When choosing a web hosting provider, it’s good to know what you should be looking for. After all, choosing the right hosting provider can be a difficult decision. To make things easier, we’ve compiled 10 questions you should be asking to narrow down your options.
1. What kind of server reliability and uptime scores do you offer?
Having a 24/7 operating web host is very important. A web host operating on a powerful server and stable network connections is what you need. The recommended uptime score is 99.5% and uptime below 99% is unacceptable. There are many ways to get the web host uptime information. One way is with server monitoring tools which can help you track your web hosting provider. Ask your hosting provider explicit questions regarding server reliability and uptime scores.
2. What is your security policy?
Security is very important these days, lack of security can result in damage to your business. Therefore, it’s crucial to know what security features a hosting provider offers. When considering shared hosting, the policy of a hosting provider should address it. The same implies to cloud hosting as dedicated hosting. It’s good to ask how often they conduct malware/virus scans. The hosting provider you choose should have proper security processes in place (SSL certifications etc.) to protect any sensitive data.
If your website is e-commerce or stores any sensitive customer/employee data at all, you need a good Shared Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate. Make sure that the SSL covers all your security bases. If not, a multitude of third-party SSL providers exist for you to turn to.
3. Do you offer a range of hosting offers? How easy it is to scale up/down?
As businesses have different Webhosting requirements, it’s good to ask the hosting provider about the hosting environments they provide. What are their policies in case you want to scale up or down? Choose a hosting provider who offers a range of different hosting options. This way you can change hosting plans whenever your business needs change and upgrade services instead of changing your hosting provider.
4. Do you provide Multiple Add-on Domains?
When owning more than one domain, make sure to choose a hosting provider that allows adding multiple domains so that you can accommodate these extra domains. Double-check the domain capacity before you purchase. Generally, hosting companies allow at least 25 add-on domains to one account, but some web hosts allow only one domain.
5. What’s your downtime history?
Downtime is when a website is unavailable for a period. Ask your hosting provider how often they have faced downtime in the past. The ideal answer should be never, but even the best hosting providers have experienced downtime occasionally.
6. What is your back-up policy
Few hosting providers perform backups more than once a day and few do it less often. In order to save your data, backups are essential. Make sure that besides your data and files, there is also a backup of your database(s).
7. What are you accountable for?
In terms of an outage, you need to be completely sure when the company holds itself responsible and when it doesn’t. They may not accountable when a power outage occurs, because it is beyond their control. But in such cases, it’s good to ask whether charges would be suspended.
8. How responsive is your customer service and tech support?
How do customer service and tech support services operate? Contact other customers in order to determine their satisfaction with the quality of service. Technical support should be available 24/7 (holidays included). Make sure you know what their average response and resolution time is.
9. How many customers are on each server?
When you are opting for a shared hosting solution, you will share server space with other websites as well. The number of websites on each server will have an effect on the speed of your site. Ask your hosting provider about the number of customers that share each server.
10. What if I am not satisfied?
Ask whether the hosting provider offer any kind of guarantee or trial period offer. There are various kinds of satisfaction guarantee policies available. Make sure that you have looked at the satisfaction guarantee of the provider.
When choosing the right hosting provider, you need to find out which one suits your needs the most. At ColoHouse, our infrastructure is managed more efficiently so it adjusts to the needs of your business – Powered by the Netrouting Network, there are no more long load times. Need help with a plan for your business? Please contact us at +1 305-731-2225 or use our contact form. Our team is happy to discuss your situation and requirements to help you get the best solution for your business.
