Webhosting is one of the most competitive industries on the internet and consumers need to shop around before committing to any one hosting company. One would think that hosting a website should be relatively simple, but as any website owner can tell you, webhosting companies are diverse and range from small home based operations to giant conglomerates. Equally as diverse is the charge for hosting which can fluctuate wildly depending on the company. In this case, we'll take a look at what a consumer should look for when considering buying hosting, and just as importantly, what to watch out for.
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How We Rated the Hosting Services
4.44
4.99
3.95
7.95
7.95
6.95
4.17
7.96
8.95
Unlimited
10K MB
10K MB
5K MB
10K MB
10 GB
10 GB
10 GB
5 GB
Unlimited
500 GB
100 GB
400 GB
250 GB
250 GB
100 GB
150 GB
Unlimited
No
No
Yes*
Yes*
Yes*
Yes*
Yes*
Yes*
No
Top Three Sites We Reviewed
444Hosting provides unlimited storage and bandwidth for $4.44 per month with no set up fees. They operated off a C-panel management interface and hosting includes numerous scripts including blogs, bulletin boards, unlimited CGI bins, PHP4, and unlimited data bases. They also offer unlimited email accounts, unlimited FTP accounts and are perl ready. They do not offer domain registration services.
Overall Rating A++ Cost 4.44 Bandwidth: Unlimited Storage: Unlimited
One and One is an exceptional hosting company and is one of the largest hosting companies on the planet. Their size and volume provides real value including the best pricing on domains that we have found on the web. Their accounts are small compared with the other hosting companies, but they offer two free domain registrations with a new account, monthly billing and no set up fees. You can host unlimited domains and they have a 24/7 customer service live person phone center.
Blue Hosting offers large economical hosting packages that include a free domain for the life of the account. There packages are comparable to One and One but do require you to pay the entire annual fee to avoid paying a set up cost which is their one main draw back. They have a highly rated customer service center, and have all the features you would expect from a large webhosting company.
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Hosting comparison is a complicated business - and in effort to compare apples to apples, you have to sort through the variables and clauses. For example, every hosting company has a basic plan that is an entry level, low cost fee. What most require though is that you pay the entire annual bill upon sign up, or the rate goes up substantially and in many cases requires a set up fee. We indicated this in the above chart that shows companies with a hosting fee unless you paid up front. Of the companies we reviewed above, only One and One, 444 Hosting and Host Rocket don't charge any type of set up fee and you can pay on a monthly basis.
Another habit of the hosting companies ( and resembles a shell game ) is to mix match the numbers for bandwidth and disk storage. Typically, most sites never come close to exceeding their storage, as a 10K mb site can hold more than 10,000 pages of content - far bigger than just about any website. Where many sites that grow fast do run into problems is with their bandwidth - ie: the amount of information sent over by the server to your users when they load a webpage. Just about any hosting company provides ample disk storage, but the real factor to compare the bandwidth.
To See an Expanded List of our Reviewed Categories, Click Here.
Free Hosting Companies
You Get What You Pay For
Since the internet first started gaining popularity, free hosting companies have been providing free webhosting in return for some form of benefit to themselves. Typically this involves occupying some of the space on your website either through banners or text ads - or the dreaded pop ups that many free hosts are known for.
The obvious benefit of free hosting is that it is free and back when even a basic hosting plan would cost $50 a month and more, the free accounts looked like a reasonable trade off. But know with monthly hosting as low as a few dollars a month, free hosting should really be reserved for hobby sites - or at least those that are not attempting to attract a commercial audience.
If you are attempting to create and host a site that you hope to attract enough buyers to earn revenue from, then you really need to look at hosting your website with a paid host that does not infringe on your hosting space. In todays day and age, even a cup of coffee costs more than a decent hosting account and there is little excuse for not having a paid host - not to mentioned that many major search engines such as Google will ban sites from free hosts because of the popups which should be reason enough to convince you that free sites are not the way to go.
Hosting companies provide a variety of benefits and bonus offers to get your business. Some of these are of not much value, while others can be a significant savings. For example, search engine submission services are rather dated, where a hosting company that offers free domains like One and One provide a real value for signing up.
Another element that you will want to consider when hosting is whether the package you are buying allows multiple domain hosting. Some hosts only allow one domain per account, while others such as One and One offer unlimited domains. The value of this of course is that you don't need to have a separate account for each domain ( which also means a separate charge for each account which can really add up. )
You will also want to compare site features such as cgi bins and data bases. if you are technically challenged, you might wonder what those CGI and Data Bases are. Most scripts that require a data base of resources, such as a membership base require a data base. Most scripts that require a function either require PHP or a CGI bin - be sure that your host provides these services so you don't run into problems in the future.
Finally, prices for hosting varies wildly. It's essential that you compare all the features and that is what we have tried to do with our ranking of the hosting companies we reviewed. In this case, we like 444 hosting because of their unlimited bandwidth and storage, and also ranked high the One and One service which provides unlimited domain hosting.
Overall Rating A++ Cost 4.99 Bandwidth: 500 GB Storage: 10,000 MB
Overall Rating A+ Cost 4.99 Bandwidth: 250 GB Storage: 10,000 MB
