Choosing a Web Hosting Provider - BNS Hosting

PR Log (Press Release) – Feb 07, 2009 – Web Hosting service, according to Wikipedia is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to provide their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Hosting companies that provide space on a server they own for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. A lot of web hosting service providers are located here in the Philippines, but the question is, how to choose the reliable one.

Choosing a web hosting provider is a crucial decision for your company. Once you have decided who will host your website, you, give them your trust. Just imagine your site being down because of a lousy web hosting company, that will result to thousands or even millions of money that you will lose. So before you sign up for a hosting package, you need to look at some criteria:

1. Reputation on the company

Before signing up for that hosting package, make sure that you have searched for the company's reputation. How long it was in the business? Are there any comments (positive or negative) from their customers? Do they know what to do once problems arises, etc...

2. Technical Support

When you choose a web host, make sure they have excellent technical support. So when the time comes that you need their help, they can be reached through phone, email, or through even online chat support, and this means, 24/7 online availability. To do this, try to call or email the technical support team, and see how fast is the response time.

3. Specification Requirements must be met

You must know the specifications of each plan. Web hosting companies must be transparent when it comes to this factor. Do not believe to the advertisements that they offer unlimited bandwidth or unlimited disk space, because, the fact that these web hosting companies also pays for the bandwidth that their clients use, and also, they buy hard disks.

You may ask the account executive of what is the best hosting plan that you shoud get, usually, they will offer you the most expensive. You should list down the specifications that you will need. Or if you have no idea at all, try to ask. Then see if they will advise you to get the best package that will suit your needs.

4. Degree of reliability, security and speed of access

Speed, security and reliability are extremely important for the success of any online business. While choosing a reliable web hosting service you need to ensure that this is taken care of. A site that is not available, not updated on time or is down, will lose many online visitors. If an online visitor finds your site listed on a search engine, and he tries to access it but finds it down, he is sure to move on to the next link and you lose an important customer or visitor. Even slow working websites are very frustrating. So how do you know if a hosting company is reliable or not? By word of mouth or feedback from others! If that's not possible then you can yourself try accessing your site during peak hours and non-peak hours too. Your site has to be secure of intruders at the same time, especially if it's an ecommerce website.

5. When you are located here in the Philippines, it is an important factor that your site can be accessed and loaded fast. A lot of hosting companies offers cheap hosting fees, this is because, their data centers are located somewhere else, but definitely not in the Philippines. Asking why this is important? When you try to ping your site which is hosted on other countries, the result would be a high latency that will lead to slower loading of your site. So, if your business is located here, try to find a hosting company, that has a data center located here.

There are a lot of criteria that should be considered, the list above are just the few. Just remember, that when you decide to market your business online, you invest. When you invest, you dont want that investment to fail, instead you want to succeed. Find a web hosting provider that values its clients, treats them as their partners. And succeed when their partners succeed. A hosting provider that aims to promote online businesses and provide its clients with the service to achieve its client's objectives.