What To Look For In A Hosting Package

There are without doubt an endless supply of hosting companies out there, new ones seem to spring up on a daily basis! But how do we choose who to use as our hosting company..? What criteria should we use when deciding which features are relevant to our needs & which are not! It is unfortunate that there are rogue hosting companies, just as there are rogues in virtually any business you care to name, however by following our tips we can hopefully point you in the right direction & safeguard you against some of the more common pitfalls.

Lets look at what is actually required to run WP Wordpress;

Minimum Requirements:  PHP 4.3 or higher, MySQL 4.0 or higher, Apache or nginx recommended.

1. PHP 4.3 + in order to run the Wordpress program which is coded using PHP.

2. MySQL 4.0 + This is your database, which stores all posts, pages, comments, in fact everything that you add to Wordpress in the form of text & settings will be stored here. It is Wordpress’s ability to manipulate the data in your database that actually creates what you will see on the screen.

3. Apache needed for some of the more technical aspects of Wordpress, such as security, permalinks, etc

4. Storage requirements for a new blog would be considerably less than 500mb. Obviously if you intend running a photo blog for example, then your storage requirements may be slightly higher, but in the majority of cases 500mb would be more than adequate for 90% of new blogs.

5. Bandwidth is your monthly transfer allowance, usually rated in gigabytes. Again for a new blog you would be hard pushed to exceed the standard 4GB, however as your blog becomes busier you will need more bandwidth. As a guide, My-Blog-Review’s stats for October showed 2,175 unique visitors, which viewed 36,455 pages & consumed a total of 1.05GB of bandwidth. Based on these figures, my current bandwidth allowance of 4GB should be able to cope with around 7,000 to 8,000 visitors per month.

Note: Both Storage & Bandwidth are usually easily increased should the need arise, by simply contacting your hosting company & making the request. Once any additional payment has been made, the changes are usually applied within 1 hour.

Ok lets summarize what is actually needed to run Wordpress.

1. PHP 4.3 or higher
2. MySQL 4.0 or higher
3. Apache
4. 500MB Storage
5. 4GB Monthly Bandwidth
6. I would also advise you opt for Linux hosting.

Some pitfalls to watch out for.

1. Many hosting companies will pile on huge amounts of email addresses, bandwidth, storage & databases, knowing full well that in 90% of cases you will not use a tiny fraction of what is being offered! However, this tactic helps to justify a higher price for hosting, as you believe you are getting value for money. Which technically you are, but you are being sold a BMW when in fact a Ford Escort would suffice!

2. Some hosting companies & also domain registrars do not give you access to a domain control panel. This can indicate that transfer will be difficult if at all possible & is a tactic used to prevent you moving to another company. This is one of the reasons I recommend using separate domain registrars & hosting companies, having learnt from past mistakes!

3. Check what the payment options are, whilst there is not much of a difference in paying $5.00 per month or $10.00 per month, there is a great difference if you are expected to pay 12 months up front. This is one practise I really dislike for the simple reason that most hosts offer a 30 day money back guarantee only. So lets say 3 months into your hosting agreement, you start having problem with the hosting servers going offline, or repeated hacking attempts, you hands are tied having paid for 12 months! Twice I have had this problem, 1^st  a UK company ceased trading, then with the 2^nd one, my complaints about their sever being offline just fell on deaf ears!

4. Check that your chosen hosting company provide full website & database backups. This is crucial because as your blog grows you will soon discover that trying to backup via FTP becomes a nightmare & can actually take hours to complete.

5. Finally when you think you have found what you think is a reasonable hosting company, go to www.whois.com and check their domain name. This will provide such information as, how long they have been operating & if they are in fact part of a different company, perhaps one with a bad reputation?

Hopefully this article will help guide you towards choosing a quality hosting company & at the same time avoid many of the common pitfalls that may be encountered.

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Related posts:

1. Domain Names – Choosing Best Domain Name
2. WP Wordpress Themes – Choosing Best Layout
3. WP Wordpress – Choosing Best Themes
4. Blogs – Create Your Own Blog
5. Blog Diary Update 22-12-2009 – Top 10 Ranking