Are Their Customers Satisfied?

Many web hosts feature glowing testimonials on their site, but of course they would never post something bad about themselves. Some brave web hosts allow customers to leave reviews on their site, even if they’re negative. The best way to find customer opinions using just the web host’s site, however, is on a community forum. Not all web host sites have them, but they can be a great resource. I suggest browsing the forum for posts by disgruntled users, then see if a company representative responds to complaints in a timely and helpful manner.

InMotion Hosting has a lively community forum

After you’ve checked out the host’s forums, it’s time to turn to a search engine. Simply searching for the web host’s name will give you a long list of review sites. These often offer great comparison charts, as well as in-depth reviews of each web host. Another useful source can be forums on website topics. Web hosts might delete negative comments from their own forums, so an outside source might give you more insight.

Things to look for in reviews: uptime, website crashes, server speed, security, and anything else that pops out as overwhelmingly positive or negative.

Host Comparison Chat on InsidersHostReview.com

How About That Refund Policy?

Ok, so you found a web host that passed all your tests and bought a hosting plan—but then they changed a policy, your website started crashing, or you decided you could no longer afford to run your site. Either way, you want a refund. That’s why it’s important to research the refund policy before you buy.

Most web hosts will offer a full refund if you ask for one in the first 30 days (some offer longer) after your purchase. If they don’t offer you at least 30 days, don’t use that host! Even with web hosts that offer a “money-back guarantee,” make sure you check their terms of service. Sometimes you only get a partial refund. Most web hosts don’t offer a refund on domain names, but that’s because the domain name is yours to keep after you leaving a hosting service.

But what if you want to cancel your hosting plan after the trial period ends? Some hosts will give you a refund on the remainder of your hosting plan, or a pro-rated refund. Not all web hosts offer a pro-rated refund, so it’s up to you to check the terms of service. Some hosts will also charge you an early-cancellation fee.

What if your trial period is over, but you don’t think your host is holding up their end of the bargain? Check the warranty and limited warranty sections of your web host’s terms of service. In most cases, you won’t get a full refund if you dislike the service, but some hosts offer credits to your account or something similar.

Bottom line: The key to choosing a web host that’s right for you is to do your research before you buy, and never take the web host’s site at face value. Always look at outside reviews, test for reliable tech support, play with any online demos, and know the ins-and-outs of the refund policy and terms of service. To help you start your research, check out these popular web hosting. They are well reputable and are hosting more than millions of websites at the time of writing.

Do They Really Have 24/7 Support?

First, never choose a web host that doesn’t offer at least a 24/7 toll free phone line! Make sure this phone line is for technical support and not just sales. If your web host doesn’t have someone working over the weekend, what happens when your site goes down on Friday afternoon? It could be offline until Monday morning.

Other tech support features you can look for on their website: Live chat, email support, the ability to submit a ticket online, and a Help Center with articles, tutorials, and forums to allow you to look for your own answers. Basically, the more tech support options, the better.

iPage’s Knowledgebase is a good Help Center

Once you know what support options your web host offers, test them out. Call their tech support line to see if they put you on hold for a long time. Send a question by email—do they respond within an hour or two? How about the live chat? I’ve been to a few hosting sites that leave their chat area unattended for hours at a time.

Bluehost’s Live Chat was available immediately

Do They Let You Test Drive?

After you try out a web host’s tech support, look into testing a few other features. Some web hosts include an online demo of their control panel that you can test drive from their website. An easy-to-use control panel is one of the most important features of a web host because it is where you will access your account and work on your domain. If a web host includes a demo of their entire control panel, it shows that they are confident in their product. It also lets you decide if the control panel will work for you before you buy.

WebHosting Hub uses cPanel, a popular and well-known control panel

Can You Easily Create a Website?

A good website builder is important to people who don’t have website software of their own, or who don’t want to bother doing their own coding. Many web hosts offer a free site builder, but not many offer online demos. If you are going to build anything more than just a basic website, I suggest you find a web host that lets you try out their website builder so that you can make sure it offers all the functions that you need. Just like with control panels, an online demo of the program shows confidence in the product.

HostGator’s Five Step Website Builder

Did your web host pass the technical support and online demo tests? I hope so, but there are still a few more things you need to investigate.

That’s the part 2 – Investigating Your Web Host Part: Research Is Important!

Disk space, often referred to as “storage space” or “disk space“, is your website’s total number of bytes. A website is really a collection of files — each graphic, animation, video, text document, etc. is a file that takes up a certain amount of disk space on your hard drive and the web host’s server.

No one can actually offer you a truly “unlimited” amount of space — web hosts usually mean “unlimited for typical users.” Make sure you check their terms of service to see if they give an actual number, but unless you’re building the next Amazon.com, chances are you’ll be well below the available disk space.

Estimating Your Hosting Storage Needs

Still, there are a lot of web hosts that offer a variety of plans with different amounts of disk space. But how do you know how much storage you need before buying one? If you already have a website, it’s really easy to figure out how big it is—if you’re a Windows user, simply right-click on your website’s folder in Windows Explorer, choose Properties, and look at the Size field. A good rule of thumb is to purchase 50% more disk space than you already need to allow for website growth.

If you don’t have a website and you’re going to build one after you purchase a web hosting plan, you can guess at how much storage space you will need by considering the types of files on your site. Will you be using a lot of video files, Flash, photos, or audio files? These items take up a lot more hard drive space than text. CSS and Javascript take up more space, too. And don’t forget your email accounts!

To estimate your storage needs, first think about the number of pages. A plain HTML page takes up less than 30 KB. So if your website will have 50 pages, then 50 x 30 = 1.5 MB. That’s not much space at all, but an HTML website would be boring, so you need pictures. Adding 100 photos saved at 100 KB per file adds another 1G of storage.

Finding Your Magic Number

If you plan on posting lots of videos or audio files, or if your email accounts will need a lot of storage space, you should consider a few other numbers, too. These are just example — space depends on the type of file.

• Video (1 min .avi movie from camera): 77 MB
• Audio (5 min): <8 MB
• Email accounts: Depends on how much storage space you allow them
• CSS and Javascript: Add 5 MB for room to grow

Use my worksheet below to add up your files. Fill in the Number of Files column, then each number with its size to get the amount of storage for that file type. Add up all the numbers in the Amount of Storage column and add 50% more space to estimate the amount of storage you need. That’s your magic number for a web hosting storage.

* Click here to download the worksheet in pdf.

Worried that your estimate might be a little off? No worries. In most cases, you’ll be fine if you just choose a web host with “unlimited” disk space. But if you’re building a very large website or need a dedicated server and can’t use shared hosting, most web hosts will allow you to purchase extra disk space when you need it.

Option 1: Shared Hosting

Shared Hosting is recommended if you need:-

Easy-to-use content management system
Simple web templates
Simple software solutions
Dedicated domain name
Email access
Reliable support for moderate traffic

And your budget is:-
Very low, starting at $4/month

A few hosts to try:-
iPage, FatCow, Hostgator, InMotion Hosting

Option 2: Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is recommended if you need:-

An easy-start-up web hosting business
Support multi-users enviornment
Software & scripts ready
Reliable support for both you and your clients

And your budget is:-
Moderate to very high, starting at from $20/month and ranging into $80+/month

A few hosts to try:-
Hostgator, Bluehost, JustHost

Option 3: Colocation Hosting

Colocation hosting is recommended if you need:-

A dedicated server
High security
Unrestricted software choices
Lots of bandwidth for high amounts of traffic
Dedicated domain name(s)
Email access

And your budget is:-
Moderate to very high, starting at from $50/month and ranging into $100+/month

A few hosts to try:-
Varies by your city or region – you’ll need to do some research!

Option 4: Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is recommended if you need:-

A dedicated server
Increased security
Database and special software support
Multiple domain names
Email access
Reliable support for high amounts of traffic

And your budget is:-
High, starting at $100/month

A few hosts to try:-
Hostgator, InMotion Hosting, LunarPages

More Advice Before You Choose a Web Hosting Provider:

You’ve decided on the best type of web hosting – but your quest isn’t over yet. Before you sign up, be sure to check out each provider and compare:

• Pricing
• Features
• Loading Speed
• Uptime Reliability
• Customer Service

One of the best ways to do this is to read up web hosting reviews. Feel free to contact the host’s current customers to see what they think, or surf their sites to get an idea of the host’s speed. Want more details about the different types of web hosting services and what service fits your website best? See our Beginner’s Guide: How to Find the Best Web Host for You and Your Website.

Free Web Hosting Services

Best for:

• Personal or family websites
• Beginners who don’t want to pay for hosting services
• Anyone who doesn’t mind web banners or spotty service
• Access to email service

There are lots of free web hosting services that are great for new and very small websites. The service is usually reliable enough for you to post your photos, blogs, videos, and have access to email.

On the down side, free web hosting services put restrictions on your disk space, limiting the features you can add to your site. In most cases, free hosting sites leave much to be desired when it comes to security and technical support. A few other drawbacks: You won’t have a dedicated domain name, and you may have to allow banner ads. But hey, it’s free.

Shared Web Hosting Services

Best for:

• Hosting a single website
• Personal, hobby, or family websites
• Small business websites
• Websites that don’t require lots of disk space
• Websites with moderate traffic

Shared web hosting service is one of the most popular (and cheapest) hosting options. With this type of service, you rent space on a server that’s shared by other users – so you get basic web hosting without tons of bells and whistles at a really good price. Unlike free hosting services, shared hosting allows you to claim your own domain name — and they usually have great customer support. It’s a nice option for small or first-time websites.

However, if your website has any special requirements – like specialized applications or scripting languages – be sure to check that your shared hosting provider supports those features. Or, consider upgrading to a dedicated host.

Dedicated Hosting

Best for:

• Hosting more than one website
• Small- to medium-sized business websites
• Websites that require lots of disk space or special software support
• Websites that need room to grow in the future
• Websites with lots of traffic

With this type of service, you rent your own server – no need to share! You get increased security, and plenty of space for email, databases, and specialized software. Of course, dedicated hosting is a little more expensive than shared hosting, but it comes with perks: reliable service and plenty of resources to host more than one website.

Collocated Hosting

Best for:

• Large websites with heavy traffic
• Websites that need extra security (think ecommerce)
• Websites that require very specialized software

Collocated hosting is ideal for large ecommerce websites, or sites that need to protect sensitive information that’s being passed back and forth on the server (like credit cards, email addresses, and social security numbers). Basically, collocated hosting allows you to place your own dedicated server at the hosting company’s offices. Collocated hosting gives your site extra security and unlimited software features — but it can be fairly expensive and requires sophisticated knowledge to manage and maintain the server.