To understand, what web hosting is necessary to you, it is necessary to make to begin with the list of the basic requirements to it. The good developer of sites will always give you such list, than will facilitate your future dialogue with employees of the company giving a hosting. Some developers not only will recommend any a hosting-company, but also will offer an own server for placing of your site. In the first case — trust, but check. Sometimes the studio pursues own interests, receiving a commission from the hostings-companies for each resulted client. In the second case when the company-developer offers own hosting, it is necessary to understand at once, that service cannot be compared on quality to the professional.
f you have decided not to use web studio councils it is better to address for the help in a choice of the hosting-company to independent advisers. It can be: search engines (Google, Yahoo) or special catalogues of the hostings-companies. Useful there can be recommendations of friends or acquaintances. On the statistican, an order of 30 % of clients find a hosting-company according to the advice of acquaintances.
After primary searches you have appeared before a huge choice. How to choose the suitable company? Be to begin with defined with type of services of a hosting.
Types differ with supported technologies and order of placing of a site.
On technologies — UNIX (programming languages php, perl) and WINDOWS (the programming language asp).
In the order of placing — a virtual shared-hosting, dedicated (the virtual allocated server), co-location (the physical allocated server).
The most widespread service — a virtual shared-hosting on platform UNIX.
The virtual shared-hosting is a disk space on a server of the hosting-provider, allocated under placing of files of your site. On one server with your site some hundreds sites of other clients will be placed. It is quite enough for the majority of sites of it. For example, the hosting-plan ipage in this case will approach. Perhaps, it is necessary even to try justhost.
But if at you very visited resource, or occupying a lot of disk spaces, or for you crucial quality of work — choose the allocated server — dedicated and co-location.
What to do further? Define for itself a set of essentially important conditions, for example:
1. Price restrictions — the cheap hosting or parametre the price/quality is necessary is important more.
2. Whether essentially office presence in your city?
3. Fee methods — the clearing settlement, cash, bank, a credit card, systems of electronic payments.
4. Presence of the licence for granting of services (the licence for services of telematic data transmission).
5. Popularity of the trade mark of the provider and the size of client base, as for a long time it in the market.
From the providers satisfying to entrance conditions, choose 5-7 for the further selection work. The quantity of the domain names supported by the given provider can be the important condition of selection. This parametre shows relative (NOT the exact!) quantity of clients at the given provider (the more domain names, the there are more than clients). The statistican on domain names can be found in the Internet.
Study sites of the selected hostings-providers. On a site the detailed information on the provider, tariff plans, conditions and payment methods, the description of the equipment and a technical platform, the contract text should be presented.
Come on a forum of the hosting-provider, collect contacts of its several clients, try to communicate and learn with them their opinion on the provider. The serious companies do not hesitate to inform clients on existing problems and a course of their decision.
Attentively study the contract text, instructions for use services of the provider at which infringement your site can be blocked irrevocably paid money (a spam sending, placing of the forbidden information, excess of admissible level of loading on the equipment of the provider) there register.
Choose the tariff plan approaching on technical parametres. Plans differ with a set of supported technologies, quantity of allocated space under a site, mail boxes, databases and sites which can be placed simultaneously.
Be registered for the free test period and place on the given time address a copy of the site. Many hostings-companies, not being able other ways to strengthen safety of a hosting, enter a considerable quantity of technical restrictions on work of sites and scripts (for example, safe-mode) which strongly complicate correct work of sites and a life to developers of sites.
If work of your site in the test period has satisfied you, pay attention to a support service of the hosting-provider.
The support service should work round the clock, 7 days in a week. Make for yourself the list of 5-10 questions which you wish to set to a support service (for example, an order and speed of registration of domain names, an order of payment and granting of documents, not clear to you contract points).
The support service should respond to electronic letters quickly (within 12 hours, a maximum 24) and it is correct. The answer should be polite and clear to the nonspecialist, that is you. Necessarily there should be phone for more operative communication, some providers in addition give support on ICQ.
Last point for studying — the control panel your account (account). If the control panel is not present, you should address in each occasion in a support service.
What functions should be on the control panel? Technical options — change of passwords with access to a site and the control panel, editing of options of a site and databases, creation of mail boxes, the order of domain names, creation of subdomains. Statistics — how many a place it is occupied, what loading on a server, to what number services are paid. Organizational options — an extract of accounts on a hosting and domain names, the list of contact persons by which access to a site and options is resolved, requisites of the payer.
If through all these checks with honour has passed more, than one of the companies selected by you, a definitive choice do on the discretion. Visit office of the provider, communicate to the director.
