The most recommendable feature is that the hosting companies can grow along with the client. If the hosting company provides only one package and the requirement is of more, in that case there would be loss of at least 2 days as the web site would be down for say up to 2 days and/or the other option would be the user himself/herself have to change the code on any forms he/she is using in order to match with the new “server settings”.The other way to find good host company is to read a hosting service’s subscriber information, FAQs (frequently asked questions), note areas or bulletin boards on their sites.
The following are some of the points in favor of any good recommendable hosting company:
- Affordable.
- Offers Money Back Guarantee.
- Provides information on their site about server uptime/downtime.
- Informing their clients on client’s primary email address, when/if there are any server problems.
- Offers unique IP address to their clients.
- Provides at least 5 POP email accounts. The email accounts provided should include Alias Accounts, which look like a POP account to the person who is sending an email; however, the address is actually an “alias” that's forwarded to any other email account one selects. And when one sends an email back to the original sender, it is the forwarding email account.
- A Web-based Email system must be provided where one can read his/her email online.
- Provides an easy system for email forwarding and vacation notice capability.
- Provides good customer support i.e.24-hour customer service, by phone, like providing toll free number facility.
- Provides enough space like 50 mg space (the space one needs for a 100 page website with each page being approx. 8x11)
- Provides 2 Gig Data Transfer/month, which is quite sufficient for the beginning
Cgi/PHP/MySQL (or asp availability) then he/she must check with their designer, if they are providing all the necessary tools that are required for creating the desired forms.
- Easy Control Panel: This is the most important feature if one wants to maintain his/her website him/her self. It serves at best while making changes to one’s site like adding addresses.
- Statistics : One must check if his/her hosting company’s plan includes monthly and yearly statistics on each of web pages? One must know how someone found each of his/her web pages?
- Things required in setting up a merchant account system like secure server, Shopping cart etc.
- Server type: The hosting company to be chosen must take into consideration the programs that are required like one’s shopping cart, affiliate program, web site pages, etc. If one is using ASP, JSP, PHP, CGI, PL, or CSS, these programs will influence the choice of a server and vice-versa. One’s hosting service may use Windows, Linux or Unix-based (Apache/FreeBSD/etc.) servers.
- Password Protection : This is the most important consideration if one plan to create a membership is or client’s only area of his/her site.
- Newsletter or announcement list
- Auto-responders : This is the feature not usually available on very low cost hosting packages.
