Web Hosting - The Main Considerations

Web hosting. It’s one of those terms that you’ve most likely heard mentioned before, but you may not be entirely sure what it’s all about. Well, today’s your lucky day! Grab a cuppa, put your feet up, and permit us to shine a little light on the subject for you.

Put simply, a hosting service (often shortened to ‘hosting’) provides all the tools required to create a website, to maintain it, and to keep it accessible on the Internet.

Such hosting services are housed on technologically advanced and constantly – running computers, which are designed to provide a fast and uninterrupted hosting service. This ensures that the websites they host can themselves work reliably, at high speed and without interruption.

Choosing a Web Hosting service – Points to Consider.

Okay, so now that we know what a hosting service is, we need to consider how we go about choosing the one that’s right for us.

To make an informed choice, it’s important that we ask ourselves the following seven questions before settling on a hosting service:

• 1) Is it a Corporate web hosting service?
• 2) Which operating system is offered?
• 3) How good is the security?
• 4) Which database does it utilise?
• 5) Is an email address included?
• 6) How many subdomains are included in the hosting package?
• 7) What are the backup features of the hosting package?

Now let’s look at these questions in more detail.

Is it a corporate web hosting service?

Corporate Web hosting companies are those which hold a hosting provider certificate. Such companies will be experienced, with a track record of providing a great many websites. You will generally see their hosting provider certificate, as well as any references, displayed on their own website. You can take time to peruse these references yourself, to see if you think the hosting service would be a best – fit for your own website.

Which operating system is offered?

The two operating systems offered by hosting services are Linux and Windows. These differ in their operating languages. Here’s where it gets a little technical...

If Windows is your choice, then your site will need to be, most likely, built with the coding languages C# or ASP. If, however, your preferred operating system is Linux, then the coding language used will most likely be PHP.

Other options may also be used, including Java, Javascript and Python.

Your preferences and requirements in this area will go some way to enabling you to choose the best hosting provider for your site.

How good is the security?

You undoubtedly already know how important security is these days, especially when conducting business on the Internet. As a website owner, the onus is on you to protect the sensitive information of your customers, thus keeping you on the right side of the law where GDPR is concerned. Here come some of those technical terms again...

Generally speaking, the security features used by hosting services include SSL certificates, virtual pos integrations and trust stamps – the latter being one of the most important security considerations for any E-commerce site.

Different types of SSL certificates are offered by hosting services, and some of these incur a charge, so it is important that you spend some time thinking about the security features you require, and how much you want to spend to assure that security.

Which database does it utilise?

The database can best be imagined as the part of the hosting service computer where all the information for its various websites is stored.

A speedy database ensures fast operation of your website. The two database types commonly used by hosting services are known as MSSQL and MYSQL. If you have a VPS, any kind of database could be used, such as PostgreSQL or OracleDB.

Why should this matter to you? Well, simply because the database used depends on your coding language, so for example, if your website uses PHP, then one of the popular databases you might prefer is MYSQL.

Is an email address included?

Before choosing a hosting service, you will need to know whether email addresses are included, or whether you will need to purchase them for an additional fee. These days, the majority of hosting services allow you free email addresses. Those that do charge, typically will provide you with an email address in the format of example@sitename.com. Therefore, when reviewing hosting sites, you may want to look for ones that offer several free email addresses, so that you don’t have to spend money purchasing additional ones later on.

How many subdomains are included in the hosting package?

If you run a blog or forum, for example, you may need to think about subdomains. These can be thought of as ‘smaller ‘ domains which fall under the main domain of your site. If your site requires subdomains, then you’ll want to research which hosting services offer free subdomains, and whether more subdomains can be added later.

What are the backup features of the hosting package?

The amount of data and files relating to a typical website is extremely sizeable, including such information as content, images, videos and settings.

Not backing up or protecting these files and data leaves you exposed to the very real risk of losing some or all of the content of your website. Fixing this could cost you dearly in both time and money, and just doesn’t bear thinking about. It is in your best interests as a website owner to ensure that your chosen hosting service is able to properly back up your site, and to look into whether features such as automatic backup are offered, as well as checking out the backup frequency.

So there you have it, your guide to hosting websites. We hope you found it helpful and interesting.

At Swifsco, we want to make life easy for our customers. We do our best to offer advice and support without using too much complicated jargon. Our years of expertise in the field allow us to guide you through website hosting, as well as all the other aspects of owning and running your website. Why not get in touch to see how we can help you.