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It is exciting preparing your online business website. At some point during the preparation process, you will have to decide where to host it so that it can be accessed across the World Wide Web. If your online business has its own servers then you will probably store the web pages there. However most online businesses depend on web hosting companies to handle the tasks of storing web pages and making them available to web browsers across the world. And there are numerous web hosting companies. How do you choose the right one? Let's consider a few points in making that decision.
Do you understand your site? As a client owner of a website, you don't have to know all of the technical details of it but you should know at least a few of them at a high level. For example, you should know if your site has a database. Or, you should know if your site allows your customers to post their own content and upload their own pictures. You should know if you are going to conduct product sales on the website and if any special security requirements must be met. What are the technical specifications of your website? Your web developer should let you know this information as it will be crucial to your choice of a web hosting provider. Online business sites are usually developed either as brochure-style HTML pages or dynamic web pages developed in PHP or ASP.NET. With PHP you have PHP 4 and PHP 5. ASP.Net comes in versions 1.1, 2.0, and 3.5. The web hosting company should prominently display this information on its site. If you have to dig for the information or if you call their technical support and they don't know, then you might want to look for another web hosting company. What type of database does your online business website use? Most web hosting service providers use the MySql database server. The other two popular database systems offered by web hosting companies are Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server. If your website application was developed in PHP then more than likely it uses the MySql database management system. If it was written in ASP.NET, it more than likely it uses either Microsoft Access or SQL Server. What are the security requirements for your online business website? Is your online business website one that will require member subscriptions? If so, you have a responsibility to protect sensitive personal information your members use when registering on your site. If you have this situation then the web hosting service provider you use should provide secure socket layer (SSL) access. This should also be the minimum security standard when a business website will be accepting credit card transactions. How much file space does a web hosting company provide? If your online business website is one that allows users to upload pictures and other large files then you will need to purchase quite a bit of hosting space. What pricing options based on web space does the web hosting service provide? How good is their technical support? This might be hard to determine until you already have an online business website up and running. Support is critical when your website is down and you are losing product sales. For example, a certain online business had a website for booking local entertainers. If this website goes down because of the web hosting company, no booking for entertainment is taking place and this is the main source of revenue for the online business.
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