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Choosing the best web host can be a challenging assignment especially when there are simply too many web hosting providers around. By investing a little bit of your time and effort to evaluate the services available, you can increase the chances of choosing a reliable web host that provide good service.

Customer Support

Customer service and support is the most important factor to look for when choosing a web hosting company. Find out what kind of support does the web hosting provider provide.

Is there any form of telephone support, email or knowledge base? Does the web host offer a dedicated discussion board or forum for clients? How fast is the response when problems are encountered, for example server downtime? Do they provide any online chat where technician are available 24/7.

The best web host provider are those who can support their clients 24-7.

Is There Any Money Back Guarantee?

Many reliable and best web host provider usually provide a 30 day money back guarantee on their service either via a free trial period or a money back guarantee. This is good for us, the customer. Having a 1 month trial is the best way to find out if they are reliable before we accept a longer term of web hosting.

Always look for one that provide some form of money back guarantee.

Contract

There are many web hosting providers who do not require any contract commitment. You just need to move from month to month. However, some web host providers offer a better fee in exchange for a contract commitment. You have to once again calculate if it is worth the deal to accept a lower cost for a longer term of commitment.

User Friendly Control Panel

Control panel allows you to take care of your web site account yourself. One crucial point for thought is to make sure that the chosen web hosting company provides a easy to manage control panel filled with multiple attractive features. Be sure to check this out before you sign up for any web host package. Most of the top web hosting provider does provide a easy to use control panel.

Here you can find a list of the features available in cPanel:

Email:Allow you to create new email accounts, manage your email accounts. There is also a web based email program available. File Manager: Make it possible for you to upload files to your web site and download files from your web site. Backup: Provide a one click web site backup MySQL Databases: Allow you to create and manage all your database. Fantastico: Allow you to install many very good software to your website with a few effortless clicks. Scripts like wordpress, zencart can be install easily via Fantastico.

And many more beneficial features available that make cPanel which is the most popular control panel at any time.

E Commerce Web Hosting

If you want to promote your product and service online, the next feature that you have to make sure that your ecommerce web hosts provide is the shopping cart script.

Does the ecommerce web host make it easy for you to add shopping cart to your web site? Do they offer shopping cart for your website? If so, are the shopping cart included at no charge or do they charge extra for this?

Find out the names of the shopping carts the ecommerce web host provide and choose one that is most appropriate one for your ecommerce requirements.

SSL

If you are running a web store that accepts credit cards payment directly from your web site, you need a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to be bundle in your ecommerce web hosting package.

Web Based Email Program

Find out if your web hosting package come with a webmail access program. This useful feature offers you the flexibility to access your email everywhere you go. The above checklist shows some of the most common features provided by web hosting companies. Always remember to go only for those features that you truly need.

Before choosing a web hosting service provider who could answer to your needs, you may not need to do any research at all. Just log in to the Internet and within minutes, you would find a lot of web hosting providers eager to make you as their customer. Some of them even offer web spaces, free of charge! Really – Webmasters have it easy when it comes to opting for a web space.

But think about it – Without web hosting comparisons, do you think you would be able to decide on the right web host for your website? Understanding that a website is a long term asset, it is important for you to do some web hosting comparisons. If you want, compare the same features across different web hosts, this will allow you to understand which web host could work for you.

The bottom line is – Compare, It’s Important!

While comparing hosting providers, these are the factors you should pay attention to

How much of a web space do they offer – Really, all that you want to know from your web host, is how much web space can they offer you. This is not to say that a web host offering more space is better, but at the same time, this is a good place to start with.What are the Language, Operating System and Database Support they offer – It is time to get a bit technical here and understand what the support is provided by the web host. Some web hosts who offer Linux hosting web services would focus on supporting PHP-MYSQL, WORDPRESS, JOOMLA and other such applications, while a Windows based hosting service would offer.NET applications support.How their customer support and what is is their service up time – Service up time is often a concept that is played around with a lot, by web hosting service providers. Most of them promise a 99% service up time, but often ignore the time taken in maintenance activities.Finally, the role played by the customer support team in you managing your web space is important to understand. Let’s face it – In dealing with a web host, there are only some things you can control. For all others, the customer support team should come in handy.

These should ideally be the points you should think of, when you get to compare web hosting service providers. But again – These would only come into play when you get to compare them.

All it takes is a single tree. One aged tree can provide enough oxygen for two human beings on this planet. A planet currently suffering from ecological damage. The Tech Industry alone accounts for nearly 2% of the greenhouse gas emissions raveging our environment. How can you help? By going environmentally friendly with your web hosting.

There are tons of “carbon neutral” hosting companies out in the market right now. To be “carbon neutral” a hosting company need to have a net zero carbon footprint – gained by balancing the amount of CO2 released with an equivalent offset. There are numerous ways to implement this offset. One is by swapping what is lost – for a lot of companies this means getting involved in reforestation programs. Yet another method to offset is by funding projects that lead to the the avoidance of future greenhouse gas emissions, or by buying “carbon credits” to remove them through “carbon trading”.

The great thing is you don’t have to worry about sacrificing good quality hosting to going eco-friendly. Many green hosting companies offer the same products and services as their non-green competition. This includes web site templates, site management tools, blogging platforms, database options and several times free marketing tools and software. One highly rated green hosting company is SuperGreen. Their accounts include unlimited space, unlimited traffic, a free domain name, and a $25 marketing credit for only $3.95 a month. Cr8change.org offers a plan for $7.00 a month and is dedicated to planting one tree every month for each account they host through the California Wildfire Releaf program. If you’d like a wind powered host, HostGator lists their accounts at $7.95 a month and includes all the options you’d expect from other hosting services.

Something to consider – this year alone wildfires in California have managed to ruin over 121,000 acres of forest and there seems to be no fast end at the moment. By hosting your site with Cr8change, you can help avoide some of this damage by having 12 trees planted in the next year simply by hosting your account with them. Setting up an account with HostGator would create no carbon footprint as wind power does not create greenhouse gas emissions.

When it comes to what we want to leave for our children and their children, you can make a difference even within technology. Read the different eco-friendly web hosting reviews around and go green with your hosting!