Anyone who is interesting in starting a website has to be concerned with web hosting. However, there are many things that people don’t know about web hosting. They don’t know what it is or how to choose a host. Here are some great tips about web hosting so you can make smart decisions about your website.
Find out what kinds of web pages you can create using each potential web host. Most free hosting services offer only static web pages, meaning you won’t be able to script your own language. If your goal is to be creative, innovative, and unique, you might want to find a paid option instead.
When transferring your site between hosts, have a copy of your website at both your old and new hosts for a few days. It’s important to do this because it takes 6-48 hours for the DNS to propagate. During this time, some visitors will be sent to your old website, while others whose ISPs have updated their DNS info will be sent to your new site.
After you have your site up and going, it is important that you gather statistics about your site. These statistics tell you many things including how many customers and their actions. Find a great web hosting service that provides these types of statistics for you to make business decisions about.
Make certain to read reviews to determine whether your potential web host has frequent periods of downtime. If your website is often inaccessible to visitors, there can be drastically negative consequences. For example, if you are running an online business, downtime directly translates into lost business because potential customers will not be able to access your website. Customers may also feel uncomfortable conducting transactions on your website because they might believe your website to be unreliable. Choose a web host that does not have a history of being offline frequently.
To prepare yourself for the experience of using a free web host, get used to the idea that you will have a lot of downtime. Staying up all the time takes some specialized equipment that free hosts don’t really have the budget for. As a result, your site may be down more than it is up.
You should know that not all web hosting services support Flash plug in. Using Flash on your site allows you to create a more interactive experience for your visitors, for instance with videos, games and new design possibilities. If you are not planning on using Flash, this is not a feature you should worry about.
The Price point is not really an indicator of quality in a web host. The variety of options that are available from most web hosts is rather broad, not to mention the efforts to market a business or compete in the market. You can see so much fluctuation in price that you could never pinpoint the best host easily. Research the host, not the price.
If money is tight or your website has not begun to profit yet, you can always go with a free hosting site. While they may not be the most ideal web hosts, and may not offer the amount of options you would like, free hosts are a good place to start when starting up a new website.
Now that you’ve learned a bit about web hosting, take the information in this article and use it when you are choosing a host or hosting a site yourself. The right web host can make or break the success of your site, so learn as much as you possibly can about hosting and you’ll be happy you did.
