find the best web hosting package

A Guide to Choosing the right web hosting package

Finding the right web hosting package to buy can be a daunting experience; especially with the wide range of choice out there these days.

The first thing to decide before buying web hosting, is which sort of web hosting package you require. Web hosting can be broken down into two general types, Windows web hosting on an IIS web server with support for asp web pages and Linux web hosting on an Apache web server with support for php web hosting:

Web hosting packages that support PHP (Linux Apache web hosting)

If you are on a budget, and unless you have an .asp or .aspx ecommerce site that you need to host, then a PHP web host is most probably right for you.

This sort of web hosting is suitable for anything from small .html brochure websites through to large database driven php ecommerce websites with MySQL.

PHP web hosting usually comes with a simple to use control panel known as CPanel - the main features of CPanel that you will probably use are File Manager to upload web pages to your web site and one of the stats programs - AWStats is by far the best and most widely used of these web hosting control panels.

Web hosting packages that support ASP (Windows IIS web hosting)

Web hosting packages that support ASP are usually more expensive than those which are used for PHP websites, and you should only go with one of these web hosts if your website has been designed as an ASP website, rather than html, php or anything else. This said there are some bargains to be found if you are prepared to shop around when buying your .asp web hosting.

For ecommerce sites there are several considerations to take into account before deciding what level of web hosting you need to buy. If you are going to use a payment gateway provider which processes payments on its own web site then you have little to worry about and you can go for pretty basic asp web hosting solution. However, if transactions are going to be processed on your own website using a payment gateway such as Protx, then you need to be PCI compliant and this is where buying a web hosting solution can often get a little more expensive. You will need to opt for an asp web hosting package that provides you with a VPS (Virtual Private Server), and you will also need to buy an SSL (Secure Shell License) certificate from them. Depending on the web host you might also need to buy an MS SQL license; although these are often including in the cost of buying your web hosting.

You should also be aware that whatever payment gateway provider you opt for, they will have several conditions that you must meet before they will activate your account, and you can start trading. The address and contact details of your company should be clearly visible on the web site, as should the methods of payment that you accept and you should also provide ordering instructions for your visitors that are clear and accurate.

The control panel for asp web hosting is frequently a package known as Plesk. This control panel takes a little more time to figure out than CPanel, but contains some great features and you also often get AWStats with it, so that you can analyse your web site visitor statistics.

I've bought my web hosting what now?

Once you buy a web hosting solution you are going to need to set it up. If you bought your domain name from the same company that provided your web hosting then you may have to do little more than upload the webpages and files to your root directory (often called public_html or htdocs).

However, you are probably going to need to do two things:

1) Set up your domain name to point at your web host.

This is done using your web host's DNS servers. In the email you recieved from your web host when you set up the account you should find at least two DNS addresses that look something like

mywebhost01
mywebhost02

Once you have these log into your domain name account and look around your control panel for an option to set up your DNS servers. You will need to insert the DNS addresses provided by your web host and save. Expect to wait anything up to a day before these go live.

2) Upload your web pages to your new web host.

Copy and paste the ftp address into the address bar of either Internet Explorer or Windows Explorer and enter. You should now be presented with a dialog box which asks you for your user name and password. Type these in and enter. (note that you can also do this using FTP software such as CuteFTP).