Web Hosting for PHP

By Matt Ewing


People are reading this article because they look for a good web hosting service. And naturally you would like to receive the best agreement, which you can work with. A web hosting service is a big decision, which will have lasting effects, because you can use it, in order to support your business long into the future.

In the modern age the PHP style of hosting a site is now very inexpensive and offers many benefits which will please a user.

Before moving on with the main issue, a little information about PHP would be helpful. It is a very popular server side programming language that can be embedded into HTML. Its popularity has been aided by the following features:

a. It has no charge.

b. It is simple to work and operate.

c. It should be viewed as a fully object orientated language.

d. It is not tied to one platform.

e. It is very fact on the Linux server, which makes it great in building difficult web applications

f. It is a great tool for programmers of an advanced nature and is suitable to be used on web pages

g. PHP is able to be used successfully with MySQL.

Before receiving the PHP service to host a web site, first you must take many issues onboard. Firstly, and especially, it can be difficult to get a good PHP service for hosting web sites. The majority of web hosting companies are in the matter for a fast return on their money. They do not want to offer a full service, so it is common to be without PHP for 2-3 days. Equally, you can do nothing about this as support was unavailable, which is often the case. Finding the right PHP host solution can take many attempts to find the best solution. A reason in this is that not all the firms are commonly known or discussed.

These factors make selecting the best PHP provider a very hard task. However, it is possible to find some advice to follow.

A PHP provider you can trust will offer these issues:

a. Technical Stuff: It will provide you with all the technical applications you may need, like MySQL, PHP, Perl, Python, Cron, CGI etc. You may not know what all these mean, or what they are used for, but that's all right, its good to have these stuff, as you may require them in future.

b. Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the volume of files (in gigabytes or megabits per second) that are transferred in and out of your server on a monthly basis - and ultimately determines the number of visitors that can view your website in any given month the more bandwidth, the more users. In this case a bandwidth of 75 GB is a good starting point; though many websites can use 1,000GB, 10,000 or more.

c. Price. Getting a service for no charge is not always good and paying a low fee does not always mean low quality. A price that should provide you with an enjoyable service would be around $10.

d. Web Statistics: Getting accurate web statistics like the amount of traffic your web site is getting, and the sites that are linking to you, are information that you need to have.

e. PHP web hosting script installers: These are among the essential features to be included in your PHP hosting search. One should get a PHP web host script installation pack, at no extra cost from the service provider. You should be wary of providers that ask you to pay extra money for PHP web host script installation pack. On such application is "Fantastico", which comes free with cPanel in most cases.

Coming to the free PHP web hosting service providers- they can have a number of disadvantages associated with them. Since the web hosting company is providing the services for free, it is not possible for them to sustain the services for long, without any source of revenue. This revenue is generated by them, through advertisements put upon your website. These advertisements can be in the form of:

a. Banners

b. Pop-up adverts appearing on screen

c. Frames including advertisements

You would have no control over these advertisements. This is not a satisfying solution for small to medium sized business. In fact there have been instances, were users of free PHP web site hosting services, have complained that they were having there competitors' advertisements running on their websites! You can imagine how distressing such a situation could be. You cannot even complain to your service provider, because they are being able to provide you with free services, only with the help of those advertisements.

It is also true to say that free sites quite often crash. If the host caters for a great number of sites, this is likely to occur.

Also, with no other source of income, the host may be unable to offer even the minimum of services, even less than a very low cost provider.

Keeping the above in mind, it is a better idea to go for a paid but affordable web hosting service rather than a free one. The extra benefits offered by the paid services would easily make-up for the few dollars a month that they cost.

In order to zero in on the right cheap web hosting service, you will have to keep the following things in mind:

i. Attempt to balance the price of the service with the services. A cheaper option may lose you some services but can you live without them? If not, then you have to pay. If you can live without guaranteed uptime or support options, you could cut these out as long as you know what is vital for you.

ii. Cpanel is a feature that is useful for installing tools like blogs, discussion forums, shopping carts. It is also used for handling MySQL databases and support centers.

iii. Support services: You should opt for nothing less than 24/7 support services. It is an essential feature as you never know when you can meet a crisis for which you will require expert help.

iv. Available space on the disc: Depending on how much content will be on your site, how much disc room you will require will alter greatly. It is also good to consider future development when planning how much disc space to have.

v. Having a number of email accounts: If you are a business you need email accounts to be available and if your need is not met, don't hesitate to go with a firm that does meet it. As there are so many rival firms, the power is with the buyer to go where best suits them.

Now comes the harder part of your search- look for companies that provide offers like 30 day money back guarantee, uptime guaranteed etc, you won't be able to find many, because such services cost money. But do look for them, because such companies do exist, and along with the afore-mentioned benefits they may also offer good service at highly affordable rates.

You should supplement the above pointers, with your own research before you sign-up with a company that satisfies your requirements and is in your price range.

After all your choices and signing with a provider, how can you tell you have made the correct choice? It isn't hard, if you are satisfied with the price being low, having all the email accounts you need, having support always available, having statistics regarding traffic and the option of PHP and windows, then you can be happy with your choice.




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