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This is the second in a two-part series of articles that will hopefully help you to make the most informed decision possible when selecting a host for your web site. While all web-hosting companies ultimately provide the same service, not all providers of these services are created equal. Thus, in seeking a place to host your web site, it's important that you ask certain questions:
Will you be able to execute scripts?
Feedback forms, polls, databases and mailing lists are all items that usually require a script of some sort in order for them to work properly and be fully integrated into your web site. If you intend to execute scripts on your web site, you should find out which packages include this option, and for those that don't offer it as a standard feature, how much extra would it cost to have it.
Does the host offer technical support?
Ensure that the hosting company offers technical support via email or phone or both. There are times when there may be problems with the site or you may simply need a few questions answered. The host company should be there with the solution or the answers within a maximum of 24 hours.
Will you get free site statistics or have log file access?
Once your site is live, you will need to be able to analyse its traffic - how many visitors it's getting, where it is coming from, what pages are most popular and so on. To do this, your host will need to provide you with access to these statistics, or access to the site's log files so that you can generate the numbers yourself. If you're not interested in your site's numbers, this will be a key question for you, because some hosts will exclude these features in order to provide you with an overall cheaper package.
How many email accounts will you get?
Basic hosting packages usually include between one and five email accounts, allowing you to have your
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or your
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. If five is not enough for you, then you should be looking at the options that will provide your desired number of email accounts at the best possible overall price.
Are they e-commerce ready?
Whether initially or in the foreseeable future, if you intend to sell a product or service via your web site, you should look for a host that is e-commerce ready. For e-commerce, you will need a secure server to process your credit card transactions using a secure sockets layer (SSL) and you may need a basic or advanced shopping cart software. There is always the option of having a totally different company handle your credit card processing, but if the price is right, it might save some headache to simply have one company handle both hosting and e-commerce.
Ultimately, your decision about where to host may end up being dependent on two factors - features and cost. Having a few of these questions answered will undoubtedly help you to sift through and easily identify the more impressive options.
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