Thinking Of Changing Your Web Host?

Posted on February 9th, 2009 in Business Tools, Getting Started, Services by Carol Aston

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Sorry I’ve not been around for a while everyone but I decided to change my web host. I must admit it’s the first time I’ve done it and I ran into a few problems with my Wordpress blog. These are all sorted now thanks to some much needed help and advice I received in the NPG forum. If you’re thinking of changing your web host you might want to take these things into consideration before you decide which host to go with.

Firstly you need a web host that is going to suit your budget, it’s no use signing up for something you simply can’t afford. On the other hand the cheapest isn’t always your best option so shop around, it’s your money!

Look for a host with good Customer Support, if you have a problem you don’t want to be waiting days for a reply, you need it sorted out as soon as possible.  Also make sure there are no set up fees, there really is no need to pay these as so many of today’s web hosts do not charge them.

FTP Upload, be sure to check that the web host offers anonymous FTP support via a dedicated FTP server.

Make sure you check how much storage space they are going to give you, anything between 500 and 1000 megabytes should be more than enough for most business websites, don’t let them tell you you need more than that, if you ever do, which is unlikely, you can always upgrade later.

You may also want one that lets you set up Pop-email accounts, this way you can have email accounts that are connected to your website such as support@yourdomain.com or yourname@yourdomain.com. Go for one that lets you set up quite a few.

Check out the Bandwidth, for web hosting purposes, this is a measure of how much data is downloaded from the site by your visitors over the course of a month. If you have 25GB of bandwidth for your hosting account, that is how much data you will be able to transfer to visitors’ browsers over the course of a month. Allow yourself a generous amount of bandwidth, especially if you plan to upload large files such as high quality images to your site.

Make sure you are able to use PHP or PERL, you will need these to easily set up databases on your website.

A few other things to look for are the CGI-BIN, CGI programs allow you to run interactive programs such as guestbooks, message boards, mailing lists etc. Cron Events, you may come across some programs that require you to have this feature installed so check on this. Also some hosts let you check your site stats so that you can check your website traffic.

If you are thinking of changing your web host or are just looking for your first one and you need some help let me know, I’ll do what I can to help.

Take care,

Carol

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