Questions You Should Ask Your Web Host Before Signing Up!

So, you’re looking to build a web-site or so fed up with your current web host that you are eager to transfer your site elsewhere? You may not even be aware of your current hosts vulnerabilities in an industry where each week there is news about a host going down for one reason or another.

Your first problem is narrowing the thousands of choices down to a few that you can research further. Seek friends or associates that have a web-site and ask for their advice. Visit one of the lots of forums about hosting, ask the members for advice or search threads from those that have asked before you.

Once you have located a few hosts to research, the ten questions below will take you a long way towards making an informed decision. You may be capable of finding lots of of the answers to these questions on the hosts websites, but always feel free to call the host and quiz them about their operations. The quality of the answers and degree of professionalism you get from a feasible host often transfers to the type of support you will get once you become a customer. Without further ado, the ten query to ask your web host:

1. How long has the net host been in business?
2. How lots of upstream web providers does the net host have?
3. Does the net host own its information middle?
4. Does the net host provide 24/7/365 phone and electronic mail support?
5. Does the net host monitor its customers sites twenty-four hours per day? How?
6. What levels of redundancy does the net hosts architecture provide?
7. Does the net host automatically backup customer websites in case of information loss? How often?
8. Does the net host provide the features that you require for your web-site?
9. what is the net hosts billing policy?
10. Does the net host have the products and services to handle your growth?

** 1. How long has the net host been in business? **

The length of time that a host has been in business can be related to their ability to provide a quality, reliable product. If your host can satisfy its customers, then those customers are likely to stick with the hosts service. Therefore, stay in business. there’s, of coursework, situations where this is not applicable or becomes a bit hazy. Be positive to also inquire about whether a host has recently been involved in a merger, acquired what was once a widely known brand name, or launched a used brand. If any of these apply, then delve deeper in to the story behind what has happened and determine whether quality resources are still with the company.

Complete a domain name whois lookup of the host: Type in the net hosts domain name and determine what year the domain was registered. If only registered in the recent past, ask the host about it. If the domain name was recently registered this is not necessarily a red flag. basically inquire with the host about it. they may have recently launched an affinity-based brand to cater to your market.

Type the hosts name in to a search-engine and check out the results that you get, other than those from the host itself. You may run across reviews, interviews, or industry articles about the host.

** 2. Does the net host own its information middle? **

A information middle is the foundation from which all products and services are built on. If your host owns its own information middle, then they are likely entrenched in the hosting business. they also have an experienced staff and knowledge base from which to draw from when supporting your web-site and building new products. In other words, if a host owns its own facility, then it controls more of the variables that can make or break your web presence.

** 3. How lots of upstream web providers does the net host have? **

Your web-site performance is not a measure of your web server’s speed. The ability of your web host to route traffic through the cleanest web connections is also of great importance. It is crucial that your provider have multiple connections to the net. Accidental fiber cuts in construction or telecom work and information middle equipment failure may cause your site to go offline for an extended amount of time.

This can be avoided if your web host has other connections to the net that will reroute traffic that would have normally been carried on the failed circuit. Yes, this means your host must also have additional capacity on hand to handle normal traffic levels when one connection is lost; which is another area where a host can try to cut cost. This is much like when driving your automobile, there’s several streets that you can take to get to your desired location. sometimes you will encounter construction or an accident that will require you to take an alternative street. Well, the net works the same way. there’s several routes that traffic can take to a location. Your host ought to be able to select the cleanest, or most efficient, route to your web-site visitor. In fact, your host ought to be able to continually tune these routes to find the best path to your visitors.

Another way to accomplish this is by minimizing the number of different networks traffic will pass through before reaching its location. It is important for your host to have direct connections to networks that have lots of eyeballs. In other words, your web-site will be served better if your web host is using connections with networks that facilitate web access to large volumes of subscribers.

** 4. Does the net host monitor its customers’ sites twenty-four hours per day? How? **

There’s a couple of factors that can influence the answer to this query. Does the host own its own information middle? If not, then they are physically removed from their servers and likely paying a co-location company to provide monitoring for them. When another company controls the environmental systems that provide the home for the host, one can argue that you have created another potential point of failure; that being the communication of an issue from the information middle to the net host. That point of failure can increase the latency between an issue and its resolution, leading to increased downtime for your web-site. Second, if your web host has an issue with its own infrastructure, then there may be travel time associated with their engineers getting to the information middle to resolve it or, once again, increased latency by trying to remotely resolve an issue.

You might be surprised at how lots of web hosts don’t provide 24/7/365 support. The industry’s hosts run the gamut from only electronic mail support to providing phone and electronic mail support 24 hours per day and 365 days per year. The best way to eliminate not having support when you require it, is to select a host that can assist you whenever you require it. When an idea wakes you from a slumber at 3 A.M., it is good to have your host on the other end of the phone to speak about it. When your site malfunctions due to a programming glitch the night before your store is to open, it is amazing to have your web host on the phone to decipher the issue with you. When your cat accidentally deletes some important files, know that your host is there to help recover them. Also make positive that your host is providing support over the major holidays. lots of web hosts will close their support middle, decrease their support to only electronic mail, or send their support team home with a pager to be called in case of emergency. All of these decreases can generate latency if your web-site goes offline. And, holidays are often days which persons will spend time on the net after they have done all of their social designs. Matter of fact, word-of-mouth business is one of the most effective means to customer acquisition. When people get together, they exchange ideas.

** 5. Does the net host provide 24/7/365 toll free phone and electronic mail support? **

** 6. What levels of redundancy does the net host provide? **

A web server is the hardware and application combination that serves requested web pages, files, or other information. Servers answer requests from web browsers to provide information from websites, electronic mail, and databases. they then send that information to the requesting browser. Load balancing divides the amount of work that a server has to do between multiple servers, which also adds redundancy, so that more work gets done in the same amount of time and, in general, all websites requests within the network get served quicker. The load balancers stay in constant contact with the servers to determine how busy they are and/or if one of them has failed. It may sound like a no-brainer, but having your site connected to the net is the whole reason for having a web-site as well as a load-balanced, redundant network is vital to that endeavor.

Failures that cause your site to lose connection can happen. Therefore, it’s crucial to discover a provider whose hosting architecture provides the least-risk of failure. Redundancy is necessary. Single points of failure are very bad, but lots of hosts try to cut costs by risking single points of failure. Ask your web host about their redundancy in server architecture (web, electronic mail, and DNS servers), load-balancing, and file storage.

Has your electronic mail server ever been down? Redundancy is also vital for electronic mail and DNS servers. A Domain Name System (DNS) server translates requests to locate a web-site. As you can imagine, keeping electronic mail and DNS servers online is a mission-critical task for a web host. For file storage, seek a host that makes use of a reliable storage solution with multiple auto-fail over and hot-swappable drives to make positive continuous delivery of your web-site.

** 7. Does the net host automatically backup customer websites in case of information loss? How often? **

Backing up websites ought to be a scheme part of your web host’s operation. Backup is the activity of copying files or databases so that they are going to be preserved in case of equipment failure or any other catastrophe.

Look for a web host that provides a money-back guarantee. This will let you try out the hosts service. You ought to you find that the service is sub-par in site performance, reliability, or lacking the features that you seek, the ability to request your cash back, within the parameters of the guarantee, is priceless and liable to save you from later trouble. It is always a good to idea to inquire about the net hosts cancellation procedures. there’s lots of hosts out there who require you to send them an electronic mail or make a phone call to cancel, which can extend the timeframe to cancellation. A host who is confident in their service will have a cancellation form or online avenue within their control panel. Now, they will likely also have a retention program, so dont be surprised when they call or electronic mail you to ask why you are leaving. After all, your feedback helps them to evaluate their service.

** 8. what is the net hosts billing policy? **

** 9. Does the net host provide the features that you require for your web-site? **

A domain name, but be positive to look for hidden registration fees or renewal fees sometimes people select a host because it has the exact feature set that they require, but later find that feature set means nothing when access to those features is unreliable. Make positive that a host has your desired features and is also reliable. To make positive that the host you are evaluating has everything you require, use the following list: An ample amount of versatile electronic mail accounts including web-based, POP3, and IMAP electronic mail spam filtering and virus protection are a must these days, unless you are providing this by yourself disk space to meet your sites needs every month bandwidth allotments that will cover your traffic and the ability to increase that allotment based on your sites success Site building tools such as extensions for FrontPage or other online/downloadable site building programs Ease of upload to your site by FTP or other means Access to a sturdy traffic analysis program or the raw logs for you to scheme yourself Programming languages, including CGI, PHP, MIVA (if needed) Database capability, dependent on your application preference ecommerce shopping cart options.

** 10. Does the net host have the products and services to handle your growth? **

You might be surprised how lots of sites that once started for fun or as a hobby have grown in to a number of the most popular sites on the net. Hence, you never know when you will outgrow your current product or service and require to move up the ladder to the next rung. Make positive that your web host can meet your anticipated growth, not only within the product range of shared hosting, but ought to you ever require a dedicated server or co-location solution, your host is there to speak about and provide the best solution.

Do your home-work by using the above questions as a template and you will likely save yourself some major headaches down the road. If you have gathered information about multiple hosts, you can now compare apples to apples and select the best host for your needs. Hopefully, the work that you have done will avoid forcing you to make use of your gut, but make an informed decision based on the facts. perhaps, the best piece advice that you will find in any article or forum about choosing a host is, if something seems good to be true, then it probably is.