How to Choose a Web Hosting and Provider - In-Depth Guide

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The Web is Faster Since google speed update page speed became a ranking factor specially for mobile search.

According to google faster result having low abandonment rates since making page speed a ranking factor.

Ever since the google speed update was released, everyone seems to have the fastest website and page speed.

As a Web Developer I created this advance guide to help you selecting fastest servers for your website hosting.

In fact, the strategies in today's post helped ThatMy.com reach Google's PageSpeed Insights score something like this:

What are the benefits of web hosting?

1. Cost-saving : No acquisition, maintenance or maintenance costs for the server.
2. Effortless : With managed servers, the entire server administration is the responsibility of the web host, the customer does not have to worry about anything.
3. Up- to-date: Hardware always up to date.
4. Powerful : Strong server performance at an affordable price.
5. Time-saving : The service is available immediately after booking without complex server setups and updates.
6. Beginner- friendly: Packaged with tools for website creation and management.

Types of web hosting?

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting has very affordable prices, starting at R $ 6.59, as we saw earlier. It may be the best website hosting for your profile. These plans are recommended for sites with a low or medium level of access, that is, with visits of around 60,000 monthly accesses.

Because it is a cheap, popular modality that accommodates most of the monthly accesses, this type of plan is used by most Brazilian websites. Thus, it is among the best website hosting. It features useful tools, simple control panels, and security certificates.

When You should Use Shared Hosting

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is recommended for sites where shared hosting will not be able to serve effectively. That is, sites or portals that have visits above the average of 60,000 visitors per month. VPS hosting also has extra tools that are not available in the item mentioned above, such as Root access to the server (administrator access).

In addition, VPS hosting is a kind of dedicated server, however, its physical space is shared. Thus, each accommodation has virtually its own space, tools, and individual resources.

When You should Use VPS Hosting

Cloud Hosting

Cloud Hosting (also called cloud hosting) is similar to VPS hosting. However, they have higher uptime and are widely used by companies and large institutions.

Another important point concerns data mirroring and greater information security. Besides, cloud hosting makes it easier to scale the service compared to VPS hosting. It does not bring difficulties of access and allows anyone to manage the hosting.

When You should Use Cloud Hosting

Dedicated Hosting

When You shoue Use

The dedicated hosting service is usually more expensive since it offers exclusive hardware and software for that hosting. Therefore, it has several tools and exclusive services for this type of hosting.

It is usually used by large companies, national and international institutions or large virtual stores, or giant e-commerce. The dedicated hosting offers a lot of security and very high uptime. Thus, it is known as the best website hosting there is.

In addition, it has high data storage power and great performance when processing information. Thus, it is ideal for sites with thousands of daily visitors and high traffic.

When You should Use

What should be considered when choosing a web host?

This is what you should pay attention toIf you want to use a web hosting service, you not only choose from a wide range of web hosting providers, but also between the various tariff packages offered by the hoster. So it is hardly surprising that the decision in favor of a web hosting service is anything but easy.

Where is the server location?

A data center located in all over world means not only security in terms of data protection, but also a higher speed of data delivery. It is recommended to check the ping, i.e. the response time of the Internet connection of the provider, and the loading time of a website in advance . The server response time should be less than 200 milliseconds. Note that short response times have a positive effect on the search engine ranking of your website.

What security measures and updates are included?

The web hosting offer should offer separate, isolated accounts, have firewalls and an integrated backup function and - unless you opt for a dedicated hosting offer - include automatic updates of the content management systems.

How good is the support?

Reliable, fast and competent support is extremely important for a service like web hosting. The web hosting provider should offer German or at least English-speaking support. If it is still manageable for the operator of a hobby site if he has to wait some time for the solution to his problem in the event of a malfunction, this may mean a catastrophe for traders, as angry customers and lost sales threaten. Since problems are rarely based on office hours, the web hosting provider should offer 24/7 support. It is highly recommended that you contact support with a question before signing a contract and test the web hosting provider this way .

Is the data transfer volume limited?

The web hosting tariff should definitely include a traffic flat rate , so that there are no restrictions on the volume. This is the only way to reliably calculate the upcoming costs in advance. Most web hosting providers already include a flat rate in the cheapest tariffs.

Traffic
Traffic in the context of web hosting does not mean the number of visitors to a website. In this context, traffic means the volume of data that is generated when a website is accessed. It should be noted that the amount of data varies depending on the element. For example, an image or a video generates more traffic than a text page.

How high is the server availability?

Web hosts advertise all of their web hosting plans with very high server availability. Of course: the higher the availability, the better.

If you want to start a profitable e-commerce business, you can hardly afford any downtime. If an availability of 99.9 percent seems convincing, you should consider that this means downtime of 10.1 minutes per week, 43.2 minutes per month and even 8.76 hours per year. Even an availability of 99.99 percent means that the server is unavailable for about one minute a week, 4.32 minutes a month and 52.56 minutes a year. So don't let yourself be blinded: In reality, there are many hours between 99 and 99.999 percent server availability .

What is in the web hosting package and what is possible?

Of course, there are a number of other aspects that are important or less important when choosing a web hosting provider, depending on the size and type of web project and personal preferences of the webmaster.

Interested parties may have to ask themselves the following questions:

• How much web space is included and how much do I need?
• How many domains and subdomains are included?
• Which programming languages ​​are supported?
• How many databases ( mySQL ) are available?
• How many e-mail inboxes and what transfer protocols are there?
• Is the number of installed programs limited?
• What about the contract period and notice period?
• Is the tariff expandable?
• Are e-commerce services for creating an online shop included?
• Which CRMs or which website builders are included?
• Which payment methods does the hoster accept?

Anyone who wants to publish long blog texts on their homepage naturally has completely different requirements for the scope of a web hosting service than a medium-sized e-commerce company. However, every web hosting package should meet the following minimum requirements :

• One gigabyte of web space
• One domain
• PHP capability
• At least one MySQL database
• Minimum 99.9 percent availability
• Traffic flat rate
• FTP access
• Reliable service

Which additional features should be available?

After registration and the conclusion of the contract, you will receive the necessary access codes to log into the website of the host and edit your web space. You have various options for accessing the web space:

• Access via web browser
• Access via WebFTP
• Various FTP clients
• WebDAV interface

In the web space there are various software components, setting options and content management systems or website construction kits with which you can design your website.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

Anyone who does not want to operate with a website construction kit or exclusively with SQL databases will usually receive access to common content management systems (CMS) in their web hosting package on the rented server. These make it possible to equip a website with text and multimedia content . With the CMS, even inexperienced people without programming or HTML knowledge can easily design their own website.

The most popular CMS include:

• WordPress
• Joomla
• Typo3
• Drupal

Can it be any easier? Homepage construction kits

Homepage construction kits are a special form of web CMS . In contrast to conventional CMS, they offer a particularly intuitive and user-friendly interface on which users can populate their website with prefabricated elements, usually using drag-and-drop.

Online shop systems are a special form of website construction kits. With them, the range of functions has only been expanded to include special shop functions. This includes creating product selection and prices, setting up a shopping cart, designing the payment page and implementing a search and filter function.

Simply more professional: e-mail hosting

Anyone who has become the proud owner of a domain with the web hosting package can usually create a personalized email address . This is done by the mail hoster, which provides the storage space for e-mails. Personalized e-mail addresses are a real asset, especially for operators of online shops, but also for other contact offers. You appear more professional, more serious and more trustworthy. Free hosting offers do not include this feature.

Additional storage in the cloud

In addition to the storage space for website-relevant data, many web hosting packages include cloud storage. You can use this to save any files such as Office files, music, photos or videos.

Analysis tools for optimization

Statistics tools are usually also available in the web space. With them you record how many visitors viewed your pages, how long they stayed on the page, which elements they preferred to click and which device they used to visit the page. This data is a valuable basis for a targeted optimization of the website . If, for example, a particularly large number of people visit your site via mobile devices, you will immediately know where it is worth optimizing the content.

Direct data upload with FTP programs

FTP clients allow files to be transferred over IP networks. Using special FTP software, you can upload and download files to the web server, rename files or delete them. As a user with FTP access, you also benefit from the ability to quickly and easily organize and manage files in an existing directory structure.

The following FTP programs use numerous web hosting services:

• FileZilla
• Transmit
• Cyberduck
• SmartFTP
• WinSCP

Is the domain included?

Web space isn't everything. In order for Internet users to be able to find and access your website in the first place, they need an address: the domain. A web hosting package usually also includes a domain with which you can make your website accessible to visitors. In principle, you can choose the domain yourself, but you should check the web host's homepage in advance to see whether your desired domain name is still available .

The ending, i.e. the component behind the last point, is also called the top-level domain (TLD). Common endings for this are .de or .com. The sequence of characters and / or letters in front of it is called the second-level domain. In the case of www.stern.de/vergleich/ "de" is the top-level domain, "stern" the second-level domain, "www" the subdomain and "vergleich "a directory.

In addition to the typical country codes in the TLD, the responsible authority, ICANN ( Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ), has approved 1,400 new endings. The new TLDs describe topics or geographic regions, for example “.berlin”, “.business” or “.forum”. If you want to secure a specific TLD for your web project, you should make sure that the web host of your choice also offers it.

Your web hosting provider will usually register the domain name for you. Before booking a web hosting package, however, you should definitely check how many domains and how many subdomains it contains. The more subdomains there are, the more clearly the user can structure the page and the more easily it can be found in search engines. If you already have a domain, you should find out whether the web host of your choice allows external domains to be activated and, ideally, whether it even offers a relocation service.

Is free web space worth it?

In addition to the paid web hosting services, there are also numerous free web hosting offers. The free web hosting providers advertise not only free hosting, but also a simple user interface and strong backlinks. This may sound tempting, but such offers naturally have one or the other catch.

Usually there are either hidden costs or various restrictions. Often this already reveals a look at the small print. In most cases, the free web hosting providers are financed by advertising that they place on their customers' websites. This is not only annoying, but also has a deeply dubious effect on commercial sites . With free web hosting, the web space is often limited to just a few megabytes, so you cannot fill your website with many pictures or videos. Sometimes certain file types are even excluded from uploading.

Traffic is also affected by limitations with free web hosting packages. After a certain transfer volume has been exceeded, the loading speed is often throttled, or costs are even incurred per gigabyte of traffic. The support offered by free web hosting providers is - if available at all - very rudimentary.

Another major disadvantage is that free providers usually do not issue full-fledged domains , but only run their customers' website under a subdomain of their own domain.

The disadvantages of free hosting offers summarized:

• Unwanted advertising banners
• No custom banners possible
• Low storage capacity
• Exclusion of certain file types
• Not a full domain
• Limitation of the traffic
• No or only rudimentary support

Conclusion

The only question is, which side are you going to pick?

Let me know in the comments.