You have decided that you will buy a domain name (or several) and get web hosting from a website hosting provider.
First some considerations about the domain name(s)
Domain names really have nothing to do with web hosting and can be registered regardless of the hosting package. There are advantages to having a separate domain name and hosting. For example, if the hosting company you selected doesn’t provide good service, all you need to do is find a better website hosting company and change your domain name settings. If you have a domain name and hosting with the same company and the company goes out of business, the last thing they think about is your hosting or domain name. By having them separate, you are reducing risk.
Disadvantages of registering the domain name with your hosting company
Many website hosting companies offer to register domain names on your behalf. You think your domain name is with your hosting company, when in fact they register it through a third-party registrar for you. Then you get a bill in 2 years from a company you’ve never heard of, ignore it, and worst case scenario, lose your domain name.
Also, in many cases, you will not have access to your domain name details nor will you be provided with a domain name control panel. Why do you need a domain name control panel? You must be able to update the contact information for your domain name(s). If you move house, for example, and don’t update your domain name details and for some reason you need to change registrars, etc. (or because your web hosting company went out of business), you are in danger of losing your domain name because you can no longer prove ownership of a certain domain name.
Additionally, a domain name control panel allows you to change email forwarding, web forwarding, and more importantly domain nameservers, as well as a few other settings. See 123-Reg for more information on this.
Largest hosting providers
Take a good look online and check out the different providers. There are many great hosting companies, such as 1and1. The advantage of signing up with a great hosting company is that they have hardly any downtime and their servers will be fast and up to date with the latest spam protection etc. However, website hosting can be expensive if you sign up with a big web hosting company and if you want additional services, you will have to pay for them. Support can also be a problem: you usually have to wrestle with hundreds of “FAQs” before you’re allowed to email their support team. You may also need to call a Premium Rate phone number if you need to speak to someone urgently. These rates can range from £0.50 to £2 per minute (!) or even more. In most cases, you will get good support, but in some cases you may be put through to an inexperienced person who has to talk to your supervisor to check things frequently, and all of that at a premium rate!
The biggest problem with the big web hosting providers is that if you don’t make the annual payment and don’t react to their payment reminders, they will delete your website, your account, without warning. In some cases, there will be no chance of getting your website back. With a great web hosting company, your website is just one number in a very large group of websites. If they lose their habit, so what?
Web hosting with a smaller web host
If you find a smaller, more reliable web host, chances are you’ll get personalized service and support questions answered in much more detail and much faster. Chances are you can call a UK landline or 0845 or 0870 number, which is much cheaper than £2 a minute. In some cases, you may be able to receive an answer to your support question, which you feel on a Saturday night, that same night.
If you miss your payment with a smaller web hosting company, they will most likely call you personally and remind you of your late payment. They are eager to keep you as a customer and probably won’t delete your account and website right away.
Website Statistics
Ask the web hosting company if they provide detailed website statistics. You want to know how many visitors have come to your website, what search terms they used to find your website on Google and other search engines, how many visitors you have per day, on a certain day of the week, etc. Also ask if you can access the website’s log files. You may think that adding a website hit counter will provide enough information, but that’s actually the most inaccurate method of counting your website visitors, and aside from that, they look tacky and unprofessional. Your web hosting company should provide statistics that are at least as comprehensive as Webalizer, and if statistics are important to you, they should have access to your log files which can then be analyzed with statistics analysis software (such as Surfstats) .
Email Issues to Watch Out For
Before you sign up with a hosting company, ask them if they provide the SMTP/POP3 you need to set up email accounts. If you want one or more email addresses with your website, such as [email protected], your web host must provide SMTP/POP3 settings. Some web hosting companies only allow you to receive emails sent to [email protected], but will not allow you to use these email addresses to send emails. They’ll just argue that you can use your internet service provider’s email address, like [email protected]. This doesn’t look professional at all, and you should avoid web hosting companies that don’t provide SMTP/POP3 service.
Backups
Check with your web hosting company how often backups are performed. Backups are typically done daily. If you have a huge online store on your website and the server room at the web hosting facility is on fire, you will lose all your work if they don’t back up the web server files. So check if they have a backup routine in place.
Free web hosting with your internet service provider
Please don’t use this! Your Internet service provider company provides an Internet connection. That’s what they specialize in. Sometimes they “include” free web hosting of up to 100 MB or even more. They typically don’t provide SMTP/POP3 settings for sending/receiving email related to their website (such as [email protected]), databases, server-side scripting language support, and the like. Generally, you can only upload websites developed in pure HTML, and in some cases, you will not be able to use FTP software to upload and manage your files on the web server. Your company’s website will probably use some form of server-side scripting language, such as ASP, PHP, etc. and maybe use a database like MySQL. If your website is with your Internet Service Provider, support for this service may be poor and sometimes the account cannot be upgraded to include server-side scripting languages and/or databases.
web hosting costs
Web hosting costs can vary greatly. You can get web hosting for as little as £15 per year, or you can get web hosting including 5 email addresses, 100MB of web space (which is a lot for a small business presence) for as little as £30 per year ( check out Plugs). If you buy a web design magazine, you will see a lot of ads for bigger web hosting companies. Check their prices, their policies and maybe give them a call; you will find out how long it takes until your call is answered.
Don’t jump because it’s cheap, and conversely don’t think the service must be great because it’s expensive. Take a look at what’s on offer and then make an informed decision.