When deciding on a web host for your website or blog, there are a number of things to consider when comparing web hosting plans.
Price
Whilst you should never shop solely on price when it comes to web hosting, price is of course still an important thing to consider. Though if the price seems too good to be true, you’ll likely get what you pay for and suffer (either from downtime, poor support etc.) as a result.
Disk Space
How much disk space does your plan come with?
Do you upload many images, maybe you’re a photographer with a portfolio site full of photographs? In this case, you’ll need a web hosting plan with plenty of disk space. Many web hosts offer plans with unlimited disk space. Do make sure you read the terms & conditions though – you can’t simply upload your movie collection.
Location
Many of the ‘major’ web hosts only have servers in the US, so if most of your visitors are in Europe, you may want to look elsewhere.
Whilst you could use a CDN, it’s always best to have your main server in the country which most of your visitors are located in. In my case, this site is hosted with WebHostingBuzz in England, UK.
Uptime
Always look for a web host offering at least 99.9% uptime. You can then monitor uptime using a service such as Pingdom, and will be entitled to complain if the guaranteed uptime levels are not met over the course of a month.
Control Panel
Which control panel do they offer? cPanel? Plesk? Maybe even a custom control panel?
cPanel/WHM is my personal favourite platform, not just because it has plenty of features, but also down to the fact that it is quick and easy to migrate from one host to another – the majority of hosts will even take care of the migration process for you free of charge if you use cPanel.
Final note:
Personally, I would avoid any of the following hosts who I class as poor:
– HostGator – Low-quality, unreliable web hosting.
– 1&1 – Terrible ‘robotic’ support team.