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Here are some website hosting companies that I recommend. All of them are top-notch. You can't go wrong if you go with one of these. Do not even think of going with a "free" hosting company; instead, go with one of these professional hosting companies that you can count on. And once you go with a hosting company, you will probably stay with it for years; trust me, moving your website from one hosting company to another is a real pain. So go with one of these good hosting companies
from the beginning:
- BlueHost : $6.95/month, 1500 GB, 2500 e-mail accounts
- HostGator : $7.95/month, 600 GB, unlimited e-mail accounts
- LunarPages : $6.95/month, 1500 GB, unlimited e-mail accounts
- iPowerWeb : $7.95/month, 1500 GB, 2500 e-mail accounts
If you have no HTML programming experience and do not want to learn anything technical and would rather focus on the design and content of your website, then look for a company that offers a web-based website creation system:
Some factors to consider when deciding which hosting company to go with are as follows (the four hosting companies mentioned near the top do meet these factors):
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Control panel:
I recommend cPanel since it is very easy to use.
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Storage space:
Every file takes up disk space so you'll need enough for all your files. A few GigaBytes (GB) should be plenty for most websites. The above hosting companies offer hundreds of GigaBytes!
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Data Transfer Bandwidth per month:
Hosting companies record how much data is being send out of your website to visitors. The bandwidth is limited to a certain number of GigaBytes (GB) per month. In the unlikely even you exceed that limit, visitors will not be able to access your website until the next month. With the above hosting companies, bandwidth should not be a problem unless your website has lots of video files.
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Number of Subdomains:
Normally, you have your website at www.domain-name.com. You can also have another website at subdomain.domain-name.com (e.g.: furniture.domain-name.com). Subdomains have an advantage over just using a directory (e.g.: /furniture/).
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E-mail accounts:
You may want to set up more than one email account; perhaps one for each affiliate program you that join. Then if someone starts spamming you, you can just delete that account. But personally, I've found that it's best to just have one main email account and then rely on good spam filtering.
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Number of Autoresponders:
An autoresponder will automatically send a "canned" email back to the user when the user sends to that email address. You can put any content into an autoresponder. Each autoresponder has its own email address. If the hosting company does not offer autoresponders, you can use a separate company for just that functionality, such as Aweber.com.
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Programming (cgi-bin / Perl / PHP):
You will most likely need cgi-bin (Perl) if you start to do anything advanced either now or in the future. So make sure that cgi-bin is supported. You may also need PHP (another programming language). And SSI (Server-Side-Include) enables you to include content into webpages, such as a common header/footer on all your pages.
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Number of MySQL Databases:
I recommend have a minimum of one.
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Tech Support:
Most hosting companies offer an online ticket-based support system. Some hosting companies also provide telephone support.
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FrontPage:
If you use Microsoft FrontPage, make sure that the hosting company supports it.
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