The most apparent difference between shared and dedicated hosting on the delivery of your website is on the speed the site loads for the end user. Another consideration would be the security of your site and the ability to incorporate more scripts and software on a dedicated server.

Having determined the type of hosting best suited to your website, you need to consider how much bandwidth and storage space you require. In addition to the website itself, all images and media along with databases and scripts will require storage space. If you are not sure how much space your site will need in the future, make sure you can upgrade your plan at a future date. The
bandwidth essentially means how many visitors your site will be able to receive in a given period of time. Ordinarily a monthly quota is allowed. It is important to judge this carefully as some service providers will return a ‘bandwidth exceeded page’ when the quota is used up while others will charge often high prices for any additional bandwidth.

Next you would look for the inclusive features. You would almost certainly require an email service. Do they offer POP and/or IMAP access,  Webmail, and SMTP? Other services might include MySQL, SSL, CGI & PHP. Is tracking available? Do you get pre-installed scripts such as forums and guestbooks?

A couple of other considerations would be the speed and reliability of the service. Look for 99.9% uptime and service guarantees. It can be useful to search forums and message boards for reviews and comments by other users.

You will find dedicated hosting offers substantially increased, if not unlimited storage and bandwidth. If increased uptime is your main concern, you may consider the usually quoted 99.9% on shared hosting plans to be adequate. If your site is expected to generate considerable traffic, the 0.01% does however become substantial in terms of lost visitors. The increased performance in terms of load time is also of importance in reaching your decision. Dedicated server plans also offer you full administrative access to your website and server resources allowing you full customization to further enhance performance, security and delivery.

When selecting dedicated hosting, you will normally have a choice between ‘Fully Managed’ plans and ‘unmanaged hosting’. Fully managed plans are fully monitored by your web hosting service provider. This would ordinarily give you access to their specialist expertise and allow a number of enhanced management options such as script and software installation and configuration, regular back-ups and the monitoring of your site’s security vital technical support.

A fully managed service is the optimal choice if you prefer a hands-off approach to web hosting in order to concentrate on your core business. If you prefer to have complete control over your website and its evolution, you will prefer unmanaged hosting as paying for a fully managed plan would be a false economy. Remember, however, that a high level of knowledge and expertise is required to successfully manage a website’s server side. The incorrect configuration of a new software could indeed render the complete site unusable and would cost a great deal more to fix than the higher cost of managed hosting.

Increasing numbers of people are now moving their internet activity into owning their own web space. Use of your own bit of the web may be for private use such as a family site, sharing of photos and media or simply sharing your thoughts and news with your private contacts. Others are interested in creating a public space for forums, sharing social media, to showcase a home or small business, lead generation or a myriad of other uses.
In all cases a web site would be hosted with a web hosting service who stores your website on its servers. This website is then reachable with the use of a web address known as a URL or domain name. It is this address that others would enter into their browsers to view your website. The servers the hosting service host your website on will be categorized as colocation, dedicated, reseller or, most commonly, shared.

Care needs to be taken in choosing your domain name to reflect the nature of your new website. You purchase your domain name from registrars who manage the registration of your domain name. You can purchase domain names separately from hosting. Some free hosting services are also domain name registrars and will offer this service as part of their hosting service. Most free hosting services also offer a free sub-domain which is added to the service domain. This is often adequate for websites not intended for public viewing.

When selecting a free hosting service, a clear list of requirements will help in finding a suitable provider. Items to consider might be:

• email account provision,
• ad-supported or ad-free hosting,
• control panel or file manager used,
• online website builder,
• included scripts such as shopping carts,
• ability to install additional scripts,
• disk space and bandwidth,
• traffic statistics,
• sub-domains,
• guaranteed uptime.

A good free hosting service will have full explanations of all the inclusive features they offer. Given the competitive nature of the web hosting industry, many paid web hosting services offer free hosting to allow prospective clients to experience their service first hand before signing a contract. These free services are sometimes offered as a scaled-down version of the paid service or most often, as a time limited trial of the main service, without obligation.

If you can envisage a future need for a more comprehensive site then such a trial account can prove ideal as you can be sure you have chosen their best service for your needs before signing.

Support
Intrinsic to a company´s reputation will be the level of support they offer with their hosting service. How easy is it to contact them? What hours do they keep? Do they charge extra for support or use a premium rate phone-line?

Disk Space
The hosting plan you select must offer enough disk space for your website project. This includes not only the website itself, but also images and media, databases and scripts the site might need to use. Consider carefully what your future requirements may be. If unsure, look for the option to upgrade your plan to one with more storage space at a future date.

Bandwidth
As covered earlier, the bandwidth available for your website is critical to its success. There is nothing worse for the future of a website than having surfers attempting to access your web pages to find them unavailable due to an exceeded bandwidth.

Security
Particularly important for e-commerce sites requesting users to enter their payment details. This must be through an SSL enabled site. Other security considerations are how often the site is backed up by the hosting provider and that FTP is always going through a private, secure connection.

Finally, as with all things, you will find that you ultimately get what you pay for, so a thorough review of requirements will pay dividends over the life of your website.