What to Look for in a Web Hosting Company

·         Shared hosting, virtual dedicated server, or dedicated server? Shared hosting is an arrangement in which you site is housed on the same host server with several other web sites.  This is an economical solution for smaller or static type sites.  A virtual dedicated server, utilizes newer technology for managing medium size, dynamic content or e-commerce type web sites. Using a Web hosting company for your own dedicated server, a solution used by larger and busier sites, provides faster access and ensures that your site will be accessible to visitors 100 percent of the time (instead of sharing web server speed and power with other sites).  Usually, in telling the hosting company of your business model and anticipated traffic, they will be able to recommend the most economical and reliable plan for your web site or web sites, should you have more than one.

·         Hard-disk storage space. Smaller sites may need only 100 to 300MB (megabytes) of web storage space, whereas, medium to large sites may need 300MB to 1GB (gigabytes) of space and e-commerce sites may need at from 1GB to 10GB of space, or your own dedicated web server.  As your site grows, your web hosting company should be able to accommodate you with a reasonable range of options that are explained in layman terms.

·         Data Transfer traffic.