What should you ask your website hosting provider?

To put a web site online, one must go through a web coordinator or a web hosting provider. The web site designer/developer will publish his or her design to a web hosting solution according to a set of recommendations and guidelines(typically provided by the practice), and also based on the type of development language the website developer has used. 

Many website hosting providers provide resources to help their customers not only simplify the process of posting information to a web site, but even provide applications to help develop websites easily.

Almost anyone can develop and publish a website today, but not everyone can setup a professional, feature rich website and then publish it securely such that its protected against various online attacks. Some understanding is thus essential before hiring a web hosting provider. When picking a web hosting provider, it is essential to keep your individual or business objectives in thoughts. 

If it's your own personal website, you might not mind it if the web hosting provider places a banner with a 3rd party promotion on it.  However, if it's an organization site you're planning; you may not want your web hosting provider to promote other organizations on your site. Many web hosting services provide free web servers if the site owners permit to place promotions on it or they charge a small fee to keep it clear of such advertisements. If you are looking to hire a web host kept the following points in mind:

1. Find out whether the provider is providing end-to- end Managed Solutions. Most webhost alternatives provides little or no support, and simply expect you to already have someone on them to deal with your specialized needs.  A managed web hosting provider should handle support for everything which range from getting a CGI script set up, to security protection of your e-commerce site. It is worthwhile paying the extra dollars for managed hosting.

2. Find out whether the website hoster provides you with the newest protected application or simply installs the standard base applications from an old CD. The provider must provide you with the latest , most secure and up-to-date web host server applications. Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search sites actually rate your site based on the application versions you use, and can considerably reduce your page rank score if you are using older and less protected application commonly provided by some website hosts.

3. A good website hosting firm should provide professional support 24 hours a day. There is nothing more painful than having to pay for support; even more than what you have to pay for the solution. And worse if you realize that you are having a conversation with someone located at a distance who scarcely speaks your language. Most webhost alternatives are busy outsourcing their support offshore. Ideally, a fast and friendly regional professional support should be available 24 hours-a-day, 7-days a week with provision for toll-free phone support as well as online live help chat sessions.

4. A webhost organization should reveal to a client their network features and capacity. Many web coordinators are simply resellers of another organization, so when you ask them to reveal their features, you can quickly figure out if you are interacting with a middleman or an efficient organization with their own features.

5. A webhost organization should have internet demonstrations and certification of what they offer. You MUST take demonstration tours of the website host's server user interface prior to purchase.

6. Website hosting organizations should have experienced in- house staff. There is no substitution for an excellent professional team when interacting in a technically-oriented organization place and the availability of an in-house market veteran team to deal with all your needs.

7. Look for a provider with realistic prices. Often, the most improbable costs come from the smallest of alternatives managing out of a single location. In reality, using a substandard website host will not conserve your funds at all. You will end up paying a lot more due to down times, back and forth discussions and unhappy visitors.