Before (or during) a website build for a client, one of the most common questions we receive is “who should I choose for web hosting?” Although no specific solution is right for everyone, criteria does exist which can be very helpful in finding a good web hosting option, and perhaps more importantly, eliminating bad ones.

Public perception is that web hosting is a commodity. That is to some extent, true. Unlike most commodities, web hosting seems to be in nearly infinite supply, with companies advertising inconceivably low prices. Not all web hosting is inexpensive, though. So it’s reasonable to wonder why some web hosting plans cost a few dollars per month, while others charge several hundred dollars, especially when setups appear virtually identical in specifications. Like so much in life, the difference is in the details. Let’s check them out, broken down into the four main areas we focus on when evaluating web hosts:

Key

I’ve categorized each point of consideration as follows:

Gold Star - Features that great web hosts have
Red Flag - Signs that a web host is to be avoided
Extra Info - Other tidbits that may help you in your search

[hr]

Speed

Page load effects bounce rates, cart abandonment, conversion rates, and even search engine ranking. If you’re thinking of sacrificing speed to save a few bucks a month, you might want to calculate how much losing traffic and customers will cost (or how much you spend in pay-per-click to make up for the monthly savings). Check out this awesome infograpic from KISSMetrics for page load stats.
Here’s what to watch for:

Solid-State Drives (SSD) - Perhaps the most important specification involved in web hosting, solid-state drives are incredibly fast and will make a massive difference in the performance of your website.

“Unlimited” Storage - Even with the ultra low cost of storage hardware, how could a hosting company afford to offer truly unlimited storage? The answer is simply that they cannot, unless they are incredibly restrictive in regards to what you’re allowed to store on the web server; check the “Terms of Service” agreement. Those “limitations” defeatthe purpose of having unlimited storage. In addition, we’re yet to see a hosting company offer both unlimited storage and SSD-based storage, which means you’re trading speed for size. Fast, CDN-based storage is available for around 10¢ per GB, so there’s no need for an “unlimited storage” web hosting plan, even if you require a lot of storage space.

CDNs Give a Speed Boost - A CDN (content delivery network) is a great way to improve the load time of your site. Some web hosts include them by default, while others would require you to set up your own connection to a 3rd party CDN. In either case, it’s worth looking into. Here’s an intro to how CDNs work.

[hr]

Reliability

99% reliability sounds pretty awesome. Until you think through the repercussions of downtime, or have personally experienced it. Consider the cost of employee productivity loss, loss of sales, and the fact that nearly 1 in 2 small businesses have endured data loss or corruption during downtime. In fact, that 99.9% “reliability” caused $70 million to be lost in the cloud in the last 5 years. Again, do the math when you compare hosts:

Live Status Blog with an Archive - Ask a prospective web host if they offer a status blog. If they do, ask them how far into the archives one can go. A status blog with a long history is a sign that the hosting company is confident in their ability to provide reliable service.

“Unlimited Bandwidth” and “Unlimited Visitors” - Some hosting companies include a certain amount of bandwidth in your plan cost, while others include a certain number of site visitors. If a hosting company doesn’t begin charging you after a certain number of GBs in bandwidth or a certain number of site visitors, it’s actually a bad thing, because it, in all probability, it means they’ll simply shut down your site if they deem it to be using too many system resources.

[hr]

Security

Site security is a pretty hot topic these days, and the the impact ranges from inconvenient, to scandalous to downright libelous. Your industry, along with what data you collect and store will be some key factors in this decision. But don’t think because you’re a small company that skimping on security is OK. Having your site hacked has the same finacial impact as the ones listed in the “reliability” section. Here’s some things to consider:

The Most Effective Security Measure is Keeping your Site Updated - Most site hacks occur because of outdated CMS platforms and/or plugins. Keeping your CMS and its associated plugins, themes, extensions, etc. up-to-date is generally the responsibility of the site owner, not the web hosting company (although services do exist to handle updates for you).

External Monitoring - Although decision makers often think of this as fluff, a powerful feature of website monitoring file checksum verification, and comparing it with its reference. Any unauthorized intrusion, be it a hacker or virus, that modifies key files available on your website (like dropping in PDF docs, files or software), alerts are sent out immediately.

Off-Site Backups - In the unfortunate event that your site is hacked, backups stored in a location other than your web server will be your best friend. If you have on-site backups, there’s a good chance they’ll be deleted by the hacker. Regardless of whether or not your web hosting company offers automatic, nightly backups (they should), you should be making your own backups to a 3rd party solution such as Amazon S3 or Rackspace Cloud Files. That way, even if your hosting company’s entire datacenter shuts down, a copy of your site is available in seconds from an alternate location.

[hr]

Support

This is a big point for most clients. You don’t want to waste time calling “the-guy-who-knows-the-guy-who-knows” who actually hosts your site. The clock is ticking, and money is floating out the door. This is the defining moment when you’ll either kick yourself or pat yourself on the back for the decision you made. Here’s how separate host heros from hooligans:

24/7/365 Phone and Chat Support - Ask a prospective web host the average wait time for phone and chat users, as well as the average support ticket response time. If they’re hesitant to tell you, it’s probably for a reason.

Support Ticket to Restore Backups - If there was ever a “needed it yesterday” situation, it’s restoring from a backup of your site. We’ve experienced wait times from hours to days (yes, really) when having to create a support ticket to restore from backup. The best hosts offer backup restore via customer control panel, typically able to be completed in a matter of minutes (or seconds).

So, there you have our basic criteria for analyzing web hosting. Each of our clients have specific needs, so we take time to understand what their current needs are, as well as plan for the future. Perhaps a bottom-of-the-barrel web host would work for you, but just know that you’d be taking a big chance with your business’ reputation. So before you take that tempting, super cheap hosting option, just remember Clint Eastwood’s famous line… “do you feel lucky?” (I always wanted to say that.)