Deciding where to host your website is just as important as deciding where to live. Web hosting is similar to renting a home. Instead of renting an actual home, you are renting virtual space from a Web host. Just like a landlord would take care of your home, a Web host maintains your virtual home.

What Makes a Hospitable Web Host?

Uptime: Your host provides access to your website. Choose a host with a history of solid uptime – not just one that claims it. Since you won’t sit there refreshing your web page 24/7, you’ll rarely know if it’s not operational.

Support: Great hosting hardware and software is useless without the expertise and willingness to support it. Make sure your host can do more than maintain your account. What if you want to make improvements to your software or web presence? Will your web host respond to your requests quickly?

Email: Your web host should also be able to provide your email. Make sure they have an excellent spam and virus filter. Ask to see their spam filter statistics. A good host will provide you access to your email from anywhere via webmail.

Security: A good host will proactively identify and protect against threats. Find out what your host is doing to stay alert to possible vulnerabilities. What happens when there are security breaches? Ask about their track record and see if they’ve been hit by the same type of attack twice. Security vulnerabilities should only be exploited once!

Want to learn more? Read previous Worthwhile Wire issues.