How to Choose your Hosting Provider
By Seby Kallarakkal
Choosing the right hosting provider could make a whole lot of difference to your website’s performance. But how do you know the right one from so many choices? We’ve done it many times for our customers and also for us. We have a few tips for you on how to make the right choice.
The trouble
The basic trouble is that there are so many hosting companies and all of them look the same, offer similar hosting and make similar claims. So how do you decide which company? Whom do you rely on? You could look at the websites reviewing hosting companies. But most of these sites are affiliates of hosting companies. So the scenario gets a little more complicated.
Our article is not aimed at giving you a list of companies that are good. We want to give you a list of things that would help you make the best choice.
Avoid taking hosting from your web development company
On the face of it, this sounds like a logical thing to do. After all why deal with one more vendor. But our experience says the opposite. We have come across many cases where the web development company is a reseller and provided the end customer with a plan that is measly in terms of features. Another problem is that you lose out on the 24X7 support since you are not dealing with the hosting provider directly.
Ask questions
You may have all the answers. Doesn’t matter, go ahead and ask the questions any way. The answers will help you evaluate the hosting provider based on:
- The speed with which they responded to your mail
- How they addressed your questions
- The tone of their reply
We usually have a standard list of questions that we ask to evaluate hosting companies. You could use these or come up with any question on your own.
- How long have you been in existence?
- Who owns your company?
- How many employees do you have?
- Do you own the servers that you offer for hosting?
- How many servers do you own? Where are they located?
- How many domains are hosted on your servers?
- What kind of back up arrangements do you have?
- Do you offer an uptime guarantee?
- Can you give the URLs of a few websites that are hosted on your servers?
- How can we contact you, if your site is down?
The idea of asking these questions is not necessarily getting the answers but understanding the company’s seriousness about their business. If they are serious you will definitely get your answers.
Do some research
It’s a good idea to spend some time researching your hosting company For you are letting them host your business Here are a few things that you could research on:
- You could find the contact address of the hosting company. If you are familiar with the area, you can figure out if they are operating out of residential area or if they are working from a corporate address.
- 24X7 live chat / telephone. If you are not based in the US, make sure you have ways of reaching the hosting company during your time zone.
- Look at forums. The best way to search within forums is to use Google Groups. Go to www.google.com and click on groups. Search using the name of the hosting company. If there are too many results, try to combine phrases like “hosting company opinion”, “hosting company review”, “hosting company experience”. Check out some of the threads. But do look out for posts published by the company themselves.
How much do you pay?
Almost all hosting companies with the exception of few show the rates upfront on their website. But they are not necessarily the final rates. You could negotiate; after all you have nothing to lose. See if you could get the set up charge waived off, or pay for a fixed period, but get the hosting period extended.Ready to sign on? So if you think you have all the answers, you are convinced about your choice, go ahead and sign up.
Wishing you the best with your search to find the perfect hosting provider!
What next?
Fill in our contact us form to know how Nabler can help. It would be our pleasure to assist you in making your business succeed.
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