When you sign up for a webhost, you want to choose well the first time or you’ll end up moving all your files if you’ve chosen poorly. Some things you need to know before you sign up with a webhost…

You don’t always get what you pay for

Paying for hosting is like paying rent. It’s a fee paid for the server space and bandwidth allocated to you. Not so different than paying for an apartment and the electricity to heat it.

Imagine two identical apartment buildings. One is divided into 20 large apartments. The other is divided into 100 teeny apartments. You’d think the bigger one should cost more, because you get more, right?

Well, don’t apply that kind of logic to the hosting industry.

A lot of hosting companies cram way too many accounts on a server. The more accounts crammed on a server, the less efficient the server is going to work.

You’d think that it’s the “cheap” hosting companies doing it, but price isn’t always relevant. I’ve seen huge hosting companies and major ISP’s cramming their servers. And I’ve seen hosting accounts on overloaded servers selling for low prices and obscenely high prices.

Don’t assume that a higher price means better hosting, or that a lower price means lower quality. That’s not always the case.

There’s no such thing as “unlimited”

You’ll see hosting companies offering “unlimited” space or bandwidth. That’s a marketing ploy. There is no magical server that has an unlimited supply of disc space or bandwidth. When hosts offer “unlimited” space or bandwidth, you’ll usually find a disclaimer in their terms defining what “unlimited” means. Usually the fees for going over are much, much higher than you’d pay for a reliable and reasonably priced hosting account.

99% Uptime isn’t good enough

Did you know that if your host offers 99% uptime, your site can be offline for 7.3 hours/month and be within the guarantee? 99.5% uptime can have you offline for 3.65 hours every month.You might not think that being offline for 4-7 hours a month sounds ‘too’ bad… but if it happens to be when Googlebot or another search bot comes checking your site and your site doesn’t respond for hours, you could just find yourself de-indexed. And that just might matter. When you choose a webhost, be sure that they have reliable servers don’t crash regularly.

Windows OS and Windows Server are NOT the same

A lot of people think that if they have windows operating system on their computer, they need windows hosting. Not so. That’s like thinking you can only wear a Nike shirt with your Nike runners. They have nothing to do with each other.

Windows hosting is only needed if you are using programming language that requires Windows server. If you don’t know what application server is, and your site isn’t written in .asp, you don’t need windows hosting or the headaches that come from signing up for it when the programs you want to run are meant for Unix hosting.

To make a long story short, get a Unix/Linux hosting package, k?

Recommended Webhosts

The two webhosts I use and recommend for their server reliability and great features are these (first choice) and these (second choice). Both of them have “one click” wordpress installation, too.

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