Jan 22 2012
How to find a website host?
This website is hosted by a company called 1and1, which is one of the biggest in the world. I signed up to them simply because they offered the features that I needed, at a decent price, with a special offer of one years free hosting, if I signed up for two. Prior to that I was with a company called Heart Internet.
Generally I was happy with Heart Internet, only really moving due to slightly more features for a better price. That isn’t to say it’s all been plain sailing with 1and1, as their customer support could be a little better, but on the whole I’m happy.
Would I recommend them? I have done, and so far the people I recommended them too are happy.
I’m not going to push either webhost on anyone, just going to give a list of some review sites. Read the reviews, visit the companies, read their terms and conditions, read their support forums/FAQs, before you give them your card details. Be aware that review sites link to the companies and get commission for sales. If you spot a company you think you like, the use google to ask questions such as XXXX problems, or XXXX customer service. Or just ask me in the comments and I’ll go hunting for you 
Here’s a quick list of some common terms:-
Shared Hosting/Dedicated Hosting – shared hosting means you rent a small part of a server, along with other small websites. dedicated means you rent a server all to yourself. Most small sites need shared hosting.
Domain Name – that’s the unique name of your site. Computers connect to the internet using an IP address which is a series of numbers. People can’t remember lots of numbers so Domain Names point to the IP address. If we take Google as an example – http://74.125.224.72/ is the IP address, and http://www.google.com is the Domain Name. Some people get confused thinking that the name is the website, but it isn’t, the number is the website, the Domain Name is a sign post pointing to the number.
Webspace – This is the hard disk space that your website will take up. This is where you actual website is. If you only intend to have a small site, with a few images, then you don’t really need a large amount, but it’s better to have too much than too little, unless their is a large price difference.
Monthly Traffic – sometimes called bandwidth. Every time a visitor visits your site they will use bandwidth, so if your average visitor visited 5 pages, each of which was 100Kb then your average visitor would consume 0.5Mb of your bandwidth. If your total monthly traffic allowance was 100Mb, then you could have 200 visitors before you used up your allowed bandwidth. Going over your allowance doesn’t mean your site can’t be accessed, you will need to read your webhosts terms to find out what the penalty is. Many webhosts offer ‘unlimited’ bandwidth but I wouldn’t advise putting any of them to the test
Email accounts – I’d advise you get at least one. It looks more professional to have an email address attached to your site, that one from a free webhosting company, especially if you want to be taken seriously. you@yoursite.co.uk looks a lot better than you1234@live.com.
FTP – this is the protocol for uploading/downloading the files from your website. You will need a FTP client in order to access your webhost via FTP. A good one is http://www.filezilla.net
Features/Technologies – when you look at any webhost they will offer features that will undoubtedly confuse. PHP, Ruby, CGI, ASP, SQL etc etc. Find out what the platform you are using requires, and make sure that you get those features. Anything else is a bonus as long as it is included in your basic price. This series will focus on creating a website based upon WordPress, so you will need PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0. If you find a host and aren’t sure, email them, explain you want to build a site using WordPress and if they support it. WordPress.org even have a basic email that you can copy and paste – http://wordpress.org/about/requirements/
A good site that I’ve found that goes into more detail about technologies is http://www.w3schools.com/hosting/host_technologies.asp
If there’s anything in particular you need explaining, add a comment, and I’ll endeavour to answer your query.
Some webhost review sites
http://www.hostratings.co.uk/
http://www.hosting-review.com/
