Web Hosting Provider

Your choice of Web Hosting Provider is a pretty technical choice. Web hosting plans are

tech products that do different jobs. You wouldn’t haul gravel with a sports car, or

compete at racing in a station wagon, or drive the kids to school in a dump truck. And

just as manufacturers specialize with different customer needs, so do web hosting

providers.

Why do you need a web hosting provider? For one, they’re the people who ”rent you the

lot” which your website sits on. Like building a home, you need the land and the

structure; or in this case, you need space from a web hosting provider, and a website to

put there.

”I’ve got this friend,” you say? If you know a techie who’s offering to host a website

for you, an experienced web hosting provider may (or may not) provide better service.

Only you can judge how confident and competent this acquaintance is, compared to a

professional hosting provider.

For that matter, your tech buddy might plan your family planning site or church website,

to be an offshoot of his own site, which might specialize in fart jokes and gross-out

photos! You get what you pay for, and, sometimes, you pay for what you get.

Why research web hosting providers before you buy? As I mentioned at the beginning,

different hosting providers will specialize in different types of web hosting plans. Some

focus on business-class customers, some specialize even further to deal mainly in VPS or

dedicated plans. These hosts will often charge more for the cheaper plans, because they

honestly don’t want the lower-budget classes of customer.

Most reputable hosts, however, are also big hosts. The bigger, more-established web

hosting provider will have plans to suit every type of need, and competitive prices for

every plan.

When you comparison-shop, you’ll undoubtedly run across offers from companies we haven’t

reviewed here. No matter where you get your web hosting provider reviews, information

from satisfied (or angry) customers are a key source of guidance.

Considering the time and effort it takes to set-up, and then later migrate, your website,

it’s worth a few hours of research. With lesser-known companies, it’s best to avoid

problems by researching a web hosting provider’s reputation before buying from them. This

is especially true for companies who treat the types of web hosting service you really

need, with secondary emphasis.

What to expect from web hosting providers: All hosts will give you some level of customer

service, hopefully both via phone and email. If you can’t easily find contact

information, it’s probably deliberate. You will always get relatively better service from

a relatively more-expensive service plan. The range goes from ”we’ll blow-off your email

in a couple of days,” to 24/7 availability from friendly and savvy support staff.

See our other articles for more on what to expect, based on what type of web hosting plan

you buy.