Importance of a Good Host
Not all hosting is created equal. When choosing a host provider, there are a few key factors to keep in mind.
Importance of a Good Host
Not all hosting is created equal. When choosing a host provider, there are a few key factors to keep in mind.
Why Choosing the Right Host is Important
Not all hosting is created equal. When choosing a hosting provider there are many factors to consider. Here is a list we've compiled that we feel to be the most important factors in evaluating a host:
Security
A hacked website can tarnish your brand and leave customers feeling insecure sharing information with you. For e-commerce and sites that host private data, the effects can result in monetary damages in addition to brand damage.
It is important your web firm provides very close attention to security updates on both server and client software packages. For instance, we make our best efforts to update software as soon as new versions are released for all clients. This is something you won't typically find with simple hosting providers as it requires coding knowledge in some scenarios, and typically falls outside of the scope of a hosting providers duties.
Speed
Every second counts when loading a website. Visitors expect your site to load fast. After 4 seconds without a completed load, 25% of users will abandon a page; at 10 seconds, 50% have already left.
Many providers will host thousands of websites on a single server. This allows them to make high margins and offer unbelievably low prices. A server has resources just like your desktop computer. Just as your computer will have poor performance if you have too many programs open, a server will slow to a crawl if it's hosting too many sites.
As a good practice AE undersells our servers; this way if one site has an unexpected spike in traffic it doesn't slow the rest of the websites on that specific hardware. We don’t offer hosting to make high margins as it's not our primary business. We are offering hosting so we can ensure the awesome websites we build for our customers are secure, fast, customizable, and reliable.
Reliability
Having a website that is up and live, thereby being seen by your consumers, is vital. This is typically a selling point of many hosts with claims of a high reliability number. Many unethical hosts will have a long service agreement attempting to minimize your ability to get any type of refund due to downtime. Even if you meet the requirements, you have to reach out and fill out forms with supporting documentation to obtain the credit. Unless you are renting a VPS or dedicated server, typically the amount of your time spent to obtain this credit is less than the credit is worth.
A good host will take a proactive approach to ensuring this is not an issue and prevent the need for a refund in the first place. For example, there should be monitoring software in place to alert problems such as your website being down the moment it happens. In most scenarios, this sort of issue should be sorted out before anyone is even aware there was ever a problem.
It can be difficult to find the right host, but if the right systems are in place, the choice should result in the best possible performance of your website. And even if guarantees cannot necessarily be made about the 24/7/365 performance of your website, a good host should be more than a wired box of technology; a good host should be a human you can speak to and able to reassure you they are giving you the best of their abilities.
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- Website Hosting
- Back-End Development