How To Decide Where To Host Your Website

By Darrel Hawes

When starting a new website, you need to decide where it will be hosted. This refers to where on the internet the site "lives". A website has to have a place where it resides, just like an individual or family. It may be a house, apartment, condo, or motorhome, but there is one place they call "home" at any given moment.

Websites reside on web servers, which are computers attached to the internet which keep website pages and serve them up when people want to view them. A computer which stores websites is called a web host.

One choice you will need to make is if you will use a paid web host or a free one.

Going with a free web host is always a temptation, as along with the attractive price, they often include simple website creation tools. Although these sites have many advantages, you should not use one for your "main" sites. Along with the showing of ads, they might also remove your site without warning or might close their service. Even so, the use of one of these sites can be a great part of your marketing plan. You may want to take a look at Blogger.com and Weebly.com.

For your paid site, you can either buy space yourself or if you use the services of a web designer, they will often arrange or provide it for you as part of your fee. There are many capable web hosts available. When selecting a web host, you should consider the following:

Price: how much are they going to charge you every month? What features might you need that will cost extra?

Reliability: do they guarantee uptime? One of the best ways to determine reliability is to ask what others' experience has been. The least expensive web host will not be worth it if you cannot count on it being available when your customers or readers need it.

Administration: most web hosts today use "cpanel", short for "Configuration Panel" to administer the site. Cpanel is an industry standard these days and you should not sign up with any host that does not offer it.

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