Filed Under (Ecommerce) by Matt Hedges on August-21-2008
by Matt Hedges

People are reading this article because they look for a good web hosting service. And naturally you would like to receive the best agreement, which you can work with. A web hosting service is a big decision, which will have lasting effects, because you can use it, in order to support your business long into the future.

In the present times, PHP web hosting has become very cheap and offers a host of benefits which make it very attractive.

Before moving on with the main issue, a little information about PHP would be helpful. It is a very popular server side programming language that can be embedded into HTML. Its popularity has been aided by the following features:

a. It is available for free

b. Easy to learn and use.

c. It is a fully object oriented language.

d. It can be used on a variety of platforms

e. It is very fact on the Linux server, which makes it great in building difficult web applications

f. It works well with programming of an advanced nature and can be easily used with pages of a web site.

g. PHP also integrates very nicely with MYSQL.

There are many things to consider before choosing a PHP server host for your site. Be aware it can be difficult to get a decent PHP web host service. This is because a large number of firms just want to make money. They will not offer a complete service in their package and it is common to be without PHP for a few days.However, it is impossible to fix as you cannot contact the support, as often happens. You will be lucky if you find the right PHP host first time. This is because it can be easy to overlook a number of firms, including good ones.

These factors make selecting the best PHP provider a very hard task. However, it is possible to find some advice to follow.

A genuine PHP host will have these areas provided:

a. Technical products. Software and programs including Cron, Python, CGI, MySQL, PHP or Perl need to be on offer. Even if you don’t know what they are, be happy to have them as they can be very useful later.

b. Bandwidth. This equates to how many visitors your site can have each month. For many users, 75GB per month will be satisfactory.

c. Price. Getting a service for no charge is not always good and paying a low fee does not always mean low quality. A price that should provide you with an enjoyable service would be around $10.

d. Who uses your web site. Having true statistics regarding usage of your site and where it is linked from can be a massive help to your site.

e. Script installers for PHP web hosting. It is vital to be aware of these and include them in any search you undertake. An installation pack should be obtained for free from your provider. Do not trust providers that ask for a fee for this service.

Turning attention to the free of PHP host provision, they can have many disadvantages related to them. All firms need revenue and if a firm provides this service for free, they may not be able to do it for too long. This income is produced by them, by advertisements placed upon your Web site. Some forms these advertisements will come in include:

a. Advertisements on banners

b. Pop-up adverts appearing on screen

c. Frames including advertisements

The web site owner would have no control over these advertisements. This would clearly be a bad situation for a great number of firms to be in. Anecdotal evidence tells of the time one firm had advertisements for a rival product appearing on their site and this is not good. Unfortunately, as the service is free, there is not much that can be done to complain about it.

It is also true to say that free sites quite often crash. If the host caters for a great number of sites, this is likely to occur.

Furthermore PHP web site hosting companies, that are offering free services are generally not able to offer the range of features, that even a cheap web hosting company can.

Keeping the above in mind, it is a better idea to go for a paid but affordable web hosting service rather than a free one. The extra benefits offered by the paid services would easily make-up for the few dollars a month that they cost.

In order to zero in on the right cheap web hosting service, you will have to keep the following things in mind:

i. Try to strike a balance between benefits and cost. Choosing the cheap option will mean some sacrifices which could include uptime, help desk services or perhaps security issues. You will need to know what is most important for you.

ii. If you want to have blogs, shopping carts or forums then installation tools would be good and this is where Cpanel could be handy. Cpanel can also assist with running centers of support and controlling MySQL databases.

iii. Services of support: 24/7 has to be your requirement. You can never predict a crisis so having this support is vital.

iv. How much disc space is available: The amount of content is on your site will impact on the disc space you need. Bear in mind any expansion before deciding what disc space you need.

v. Email Accounts: If a web hosting company acts cheap with essential facilities like email accounts, you should not think twice before dumping it. Web site hosting is a very competitive business, so you will be easily able to get a provider that offers unlimited email accounts.

The harder part of your research comes now and it is seeking the companies which provide offers such as guaranteeing your money back if you are unhappy after 30 days or regarding uptime guarantees. These can be hard to find as they all cost money to promise. But seek them, because some firms are available to offer this, and with the advantages already mentioned above they can also offer a commendable service at a welcome price.

The decision process should never stop and with your own budget and requirements in place, you should be able to choose which host best suits your needs.

Can you ever be sure you made the right choice? If you are happy with the cost, the uptime, how many email accounts you have, the level of support that is available to you, if you can have access to vital statistics and having the option of PHP and Windows, then yes, it is possible to be happy with your choice.

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