Somewhat similar to that is the hard disk space that you will be allowed to use. Smaller sites take less space, rarely over 5MB, so keep that in mind when choosing a provider. Some will try and tempt you with “unlimited” disk space, and similar to above case it is rarely the case. And then there is the problem of tech support. You will want to know if they have a 24/7 support. If your website is at all serious, you will need support that is there all the time, you never know when things can go wrong. Some advertise that they have round the clock support, you should test this by e-mailing them at midnight or during holidays and see, how much it takes them to e-mail back.

If you want to do business through your site, you will want to check for availability of SSL and Shopping Cart services. SSL will allow the use of credit cards, which is really important. Furthermore, when using a commercial hosting service you must be certain that they offer all of the following services: FTP, MySQL, PHP, Perl, SSI, telnet, crontabs, SSH and .htaccess. Some providers will not let you install scripts on your site, without them approving it. This can be somewhat unproductive and lover the overall functionality of your site.

Owning a serious web site means that you probably want personalized e-mail address. Also auto responders are needed if you want to e-mail automated messages and responses. Pop3 is needed if you want to use e-mailing software. Then you have the Control Panel. To put it basically this is the interface with which you control your website with. It is sometimes called differently by hosts, it can have various options but should at least have some basic ones, for it is much more efficient to be able to edit some of the content yourself instead of waiting for the technical support every time.

If you wish to sell extra space to multiple domains, you should check whether they have this option, and how are they charging it. Also check what type of operating system the server is running. While this might not seem important at first glance, it all depends on the type of scripts you want to run.

Another big thing that you must keep in mind is the space on hard disk. Plain and simple, this is how much your site is allowed to be in size. Now you should always think ahead and think of how much more you might need in the future. Most sites will not take up much space, usually even under 5 MB, even though it can have hundreds of pages. But then again this really varies from content to content. It is not the same hosting text and small pictures, as it is high quality videos.

We have already mentioned FTP. This is the way you upload items on the site and edit. Some basic providers will only allow you to send via their online interface or wizard. Others will let you use other FTP tools. If your site is going to be anything more than the most trivial personal web page, you will need to be able to have more FTP access then this. And then there are also limits that hosting providers put on the size of files. There are providers that will harshly limit the size on each file uploaded, or require that it is in a specific file format. If you are thinking of distribution of your own content that is bigger in size that means you will have to find one that supports such transfers.

One of the most important things would be speed of access and the reliability of the host. If your site is not constantly up then you might lose your audience, and therefore a lot of its meaning and purpose. If a visitor finds you through web search and notices that the site is down, well, he will just find another one and never go back to the first one. Sites with slow access speed are also ones that people avoid. Before committing to a web host, you should try to get some feedback from other users, or try it yourself for a brief point in time, and see how it does even during rush hours.

While not very important for free hosts, PHP and Perl do have some benefits. There are many ways to host scripts that are available on the web and which provide premade searches, forms, lists and such. That way you don’t need to learn or mess around with either Perl or PHP; but if you want to do it on your own after all, then you must find out if they provide those services, also not just do they provide them, but specifically what kind do they offer.

On the other hand there is also something called Virtual Dedicated Server – also known as VDS, or Virtual Private Server (VPS). This actually represents hosting space that is sectioned into several virtual partitions, which can be used separately without direct influence that comes from the machine (hardware). VPS is often organized into few VPSs in one server, but virtualization can be done for more reasons, one of which is because you will be able to move a VPS section between servers. This way users can be get access to the root folder of their own virtual section. This also means that users are sometimes responsible for maintenance and patching of their own server.

Managed web service – In this type of service, the Server is not owned by the client, but is usually leased. The provider denies the user full control, but instead he is allowed to transfer items and edit via FTP, control panel, or other management tools. This denying of control is done in order for the provider to be able to guarantee quality of service, by preventing the user to change the server or potentially edit configuration settings and create problems.

Another one we will talk about is the colocation hosting. Colocation is similar to dedicated hosting only in your ownership. This is the most expensive type of service, but it provides the most options. The thing that you get from a company is physical space to place your data on and taking care of the server. In most cases, they won’t give you direct support except electrical service, storage facilities and Internet access. Usually, the client hires his own IT experts to go to the place where all the hardware is and do the hardware maintenance and updates or changes, right there, and by themselves.

Cloud Hosting - This is a fresh type of hosting. It is a strong and pretty stabile service which has its base built on clusters, load-balancing servers and some utility building. Basically, the server’s hard disk space is placed on multiple machines, each of them a random computer and this does a fine job of decentralization. Benefits of cloud hosting are the fact that problems such as hardware failure, power disruption or things that fall into category of natural mishaps are lessened by the fact that others computers in the cloud can always take its place. Nevertheless, one of the problems with this type of service is that the user doesn’t specifically know where his data is stored, so it might be problematic for users who are concerned with privacy or data security. This method allows providers to charge users only for space they are using, not the amount of space they expect to use, as is the case with most other systems.

Multiple VPS on a single machine is usually controlled by the hypervisor; it is dedicated to creation, control and management of individual VPS, by allocating hardware resources between them. VPSs can be virtualized, paravirtualized or the combination of the two mentioned. When the system is fully virtualized, users are allocated partial system resources, but they are not aware of it, it is presented to them as full physical components and whole interface is made to look as if they are using a dedicated host, and are not aware of hypervisor. In case of paravizualization, the user or the guest is aware of the hypervisor and sees the native hardware resources, thus enabling him to communicate with them directly, or real time, unlike the fully virtualized, where communication had to go through the hypervisor, thus granting faster and easier access. Most UNIX based operating systems support this kind of visualization, but it also requires a bit more experience and knowledge of the operating system used, because some options have to be set up manually.

Hybrid or combination paravizualization means that similar to full visualization but with pre build drivers for input/output communication thus increasing performance. It is most widely used in operating systems that are not modifiable for any reason. Dedicated servers as explained above mean that the client rents the entire server for himself, not shared with anyone. At first glance, it is similar to the VPS in terms of GUI and interface, but is different in the fact that the whole hardware is yours, and problems like power outages will not be shared. In dedicated servers, users are usually granted total and full control over every aspect of management, administration, all administrative access, and depending on the package even may not include technical support, but is left to the user.

This, in most cases, is a very good option for serious business and companies who require very reliable and high trafficking servers, with their own IT teams who manage them. This is usually a more expensive option, but for a business company that focuses on dealing over the internet, trying to save up on initial cost of web service, and ending up with  a server that is unreliable or unresponsive, can later lead to a significant profit loss.  The worst thing for you is when it takes a long time to respond to your site during rush hours, it is a sure way to turn away costumers or potential clients, and that is the last thing you want to do, that is a good way to ruin even the greatest business ideas. Therefore, in the end a dedicated server is usually a better option for internet companies who are looking to grow, and become a brand.

Bearing in mind most users usually lack the required knowledge or even time and interested to use something more complex, control panels usually offer a way to do this through a user friendly and easy access interface. Moreover, since the demand is quite strong in this field so is the supply and the competition that comes with it. Some web host providers even offer control panels for easy control, management and administration for web host resellers and their clients.

The point of control panels is therefore to offer more friendly and easy access to site management and administration, in recent days control panels are very advanced and well developed, so that almost anything you desire can be done from control panel. They will not only give you control over storage and domains, but you can find a lot of useful scripts and applications right there for editing and optimizing your website. Many control panels nowadays include their own site builder wizards,  FTP transfer wizards, video tutorials, backups, advance statistic management, MySQL management and editing, photo and video management, etc, though some of the more advanced options may not be included in the original price and might cost extra to use.

Long story short, the control panels are a must nowadays, but choosing the right one depends on your specific needs, but some of the most common things you should be looking for are:

Interface graphics – See if it is possible to a get a photo or video clip of what the interface will look like, it might seem less important at first glance, but bear in mind that you will be spending a lot of time at this screen managing your site, so it’s quite important to be comfortable with it. In most cases there should be options for changing some skins or colors here.

Supported operative systems – This might seem trivial, but be sure to check if the control panel is optimized for the platform you will be using, for example if you are using a apple a control panel optimized for Mac OS should probably be your preference. Fulfilling all your needs – A control panel usually has a very large number of options. Before you decide, you should first make a list of all of them you think are necessary and then choose accordingly, all other extra options should be considered a plus. On the other hand if you have to pay for them, try not to take too many options you know (or think) you will not need, why waste money.

But then again that does not instantly mean that the only thing you should check for is the price tag and ignore all others. You should be well informed about what your specific needs are and what the potential web host service is offering you, and also what the competition is offering you, before you sign up for anything. The knack is finding the optimum combination of what suits you and what the web host service is offering without paying too much for it. Keep in mind that you should also always read the fine print, some web service hosts will try to bundle up as many websites as they can on the space they have, which might lead to some slowness or even instability during rush hours, for a business site this is unacceptable. Sometimes deals that seem good are only good until you find the catch, bear in mind they are in the business of making money, not giving out good deals with no interest for them. On the other hand, just because something is more expensive does not necessarily mean the quality of service is better, they might just be resellers who offer same service like the original host but more expensive, and with slower technical support access.

In addition, the thing you should consider is search engine management. As some people refer to it we live in the “Google era”, which means that every word you put in your site is important in order for your site to be ahead of their similar sites in the search engines, because after all that is why most web sites are for, to be seen and used as much as possible.  For anything larger then a personal web site, it is important to have ongoing indexing service, which is hard if you have limited hardware resources or if they are stretched too thin between several servers. Some servers have low CPU limitations that are to be used for indexing service in case of server overloads. While this is something that you do not specifically see, while slowness of servers you do, this is also very important (arguably even more important) for growing sites, if you plan to get visitors through the search engines.

In conclusion, you see that there is much more to choosing a hosting service than just price. We have tried to show you the many faces of web hosting and to present you with a guide of the most important criteria when looking for the right place to host your site and hopefully you will make the right choice and use just the right thing you need for your company or your personal site.

Sometimes we forget but web servers are nothing more than machines who drain power every day, and one of the main attributes being the fact that they are up 24 hours per day, and therefore drain very large amounts of power to operate. Green web hosting companies focus on using only the power they can manage to get, or at least a very large percentage of it, from renewable and alternate sources of energy, like solar and wind power. Usually not all companies have the facilities or the resources to use their own sources of renewable energy, but they can buy certificates and use supplied energy from renewable sources. Companies that use their own sources of renewable energy have the ability to power their machines with their own energy, also saving them on the electrical bill.

In practice, this means that hosting companies are also doing their part in saving the environment. In addition, one more way to do this is to reduce carbon emissions generated by their facilities, they can also purchase carbon offsets to mitigate their effect on the greenhouse emissions. Therefore, it is not unusual for a green web hosting company to have their own wind or solar farm. One more impact green web hosting has is that they offer special packages for nonprofit organizations, not only encouraging them to use eco friendly hosting, but also to contribute by using a paperless environment.

One thing to be considered though is whether green web hosting costs more. Well in pure numbers, at first glance, it does cost more to operate and maintain, thus leading to higher costs of web hosting. However, by supporting a green web host and a paperless environment you are directly contributing to saving the environment, which may be more costly today but in near future will be very valuable. Official statistics show that in the US alone internet is very rapidly growing from 400% to 1000% per year, and the total infrastructure used and electricity used to maintain is growing with it. Some predictions show that in the 2020 the pollution generated by this industry will be larger than the airline industry.

After that carefully read the sections what hosting should you choose and make sure to enquire about every detail with your potential host, don’t forget, they are there for you and don’t be afraid to ask as many questions as you feel is needed, better than being sorry later, also make sure to check with all the competitive services. Try to get some feedback from their other users. If you are still unsure there are possible plans for using for a month, or two, while annual payments are usually more cost effective, trying for a month or two, and switching if you are not satisfied can save you money in the long run. It is better to switch after a month of two if you are not satisfied then to be stuck for year or two with a web host provider that does not suit your needs.

Still, the first choice you should make when choosing a web host whether you would like to pay for the service or not, if you opt for a free web service, be sure to keep in mind all the negative and positive aspects of that option, after all it is free, but will restrict what you can expect from it.

One more important thing to consider is domain name, not all hosts allow the creating of all the domain names, and although some domains may seem as better ideas because of the price .com is proven to have the highest ranking in search engines, also is easiest to remember.

Checking how a company from which you plan to buy hosting service from is doing might also not be a bad idea, seeing as low quality and cheap providers, and companies that are here today and gone tomorrow can easily lead to losing all settings or even sometimes years of data.

The question is should you chose shared or dedicated web hosting. Well, as explained above the shared hosting is multiple servers sharing same hardware, while dedicated means you get the allocated space for yourself. If you are maintaining a high traffic site that requires a lot of space, it can be bad for business to be sluggish, because other sites in the same cluster happen to be high traffic also, and you only slow each other during peak hours. So upgrading to dedicated hosting can give you better performances some time, which in internet business usually means better productivity and more profit, even though the original cost might be higher. In addition, it will give more freedom for creating, editing, managing content  and even in some cases whole server administration rights (for Windows based platforms) or root access folder (for Unix based ones), are given to the user of the dedicated server.

On the other hand price should also be considered, shared hosting is much cheaper, and if you don’t plan on running a high traffic business site, in most cases the full capabilities of the dedicated hosting might go wasted by using (and paying) for dedicated server. In addition, the full control given to dedicated server users is not always the best option; shared servers are fitted for “normal internet users”, who aren’t professional programmers, and technical support, that is not always given in the dedicated web hosting package, or easy to very use control panels, with build in wizards and lots of options for non professional web site designers, make the editing process much easier.

There are several types of web hosting services. Most basic option is a single web page, where usually a wizard or a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) wizard is used to upload files directly up on a webpage. Hosting of this type can be free, and usually are but in that case, they come with advertisements, which can be quite annoying to most users, as well as site creator or administrators. Hosting for business websites is never free, but it is also add free and gives higher overall control over content, management and administration of the site itself.

While hosting only single webpages is enough for most personal users, or very small business, who are satisfied with small amount of content, more complex web sites require a better package, that also includes tech support for data bases, and even platforms on which applications can be developed. Some of those are Java, PHP, Ruby on Rails, etc… These enable users to better control content by writing and installing scripts of their own.

Also the web host can provide a pre-made wizard like interface or in some cases even a finely developed control panel for the web page, and other additional benefits like customized e-mail addresses, and other smaller benefits, that vary from host to host. Some hosts are more specialized than others, for example commerce, reselling, or hosting different content, or many more, and are better choice for companies that work in those narrow fields.

There are several different types of services related to web hosting, which will be discussed below also to be mentioned are some internet providers that are not actual companies by themselves, but own a computer, or a mainframe, that has a constant internet connection, so they can communicate, send files, e-mails, etc. They may use that actual machine to serve as a web hosting server.