What’s the most convenient choice for web hosting and how can you understand and compare different web hosting plans in order to make the right choice for your needs? We’ll answer these questions and many more along the way in this simple guide to making the right choice with your web hosting service.
Just getting started?
If you’re about to enter the world of web development for the first time, it’s best to choose a shared web hosting plan and futher upgrade it to VPS and dedicated hosting when your website grows.
Web Hosting Types
Docker Hosting
Docker hosting is hosting services designed to work well with containers and large service providers, including Amazon and Google, are now offering Docker hosting as part of their service portfolios. A docker shares the server’s kernel through the use of container. Each container can share resources all the way to namespaces, chroot and file system of the host operating system. Virtualization can be done much more efficiently, with each container operating just as independently without hogging the allocated server resources when they are not in use. This is a great options for web developers as it provides as it offers a quick set-up, high efficiency and works well with a wide range of server options.
Free Hosting
You can also choose among several free hosting plans that websites suh as WordPress, Weebly or Wix may offer. Yet, bare in mind that this is a temporary option and will sensibly limit your control over your website. Moreover, migrating a website from free to paid web hosting is a complext and tiresome process. This is why, choosing a cheaper hosting for a short period contract is the best choice for web devs who are just getting introduced to hosting.
Shared Hosting
While free hosting plans place your website of a subdomain, shared hosting allows you to own you own domain and host it on a service along with a number of other websites. This is a cost-effective solution which usually offers good speed and multiple software solutions for e-mail, database, etc.
Dedicated Hosting
This web hosting type offers you to host your website on a dedicated server and it’s a great option for businesses and websites with high amounts of traffic. It offers powerful database and e-mail solutions and can host multiple domain names. Dedicated hosting is a more expensive web hosting option for those who need their website to have top performance 24/7.
Web Hosting Features To Keep in Mind
Server Types
Depending on the languange with which your website is coded and several other factors, you can choose from a variety of server types. The most popular sever types are Apache, IIS and lighttpd. You need to pick the server type that suits your needs, whether you website is written on PHP, .NET or Java. Check if the servers of the web host support the last Аpache versions and what options does the webshost offer for tuning in the server.
Bandwidth Size
The bandwith is determined by the amount of traffic that you aquire as well as the size of the content you host on your website. While passing your bandwith limit will get your website offline or end in charging you a hefty fee, unlimited bandwidth is rarely completely unlimited and often has a slower response time.
Server Uptime
Having a web host which operates 24/7 without any outage is extremely important for maintaining a fully functional website. There are many reasons why a stable network connection is essential for your website’s development and user experience is just one of them. Constantly receiving server errors will hinder your website’s performance in search engines and will drop your rankings in the SERP. You can use uptime monitoring tools, such as UptimeRobot, to track the performance of up to 50 websites without paying a dime. You should go for web hosts which offer 99% uptime or higher as having your website crawled during the time it is down will severely hurt its performance in search engines and decrease user experience.
Connection Speed
Wondering what connection speed you can expect from a specific web host? You can easily test a couple of websites hosted on a given server with the help of online tools, such as Pingdom. Having a good connection speed is extremely important for your website’s performance in the search engines, as well as the overall user experience you site, provides. This is why you need to go for a web host which offers high connectivity speed. Keep in mind the country of your targeted audience and make sure to test the connectivity speed for the current region your traffic will be coming from.
Multiple Domains
Do you web hosting plan allow you to host multiple domains and how much does it charge for this feature? This is a question every webmaster should ask himself when choosing a hosting service for the first time. When starting your very first web development project, running multiple websites might seem like a far-off idea. Yet, depending on your future plans of further development and website expansion, you might need to consider owning multiple domains.
Many webmasters choose to purchase a website with multiple top-level domains and redirecting all additional to the main website to avoid having name theft problems with competitors in the future. Setting up a subdomain is another feature which is extremely useful for hosting blogs or additional platforms on e-commerce and service websites. Since owning multiple domains is a common thing among webmasters, the web hosting plan you choose should, at least, include an option for further update.
E-mail Hosting
If you wish to host your own e-mail address together with your website, there are several options for you to choose from. You can either use your web host’s feature for e-mail hosting or go for a free option, such as Google Email Apps. The first five e-mails will be hosted for free and any additional one will cost you $5 a month.
Conclusion
Asking yourself the right questions is an essential part of choosing the most convenient web hosting plan. Depending on the type of website you’re building, the needs of specialised applications and software and the amount of traffic you plan on attracting to your website, you can pick from a wide array of web hosting options. You should always plan ahead and make sure you’re making the right choice for the long run.
