The Best Web Hosting List

By now you have seen that most if not all of even the best web hosting companies offer “unlimited web hosting” through unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited website hosting. But do you know what you’re really getting with companies that promote ‘unlimited web hosting’?

It’s a fact – nothing but the essentials like air and water are unlimited and even then, mathematically, there is a physical end to them. The same goes for anything you buy, including web hosting storage, bandwidth, email accounts, and domain name hosting.

So how can web hosts offer unlimited hosting?

One word – marketing! All web hosting providers are competing in what is one of the most saturated and cutthroat markets in the world. There are estimated to be over 10,000 web hosting companies around the world, most of which are fresh startups who will barely be able to make back their down payment. So to get more customers, you have to advertise big.

But aren’t these web hosts lying about their offers?

Essentially, this depends on the web hosting provider in question. Little webhosting companies are most likely lying and are not trustworthy, as they won’t have the technology to back your website up or the reputation to become well-known and approved. The best web hosting companies, like the ones we promote here, are however fully prepared to back their promises up.

What’s the catch?

That is a good question. As a general rule, web hosting companies limit their hosting customers by setting a cap on what’s called CPU. CPU stands for computer processor unit and this unit measures how many times your website is accessed per minute, second, day, etc. It is basically the brain of the server, just like your home computer’s processor is what makes it load fast or slow.

Now, shared hosting (which is the cheap and affordable hosting you’ll find here) means that your website and about 300 other websites are sharing the same CPU (processor). So imagine 300 people sharing your home computer – if you have a good processor, your machine will run fast, just like if the customers sharing space with you are not using very much, the server will be fast and good! So if all 300 customers use >1% CPU, your server will be amazing.

Now imagine all 300 people trying to download a movie all at the same time on your home computer. Your home computer would likely shut down, as it would be unable to handle the load of 300 people downloading something that large at once. That is the same effect as if those 300 people on your web hosting server all used more than 1% CPU. Your server (and website) will crash.

So the catch to unlimited web hosting is merely CPU usage. Keep it below 1% and you’ll be fine and can really utilize unlimited storage and bandwidth!

So you think you’re ready to buy web hosting? That’s great! Like the first time I purchased web hosting, you must be very excited! It’s a little bit scary, a little thrilling, and a great deal nerve-wracking. To help ease your web hosting anxiety, here are some presales questions you may want to answer yourself before you buy from the best web hosting provider of your choice.

What kind of website do I want to host?

Are you ready for business hosting? Ecommerce? Personal? Family? Narrow it down as much as possible to a specific niche. Here are some further examples:

* Blog hosting / WordPress web hosting
* Joomla hosting
* Web 2.0 hosting
* Dedicated Server Hosting
* Adult hosting
* Music hosting
* Email hosting
* Reseller hosting
* Photo hosting / Artist hosting
* Church hosting

What kind of features do I need?

Consider the kind of website you are looking to create. If you are starting a church website, odds are you are not going to need very much storage space, whereas you might need a website template and an average amount of bandwidth. On the other hand, if you are running a photography website, you are going to need a good deal of storage space and bandwidth, but may be less concerned with website templates or the amount of email addresses you can use.

How many webpages and/or websites will I create?

You may not know this ahead of time, but think in generic terms – do you plan to add other websites to your hosting account in the future? Would you like to be able to have that option?

Do I need advanced web hosting features?

Do you plan to add scripting or programming to your website? If so, make sure the kind of scripts you want to run are supported by your web hosting provider. If you’re unsure, odds are you don’t need them.

Can I build the website myself?

If yes, don’t choose a web hosting provider who offers free site building tools over one that doesn’t just because it looks like they offer more. If you’re unsure about building your own website, make sure that you put a website builder as a priority on your web hosting checklist! Or get a web design template.

The Best Web Hosting List shows you the Top 10 Web Hosting providers worldwide, but some of the features may be new to you, so we’re here to explain those deal-breakers and give you the best definitions for the most common web hosting terms.

One of the main things you’ll see for web hosting providers these days is Storage Space. Storage (or Disk) Space just measures the amount of actual space on the web server that the web host gives you to be able to store pictures, videos, music, content, and etc. So everything that makes your website unique will be stored. That’s why it’s always dependent on what you plan to do with your site as to how much web hosting space you actually need.

Hint: you probably don’t need more than 1GB of web hosting space.

However, the best web hosts will normally offer “unlimited web hosting”. So what the heck does that mean to you? Basically, that you have “unlimited storage space” to play around with. You can host your videos, music, files, pictures, and everything else, and you’ll technically never run out of storage space!

The catch? Web Hosting space is only one thing you need to measure when hosting your website – web hosting companies can offer “unlimited web hosting” because they can catch you on other technicalities like CPU usage.

We recommend IX Web Hosting, because they offer Unlimited Website Hosting and Unlimited Storage Space and Bandwidth. And trust us when we say they really do mean UNLIMITED!

Plus, IX Web Hosting offers over $500 in free advertising credits, which is an offer we cannot find to beat anywhere else.

We have already explained some basic web hosting terms in detail, but it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty web hosting terms that come up literally everywhere you look! This ought to make it easier to choose the best web hosting provider for your business or personal website.

Control Panel – This is what you use to manage all aspects of your website. For example, you will login to your control panel to update your website, install a blog like WordPress, or to create an email address.

Database – You will likely never use them (either consciously or unconsciously) but databases are places you can store things like product or customers lists, scripts, or where automatic installations install important features. For example, when installing Joomla, your web hosting control panel will install modules into databases. You don’t need to know this, but it helps make Joomla function.

Domain – Your website URL that you want visitors to type in to visit your website. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our domain name here. Normally, you can get this registered for free with your web host.

FTP – FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and though it sounds technical it’s as easy to setup as downloading a file from your email! FTP Programs help you upload and download files, music, and videos from your webhosting account to your PC or vice versa.

GB – (gigabyte) Honestly, you don’t need to know what a ‘gigabyte’ is to enjoy your webhosting account and website. But a gigabyte (or GB) is a measuring increment. 1 GB is worth 100 MB (megabytes). Make sure you choose a web host who offers more than 5GB of storage space and more than 100GB of bandwidth. That’s all you’ll really need.

Money-Back Guarantee – Pretty self-explanatory, this is something every web host should offer. It’s a guarantee that, if you dislike their services, you can get a refund within a specified period of time. Most MBGs are 30, 60, or 90 days.

Subdomain – Yep, there are levels for domains. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our primary domain. But ix-web-hosting-review.thebestwebhostinglist.com is our subdomain, devoted to explaining everything there is to know about IX Web Hosting. Using subdomains can help you build a new website without purchasing an entirely new domain name for it.

During my time as a sales rep I came across a countless number of people who were unsure about the amount of storage that they needed, but what I found it really came down to was a real lack of understanding about file sizes. So below, I’ll break it down for you and give you some examples.

• 1 KB (one KiloByte) = 1,024 Bytes  
• 1 MB (one MegaByte) = 1,024 KB
• 1 GB (one GigaByte) = 1,024 MB 

So lets set these to common, everyday examples:

• A 5 page paper I wrote in MS Word is about 35KB.
• The file size for the sitemap on this website is under 10KB.
• Most music files of about 3-4 minutes are 3-5MB.
• Adobe Photoshop CS, a huge piece of photo manipluation software, is about 50MB on my computer.
• This website is under 10MB. 

Many of the best web hosts are offering thousands of gigabytes of storage — a goal that’s near impossible for the everyday website to reach — but they offer those number because a large number of people think bigger is better and don’t quite realize how big 1GB  is! On thebestwebhostinglist.com you’ll notice that we’re not just offering those companies who offer unlimited storage or more than 1,500GB — we also showcase the companies who offer smaller amounts of storage. 

Storage is the amount of space alloted to you to store literally anything and everything that has to do with your website from pictures, to blogs, to the individual files of code that make your website a working, well, website! While many of the best webhosts out there will offer hundreds, even thousands of gigabytes of storage, chances are you won’t even need an 8th of it. Those are marketing numbers so they can compete with each other, not real, feasible amounts. If you’re still confused about how much room a file takes up, or how gigabytes (GB) relate to the amount of space you’ll need, I’ll give you this website as an example. It’s running the WordPress program, has files, pictures, subdomains, and dozens of blog entries… and the whole site is only 7.5MB! So in the end, it really isn’t the storage numbers that are important for your average, beginning website, just the quality of the host :) 

When you are first looking into best web hosting, you’ll find there are millions of options for your business website, personal website, or blog website. Shared web hosting is the most common and popular choice for beginning your website, as shared web hosting offers top web hosting features and promotions.

But what is shared web hosting?

Shared web hosting is a fancy term for something semi technical. When you are hosting your website, you are sharing what is called a “server”. Servers are just big computers that have storage space on them so you can store your pictures, movies, music, etc. The servers work just like your home computer, so imagine sharing your home computer with your kids, spouse, parents, friends, or roommates. Shared web hosting works the same – each user has unique access to their best web hosting account, where they can upload their website, store files, and access emails. In essence, there can be up to 700 people sharing the same server with you, even though best web hosting companies will only put 300 or so on one server at a time. None of the other users can access your files, just as you can’t access theirs.

So shared web hosting is often the cheapest, best web hosting option for beginning web hosting customers.

The first thing you should know about web hosting providers is that they want you to be their customer. Their number one priority is making the customer happy, because the best web hosting is about customer satisfaction. Offering you cheap web hosting is one way to accomplish getting your business. The other way is offering a ton of storage space and web hosting bandwidth.So how much storage and bandwidth do you really need?The answer actually varies. But you will likely fall into one of the two following categories:* New WebmastersIf you have never bought web hosting, just need a simple website, or are running a small website, you really will only need 10GB or less of web hosting storage space. Don’t be fooled by the large amounts of storage space even the best web hosting offers – they are simply marketing terms to get you to buy.* Web Hosting GurusIf you operate a large web hosting site, are planning to run dedicated server hosting, or have an audience who download regularly from your website or view the website quite a bit every day, hour, or month, you are going to want to pay more attention to web hosting storage and will likely even need to look into VPS web hosting or even dedicated server hosting, both of which are more expensive web hosting types.

Web hosting has become a mystery to most of the world. When the internet first started growing and expanding, web hosting was known more as simply “getting a website” and that’s the basis of what it still is today. Web hosting is a necessary tool you must have to start your first website, and in fact you cannot make a website unless you have web hosting. Basically, in the simplest terms, website hosting just gives you the web space and bandwidth necessary to run your website. This allows you to store images, music, files, and allows visitors to view them 24/7.

So how do you get webhosting? Look for the best web hosting, which you can find on our website, and purchase a web hosting plan with the website hosting company of your choice. 

You will also need a domain name and may need website design software, unless the web hosting company of your choice offers both of these included with your webhosting plan.

Bandwidth sounds like a really technical term and it definitely is, but if you really look at what bandwidth is it’s nothing more than the data transfer of your website. Web hosting providers offer you a set amount of disk storage space or webspace and bandwidth for your website. Bandwidth just allows visitors to see your website, download your pictures or music, and click on links, email you, etc.

Bandwidth varies from provider to provider and more than likely you will not need more than 1GB to run your entire website, so don’t get overwhelmed by web hosting bandwidth. The best web hosting providers will offer you loads of bandwidth to keep you happy, so if it’s very important to you, make sure you choose the best web hosting plan for these specific needs.