Apr
How to choose a good webhost for your blog
Choosing a good webhost is a huge task when it comes to starting your own blog. There are tons of hosts out there with one providing a more lucrative offer than the other. So how do you find out which one would suit you the most? Should you go for the one with huge amount of space for an equally large sum of money or should you settle for the cheaper variety? Or should you get the one with proportional amount of money and space?
No matter whether you are starting a personal blog or a Fortune 500 one, one thing that should always be kept in mind is the term value for money. That’s right, I repeat “Value for money“. Remember there are hosts that would lure you with packages like GB’s of space for $1 a month or even less. But with the cheap deal comes the worry of incessant downtimes and other such factors. There are also hosts who offer unlimited webspace and bandwidth. But I ask you, if you are going to host a personal blog or a small corporate blog, are you really going to need that much space?
So the most important step before buying a webhosting package should be to assess what are your space and bandwidth needs. Once you figure that out, think about the technicalities you are going to require. For instance, if you are going to run a WordPress based blog you would need PHP and MySQL. If you are going to run a Movable Type blog, you are going to need PERL, PHP and MySQL. Having assessed all these needs its time to move on to the location of your host.
Some people prefer their hosts to be in their own country. They feel that if they are within the same nationality they would get better support. However, this is not the case. A good host will always provide you better support while a low quality host would provide just that… low quality support. The only factor you should consider in this case is where your primary load of traffic is going to originate. If you believe that your countrymen will visit your blog mostly I recommend that you buy the host from your own country. This reduces loading time. But wait, there is a catch in that as well.
To explain that catch, let me explain how webhosts really work. There can be two kinds of webhosts: Reseller webhosts and the ones with their own servers. Reseller webhosts buy a large chunk of space and bandwidth from another company and sells it to users. For instance, a host from India might buy 40GB of space from a host in the USA and sell 10GB to four users. If that’s the case there is no point in buying from this webhost as the server will be located outside your country. Make sure that the server is in your own country.
So how to pinpoint on the best host for your requirements? Try Google, there are tons of sites with reviews on webhosts. Read the editorials but more importantly read the customer reviews. They are the ones with experience and they know better than anyone else.
Saying that let me end my post here. But before I stop, here are the best two hosts I have used in my webhosting career: ZNETIndia and HostPinoy.
If you know of any good hosts, add them to the list and let this a guide to all new bloggers.
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I agree with you that the physical location of your webhost hardly matters…