babywebmaster.com

Choosing a Web Hosting Package

Web Hosting Plans Terms & Costs

Most hosting companies offer month-to-month payment plans, although you save money if you pay for a full year or more upfront. Prices for hosting can range from $2 all the way to $1500 per month depending on what your needs are. 99% of people will never need to spend more than $20 per month. I recommend if you’re starting out, getting a shared hosting plan (explained below) which can be as little as $2-$6 per month.

Types of Web Hosting Plans

So you’ve decided you’re gonna get a hosting plan. Great! Ok, so we’ve already gone over why you should choose a Linux Hosting Plan (not a Windows Hosting Plan) but now there’s one more choice ahead of you … Hosting Companies usually offer 3 types of hosting plans:

Shared Hosting Plans
This type of hosting package is the usually the most economical. It’s called a shared hosting plan because you are “sharing” your web server with other customers. Each website “sits” on its own partition, or section on the server, to keep it separate from other sites. I recommend this type of plan for those just starting out. You can always upgrade/transfer your hosting plan at any time if your needs change.

VPS Hosting Plans
With a Virtual Private Server Plan or a VPS Hosting Plan, you are still running software on the same physical computer as other customers’ virtual machines. However, it is functionally equivalent to a separate physical computer, and can be dedicated to the individual customer’s needs. Generally, this type of hosting plans allows more flexibility in terms of server configuration when compared to a shared hosting plan where you are sharing the same standard configurations set by the hosting company.

Dedicated Hosting Plans
This is the most expensive of the 3 types. A dedicated hosting plan gets you your own separate (dedicated) server that is not shared with anyone. Again, this is more flexible than shared hosting, as you have full control over the server, including choice of software, hardware, etc. The benefit of this type of hosting plan is that you cannot be affected by other sites that you would otherwise be sharing the server with. Other benefits include greater performance, and added security.

Which Hosting Plan is right for me?

The dedicated server may seem like the most ideal choice, however it is also the most expensive and isn’t always the most practical, especially if you are in the early stages of having an online presence. Shared hosting environments can be very reliable and cost effective and is what I usually recommend if you’re unsure. It’s ultimately up to you to anticipate what your needs will be as far as how much web traffic you will be getting, how much of a concern security is etc. Thankfully, as I mentioned above, you can always upgrade (or downgrade) your hosting plan if your needs should change.

Web Hosting features/requirements that are a must

• 24/7 Customer Support – preferably 24/7 live-chat as well
• Unlimited Disk Space – lots of room to do what you want
• Unlimited Email Accounts – some companies limit the number of emails you can have which is terrible
• Unlimited Bandwidth – no limits on traffic to your site
• No change in hosting plan price after term is complete – some hosting companies will hide in the fine print and raise your plan price after you complete your term with them.
• No setup or hidden fees – some hosting companies will offer cheap prices, but will charge hidden fees
• 99% or more up-time guarantee – you want your site to be available 99%+ of the time!
  (the less than 1% of downtime can be attributed to server maintenance etc.)
• cPanel Control Panel or equivalent – some hosting companies offer their own hosting control panels to save money and avoid paying licensing fees to cPanel Inc. As a result they offer you their “in-house” control panel. cPanel is the industry standard and nothing less should be acceptable.
• The latest and greatest web hosting features such as PHP, MySQL, Cron, SSH, phpmyadmin

Web Hosting Companies that babywebmaster.com recommends and why

There are literally thousands of hosting companies to choose from. Some good, most Bad! The 4 Hosting Companies listed below offer the best in prices, products, customer service, and reliability. All 4 of these hosting companies offer all of the required web hosting features listed above (and more).

If you must know, I prefer to use HostGator. In fact, this website is hosted by HostGator. There isn’t one thing that makes HostGator necessarily better than the other three choices below (all 4 companies meet the requirements above), it’s just I have found that their support system is very efficient and they have made the process of purchasing and setting up an account very easy. Plus, if you use the coupon code babywebmaster during their checkout process, you’ll get an extra 25% off of the price listed below.

With that said, here are my 4 recommended Hosting Companies (in no particular order).