Home
>
Web Hosting
>
In Search of Webhosting: First Understand the Industry

In Search of Webhosting: First Understand the Industry

In search of a webhosting company for personal or small business purposes? We advise you to take a look at this article to understand the hosting industry and study its dynamics to know what to look for before you make your choice.

First, a brief introduction to the webhosting chain: the end consumer is served by about 3 upstream providers: the webhosting provider that they have direct contact with, the webhost's upstream company who maintains the servers and sells space to webhosts, and above that, the datacenter that provides the connection and houses the servers. Some webhosts are also the server admins and liase with the datacenters directly.

The webhosting industry has been claimed to be near saturation point as there are hundreds of web-hosting providers clamouring to provide cheaper and better services to businesses and individuals. This upsurge of supply is largely due to resources becoming readily available (and at cheaper costs) with plunging diskspace and data-transfer prices. The barriers to entry in the web-hosting space is low as large resellers of server space provide cheap hosting and reselling plans that create opportunites for new webhosts to join in the market. With increasing number of suppliers with ever cheaper reselling plans, more webhosting businesses are sprouting up to provide web-hosting solutions to business and individual websites due to lower fixed costs and investment. In addition, this increase in supply is not caused by factors in any particular country. The internet is global and as such, datacenters in US, or in fact, any part of the world, can provide the server and webspace for a local webhosting company. It is taking place in internet space and consumers and providers can easily find each other and exchange services in the global space.

Increasing the supply is naturally a good thing for the customer who is on the demand side. This inbalance has caused new web-hosting providers to offer extremely low prices for their webhosting plans or packages in order to compete in the tough market. Customers get to choose from a myriad of hosting providers who are constantly lowering their prices. However, this might not be a good thing. By offering low prices, companies are earning small margins that may not cover their support costs. Support is vital in the webhosting business as most customers want to be able to get help with their web-hosting accounts. If the profits do not justify the costs, web hosting companies will easily close down - and take their clients' sites with them.

So what are the factors to look at when choosing a host for your website?

Support is the single most important factor for any individual or small business looking for a webhost for their websites. Any internet web hosting provider that does not respond to emails for at most 24 hours is probably having problems providing fast and reliable support services. These services are essential to customer satisfaction and especially for customers who are new to webhosting will need guidance with publishing their websites on the webhosting account provided. The webhosting business is about relationships between webhost and webhosting customers. You should want to know that you can get help when you need, and want to be informed when your website is going to be offline for maintainance.

Stability comes in second as a factor when choosing a webhost. Stability refers to how much uptime you can expect from the webhosting provider. This actually depends on the providers' servers and network. If they do not have reliable and stable providers, it would affect their servers and cause problems for your website. An uptime of about 99.5% is considered reliable in the industry as there are external factors which may be beyond control of the provider. External agencies like alerta.com provide server monitoring services that webhosting companies might use to proof their reliability.

Cost is a factor depending on the purpose of the website and budget. Personal /Individual websites might have smaller budget and choose to go with a cheaper webhosting provider, possibily in exchange for support and stability. Business sites might have larger budgets and should definitely place stability and support above all else. The cheaper webhosting deals that offer enormous diskspace and huge amounts of data-transfer at a dollar rates has continuously proven to be a one-off hit that attracts customers in numbers, but fail in providing quality support. Large numbers of client sites also cause sustained high server loads that might cause the server to crash and thus affecting stability.

Location of the server is generally not an important issue depending on your ISP/country's connection to the datacenter where the server is located. Pings to the server can normally tell you the network latency to expect when people from your area access your site. Lower ping rates means that your site will load faster.

Lastly, take time to identify and contact a webhost to ask about their service. This would give you an idea of the kind of support that you might receive and help you in deciding if you want to go with the web-hosting provider.

About The Author

Dax Christopher is the owner of BuildtoLearn Networks which specializes providing free webhosting and other web-building resources to assist budding webmasters launch their websites. Visit alerta.com to obtain free webhosting or alerta.com to learn more about web-development.

shuttle to Midway Beardstown .. Lockport Chicago limo O’Hare

In The News:

The FBI has issued a warning that scammers are impersonating doctors, police and banks using spoofed numbers as "smishing" texts surge nationwide.

Communities with unreliable internet service stand to gain after Amazon's Project Kuiper launched its first full batch of satellites into orbit April 28.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says unsubscribing from spam might actually backfire. Learn when to avoid it and stop junk effectively.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson talks about how the first nonstop beating heart transplant, called zero ischemic time, at Taiwan hospital changes surgery.

Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson: FBI warns of "time-traveling" hackers.

Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson talks about a soft, vine-like robot called SPROUT that aids safe survivor rescues in collapsed buildings.

Health insurance giant Blue Shield of California confirmed it had been sharing private health data of 4.7 million users with Google for three years without even realizing it.

Delta and JetZero’s blended wing body aircraft marks a meaningful step toward a cleaner, quieter and more efficient future for air travel.

Recent reports show many common passwords can be cracked in literally seconds. Kurt the CyberGuy explains how to strengthen your passwords.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Iron, a robot that stands 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 154 pounds, combines advanced artificial intelligence with human-like movement and exceptional vision.

Hertz, the rental car giant, recently confirmed that customer information was exposed through a cyberattack on one of its software vendors.

There are a number of features with AirPods you may or may not know about to take your listening experience to the next level. Kurt the CyberGuy explains.

These 35 Chrome extensions have privacy and security concerns. Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says to delete them now.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says 329,000 mph fusion rocket promises to be fast, disruptive and enable deep-space missions.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says a new autonomous AI is a game changer that also raises privacy risks. Is your data safe?

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says robots and drones are revolutionizing fruit farming with faster picking and smarter handling.

Landmark Admin revises May 2024 cyberattack scope to show twice as many people were affected. Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson gives tips to help stay safe from an insurance data breach.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson talks about how Yamaha’s hydrogen outboard motor could revolutionize boating with zero emissions.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson reveals how to memorialize or remove a deceased loved one’s Facebook account and protect their digital legacy from misuse or scams.

Tech expert Kurt “CyberGuy" Knutsson says an Apple Watch saved psychiatrist Amanda Faulkner by detecting deadly leukemia early.

Scammers and fraudsters are increasingly targeting the most vulnerable, especially nursing homes and the personal data of their residents. Kurt the CyberGuy has safety tips.

Infected USB flash drives can spread malware among multiple organizations in ways that can easily bypass traditional security systems.

With a fully automated warehouse system and AI-powered robots, Ocado's Hive picks, packs and delivers grocery store orders in just a few minutes.

In Search of Webhosting: First Understand the Industry

Web Hosting