Thinking of starting a website? Here are the crucial things to know before choosing your web hosting provider.
You may have already found your dream domain name. But when it comes to creating a website, you will need a reliable web hosting provider. But really, what does “reliable” means here?
Long gone are the days when you only had to consider prime features like bandwidth and storage only. We have compiled a list that can help you to choose the right web hosting provider. Do keep in mind that sometimes, it’s not all about the prices only. As you’ll be using this service for quite some time, you will need to look into the value that comes with it.
1. Server Location & Uptime
The server location goes hand in hand with the uptime. The location of a web hosting provider server plays an important role. It determines your website speed, how it will fare with users and with search engines.
For example, if your target audience is in Malaysia, a local hosting provider server location in Malaysia will give you the best website loading speed. For Malaysia businesses, a web hosting provider like DomainPlus will be one of the best choices for your business. This can prevent latency and download speed issues, which can affect the website browsing experience for your customers.
And how do you measure a web hosting’s uptime? It’s often measured in “nines”, according to Hosting Manual. Here’s how they translate
- 99
percent – Two Nines equals seven hours and 12 minutes downtime - 99.9
percent – Three Nines equals 43 minutes and 12 seconds
downtime - 99.99
percent – Four Nines equals four minutes 19 seconds
downtime - 99.999
percent – Five Nines equals 26 seconds
downtime - 99.9999 percent – Six Nines equals three seconds
downtime
2. Customer Service
When committing to a web hosting company, you’d want to make sure that you are comfortable with their customer service. After all, they are the ones who will be attending to you when you raise a help flag.
So, understand these concerns before signing up:
- How effective and speedy is this company in providing support and solving the problems?
- Do they have 24/7 support?
- Are technical support available in social media as well?
Knowing the answers to these will give you a huge relief, knowing that they are the right provider to invest your time and money in.
3. Availability Of Site Backups
Backup here means saving a copy of data, just for safety measures in case of data loss. With site backup, information can be used to re-create the content (for example, you will not need to recreate your entire website from scratch!). Hence, you’d want to look for a web hosting provider that offers site backup before you face important data loss! DomainPlus offers
4. Registration And Maintenance Costs
Generally, web hosting companies offer attractive deals and promotions for a new registration. However, more than often one can forget about the renewal costs. And this is something you can’t avoid unless you choose to transfer to another hosting provider.
Therefore, it’s best to know what are the renewal costs, and whether are there any additional maintenance charges during the service active period. We don’t want any surprise bill charges, do we?
5. Security Strength
With the increasing about of security breach, you definitely want to look into web hosting provider that offers great security strength. Here are a few security features that you should look for:
Domain Privacy Protection
WHOIS ID Protection is often known as ID Protection or Domain Protection. It helps to prevent unwanted invaders (scammers, hackers etc) to gain access to your personal data. Without Domain Privacy Protection, these hackers can obtain information such as your phone number, email address, physical address, and other private information.
SSL Certificates
With an SSL Certificate, your website URL will start with “https://” instead of “
