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Best Web Hosting Guide 2009

My #1 Best Host?

Host Gator. Hands. Down. Best. Host. Ever.

I host this site with Host Gator after a terrible experience with a popular dicount hosting company. Host Gator’s support has been fantastic. I have a shared hosting account with them as well as a private server that I got a steal of a deal on.

—->Sign up with Host Gator now. You won’t regret it. (They have phone support! That is what sold me)

How To Choose A WebHost

When choosing a web host, it is important to understand your options and how they will affect the performance of your websites. Today, most web hosts offer three different kinds of hosting – Shared (or Virtual), VPS (or Virtual Private Server), and Dedicated. web servers There are advantages and disadvantages to each one, knowing what to ask for can make or break your hosting experience.

Shared Hosting

First, we’ll start with the most basic type of web hosting: Shared hosting. Purchasing shared hosting simply means that your web sites will be stored on the same server as other customers’ web sites. This has a number of advantages: First of all, shared hosting is typically very cheap – Sometimes as low as $5 per month. Shared servers are also typically backed up every day, making it easy to recover data in the event of an accidental overwrite or other change of code.

Unfortunately, the downsides of shared hosting tend to outweigh the advantages. First of all, many web hosts tend to overload their shared servers, sometimes placing hundreds, if not thousands of web sites on one server. Also, sharing a server with dozens of other customers means that, if one of them happens to cause the server to crash, everybody’s sites will go offline. Security is also an issue; You may have written your web site to comply with modern standards and to be very secure, but someone else on the server may be using outdated code with known security vulnerabilities. If a hacker exploits these vulnerabilities and gains access to the server, they could very well have complete control over your files as well as the original victim’s. Finally, if one website on the server is using up all of the available resources (for example, processor time and RAM), everybody’s sites will suffer degraded performance. For example, if one site on the server makes it to the front page of Digg, and hundreds of users are accessing the site every minute, not only will that site slow down, but yours will as well. Such events can cause considerable downtime for everybody on the server.

If you are in the market for shared hosting, be prepared to ask potential hosts a few questions. First of all, ask them about their downtime guarantee. Most hosts promise 99% uptime. This may sound appealing, but keep in mind that 99% uptime amounts to a total of 87.6 hours of downtime per year. If that is unacceptable, try to find a host that promises “five nines” (99.999%) uptime. It may cost more, but it is well worth it.

Secondly, ask potential hosts for their most under-utilized server’s daily load averages for the past week. A server’s load average is simply a number indicating how much the processor has been utilized. If a single-core (one processor) server has a load average of 0.5, this means that the server was only using half of its processor time on average for a given day. A load average of 1 means that the processor was, on average, always in use. To determine if a server has acceptable load, simply ask for the load averages, and then ask for how many cores the server has. A four core server with a load average of 3 is perfectly acceptable, but a dual-core server with the same load would indicate that the server is being overloaded.

Finally, always ask potential hosts what their backup policy is. Daily is ideal, although some only keep weekly backups. If a potential host does not keep backups, find a different host.

VPS Hosting – Virtual Private Server

The second commonly-available type of hosting is VPS, or Virtual Private Server hosting. With a VPS setup, you are given your own “private” server, complete with its own operating system and resource limits. As the owner of this server, only your websites will be allowed to access its resources, making it a vast improvement over shared hosting. The only caveat here is that unlike a dedicated host, your private server is actually a virtualized environment running in tandem with other virtualized servers on the same physical server. In typical configurations, a physical quad-core server will host four virtual single-core servers, although different web hosts may configure their server’s processor-sharing differently. The same applies for RAM – If the physical server has 4 gigabytes of RAM and four virtual servers, each virtual server will have one gigabyte of RAM.

There are numerous advantages to having your own VPS. First of all, VPS users are typically given more freedom over their hosting environments. For example, if you need a specific script installed for a website, a shared host may not allow it. With a VPS, it’s your server, so you are free to install whatever you wish. The downside of this, however, is that if you install your own scripts, you are usually responsible for any security breaches that occur should an exploit exist in that script.

Another upside of VPS hosting is that you don’t have to worry about other users hogging your resources. You are given a set amount of RAM, hard drive space, and processors, and you can use them however you want. One thing worth noting here is that you may notice that VPS plans usually have a much lower resource allotment than shared hosts. With a VPS, you may receive 40-100 gigabytes of store space (depending on the hosting plan), whereas the same host may give shared hosting clients 10-20 times more. Some hosts even advertise “unlimited” disk space and bandwidth. There is a very simple explanation for this – Most shared hosts oversell their resources. Over 90% of typical shared web hosting customers will never use more than one gigabyte of storage, and unless they have fairly popular web sites, they will never come close to their bandwidth limits.

Recognizing this fact, most hosts oversell their available resources to give shared hosting customers the illusion of a good deal. In reality, if a shared customer starts hogging all of the server’s resources, they will likely be forced to upgrade to a VPS. So, having a solid, reasonable resource limit on a VPS is not really a bad thing.

Finally, VPS customers tend to receive higher priority than shared customers. Since VPS plans typically cost more, customers will (usually unofficially) receive a higher quality of service. This can be incredibly valuable should you encounter server problems and need to get back online immediately.

Dedicated Hosting

The final most common type of web hosting is dedicated hosting. With a dedicated host, you are given your own physical server, and are free to do whatever you wish with it. Some dedicated hosting customers even setup multiple virtual private servers on their physical server and lease them out to other individuals, or setup their own shared hosting company. With a dedicated server, you are only limited by your technical abilities or the ability to hire someone to do it for you.

The immediate disadvantage to dedicated servers is the most obvious – the price. Dedicated servers are usually very, very expensive, often amounting to hundreds of dollars per month. Also, with a dedicated server, you are often given a blank box – None of the services you took for granted on other hosting come pre-installed. If you opt for a Windows server, expect to pay an additional monthly license fee, and if you want a web hosting control panel, yet another fee. Also, unless otherwise specified, you are expected to provide your own hosting and configuration support. If a service on your dedicated server goes down, it’s your job to bring it back up. Hiring a server administrator can alleviate this problem, but also adds another expense. All in all, dedicated servers provide you with nearly unlimited freedom, but are very cost-prohibitive.

If you’re just getting started in the web hosting world, you should probably stick to simple shared hosting. Try to find a smaller host, or find one that has generally favorable reviews. Don’t be tempted by an “unlimited resource” plan at $4 per month – As stated earlier, you will most likely be stuck on an overcrowded server with poor support. A good shared host who doesn’t oversell and provides decent service can cost you $20-$30 a month, but it’s well worth it.

What type of hosting do I need?

Once your online empire grows, and you need a certain guaranteed quality of service, invest in a VPS. If you really take off, you might want to look into a dedicated server, but you’d better have the cash and support backing to cover it. Above all else, know the limits of your hosting, and what your requirements are. Don’t be afraid to pay for good performance, but don’t buy a service you don’t need.

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Reseller Hosting – What is reseller hosting and is this what I need for my hosting business?
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My number 1 best host?

Host Gator. Hands. Down. Best. Host. Ever.

—->Sign up with Host Gator now. You won’t regret it. (They have phone support! That is what sold me)