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There
are some simple rules to follow when looking for a web host. The first
rule is to avoid free hosts whenever possible, it is easy to think that
a free service is preferable to paying a monthly fee however with web
hosting this is definetly not the case.
Paid
hosting has several important advantages over free hosting. Firstly you
will receive more useful features with paid hosting. Technical support
will be much better with help available when you need it. Generally
speaking Paid hosts will have much faster connections to the internet
so your site will appear quicker. Most importantly with paid hosting
you won't have to display a banner on each page advertising the Hosting
Company and advertising to the world that you are on a free host. With
excellent hosting packages starting from $5.95 per month there is no
reason why you shouldn't go with a paid host.
The
second simple rule concerns what operating system to choose. You will
find hosts offering you Windows Hosting or Linux Hosting, it is
tempting to choose windows as it's a name everyone knows and many
people mistakenly believe that because their PC runs windows they need
a Windows Host but in this case they'd be wrong. Whichever hosting
package you choose you will receive a control panel through which you
administer your site these are graphical environments through which you
can control many aspects of your website from configuring your web mail
and installing forum software to creating a database. Take a lead from
the marble halls of business most major companies host their websites
on Linux Servers. Linux Servers generally runs faster and are more
secure than a windows server. This is partly due to how the operating
systems are built. Windows try to include every possible function in
the base package whilst Linux allows the host company to add the
functions they need.
The
final thing to consider when choosing a host is the list of features
they offer. If you don't know much about html you can look for a host
that supplies you with free website building software and some of the
better ones will even supply free Domain names. You should look at a
number of different companies and compare what they offer as standard
with their hosting plans. Technical aspects to consider are; the amount
of disk space available to you and how much monthly bandwidth you have
to use. Look at how many email accounts you can have the more the
better. Customer support features should not be overlooked check to see
what their response time is and if it's anymore than an hour look
elsewhere, also consider if they offer a money back guarantee.
Look
to see what additional services they include in the package for example
do they offer daily backups? Make sure that they offer support for PHP
as this is quickly becoming the programming language of choice with web
programmers.
To
conclude when choosing a website Host look for a paid host with Linux
hosting and then compare the packages on offer from a variety of
companies.
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