Options of Web Hosting Services
Operating Systems and Web Servers There're many Web servers you can choose from to serve the Web pages. Apache, Internet Information
Service (IIS) and Netscape Enterprise Web server are among the popular Web servers. Most of Web servers support multiple platforms - Windows,
Unix or Linux.
Programming Language Support You need a hosting environment that supports your favorite programming languages - ASP, PHP, Perl or JSP.
Database Support Ecommerce applications demand database backend support whether it's a MySQL, MS SQL Server or Oracle.
Disk Space and Bandwidth It's common for hosting plans to offer over 200MB disk space and over 40GB bandwidth a month. Don't worry
about disk space and bandwidth unless you plan to distribute large software or images on the net.
Other Features Other must-have hosting features include control panel, email, FTP, backup and site traffic analysis.
Ecommerce Web Hosting
When choosing an ecommerce hosting plan for your company, you need find a shopping cart that supports online catalog and online
payment processing. The following comparison serves as a start point in choosing the best ecommerce hosting for your online business.
| E-Commerce Shopping Cart |
eBay Stores |
Yahoo! Store |
Microsoft bCentral |
| Monthly Subscription Fee |
$9.95-$499.95 |
$100-$300 |
$29.95 or $259/year |
| Setup Fee |
$9.95 |
Waived |
$35 |
| Insertion Fee per Item |
$0.05-$0.2 |
$0.1 |
N/A |
| Merchant Account Monthly Fee |
No |
$22.95 |
$19.95 |
| Transaction Fee |
2.9% + $0.3 |
2.58 - 2.69% + $0.2 |
2.35% + $0.3 |
| Accept Online Check |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Products and Categories Limit |
Unlimited |
50 items or more |
40 MB Space |
| Customer Order Notification |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
How to choose a Web Hosting Company
Selecting a hosting company is a time-consuming and intimidating process since there're so many hosting plans and vendors to choose from.
You can, however, find your ideal hosting company in 2-4 hours by following our 4-step process.
1: Look for Hosting Features The first step is to look at hosting plans from 3-5 hosting companies that meet your business and technical needs.
2: Research on Quality and Reputation The number of customers is one of the best measures of service quality. You should also look at
the trend of customer acquisition, years in business and customer feedback.
3: Test Availability and Performance Hosting companies usually guarantee 99.99% availability of your Web sites. You can find out connection
speed they offer on hosting vendors' web sites. You should test 2-3 sites hosted by the hosting company or look at Alexa's site information
on evaluation of the connection speed for a particular site.
4: Check the Pricing The pricing is the last thing to worry about. The stiff competition, maturity of hosting business model and advance in
technology have turned Web hosting into a commodity.
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