How To Choose Good Ecommerce Web Hosting
1. Reliability and speed of access
Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it
is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actual y too low - it real y
should be 99.5% or higher. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or
discount) if it fal s below that figure. Note though that guarantees are often hard to enforce from
your end - the host usual y requires al sorts of documentation. However, without that guarantee, the
web host wil have little incentive to ensure that its servers are running al the time.
2. Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth
Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as "traffic" or "bandwidth") is the amount of bytes
transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site.
Don't believe any commercial web host that advertises "unlimited bandwidth". The host has
to pay for the bandwidth, and if you consume a lot of it, they wil not silently bear your costs. Many
high bandwidth websites have found this out the hard way when they suddenly receive an
exhorbitant bil for having "exceeded" the "unlimited bandwidth". Always look for details on how
much traffic the package al ows. I personal y always stay clear of any host that advertises "unlimited
transfer", even if the exact amount is specified somewhere else (sometimes buried in their policy
statements). Usual y you wil find that they redefine "unlimited" to be limited in some way
In addition, while bandwidth provided is something you should always check, do not be unduly
swayed by promises of incredibly huge amounts of bandwidth. Chances are that your website wil
never be able to use that amount because it wil hit other limits, namely resource limits. For more
details, see the article The Fine Print in Web Hosting: Resource Usage Limits.
To give you a rough idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new sites that are
not software archives or the like use less than 3 GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic
requirements wil grow over time, as your site becomes more wel -known (and wel -linked), so you
wil need to also check their policy for overages: is there a published charge per GB over the al owed
bandwidth? Is the charge made according to actual usage or are you expected to pre-pay for a
potential overage? It is better not to go for hosts that expect you to prepay for overages, since it is
very hard to forsee when your site wil exceed its bandwidth and by how much.
3. Disk space
For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those "unlimited disk space" schemes. Most
sites need less than 10 MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you
with 200 MB or 500 MB (or "unlimited space"), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so
don't let the 500 MB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web
hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a
means of enticing you to host there. As a rough gauge, thefreecountry.com, which had about 150
pages when this article was first written, used less than 5 MB for its pages and associated files.

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4. Technical support
Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), al
year around? Note that I wil not accept a host which does not have staff working on weekends or
public holidays. You wil be surprised at how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient of times.
Incidental y, just because a host advertises that it has 24/7 support does not necessarily mean that it
real y has that kind of support. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights, Sunday
mornings, etc. Check out how long they take to respond. Besides speed of responses, check to see if
they are technical y competent. You wouldn't want to sign up for a host that is run by a bunch of
salesmen who only know how to sel and not fix problems.
5.FTP, PHP, Perl, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, SSH, MySQL, crontabs
If you are paying for a site, you real y should make sure you have al of these.
Note that some commercial hosts do not al ow you to instal PHP or Perl scripts ("What is PHP and
Perl?") without their approval. This is not desirable since it means that you have to wait for them
before you can implement a feature on your site. ".htaccess" is needed if you are to do things like
customize your error pages (pages that display when, say, a user requests for a non-existent page on
your site) or to protect your site in various ways (such as to prevent bandwidth theft and hotlinking,
etc).
Telnet or SSH access is useful for certain things, including testing certain scripts (programs),
maintaining databases, etc. MySQL is needed if you want to run a blog or a content management
system. Cron is a type of program scheduler that lets you run programs at certain times of the day
(eg, once a day). Check to see if these facilities are provided.
6. SSL (secure server), Shopping Cart
If you are planning on doing any sort of business through your website, you might want to look
out to see if the host provides these facilities. These facilities normal y involve a higher priced
package or additional charges. The main thing is to check to see if they are available at al before you
commit to the host. You wil definitely need SSL if you want to collect credit card payments on your
site.
7.Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding
If you have your own site, you would probably want to have email addresses at your own domain,
like sales@yourdomain.com, etc. Does the host provide this with the package? Does it al ow you to
have a catch-al email account that causes any email address at your domain to be routed to you? Can
you set an email address to automatical y reply to the sender with a preset message (cal ed an
autoresponder)? Can you retrieve your mail with your email software? Can it be automatical y
forwarded to your current email address?

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8. Control Panel
This is cal ed various names by different hosts, but essential y, they al al ow you to manage
different aspects of your web account yourself. Typical y, and at the very minimum, it should al ow
you to do things like add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords for your
account. I would not go for a host where I have to go through their technical support each time I want
to change a password or add/delete an email account. Such chores are common maintenance chores
that every webmaster performs time and time again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait
for their technical support to make the changes for you.
9. Multiple Domain Hosting and Subdomains
For those who are thinking of sel ing web space or having multiple domains or subdomains hosted
in your account, you should look to see if they provide this, and the amount extra that they charge for
this (whether it is a one-time or monthly charge, etc).
10. Server
Is the type of operating system and server important? Whether you think so or not on the
theoretical level, there are a few practical reasons for looking out for the type of server.
In general, if you want to use things like write/use ASP programs, you have no choice but to look
for a Windows server.
Otherwise my preference is to sign up for accounts using the often cheaper, more stable and
feature-laden Unix systems running the Apache server. In fact, if dynamical y generated pages that
can access databases (etc) is what you want, you can always use the more portable (and popular) PHP
instead of tying yourself down to ASP. Another reason to prefer Unix-based web hosts (which include
web hosts using systems like Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, etc) using the Apache web server is
that these servers al ow you to configure a lot of facilities that you typical y need on your site (error
pages, protecting your images, blocking email harvesters, blocking IP addresses, etc) without having
to ask your web host to implement them. Knowledge about configuring Apache servers is also widely
available, and can be found on thesitewizard.com's Configuring Apache and .htaccess pages as wel .
For those interested, you can read another discussion on the matter in the "Should You Choose a
Linux or a Windows Web Hosting Package? Is There Such a Thing as a Mac Web Host?" article.
11. Price
I was actual y hesitant to list this, but I guess it's futile not to. However, I would caution that while
price is always a factor, you should realise that you often get what you pay for, although it's not
necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best.
12. Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans

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Most web hosts al ow you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if
you were to pay monthly. My current personal preference is to pay monthly with al new web hosts
until I'm assured of their reliability and honesty. Paying monthly al ows me to switch web hosts
quickly when I find that the current host does not meet my requirements: this way, I'm not tied down
to a bad web host because I have prepaid for an entire year. I do this even if the new web host
guarantees that they wil refund the balance if I'm dissatisfied, since at the point I sign up, I have no
assurance that they wil honour their guarantee. Later (usual y after many months or even more than
a year), when I'm satisfied with the host, I often change payment plans to the discounted annual
plans.
13. Resel ers?
Not al hosting companies own or lease their own web servers. Some of them are actual y
resel ers for some other hosting company. The disadvantage of using a resel er is the possibility that
you are dealing with people who don't know much about the system they are sel ing and who take
longer to help you (they have to transmit your technical support request to the actual hosting
company for it to be acted upon). However, this also depends on both the resel er and the underlying
hosting company. It is thus wise not to rule out al resel ers; there are a number of reliable and fast
ones who are actual y quite good and cheap. In fact, a number of resel ers sel the same packages
cheaper than their original hosting company. If you find out that a particular company is a resel er,
you wil need to investigate both the resel er and the real hosting company.
14. International
If you don't stay in the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with some local provider. The
advantage here is the ease of dealing with them (they are after al easily accessible by phone cal or a
visit), your familiarity with the local laws and easy recourse to those laws should it be necessary. It
should be your choice if your target audience is local (eg a local fast food delivery service). On the
other hand, hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest
number of your overseas visitors (particularly if you have an English-speaking audience). You also
have a large number of hosting companies to choose from, and as a result, cheaper prices too.
15. Others' Reviews
You should make it a point to check out what others have to say about the web host.

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Most recommended cheap/discount hosts
Hosting
Price Dom.
Disk
Transfer
Web Host
Rating
Reviews
company
/mo. name space
/mo.
Money Back
$3.45
JustHost
Free Unlimited Unlimited
Anytime!
Trusted Since
$3.95
BlueHost
Free Unlimited Unlimited
1996!
$3.95
Best Platform
HostMonster
Free Unlimited Unlimited
Best for
$5.95
InMotion
Free Unlimited Unlimited
businesses
$3.95
New!
FastDomain
Free Unlimited Unlimited
$4.87
Green energy!
Green Geeks
Free Unlimited Unlimited
$4.95
Pay Monthly
HostGator
$15 Unlimited Unlimited
$4.95
Green Energy!
Host Papa
Free Unlimited Unlimited
$4.76
Award Winning
Omnis Network
Free Unlimited Unlimited
Domain
$4.74
GoDaddy
$1.99 Unlimited Unlimited
specialist

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