Finding a Web Host

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by Aaron West

Settling on a web host can be the toughest, yet most important decision a web developer can make. For me, the best way to find a web host is to make a list of what I require. This can include platform, price, speed, accessibility, plus many other things. Once I have that list, I know what I'm shopping for and finding the right host comes easily. I'm going to talk to you about what you should include on the list and why you should include it.

Server Platform

NT or UNIX? Heated debates have been going for years on this very subject. I'm not going to talk about which platform is better. I have my opinion but there's no use rehashing the same debate. Both platforms have their advantages. Which to choose depends on what kind of web site you need served.

If you're putting up standard HTML without any server side scripting or database support this isn't as great of an issue. Flip a coin. Professional web hosts will have stable servers regardless of the platform.

This decision depends on what sort of scripting or application development will be done on your site. If you plan to use Perl, PHP or MySQL, UNIX is the choice although NT does have some Perl support. If you plan to use ASP or Front Page Extensions, NT is probably the best choice.

If you aren't sure what scripting language would work best for you, visit Scriptsearch and find out what's available for each platform.

What about the big, reliable companies?

Just about every Internet Service Provider offers web hosting at some level. Some offer full domain name hosting packages while others offer limited personal page hosting.

The benefit of having a larger company (like Mindspring) host your site is that they will probably offer more support than the smaller companies will. If this is your first site, this might not be a bad idea. Unfortunately, support is about the only benefit of going with a big ISP.

You will pay for the ISP's name. Most hosting packages offered by larger companies are considerably overpriced. You'll end up paying a lot for the name and the support.

Many ISP hosts are slower than the little guys. This might not make much sense, but believe me this is true. Not only are these companies hosting several domains, but are hosting thousands or maybe millions of Internet access accounts. This can cause their network to become bogged down during peak hours. Your site will slow down dramatically as a result.

We recommend against going with a big name unless you feel you'll need and use the support they offer or if you plan to host a personal page with your personal account.

Space/Traffic/E-mail

You will find that many hosting rates depend on the amount of space, traffic and the amount of e-mail accounts. For this reason, it's a good idea to know what you'll need before you get on the server.

Most hosting packages start no lower than 5 megabytes. Web pages are small so in most cases 5 megabytes is plenty. If you plan on putting up thousands of pages, having a lot of files for downloads, or storing some of your own stuff, then you may want to think about using more space.

Try to determine approximately how much file size you expect to take up and purchase a plan that offers more than that.

Many hosts also offer only a certain amount of traffic. If you expect thousands of hits a day, you might require more traffic. The traffic measurement is based on how much in file size is downloaded off of your site. Remember that every visitor has to download every graphic and text file on your site. To accurately project how much traffic you're going to get, you have to find out the file size of the average page, and multiply that by the expected number of page hits.

Many hosts also offer a certain number of e-mail accounts that come with the package and charge for extras. Sometimes that charge can be as much as $5 per account. If this is for a company for 200 employees, that charge could get steep. Of course if you only need 1 e-mail account, this could be a way to find a better price.

Other things to take into consideration

Uptime is important. Every company will say they're up 99.9% of the time. If that number is really closer to 95% this means the server can be down a couple hours out of the week. If you're planning on running a big web site, you can't have this. Investigate the company further. If possible, ask if you can call some of their other clients.

Most web host companies now offer stat packages. Some of these can be pretty good. Others can be horrible, like Wusage for example. It's always a good idea to know who and how many are hitting your site. Find out what they're offering.

If you plan to take orders over the Internet, find out if your host offers SSL (Secure Socket Layer). If the server isn't secure, many people will not buy.

Some web hosts will even provide you with free scripts, such as shopping carts that have already been setup. These scripts are usually not to professional looking, but can save plenty of time if you don't care how the checkout system looks. Some even have scripts for mailing lists, bulletin boards, guestbooks, etc.

Price

This is the most important of all criteria. You might decide that you need everything mentioned above, and need it in heavy abundance. The price might convince you to start a little smaller.

How much should you expect to pay? I personally wouldn't pay less than $20 for any site, regardless of the size. I also know that the more I shop around, the less I'll pay.

Where do I find them?

There are plenty of places to look on the Internet. There are literally thousands of hosting companies, all of whom are trying to be found. You can find them through search engines, resource sites, discussion groups, newsgroups, etc.

GL|Dev has a nice directory with plenty of resources to help you begin finding a host.

If you look hard enough, you'll find them.

Good luck.