What factors should be considered when choosing a web host?

Whether you have created an e-commerce site, a showcase site, or a professional site for your business, you must attach great importance to hosting it. In particular to the web host to whom you will entrust your data.

It is indeed important to choose a trusted service provider who will be able to offer you an offer perfectly suited to your needs. this is one of the most determining criteria. If it is possible to find comparative offers on the internet, it must be admitted that they are not enough to determine whether you are making the right choice or not.

You must also take into account many other criteria to validate your choice. Here are the details below:

The type of web hosting

The type of hosting is the first criterion that should be taken into account when looking for a host. Indeed, among the formulas that will be proposed to you, you will be able to distinguish 4 categories of accommodation:

Dedicated hosting

Dedicated hosting indicates that you are alone on a physical server. It generally requires advanced Linux management skills: you must be able and have the time to maintain, secure, and evolve your own software environment.

Dedicated hosting is particularly recommended for experts, who do not want to host just one website. Having your physical server also allows you to host applications: voice server, video server, etc.

The dedicated server offers great freedom, but can be very expensive depending on the hardware configurations. Be careful also, a low-cost dedicated server may imply very low performance and not be suitable for a high traffic site.

VPS web hosting

A VPS is a part of a physical server. This amounts to having a dedicated server, divided between several people who each will have their own operating system in virtualized form. Then the VPS has the same advantages as a dedicated server on the possibility of installing its own applications.

The VPS is much less expensive than a dedicated server, but the performance will not necessarily be up to par. VPS can have as many dedicated resources as resources shared and sold several times by the host to various of its customers. In order to verify this, the price is a good indicator.

Shared hosting

Shared hosting is the most common. It is generally and exclusively used to host websites. The hosting provider will then take a physical server which will be shared between several customers.

Generally shared hosting does not have virtualization or dedicated resources, making it a generic and affordable choice.

Cloud hosting

The Cloud has no significance except commercial. It may be a question of a VPS, shared hosting, more advanced hosting with technical specificities. It can also be a question of business applications or services dedicated to specific uses: storage, VoIP, dematerialization of services, etc.

This type of hosting, therefore, saves you a long comparison process and ensures that you quickly benefit from a site hosted in a well-secured environment.

The price to host a website

The price remains a criterion that determines the choice of your accommodation. It is not a question of opting for the host whose offers are the cheapest, but rather the one who manages to give you the best value for money. The services offered with the offer must therefore be worth the price, even if it means investing a little.

In any case, avoid free hosts as much as possible, as they will not be able to completely meet your needs, and do not guarantee the security of your data. It can also be a good idea to ask yourself about multiple or overly advantageous promotional offers, which sometimes hide technical shortcomings.

Security

The data stored on your website must be perfectly secure to avoid leaks and hacking. The security devices offered by the host must at the same time facilitate the recovery of data if necessary.

The availability of the web host

Availability is as critically important as security, as it will affect the site’s performance to the public. An often unavailable host will earn you a site that is often down, and there is nothing more off-putting for Internet users.

This will also affect the ranking of the website on search engines, and ultimately its overall performance.

In the web hosting industry, 99% uptime should be guaranteed. To do this, a strong automatic backup system and equipment to prevent breakdowns must be implemented: air conditioning system, generator, UPS, etc.

During the remaining 1% of the time, your service provider must be able to provide you with technical service available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in order to be able to help you if necessary. In the event of a failure, the recovery time must also be optimal to cause the least possible disruption to site traffic.

You can even request that this recovery time be specifically specified in the contract with your host. However, this is sometimes illusory, because the repair time for a breakdown depends on its nature.

Server location

The location of the servers is an essential factor on the one hand for the performance of your website, and on the other hand for the protection of your data. Be aware that the closer the data storage location is to where visitors connect, the faster and more optimal the connection will be.

The place of storage also determines the law that will govern the protection of your data. It is, therefore, better to opt for a host that stores your data in a country where it can remain confidential.

Evolutionary technologies

The host must be aware of developments in the sector and use technologies that ensure innovation in its services. Whether it’s server hardware or CMS, your host must be able to keep up with this field, which is changing day by day.

This results in one or more increasingly modern offers, and the allocation of a substantial budget for research and development.