Before we talk about what it takes to be a cheap and quality web host, let’s cover the basics first.
What is a web host?
A web host is a service provider that places your website on a computer connected to the internet. The term for this “computer” is server.
A web hosting provider usually has a fast connection to the internet and can host thousands of websites on many servers. The web host essentially rents you storage space so you can publish your website on the World Wide Web.
With a well-managed web host, you can free yourself from worrying about complicated server technology and proper technical maintenance. That is the whole purpose of web hosting companies. You should leave the technical work to a web hosting professional while you focus on your own internet business.
Let’s begin…
function offered
The features that web hosting companies offer are becoming standard these days.
The following are some of the general features you will see in most web hosting plans:
- Control Panel The Control Panel is an interface that gives you access to your website on the web server so that you can set up your website and then update and customize it. Although cPanel is by far the most popular control panel, some hosting providers customize their own so they can update and extend it as they please.
- Hard Drive Space The vast majority of websites that don’t have loads of graphics, sound and video clips, or downloadable files will easily fit in 50MB of hard drive space. You should always leave yourself some room for growth or check if the host has a bigger plan in case you need an upgrade.
- Bandwidth Bandwidth is the amount of data sent or received in a unit of time. Web hosting consumes bandwidth when visitors request files on your website and download them to their PCs.
- E-mail Account POP3 e-mail accounts allow you to check e-mail from Outlook, Netscape Mail, Eudora or any other e-mail software.
- Scripting Language Since all of our top 10 lists use Unix and Linux platforms, the languages we’re talking about here are PHP, Perl, and CGI. It’s best to choose a host that supports the latest version to maximize the latest web technologies for the fee you pay.
- Database If your website is going to store a lot of data that you want to be dynamically accessible (like user accounts, stock quotes, maps, interactive news, message boards and forums, etc.), then you need to look for an account that offers a database. MySQL is a powerful and most popular database program running on the Linux operating system. It can process millions of entries at the same time. Thanks to its flexibility and speed, you can also save logs and images. MySQL is designed to scale well in high-traffic conditions and is ideal for database-intensive or e-commerce-enabled websites.
Customer Service and Support
Whether you are an expert or a beginner at web hosting, you need a web host with a good customer support system. What are the criteria for excellent customer support? Let’s explain.
- How big is the knowledge base? This is especially important for those who want to look for a quick answer without resorting to direct help from customer service representatives. Due to the huge database, it is usually searchable. Some web hosting providers even make your life easier by creating a video tutorial that will walk you through setting up your new account step by step. Very useful for beginners.
- Responsive customer service representatives. If you’re too lazy to look up the answer in a large database, get the direct answer from someone in the know. Direct customer support comes in a few forms. To. email support b. Phone Support: Sales and Technical Support typically use separate phone lines. A good phone support knows your problem and answers relevant. c.Web hosts like Lunarpages and Globat even have live chat support. However, what matters is not how many support channels are available, but how responsive the staff are. You can check the hosting reviews and ratings (http://www.top10cheapwebhosting.com/services/cheap-web-hosting-criteria.php) of any of our top 10 cheap web hosts.
Price to storage space / price to bandwidth ratio
Are you paying too much for your web hosting plan?
In general, after researching hundreds of web hosting companies, we’ve come to the following conclusion: the more disk space and bandwidth you get, the more expensive the monthly price.
To help you understand which price is competitive enough for you to accept the offer, we have categorized 5 different price ranges. A maximum of 10 points will be awarded for each prize category. To understand the concept behind it, please read the details here. (http://www.top10cheapwebhosting.com/services/cheap-webhosting.php)
popularity
A web host may have the best features on offer, unbeatable customer support, and reliability, but without an effective marketing plan, they will also go broke. Let’s be honest. If a web hosting provider does not have enough members and a steady growth of new members, it is very difficult to compete in this highly competitive industry.
We judge the popularity of a particular web hosting provider based on the number of awards it has won, reviews from other websites, and Alexa traffic ranking.
All hosting providers listed in our top 10 cheap web hosting directory are among the top 40,000 most visited websites in the world.
Reliability, speed and availability guarantee
Nothing can harm you anymore: Your visitors come to your website and realize that it is not accessible. You lose credibility and possibly even a sale. If your web host doesn’t guarantee at least 99% uptime, leave the web host now!
Installing redundant backup systems is essential to ensure maximum uptime. Each web host has their own management systems to minimize downtime. “Redundant” means that if one of the Internet connections is interrupted, the alternative Internet connection takes over.
We use Alertra software to monitor the uptime of each of our top 10 web hosts.
While routing, web server setup, and local area networks play a role in determining a website’s speed, the primary concern for how fast your website is depends very much on the types of network connections.
Many hosting providers still connect to the internet using T1 or T3 connections. This is not the case with our top 10 hosts – they use OC (optical carrier) lines.
A T1 line provides a data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second), while a T3 line can provide data transfer rates of 43 Mbps. OC-1 refers to a circuit that transmits 51.85 Mbit/s. Higher levels are a multiple of this speed. Ultra-high-speed OC3 and OC12 lines offer 155 Mbps and 622 Mbps, respectively. Some hosting providers have connections to the main internet backbones with a speed of OC48 (2488 Mbit/s) and OC96 (4976 Mbit/s).
