If you are in e-commerce business, or providing support services through your website, down time can be very expensive. Larger hosts will provide redundancy for drives, power supplies and bandwidth. If your site produces revenues, don’t scrimp on host. Security of your data and your customers’ data is a sensitive issue. While your host is unlikely to guarantee security of any system, they should have in place adequate assurances that their environment does not contribute to risk. They should also be willing to guarantee turn-around time on installation of patches and security fixes as they are released by vendors (like Microsoft!).

Selecting right host for your company requires taking a hard look at your needs. Issues that must be resolved and prioritized include your need for ongoing maintenance and physical support services, network quality and speed, contract terms, and of course value for money. Let’s not forget that current market, with its slough of bankruptcies, has also taught us that financial stability of firm is a factor.

For most clients, level of host’s customer service is key to satisfaction. Poor customer service is commonly cited as a reason for moving from one host to another, so make an effort to assess any firm’s abilities in this area. Several sites now focus on rating web hosts and these should serve as a good starting point for your investigations. Try Hostsearch.com, with its wizard interface, and Web Host Directory. Make a point to ask around - word of mouth is a strong persuader in customer service game.

Other issues that will inform your decision include your preferred operating system – Windows, Linux or Unix -- and your database needs. The additional services area is where a lot of firms distinguish themselves, offering incentives in form of unlimited email addresses, or free domain name re-directs. Look carefully at fine print and add up cost of additional services. You may well find that more expensive package bundles a lot of items marked as additional expense in budget packages. But, also never forget that company will be more than happy to let you upgrade to a bigger package if your needs change in future.

author: Ric Shreves, www.waterandstone.com

Most web hosts allow you to set up email addresses connected with your domain, such as jim@thenetreporter.com, and have them forward to your email account, like yourname@aol.com. The ability to set up email aliases forms an integral part of any online business. Make sure your hosting company allows you to set up at least 5 email aliases.

Website Tools

If you want to do anything more than let people look at static web pages, you will need to have certain tools available. The two most important tools are CGI and website statistics. These allow you to run scripts and see who came to your site and when.

Tech Support

Make sure you understand any company's technical support policies and hours of operation. Don't wait until Saturday afternoon to discover your only help option is to wait and email them Monday morning.

Go to www.comparewebhosts.com and check out tool for researching and comparing offerings of over 9,000 different website hosting companies. Try "Power Search" feature, which allows you to specify about 50 different variables, including price, company location, bandwidth, and number of email aliases allowed. It even lets you search by how often hosting company backs up its servers to protect against data loss.

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