Website Hosting
Every website has different needs, so before selecting a host think carefully about the criteria that will be most important to your organization. Here are several areas to consider:
- Security. If hackers attack your web host's servers, your site may be affected.
- Reporting. Evaluating how visitors are using your site is important.
- Service. Administrative tools and person-to-person service is critical.
- Speed. Long load times cause visitors to abandon your site.
- Pricing. Hosting services should fit your budget.
Security
Security and stability are difficult to measure, but one reasonable way to investigate is to ask the web host for their "90-day uptime." Any good hosting company should have this figure readily available. "Uptime" simply refers to the time a host's web servers are operational. A 90-day uptime of 99.9% means that during that 90-day period your website would have been unavailable for just over two hours.
Reporting
A variety of packages are available for analyzing the results of your web server logs. Reports can tell you which pages visitors viewed, how many times the site was accessed, and more. A good web host will provide an easy to use method of examining these logs at no extra cost. If possible, look at sample log reports to see which host offers the reporting package best suited to your needs.
Service
Some hosts allow you to use standard utility programs (such as CuteFTP or Fetch) for moving files to and from your server and performing other maintenance tasks. While some customers prefer this approach, others might desire a web-based administrative interface. Find out what method your prospective host uses, and be sure you're comfortable with it. Most of the time you shouldn't have any difficulties with your web host, but if your site goes down, or some other issue arises, you should be able to talk to a knowledgeable, helpful support person without having to wait for hours. Test the host's response time by calling their support line.
Speed
If your organization plans to have a website with a lot of large images, videos, or other multimedia content, or if the site itself is large in scale, you’ll want to discuss it with the potential host. They should be able to reassure you that their services match your needs and that speeds won’t be compromised. For smaller-scale sites, most web hosts will not have any performance issues even with the most basic hosting package.
Pricing
Hosting prices can vary greatly depending on the amount of storage space required, the operating system used, and the degree of support provided. If you intend to add database-driven features to your site at some point, any competent host will allow you to do this. Be sure to ask potential hosting providers if they support the tools you're thinking of using. For example, most Linux-powered hosting companies support the PHP scripting language and MySQL database for free, but do not support Microsoft ASP.
