The Best Web Hosting List

The best web hosting providers will offer easy website scripts that you can install with one-click. For example, if your web hosting provider uses cPanel, one of the forerunners in web hosting control panels, then you also get Fantastico, which allows the kind of easy website script installs I mentioned earlier. But if you don’t have an easy tool to install scripts, you can do them yourself without any HTML or programming experience! Here are a few popular script ideas you may want to use.

Counters & Web Stats

Having a website counter or web statistics program on your web hosting plan allows you to see who is on your website, at what time, how long they stay, where they came from, and even how many times they came back.

* Perfect for business web hosting to keep track of potential customers or personal web hosting to see the popularity of your blog, church website, or hobby website!

Advertisements

Owning your own website means you can put your own advertisements on it if you wish! This is fun because you can actually make money off online advertisements, and it won’t cost you a dime to install them. Make sure the ads are relevant to your website, find a good application or script, and install it. It’s that easy.

* Perfect for ecommerce web hosting to gain additional income from your website or blog web hosting where you can easily capitalize on your readership.

Photo Galleries

Do you want to have a professional art or photo gallery for your family, church, vacation, business products, digital or traditional art, and more? Then installing a photo gallery script will help your best web hosting look phenomenal! With photo gallery scripts, you can have any many ‘galleries’ as you want and can add unlimited photos or images instantly, all from your main hosting control panel!

* Perfect for mothers and families, churches, blog web hosting, vacation photos, business products, digital or traditional artists, and more.

Asking the right questions is essential to getting the right answers, so the more you know ahead of time will influence the kinds of questions you are able to ask and the best web hosting answers you’ll receive in turn!

So here are the top 5 most important web hosting questions to ensure you choose the best web hosting provider.

Q. How many years has your web hosting company been in business?

Why This is Important: If they say “10 years”, you know you’re in good hands! If they say “5 months”, better put your money elsewhere. The good news is that all of our recommended web hosting providers have been in business more than 2 years and many of them have been around for more than ten, which helps you ensure you have quality web hosting.

Q. How easy is it to upgrade or downgrade my service? Can I do this even after I’ve hosted with you past the 30 day money back guarantee period? How much will it cost?

Why This Matters: Imagine that your ecommerce web business escalates so fast that you need to accommodate with a VPS or dedicated server. Wouldn’t that be great? Not if your web hosting provider doesn’t support VPS or dedicated servers! Make sure 1) if you plan to grow that your web host can accommodate, 2) that you can do so at any time, and 3) that it doesn’t cost a fortune to do so. All of the recommended web hosts here will provide easy upgrades and affordable hosting solutions.

Q. How often do you perform website backups, how long do you keep them, and how much does it cost to retrieve these backups?

Why This Matters: I’m sure you can guess, but if your website is hacked or a server goes down, what happens to your website? Do they ensure a copy somewhere for you? If so, how long will that copy be available to you and how much will it cost to have it sent to you? Knowing this will allow you to plan out website backup strategies or hire someone to keep daily backups.

Q. What are your technical support hours of operation?

Why This Matters: If you need help at 1am, can you send an email and actually get a response or give them a call? Problems happen, so make sure your web host can be accountable for any technical issues that arise.

Q. Do you offer a web hosting money back guarantee or uptime guarantee?

Why This Matters: If you don’t like the hosting plan or if your website is down for more than a couple hours every year, you need to know what your web hosting provider can do to compensate for your loss.

Did you know that in order to legally accept critical customer information like legal name, address, telephone number, and payment details that you are required by law to have certain URLs and policies clearly defined and available on your website? Well, if you are running a digital ecommerce business website or business web hosting plan, you should pay attention to some important internet laws that you may not be aware of or you could end up in big trouble!

What laws do I need to know about?

There are many, but the most important ones are the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, United States Trademark Act, the Safe Harbor certification program and more. Contact an attorney or internet litigator for more information.

What do I need on my business website?

If you are taking customer information like home or billing address, credit card or payment information, or other critical and personal information, you must provide the following:

* A regularly updated privacy policy, which outlines why you are asking for this information and what happens to it once you’re done with it (i.e. who has access and do you trade this information to 3rd parties?)

* Terms of Service, also known as TOS (or Terms of Agreement, etc), is a breakdown of what the customer is agreeing to when they purchase your product or sign up for your services, etc. (i.e. Are they locked into a contract, must they abide by your law, do they get a refund if they are unsatisfied, etc?)

* Acceptable Use Policy is also important if you are providing a service such as web hosting or reselling on your website. This policy outlines your customers’ responsibilities to your company, acknowledging that they cannot break the law or you can terminate their account or services without warning. You also state that you are not accountable by law for their misuse or mistreatment of state or federal laws.

* FAQs are essential to your online business hosting but they are not mandatory by law.

Just remember, these laws are set in place for the best web hosting providers as well, so don’t exclude them! If you are getting ready to purchase web hosting, compare your options and ensure 100% that the web hosting company has all or many of these policies easily available for your perusal.

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!

As a small business website (or even as a large one!) you have many options to consider for receiving payment online. You may think that starting an ecommerce website is going to be the toughest thing you have ever done, but it is actually becoming easier and easier, because there are so many companies willing to help.

For example, the best web hosting providers will offer you amazing web hosting freebies like ecommerce shopping carts, payment gateways, merchant accounts, dedicated IPs, SSL certificates, and more. In fact, out top web hosting providers are among these amazing hosting companies.

But what payment option is best for your business? Take a look at the following questions and answer each honestly for a summary of the best online payment methods for your business hosting account.

Will your customers be purchasing products through your website?

Yes -> You’ll need a merchant account, SSL certificate, and Dedicated IP.
No -> You can use PayPal or Google checkout.

Do you want to accept credit card payments?

Yes -> You can use a merchant account (with SSL and IP) or free services like PayPal and Google Checkout, both of which offer credit card payment options.
No -> Use PayPal, as it’s cheaper.

Do you want to incorporate advanced payment options for international customers?

Yes -> You will need a merchant account with SSL and IP to accept payments like echecks, checks, money orders, and international payment methods.
No -> PayPal or any merchant account will work.

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 companies will offer what is called an “uptime guarantee”. More often than not, you will see this uptime guarantee listed in a percentage – for example, 99.9% or 99.99%, etc. There are a couple matters to consider, however, to understand exactly what each web host means by ‘uptime guarantee’.

1. Various Degrees of Uptime

Yep, 99.9% and 99.99% are very different! Though the numbers may appear similar in length, web hosting is a precise science. Here is a quick list of the most popular web hosting uptime guarantees to show what they translate to in actual downtime:

99.5% = up to 216 minutes per month of downtime
99.8% = up to 87 minutes per month of downtime
99.9% = up to 44 minutes per month of downtime
99.99% = up to 5 minutes per month of downtime
99.999% = up to 27 seconds per month of downtime

2. Downtime is Calculated Per Month

As you’ll note from the chart above, web hosting downtime is calculated per month. This means that any reliable web hosting provider MUST have at least 99.9% uptime for you to be happy with their services. After all, would you be happy with 3.6 hours of downtime per month? That’s almost 2 days of downtime per year!

3. How Uptime is Measured

The actual uptime of any web hosting provider is measured through every single server they own. So while one server may experience 2 hours of downtime per month, if all of the other servers only experience less than 5 minutes per month of downtime, that web host is ranked as having 99.99% uptime.

4. Compensation

Some of the best web hosting companies will offer to compensate you if they do not meet their uptime guarantee. This is great for you, because many web hosting providers will give you free hosting or discounts on future renewals. Though if it happens too often, no amount of freebies can make up for bad hosting service.

5. What Really Matters

Web Hosting Uptime Guarantees are only numbers measured by various statistics, and odds are, you will likely never notice your web host’s downtime if you choose a reliable web hosting provider from our top 10 web hosting list. Just be wise, knowledgeable, and cautious in your web hosting search and you’re sure to pick the best hosting provider out there!

When you purchase web hosting from one of our best web hosting providers, you need to know the importance of a money back guarantee.

Many people think web hosting guarantees are worthless, but if you think about it, a money back guarantee is simply offering you a way to minimize your losses if you don’t find the service to be up to par. Think about lemon laws for auto dealerships and why they exist and then remember that buying a web hosting package from a reliable hosting provider should be no different than buying any other service or product online – you need to make sure you get what you paid for!

For example, when I worked at a web hosting company on the West Coast, we would often sell our customers on the money back guarantee alone – why is that? Simple – because customers like to be assured they are getting their money’s worth, and just by saying “if you don’t like us, we’ll refund you immediately” gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside. You know that if they screw up, you are entitled to move your website elsewhere without issue about refunds.

And let’s face it, while we promote the best web hosting companies in the world, ones we trust and support, they just may not be your cup of tea. So knowing you can move on assures you that you likely won’t even need to.

We recommend choosing an affordable web hosting provider who offers at least a 30 day money back guarantee. That gives you one full month of web hosting experience to gauge.