All-in-one web hosting packages are extremely convenient. Most of them have all of the software, scripting languages, and features that you need in order to launch a website in a single afternoon. In the long run, though, are you getting everything that you need to run a professional web site? If not, this isn’t something that you want to find out three months into your contract. The 30 day money back guarantee doesn’t give you a chance to test out how your site is going to work in the real world, so what can you do before you sign up for a year’s worth of low cost web hosting? First, think about what you want your web site to accomplish, and then choose a plan that has the features you need to reach that goal. The main thing to remember is that it is better to pay a few more dollars a month and get everything that you need than to save money and wind up with a web site that is a waste of time.
It cannot be stressed enough how important having the right amount of disk space and bandwidth are. You can have all of the flash and active web pages that you want, but if you don’t have enough disk space and monthly data transfer, you won’t have anything for people who visit your website to view. Many web hosting packages are padded with a lot of unnecessary features to distract you from the fact that the essentials are missing. It’s always smarter to buy a package with more disk space than you think you’ll need, in case you go in a different direction with your site than you originally intended.
If you are looking for a substantial deal from a low cost web hosting company, check for the software that actually costs money to be included. Anyone can pad their list of features with multiple photo galleries, free site builders, unlimited subdomains, free advertising credits, multiple shopping carts, and General Public License software. However, the real test of the value in an affordable web hosting package is the inclusion of licensed software.
First of all, for any software, make sure your hosting company supplies the latest versions of any software that they offer. Some companies try to get away with older versions because they know that enough people won’t notice until they actually start have problems a few months later. Also, look for ‘add-on’ words like ‘admin’ and ‘support.’ PhpMyAdmin is not the same thing as PHP 5 and CGI-Bin support is not the same as CGI-BIN or CGI Library. Whether you use them or not, if your web hosting package is missing the basics, you never know when you might need them in the future.
Definitely look for programs like Fantastico, Perl, Python, JavaScript, MySQL, and Ruby on Rails. This is a sign that your hosting company either has some connections or spent some money on licensing fees. Again, if you are new to web hosting, you might not understand all of this, but hopefully you will in the future.
Imagine the disappointment if you go to try simple enhancements to your site, but can’t because you don’t have the basic tools. For example, Fantastico helps with the original installation of website applications in your main directories and also acts as a wizard to install applications to an existing website. Fantastico scripts can also create tables in a data base, install software, adjust permissions, and modify web server configuration files. However, it can’t do all of this if you don’t have it. All of the scripting languages and software do something, so make sure that you have them, even if you don’t know what they do yet.
When it comes to Windows Hosting, you have to be even more careful with software. Windows hosting costs more, but it’s not because the hosting companies are not trying to rip you off. They are just passing along the licensing fees from Microsoft. Your Windows hosting environment should be Windows 2008/2003. If it is older, walk the other way. It costs a lot of money and time for a budget web hosting company to update Windows and if they can’t do it, then go with someone else. Also, they should be using operating system IIS 7.0 or at least IIS 6.0.
As well, look for ASP.NET 2.0/1.1, .Net Framework 3.5, and ASP. You will have to pay a bit more, but Windows hosting without all of the updated software is fairly useless. Look for hosting companies that specialize in Windows, rather than just having it available. Be careful about running Front Page on a Linux based operating system with FrontPage extensions. It doesn’t always work without some glitches and they are often not repairable.
Always make careful comparisons when you are looking at web hosting packages. There are very few cheap hosting packages that have everything for a good price, but just make sure that you have the basics and you will be much happier when you are three or four months into your web hosting contract.
