either PHP or Perl access. Note that it is not enough to know they provide PHP or Perl access: you need to know the kind of environment your scripts run under: is it so restrictive that they are of no earthly use? For PHP scripts, does your web host allow you to use themail()function, which allows your scripts to send email? For Perl scripts, do you have access tosendmail(a computer program) or its workalike?Bandwidth allotment
Nowadays, many free web hosts impose a limit on the amount of traffic your website can use per day and per month. This means that if the pages (and graphic images) on your site is loaded by visitors beyond a certain number of times per day (or per month), the web host will disable your web site (or perhaps send you a bill). It is difficult to recommend a specific minimum amount of bandwidth, since it depends on how you design your site, your target audience, and the number of visitors you're able to attract to your site. In general, 100MB traffic per month is too little for anything other than your personal home page and 1-3GB traffic per month is usually adequate for a simple site just starting out. Your mileage, however, will vary.
Choosing a Commercial Web Host it is..
