Infinity Web Design

Hosting is a very important component of your WWW site. Before your site is accessible to other users on the Internet, it must reside on a server. There are a great number of hosting companies that charge a monthly fee for server space. However, all hosting companies are not created equally.

There are a number of variables that must be considered prior to selecting a hosting company. For example, if a hosting company's infrastructure doesn't support its client base, your pages may load very slowly. We've all experienced pages that load so slowly that we don't wait around, right? Well, many of your prospective customers won't wait longer than a few seconds for your pages to load either. Infrastructure is but one of many features that should be investigated prior to selecting a Web hosting company. Other hosting considerations include:

Amount of server space
Monthly cost
Fee for account set-up
Types of payment accepted
Billing cycles
The number of email aliases and POP3 accounts included
Fees for additional email, MB of server space, etc.
Support for Front Page, CGI, autoresponders, mailing lists, bulletin boards etc.
Customer resources and scripts for guest books, counters, forms, etc.
Secure Socket Layers (SSL) for electronic commerce & online purchases
Ability & cost to provide shopping cart services, CyberCash, etc.
Traffic fees
Contract requirements
Customer service and support available, as well as the types of communication relied upon - do they use email only? What if you need to speak to someone, is there an 800 number?
Customer Response time
Is an online manual available for FAQ?
Tracking reports and site statistics, including access raw logs
Frequency of back ups
Uninterruptible Power Sources (UPS)
Infrastructure
Number of Users per Server
Reliability in terms of system "up" or "down" time
How long has the company been in business?
Is this company reselling someone else's services?

As this list demonstrates, there are a great many factors to consider before reaching a hosting decision. Changing hosting companies can be difficult, time consuming, and frustrating, not to mention that it may result in a new URL for those who do not have a registered domain name, which could create problems with printed materials such as letterhead and brochures, etc. So it is obviously much better to invest some time and explore the options initially to save time and trouble later.

Contributing to the difficulty of choosing a Web hosting company is the sheer number of hosting companies. Hosting can be a very lucrative business and so it is no surprise that so many have joined the industry. However, this makes it even more difficult for inexperienced users to select from the vast number of competitors and choose a hosting company that meets their individual needs most adequately.

Another area of concern is the number of resellers selling hosting services. Many hosting companies offer incentives for referrals, and many of these programs work in such a way as to allow an affiliate to give the illusion that he or she is the actual provider of services, when in fact they are only providing services as a pseudo-liaison. While this practice is certainly acceptable in a free enterprise economy, we nevertheless encourage our customers to ensure that the reseller is in fact creating some sort of value-added service to the basic service to justify doing business with the reseller. If there is no additional value added, then customers are better off dealing directly with the service provider for two reasons: better pricing and elimination of a middle man that unnecessarily expands the communication flow.

Infinity Web Design will be happy to assess your company's requirements and provide recommendations for hosting solutions. Please refer to our Services page for further details and pricing, as well as the many other services available from Infinity Web Design.