Web Hosting Tutorial Choose a Good Web Host

You have an idea what web hosting is now, and has decided which web server platform to build your website, but there are so many web hosting provider out there, how do I know which is a good, friendly and reliable provider that is suitable for me ? Well, there are some basic guidelines where experience web developers use to select a suitable good web host :-
Decide what you need

First, spend some time to think of what you need from a web host, this is important as there are many web host out there and each and everyone of them has their own different characteristics. You may have read in websites about some webmaster talking about a bad web host but there are other webmasters that does not feel the same. Why is that ? if something is bad then it should be bad, isn't it ? why are there different opinions on a web hosts ? Well, like I said earlier, different webmaster do have different requirements, but not all of them has really thought about it before signing up with a web host, and later found out that the web host is not up to their expectation, some got frustrated and started telling others about the bad experience. A better approach would be first write down all your requirements, for example :-

* A high / medium / low price hosting
* to what extend you need the support from a web host

Well, it is always difficult to deny anything that sell at the cheapest, I bet you have this sort of experience when you go shopping at a hypermarket, but have you really thought about the durability of the product when you pay for it at the cash counter ? Well, generally not many people would do that, people will only found out about the usability of the product after a while. I am not saying that cheap things are no good, you just have to have a realistic expectation when you make the decision. Remember, you get what you pay for. If you need more, then you should expect to spend a little extra. If you are tight of the pocket, then you should expect lowering a little of your requirements.
Ask around for opinions on a web host

This is a good start to short list a few that you can check further if they are suitable for your requirements, have your friends using any web hosting provider ? How do they feel about the web host ? How long have they been hosting with the web host ? Check and ask around will get yourself some useful info on certain web host, short list a few and check back with your own requirements, trim further your list and select the top three of your list that should be meeting most of your requirements.
Send your questions to the selected web host

Why do I have to do this ? Well, opinions from others may not express exactly your own concern, ask your own questions directly to the selected web host and check their responses, are these responses within your expectation ? Do take note that there can be 'canned replies' from some web hosts, this is unavoidable in some large web hosts where support helpdesk has to deal with thousands of similar requests every day, and there are operating manuals that the front helpdesk staff has to follow, therefore sometimes you may be getting generic replies to questions in similar nature, these 'canned replies' may or may not directly answer your questions and sometimes you might need to send several requests to get the attention of the support staff to actually look into your question in detail. This is why it is always a good approach to ask your own questions to the selected web host and experience yourself of the level of support you can expect from the web host, select the web host that best address your question should serve you well and leave you less worries when you are busy building your website.

Ok, now you have a good idea of getting yourself a good web host, why not consider checking our web hosting and see if we are able to serve you well. ;-)

P/S: Just a bit of self promo, we have been serving web hosting since year 2000 and we have been able to keep some quite 'difficult to deal with' type of webmaster happily hosting with us....still. ;-)