SUMMARY: Display uptime statistics for web hosting providers to help make your decision.

Obviously, when choosing a web hosting provider, server reliability should be crucial in your decision. An offline site can anger potential visitors, plus a site that frequently goes down can reduce search engine rankings if spiders visit the site when it is not able to serve information.

While web hosting providers can offer uptime guarantees, these may not cover true monetary loss against a malfunctioning site. Thus, how can you be sure a provider you are considering is reliable enough to host your personal, organization, or business site?

Netcraft, a UK web services company, offers uptime information for several dozen top hosting companies. Daily updated information includes the percentage of failed requests, average time to connect, average time when the first byte of a response is received, and total time to receive. Performance graphs are also available. And for those who would rather see summary results, Netcraft also provides monthly reports>

SUMMARY: Virtual hosting lets you put many web domains> 

Even if your current business plans>

SUMMARY: Ensure your website data is archived in case of an emergency.

One consideration when choosing a web hosting provider is if they perform backups>

SUMMARY: Your web hosting provider should support SFTP and SSH for added security.

If you are choosing between web hosting providers that allow you to access your site via a shell account, be sure to get>

SUMMARY: Will your web hosting provider guarantee a maximum amount of downtime?

Plan>

SUMMARY: Check your web hosting provider’s level of support for CGI scripts.

If you plan>

SUMMARY: Your web hosting provider’s operating system may determine the types of scripts you can run and databases you can access.

Before choosing a web hosting provider, find out>

SUMMARY: Ensure your web hosting provider doesn’t surprise you with excess fees for extra bandwidth.

Before choosing a web hosting provider, be sure to carefully read all of the bandwidth charges that come with your account! Even if a web hosting provider claims to offer “unlimited bandwidth”, sometimes that comes with stipulations; if you want to host files or multimedia>

SUMMARY: Web visitor statistics are vital in your marketing efforts. Does your web hosting provider allow you access to server logs or statistical tools?

Before choosing a web hosting provider, unless you plan>

SUMMARY: Sending e-mail from a web host? What is your web provider’s policy> 

In this day and age, when choosing a web hosting provider, you need to check their policy>