I’m only going to talk about managed hosted servers, i.e. the hosting that 99% of people use for regular websites.
Note: If you currently have domain names registered, I would recommend using their hosting services to reduce the hassle. Okay, let’s start. What is a managed website hosting server? The web hosting server simply provides your website to anyone who types in your domain name. Your domain name points to a location on a web hosting server and this location would normally hold your website.
The first thing you need to do is determine exactly what you want from your website hosting provider. If you don’t have any specific need for Microsoft Hosting to use basic Access or Visual scripts, you should choose Linux/Unix hosting service. Most hosting providers offer pretty much the same features, for example
Small package: – Web space 5 GB, Bandwidth 5 GB, Email accounts 10, Subdomains 10,…
Medium package: – Web space 10 GB, Bandwidth 10 GB, Email accounts 20, Subdomains 20,…
Big Package: – Web Space 20 GB, Bandwidth 20 GB, Email Accounts 50, Subdomains 50,…
In general I would recommend buying the smallest package and then upgrading at a later date if needed, almost all hosting packages come with a 12 month subscription. It’s always easier to upgrade than downgrading to a smaller, cheaper package. Ok, so what do all the functions do?
Web Space – The amount of web space provided on the server, most websites are very small, around 200mb for an average site.
Bandwidth/Traffic Allowance: This is the amount of data you provide to people, the web page uses little bandwidth and the videos use a lot of bandwidth. YouTube, for example, uses a large amount of bandwidth due to large files and large number of users.
My SQL Databases – Many websites rely on my SQL databases for features like forums, blogs, customer forms, e-commerce, and more. A single my sql database can be used for several functions, but if you have heavy usage, it would be better to split it to load multiple my sql databases.
Customer Service: I highly recommend choosing a host in your local country with 24 hour phone support, from time to time you will need to contact them for issues you never expect to happen. I recently lost strong encryption on one of my domains that should automatically renew. A phone call fixed the problem.
Cost: The cost varies a lot, some companies offer very cheap domains with more expensive hosting and others vice versa. Shop around and see what deals you can get, but try not to get caught up in things you don’t need. A typical medium package shouldn’t cost more than $9.99 a month.
All hosting providers will have a huge list of all the features their package has, but they are all more or less the same, they all do the same things.
The things above are the important parts.