Choose your hosting plans and not money

Hosting plans: Choose wisely

Storage Space: Disk Space

Disk space is one of the most important aspect of choosing hosting plan. For a simple static or dynamic website 2-5Gb of Disk space is more then enough but if your website has flash, multi-media files, audio the your require 5Gb of disk space for better functioning of your website.

Initial website development has different perspectives as after 5-6 months you might require to upgrade the disk space as more things would be added to the website. So it is advisable to choose a plan that has more disk space which can be used later when you upgrade your website.

Monthly Bandwidth

Another important aspect of choosing web hosting plan is band width. Every time customer visit your website files that make up page , HTML, pictures, audio, download file etc are transferred to company server this data is measured and the more customers visit your website the higher would be the total band width.

If you are using any link to social site the higher would be the band width required for smooth performance of your website. Since business websites make lots of link to social sites like facebook, linkedin, Twitter, the band width required for transfer of files should be good enough for your website to perform the basic function.

Hosting companies initially offer a low priced package to attract the customer. Later up gradation of the plan costs a lot to the client. Especially business websites need to have a good band width for better performance. Band width of 5Gb would be fare enough for proper functioning and also need for up gradation of plan would be very rare.

Linux or Windows

Choosing the right platform is must for each hosting plan. Linux hosting plans are more preferred over windows hosting plans as due to better comparability of linux platform with other software and technologies.

It also depends upon personal preference to choose windows or Linux hosting plan. Choose a windows hosting plan that supports IIS. .net and font page extension. Whereas for Linux you will find simple process with complete support for MySQL, PHP and other operate systems.

In my point Linux hosting is more stable when it comes to operation performance of the website.

Database, Advanced Scripting and .htaccess Support

If you have decided to choose a hosting plan the check for its database and scripting support. This is more important for dynamic websites especially e-commerce websites.

Look for CMS such as word press if you wish to update the website of your own. This is required when you need to store some database like catalogue, Zencart, Magento etc. Advanced scripting and .htaccess if you have not discussed the hosting plan with you developer. Changing hosting plan for database would be very costly as it give hosting company an advantage to charge more for such data storage options.

Sub Domains

Hosting package with sub domains is another advantage. It allows you to customize your website URL address to point specific areas of site like for E-commerce : billing, catalogs, customer invoice etc.

An example would be billing.xyz.com, catalog.xyz.co.in

Mail Boxes, Email Forwarding & Auto Responders

Mail forwarding, email backups, auto responders are important aspect of your hosting plan. Plan for a mail on Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and add mail forwarded to safeguard your mails.

Mail boxes store your mails in the unique email address. Email forwarded will push your mails to these mail boxes.
Most hosting plans have a limit on one or all three of these features depending on the price of the plan.
Support

Check the support you get from your hosting company. Some companies take lot of time is resolving small technical problems creating problems for your. 24hrs time is sufficient enough for your to get response from the company. Also check for technical backup provided by hosting company as it will help you understand your operation aspect of hosting plans.