So, you’re in the process of launching your very first website.  Or maybe you’ve had issues with your current hosting company and are looking to change providers.  A quick search for “website hosting” or “hosting companies” brings up millions of results, with all of the companies claiming to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.  ABC hosting company offers 250 MB of storage space and 5 GB of throughput.  XYZ company offers 300 MB of disk space and 3 GB of data transfer.  Disk space, throughput… what does all of this mean?  If you’re like a lot of folks out there, you have no clue and choosing the right company can be a daunting task. 

Finding the right provider doesn’t have to be stressful though.  I’ve outlined some basics that you should take into consideration when choosing the hosting company that best meets your needs. 

Bandwidth & Throughput
Although sometimes used interchangeably, bandwidth and throughput are not the same thing.  Bandwidth refers to the size of the hosting company’s Internet connection, and throughput is the amount of data that is transferred from your website to a visitor’s computer when they browse your site.  A simple analogy would be bandwidth is a pipe and throughput is the amount of water that goes through it.  A larger “pipe” allows more data to be downloaded faster, meaning your website pages (and others being hosted with the provider) will load faster and provide a better browsing experience for site visitors.

While many hosting companies offer unlimited throughput, always be sure to do your research.  No company can offer truly unlimited throughput at prices that are in line with their competitors, so read the fine print carefully for limitations.  In the fine print, many companies will state “subject to periodic review” or “within reason”, or they may limit the amount of data that can be download at any given time, meaning if your site receives a high volume of traffic, site visitors could experience slow page load times. 

To put things into perspective, most sites use less than 500 MB, or a half of a GB per month.  Unless your site offers software, music or video downloads, or is a high traffic ecommerce site, maxing out your throughput limit shouldn’t be a concern, however, confirm that your website won’t be turned off once you reach that limit.

Disk space
Also referred to as storage space, disk space is the amount of space a website takes up on a server.  Most local hosting providers offer at least 100 MB of storage, and many national hosting companies offer 500 MB all the way up to unlimited space.  Most sites use less than 10 MB of disk space, so don’t let the huge space allowances factor too much into your decision.  Unless you have a massive ecommerce site, or offer music or video downloads, 100 MB of space is more than you’ll ever use. 

If you are planning on hosting a high-traffic site, especially one that offers audio or video downloads, be sure to ask if those types of files are allowed under your hosting plan.  Also be sure to ask what other types of files count against your disk space, such as email, http files, and log files, and if you are limited to using a certain percentage of the server.

Email
Every hosting account includes email, but not all email is created equal.  How many accounts come with the hosting package?  Confirm enough is included to meet your needs and ask how much additional accounts are.  Be sure to ask how much storage space each email account is allowed.  If you receive a lot of email or regularly receive attachments, it’s important to have as much storage space as possible.  Also ask about their spam and virus protection.  Multi-level protection with the ability to set your own preferences is ideal.

Reliability
When choosing a hosting company, there are several things to look for.  Are the hosting company’s servers located in a data center?  Data centers are designed to provide a secure, monitored, climate controlled environment.  If someone’s servers are in their basement, office, etc, keep looking.  Also ask if the hosting company has a redundant Internet connection, power, and hardware.  If an Internet connection goes down, or a power source or piece of hardware fails and there isn’t redundancy, your site will be out of commission.  Always look for a company whose uptime is 99.5% or higher.  Your website is your face to the world, and you can’t afford to be offline for any extended amount of time.

Windows or Linux Servers
Do you need a Windows or Linux based server?  In most cases, either will work and most legitimate local providers offer either for the same monthly fee.  However, most cheap national hosting companies use Linux because it’s a free, open source platform.  The majority of sites will run on the Linux platform, however if your site utilizes a Windows based application such as ASP, SQL, or .NET, you will need a Windows server to run your applications.  If you’re not sure, just ask your web developer.

eCommerce
If you’re ready to take the leap and open an online store, there are a few things you’ll need to know.  If you don’t have shopping cart software, does the hosting company offer it and is it included in monthly hosting fee?   To accept credit cards, you’ll need an SSL certificate.  Check with the hosting company to see if their plan includes an SSL certificate.  Ideally, purchasing your own is the best way to go.  Customers will feel more comfortable submitting their credit card information if your name is on the certificate.  If you are using the hosting company’s certificate, it will be in their name, you will be sharing it with other companies, and it could cause pop-up errors, which could make your customer think twice about making a purchase.  While certificates are priced differently depending on the encryption level, authentication, and the length of time you purchase it for, you can expect to pay around $250 initially, and $199 per year to renew it.

Technical support
You’ll want to choose a hosting company that offers both phone and email support.  If you have questions or run into a problem, you’ll want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to a live person – it will make getting your questions answered or problem solved much quicker and easier.  Also make sure that the hours their tech support staff is available works for your schedule.  And the true litmus test of a company’s tech support – call them with a question and see how you like it!  

Backups
Although nearly every legitimate hosting company performs daily server backups, confirm that the servers are monitored 24/7 and that you will be able to get a copy of your website and databases should an operating system or hardware failure occur.  Also look for a hosting company that has a RAID setup, which divides and replicates data among multiple hard drives.  With a RAID setup, if one hard drive on the server fails, another with the same data will kick in eliminating downtime.

While most companies have the basics covered, there are some that you should steer clear of.  By asking the right questions, you’ll be able to decide which is best for you from a price and features standpoint, and hopefully choose one that becomes a reliable partner for years to come.