Web Hosting Reviews

Choosing a Web Host

Choosing a web host can be overwhelming to say the least. We continuously search the internet for top web hosting companies. Here is a list of our top choices based on service, reliability, products, and overall deals.

Our goal is to provide you with the information you need to make the right descision based on your needs and requirements.

Web Hosting Comparision Chart:

***Based off a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

General Web Hosting Terms you should get familiar with before you buy or when you are looking for a web hosting company:

Disk Space:

Disk space is important to a lot of web site owners. Everybody wants to make sure they have enough space to handle all their needs. Disk space is the amount of storage space a web hosting company will give you to host your web site on their servers. Depending on what you are going to be doing with your web site, the amount of disk space you need could be important. If you can figure out how much space you will need you can narrow down the type of hosting package you will want to get. Ask yourself: Do you have a lot of images? Do you have a large amount of information or products? Are you storing multimedia or music files?

Common storage terms:

• byte = 8 bits
• 1 kilobyte (K / Kb) = 2^10 bytes = 1,024 bytes
• 1 megabyte (M / MB) = 2^20 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes
• 1 gigabyte (G / GB) = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes
• 1 terabyte (T / TB) = 2^40 bytes = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes
• 1 petabyte (P / PB) = 2^50 bytes = 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes
• 1 exabyte (E / EB) = 2^60 bytes = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes

If you can, make an approximation in your head and then add another 50-100MB just to be safe. Check if the hosting company will let you add on and expand. This should be pretty clear when you go to their web site.

If all this is a little overwhelming, it’s always better to have too much, rather than too little.

Pricing (Monthly/Yearly)

Web hosting companies generally either will bill you monthly or yearly. It’s not a bad idea to start with a monthly contract versus a yearly one when you first sign up (Even if you planning to be with them for years to come.) This let’s you get a little more comfortable before you commit. Just make sure they will let you upgrade your account if you choose to check them out before committing to the year.

Domain Registration 

A domain name is basically the www.yourdomainname.com. If you do not own a domain name already, most web hosting companies will provide some sort of domain registration services in their packages. If you own your domain name already, you will have to transfer it to their name servers. Again, if this is getting over your head check and see if they will do it for you or if they have instructions to guide you through the process.  In general, try and make your domain name useful. Make it as short as possible (no one likes to type in long domain names.) Also, try to pick words that reflect your business or are easy to remember. This will help you when you start to marketing your services, products, or information.

Email Accounts

Email accounts need to be looked at carefully. There are so many options with email so you will really need to look at the details to make sure you get what you want. Obviously, you want a hosting company to be able to scale with your business needs. See how many email accounts you start with and if you can add on more if you max out. See if you can check your mail online or if you can use a program like Microsoft Outlook to send and receive your mail (POP3, SMTP & IMAP.) The big thing with email is that you want it to be reliable. One of the worst feelings is when you email doesn’t work because of old equipment or lack of forethought. Ask about a web hosting company’s uptime and see if they have a good technical support team.

Other items you will want to check with the web hosting company about are the types of databases or scripting languages you can use. Whether they have an online control panel to manage your account or if they support FrontPage Extensions and web statistics so you can monitor your visitors.