A good quality hosting partner will provide sufficient resources to provide all users with suitable web space, bandwidth, reliability, security, technical support and the latest available technologies. A poor quality hosting partner will offer a cheap rate to entice you to sign up with them and will then proceed to cram as many websites as possible onto each single server and not provide sufficient equipment and technical expertise. This results in constant reliability and performance issues.
Geographic targeting is also a key element when choosing your hosting partner as the location of your hosting partner is a vital clue used by the major search engines to determine the target market of your website. If the target market of a website is the United States then it is of critical importance that the website is hosted in the United States. Similarly if the target market is India then the website must be hosted in India.
Another important aspect is the IP address of your website and more importantly, if there are other websites sharing your IP address that have been blacklisted by the major search engines they could also have a negative impact on how your website will be viewed. A dedicated hosting plan can be expensive and only necessary for a hugely successful website. However, a dedicated IP address on your shared hosting account can be an effective tool for you to convince the search engines of your website’s validity and character.
Finally consider the technologies supported by your hosting partner and the website building tools they will provide you with. As standard you can expect to be provided with access to the latest versions of PHP, MySQL databases, FTP clients, blogging software, ecommerce solutions, .htaccess access and visitor statistics as a minimum. If these technologies are not available then you should consider searching for alternative hosting partner that will provide better value services for your money.
The bottom line is that selecting a reputable hosting partner should amount to more than a comparison of prices and selection of the cheapest option. Consult with business acquaintances to find reputable hosting companies and consult local technology forums for further insight.
When speaking with perspective hosting partners ask lots of questions such as the technology they support, well known websites they already host, what level of support they provide as standard. While researching a couple of different hosting options can be time consuming it is a worthwhile exercise and will ensure you get your website implementation and promotion off to the best possible start.
