If you watched the Super Bowl you are aware that hosting is big business. Â However, like all business not all competitors are equal and for quite a few different reasons.
Money: Show me the money. Â The first thing that pretty much all of us look at is the price tag. Â To a degree money does talk, as with most things you get what you pay for, and fortunately there are ways around that. Â There will be two things that you pay for, hosting and a domain. Â Never, ever, ever, pay more than 9.95/year for a domain. Â When you buy a domain you are buying the fees for a company to work with ICANN (the supersecret people who run the internet) to register and maintain the name for you. Â The hosting that you will pay for is for the portion of a server to actually hold the files.
Hosting: There are nearly an infinite number of variables for this so I will relate it to something that you are all familiar with; cell phone plans. Â Both numbers are basically like minutes on your cell plan. Â You have X amount, don’t go over. Â There are two numbers you will see most frequently are bandwidth and storage. Â The bandwidth is how much data you may move per a period of time. Â Normally in our modern times, bandwidth is measured in GB (gigabytes) per month. Â The bigger this number the better, but realistically anything over 4GB/month should be more than sufficient for a basic photographic site and blog. Â Storage is slightly more finicky. Â Make sure that you read the contract, as nearly all of them will stipulate no file storage that is not related to the website. Â For instance, they could cancel your website for hosting an unrelated song or movie. Â Also, much like a phone bill you will get SLAMMED for going over your allotted amount at most hosts.
Hosts: As far as I am concerned there are three categories of hosts. Â Those that I recommend, don’t recommend, and know nothing of.
Recommended: Dreamhost…
Don’t Recommend: GoDaddy, A-plus, any company that seems a LOT cheaper than anyone else, ANY host running ANY iteration of windows server.
Know Nothing of: Anything not listed above.
After all is said and done 1 year of hosting with a domain should cost about $100. Â Make sure that you search for coupon codes, sometimes 20 seconds of searching can save you over $50!