Choosing a web host is an important step in creating a website. The entire operation of your web resource depends on this choice.

All hosting providers fall into two large groups: free and shared web hosts.

First of all let me tell you that many of the free web hosting providers are not exactly free, that is, in exchange for their services they can place their ads on your website.

If your website is a home page containing your personal information or a small web resource where you share information on a certain topic, then most likely free web hosting will be enough for you. In case your website is an information portal, a service or a site of your company, you should definitely use shared web hosting services.

Difference Between Shared and Free Web Hosting

As mentioned above, very often free web hosts insert their ads in the form of banners or popup windows. Your website visitors will not be happy with it as it is widely known that the ads are irritating, especially the pop-up ones. So, if your goal is to attract the audience that is willing to visit your website regularly, coming back again and again in a day, a week, a month and not just close your resource in 5 seconds after reaching your first page, then choose ad-free hosting.

Also, with free web hosts you can only expect a domain like your_site.host.com. Such a domain will hardly affect the reputation of your website in a positive way; before it will damage your image, especially if it is a company website.

“Why won’t the images load?” -SUPPORT SERVICE will provide you with answers to such questions. You absolutely must have one because good service support really speeds up the troubleshooting process. 90% of shared web hosts have proper service support and only 10% of free web hosts have one.

Not all free hosts can boast services like their own CGI-BIN directory or support for Perl, PHP, MYSQL, Cron, SSH, Telnet and many others. And even if at the moment your web resource does not need any of these, such a need may appear in the near future with the growth of your website. Over time, you’ll also need more and more disk space. Free web hosts usually give you 1-100 Mb while shared web hosts give 1-5000 Mb for your website.

So the conclusion is the following.

If you only have a home page or a small website about your interests, go for free web hosting without hesitation. But before choosing a particular hosting you must:

• determine the volume of disk space that you are going to need, taking into account further growth of your resource;
• decide if you need script support, if you need to have a file manager or will you do well using ftp access, if you need a site builder
• Think about the domain name. It should be short and easy to remember.
• Define your attitude towards the host’s ads: if you are against it or not

When you’re done with all these things, remove all the hosts that don’t meet your requirements. I advise you to check the loading speed of websites located on hosting providers that suit your needs. And then you just choose the host with the least crowded channels.

I personally recommend freehostia.com. They provide:

250MB of disk space

6GB bandwidth

5 hosted domains

+ 1 MySQL database

+ 1-click app installs

FTP access. Support of PHP, Perl, Python, SSI and much more. There is also a catalog of ready-to-use scripts with the possibility to adapt the design to your website – the optimal choice for a beginning webmaster.

Shared Hosting

Some may say that shared hosting is expensive, but it is just a myth. Their prices vary from 1 to 50 dollars per month depending on the set of services and resources provided. Naturally, shared hosting does not have the disadvantages of free hosting.

However, shared web hosting providers differ based on the range and quality of services. Here are some criteria that will guide you in your choice of shared web hosting:

• A host should not impose hard restrictions on traffic. There should at least be the ability to pay if you go over the limit, but the payout shouldn’t be too high.
• If you need ASP, FrontPage Server, MSSQL, then you should look for web hosting on an NT server and the host itself should provide these services. If not, you’d better choose UNIX hosting.
• It is desirable that a host provides Perl, SSI, PHP, MYSQL…
• In addition to disk space, a host must provide mail. Make sure it covers both incoming and outgoing mail services. Sometimes it happens that a host provides you with email addresses and not email boxes. In this case all your mail will be redirected to the email box you have indicated, which will make your work difficult.
• A hosting provider must have their support service, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by email and by phone (fax). Ask them a few questions – a good hosting provider will get back to you within 24 hours. If they keep ignoring you, or if there is no support service at all, stay away from those hosts.
• Check what rights you are going to exercise in terms of server management. At a minimum, you must have FTP access to your catalog; It will allow you to perform the necessary actions when forwarding, editing or deleting files. It would be advisable for a host to have a web interface to work with your server and your account.
• If you are an experienced user, then you may want a host to provide telnet access; you will be able to work with the provider’s computer almost at the same level as yours.
• Daily archiving (making backup copies) of your website is also a big plus.
• Good hosting is fast web hosting. The less crowded the provider’s servers and channels are, the better. The minimum bandwidth must not be less than Pentium III-800 Mhz with 512 Ðœb of RAM
• It is good practice for a web host to have your physical address and some other information
• Before you finally send the payment, get acquainted with the Internet reviews of other users about this host

Surely, it is not a complete list of all the criteria according to which one should choose a web host. But if a host meets all the requirements mentioned above, you can start working with them.