Tips
Web hosting choices abound on the
Internet. Free, or monthly services fees,
dedicated servers. Unix or Windows
NT. FTP uploads or Microsoft FrontPage
extensions. E-Commerce, shopping
carts. Domain name, or vanity
domain. Where to start!
Here are a few things to look for.
Domain Name
Get a domain name! It's absolutely the
first thing that you should do when launching
anything on the Internet. This reserves
your intended name to you, before somebody else
grabs that great idea of yours!
Price
Pricing should not be your main
concern! Free services are available,
however, if you're serious about your site, you
really should consider a paid service.
Most free services will display pop-up banners
or the like on your site. As a result, you
won't have full control over your site's content
or look.
There are many reasonably priced services out
there...find one that's reliable that suits your
needs.
Reliable
Reliability should be one of your major
concerns. If your site is constantly down,
your clients will wonder if you've gone out of
business, and may look elsewhere. A
reliable service is a requirement to ensure
constant growth. A point of interest...if
your site is unavailable when search engines are
trying to index it, you may be removed
completely. This is not a good thing!
Operating System
People have their own preference here.
We use both Windows NT and Unix based services,
but would have to give the edge to Unix based
providers. You seem to have more control
over your site, without incurring special setup
fees for items such as Custom Error Pages.
For example, NT hosts may charge a fee for each
custom error page, while it's simple to do
yourself under Unix.
Features
You'll have to think about what you need
here. FrontPage extensions or not.
How much space do you need. Do you need
one email address, or unlimited? Remember
that features and pricing are usually directly
related to each other.
Resources
Related Pages
