Picking the right host

For the last 8 years, I have hosted this very website on so many websites that if Tweaked for your Pleasure was a whore it would have too many sexually transmitted diseases and likely would be laying on the floor dying while trying to pass on its last breath. Picking the right web host is very important as your website WILL depend purely on how good your web host is.

I am sure if you have looked around for a web host before what you roughly check for is speed and price and I would bet that most people will not look for more than that. So today I am going to talk about what I look for in a web host so that if you are looking for a web host you will not get screwed over.

Price

Now I will not deny this as the cost is one of the biggest factors in choosing a web host but you need to remember the old classic saying – “You get what you pay for”. Now if I were looking for a standard shared hosting account I would first ignore ALL web hosts that offer unlimited everything as unlimited does not exist. I am sure many will debate saying they will keep adding hard drives and hard drives but I am more than sure (and their terms of service vaguely say it as well) that if I was using 100GB a day or something or even 10GB hard drive that my account would be killed quickly then a fly on crack.

So be careful with it. If the price seems too low, it likely is not as good a service as it may look.

Server Location

Another big importance to me is where the physical server I am hosted on is physically located. Now I like having it hosted in the United Kingdom or Ireland (or Israel depending on if it is Snat.co.il) but I would not want to be hosted somewhere in Iran. The reason mainly is laws. I am more than sure Iran would completely agree to host my website within one of their data centres and the last thing I want is for the content to suddenly change to praising Muhammad or something rather than what I post.

The same goes for staff. I would only want to go to a company whose ethics and much like my own or will not care about what I post (as long as it ain’t illegal). The reason again is I could be hosted in the United Kingdom but could have some Iranian staff who may be upset by my content and go on a quest to remove it as it talks “bad” of Islam. Same reason I would never want to be hosted in Utah.

Bailing & Backups

Now, this is one of the most important things I look at when I am deciding on a web host. At the end of the day how the business works is not my problem and all I care about is my website being online. For this reason, you want to look at paying monthly rather than yearly. The reason for this is so if something happens to the WebHost you can bail out of there with little money lost.

Also, I check to see how I can bail out of there. The main way is just SCP and keeping backups but you always need to make sure you have a plan in case something does happen. The same goes for backups. When I look around for a web host I always check if they make backups.

The reason for this is once again in case something happens so that your website can be restored. I stress this once and once again, always make your backups. A web host is easily able to make backups but it is also easily able to lose them or refuse them to you and I know, I have been there (Saidcom/Saidhost anyone?),

Support

Now the final thing I look for in a web host is support. There are two things I care about when it comes to supporting and the first is how long to reply to (and sort out) an urgent ticket that is related to the host having a problem. The second is now experience they are. I have gone with web hosts who had no idea of what they were talking about and later I found out they are only a reseller (also another one, rarely go with a reseller if possible) and can not do anything.

So that is what I look for in a web host and if you got a few points, do let me know in the comments.