Buy Windows web hosting or Linux web hosting - find the best PHP or ASP.NET web hosting provider

A Guide to Choosing the right web hosting provider for beginners

Finding the right web hosting services package to buy can be a daunting experience; especially with the wide range of web hosting companies out there these days. Here you will find the low down on US and UK web hosting providers that will help you to make the right choice for your website:

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 (ASP.NET 2.0 or ASP.NET 3.5) and Unix/Linux web hosting on an Apache web server with support for php web hosting. The choice is especially important for ecommerce website hosting or a website with a content management system since ASP ecommerce sites are be compatible with Windows hosts and PHP ecommerce site with Linux Web hosting. If you simply have a static website and are looking for affordable small business web hosting service then the best choice is most often a reliable, but cheap web host from the range of Linux hosting companies available.

For more demanding business web sites and ecommerce web sites, see also dedicated server hosting.

If you are looking for an answer as to whether you should choose a UK web hosting company, a USA web hosting company, Australian web hosting company, Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, India, Dubai web host e.t.c. or one based in the same country as yourself, the answer is that so long as you use a native domain name provider and you find a good web hosting company that provides good quality support that isn't affected by international time differences then you should have no problem.

Compare Linux Hosting and Windows Hosting packages - Choosing Web Hosting Providers

Buy web hosting for PHP MYSQL (Linux Apache web hosting)

Linux Web Hosting: If you are on a budget and need a low-cost affordable hosting service, and unless you have an .asp or .aspx ecommerce site that you need to host, then a cheap PHP web host on a Linux / Unix web server is most probably right for you; since PHP hosting is very good as an entry-level or affordable and cheap web hosting solution that has everything you need to professionally manage and support your website. This is partly because Unix / Linux web hosting uses a lot of free, open source technologies, such as the operating system itself, the Apache Web server and MySQL databases, so your web host has lower overheads on software licensing and is therefore able to offer a low cost, cheap hosting service.

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

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 space and one of the stats programs - AWStats is by far the best and most widely used of these web hosting control panels.

Buy web hosting packages for ASP.NET 2.0 or ASP.NET 3.5/ SQL (Windows IIS web hosting)

Find Windows Web Hosting Providers: It is usually more expensive to buy ASP.NET Web hosting packages than Linux web hosting solutions for PHP websites, and you should only go with an ASP.NET Windows web hosting provider 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.net web hosting for Windows.

For ecommerce Windows hosting there are several considerations to take into account before deciding what level of Windows 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.NET 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.net 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.

Dedicated Server Hosting - Dedicated Windows Hosting and Linux Hosting

For more demanding web hosting requirements such as large ecommerce websites, busy forums or business web hosting solutions you may require managed hosting, dedicated server hosting, or VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting which provides an extra level of security and reliability. Ultrahosting provides just such dedicated web hosting on both Linux and Windows web servers.

A few web hosting considerations - bandwidth, disc space/web space and business email accounts

Many web hosting companies these days will allow you to host multiple or even unlimited domain names, but you should also bear in mind that, if you require hosting for lots of web sites, you will need a decent amount of web space/disc space and bandwidth to back this up. These days many hosting solutions offer 50gb, 100gb, 200gb and even 500gb of bandwidth and 50gb, 100gb and even 500gb of web space for high end users, at pretty reasonable prices. A fraction of this should be sufficient for a small to medium-sized static website. If you need a web hosting company that provides multiple email accounts, this is no problem and many will give 100, 200 or even unlimited email accounts within the package. You should be aware though that the vast majority of email accounts will only support POP3 email, and only about 10% of hosting companies offer packages with support for IMAP. For a high-end business email service, on Microsoft's Exchange Server, for instance, you will need a web hosting company that offers this specifically such as Fasthosts.

Buy domain names and web hosting

Before you buy your web hosting you should also shop around for web hosting companies that you like that offer a free domain name, and that way you can avoid paying for both a domain name and web hosting.

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).

Once the your domain name is pointing at your web host (i.e. you have your DNS servers set up), you should be able to type your web site address (domain name) into your web browser and see your live web site.

Best Linux Web hosting - Bluehost Review

BlueHost provides some of the best Linux web hosting around. We've been using Bluehost for over four years now and have found them to provide an exceptionally reliable PHP web hosting solution and at a very good price. The level of support has always been of a good standard and queries have been turned around quickly even allowing for the time difference between here in the UK and the US. Current offers include a free domain name with your webhosting, and free credits for Google Adwords and Yahoo pay-per-click (PPC) services. What is exceptionally good is that you can host unlimited domains on your account with Bluehost, you have access to unlimited hosting space, unlimited bandwidth and can use up to 2500 POP3 email accounts.

Green Web Hosting

Super Green Web Hosting offer free domain names with their web hosting pages, as well as unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email accounts and the ability to host unlimited domains. One of only a few environmentally friendly web hosts within the hosting industry, they also offer 24/7 technical support, secure servers and affordable price plans.

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