Online we have about 263 million links related with the web hosting to look for. Now it depend on us how we select the right one according to our need and requirement. Which company is fulfilling our need? So before going ahead go through this piece of writing it will explain every option of a typical web host and also explain what they are about, and tell us whether we need them or not.

Here we are going to discuss some basic things for a host:

1- BANDWIDTH- Every hosting plan comes with a set amount of bandwidth also referred as transfer sometimes. Bandwidth means amount of information passed between the web hosting server and a visitor’s computer. Companies provide us bandwidth on a monthly allowance, which is generally in a unit known as Megabytes (MB) or Gigabytes (GB). When visitors come to visit our website than their computer pulls information from the server where our website is located on and transfers it to their computer and some bandwidth is allocated with this transfer of information. It depends on the nature of our website how much bandwidth is consumed in this transferring process. More intricate our web page is the more bandwidth it uses per visitor. Generally Pages with text only uses less bandwidth than the pages with lots of photos, music, etc. So, if we are planning for an intricate site and expecting lots of visitor, than go for plan providing lots of bandwidth.

2- SPACE- The second thing and the important one is space and all hosting plans include this. The amount of storage allocated for our website to place in is known as space. This space will be in Megabytes (MB) or Gigabytes (GB). The space and stuff are directly proportional means more the space more the stuff we can put online. If we are planning on putting pictures or big files online, than check that the hosting plan will provide large amount of space while for a small site with few pages will require less space. A plan including 500 MB of storage and 1 GB of transfer is typical one and more than enough for a small website.

The above discussed are basics of web hosting now third one is extra which adds new features to the sites are as follows.

3-EXTRAS-

[a] Email- For many of us email is not an extra feature but actually for the well functioning of our website emails are considered as extra. Universally email account is must for a person owning a website. One email address per person is required on most sites so check the no of people behind the site and allot one mail address to them. For example, if our website is a family website, than one email address to each family member is required to allot while Business sites are required to have multiple email addresses. So if we are starting a business website we should find a hosting plan with many email addresses. POP3 email allows us to use outlook, thunderbird, and other email programs like that. A typical/ intricate website needs 3 email address so always stuck to the plan giving POP3 facility.

[b] FTP [File Transfer Protocol] – This is another useful extra which transfer the files between our computer and our website easily and quickly. The sites which are small and not to be updated do not require FTP but if our plan is to create a business website or an intricate one than switch to the plan giving FTP access.

[c] SUB DOMAINS-. A Sub domain is simply something.yourdomain.com. We can place whatever word we like in front of our domain name and have it directed to a different webpage. For example, if we had pictures located on our site at www.mysite.com/pictures, we could add a sub domain and rearrange that link to look like pictures.yoursite.com. It is generally used by more experienced users and most of us do not need them; so don’t pick a host based on these.

[d] My SQL Databases- It is necessary for things like photo galleries, calendars, shopping carts, etc and simple sites do not need these databases, but if we are looking to place a photo gallery, support system, etc. on our site than we should get a hosting plan with these databases. One database is required for each item using My SQL, so pick a plan with enough databases meeting our specific need. Always be aware of hosts, which charges extra if we decide later on that requirement. Hence we should try to find a host that is flexible and will allow us to add on to our package at anytime.

4- SUPPORT- this is an absolutely most important and ultimate feature while considering web hosting! We should not consider a web host who does not provide high-quality support. If we do so we will be in a problem. Since we are not professional Webmasters, we’ll find something that we don’t know how to do or fix, and at that time, great support is quite critical. So we need a host that can reply to our support requests quickly, and correctly. Always Pick a host that has been highly rated, and put more emphasis on support than other attractive offers like marketing or flashy site designs. Never sign any hosts that will ask anything to get signed up, and also beware of sites that charge for support. [A good web host included great support with all of their plans.]

All the features of web hosting are not discussed here, but the most important and most widespread are two issues that arise with web hosting [a] what server operating system to pick [b] and what type of hosting to pick.

About 90% of people are on a shared server (a server with many different hosting clients on it), while the remaining one want a dedicated server. For big business and high traffic sites needs a dedicated server, which are little expensive. Dedicated servers provide service to us only hence named as dedicated.

LINUX server system is highly recommended one operating system. They are more stable and often cheaper than windows servers. Do not worry about not being able to find scripts that will work with Linux servers because Linux has a huge following and most scripts are designed to work on it. Also many great scripts are available for Linux.

Conclusion

Always focus on service and support provided for a web hosting company. Make out an estimate figure of what we need (in terms of space and transfer) and then look for a reputable host that can provide us our basic needs, great support, and good prices. Don’t go for a free host always look for a good price because these are almost terrible hosting plans, which provide bad service and older (often slower) servers. We can even ask some people around us having a website and can recommend a good host. We should talk to our host before joining and never afraid of asking questions. After all, this is the only way to evaluate their support before you join and afterwards.