That said, everyone needs a starting point, so these type of summaries do some good in giving people a frame of reference from which to start their web hosting plan search. And, for the sake of this comparison, we’re going to assume that the searcher is seeking shared web hosting, perhaps for their first real site. This means that individuals and companies whose needs run to reseller accounts, virtual private servers (VPS) and dedicated servers will need to find comparisons elsewhere.

First, let’s understand that the web hosting business is an extremely competitive one, and the differences you may find between several of the top companies may seem inconsequential. The top companies will all have most of the same great hardware, software, and applications. Many even have mostly the same web hosting plans. So we’ll start by listing the features that most ALL of these top 10 web hosting companies have in common, and give you the list of the winners!

Common Features of the Top 10 Web Hosting Companies

• Linux web hosting
• Unlimited space and bandwidth
• Unlimited Domains
• Unlimited emails
• PHP Web Hosting
• MySQL, Perl, FrontPage
• cPanel Control Panel
• Fantastico Script Installer
• In-House Support, Not Outsourced!
• Supports Apache and Python
• Low price startup plans
• Free setup
• Great uptime stats
• Decent load speeds

Bear in mind that the word “unlimited” doesn’t mean what it used to, but the truth of the matter is that by the time you near your real limits on any of these accounts, you’ll be wanting to move to a more comprehensive web hosting solution anyway.

One aspect to make sure you ask about from friends and on forums is the type of support rendered. This isn’t always readily apparent from a salespage. Be fair when you hear something less than complimentary about a host; every one of them will have somebody who is less than satisfied. That’s just part of doing business. Instead look at the landscape view of support, and judge accordingly.

So with no further fanfare, here are the top 10 web hosting companies based on the criteria cited above. Almost any of these hosting companies can do a great job for you.

1. Hostgator
2. iPage
3. JustHost
4. BlueHost
5. inMotion
6. FatCow
7. Green Geeks
8. HostClear
9. HostUpon
10. StartLogic

All of these companies have been in business for some time, and boast terrific reputations. Do your own detective work from here and go about getting that site online today!

The first and always the loudest objection is the considerable price difference between a dedicated hosting plan and perhaps a shared plan. The first can run into the hundreds a month, whereas the latter will probably set you back less than $10. So why would anyone in their right mind opt for this?

First, maybe you shouldn’t! If your aim is to host a small, personal site and you have little or no aspirations to grow your site beyond a basic blog or family site, then you will probably be as happy as a clam with the cheapest web hosting you can find, provided it has enough space for all those accolades and pictures of your cat!

If, on the other hand, your aim is to not only build a small business site, but grow it as large as you can, then it might make sense to look into a dedicated box.

Some of the more profound advantages of a dedicated plan include the most basic one, that of not having to share your server with any other customers. It is yours alone, and you are not subject to the possible problems that hosting with others on your server can bring, such as bandwidth shortages, spam attacks, and the very real possibility that someone could get a poor reputation with Google, and get the entire IP address blacklisted, which of course does no one any good. Getting your site back in good graces after being under that type of cloud is nearly impossible, and at the very least will cost you a lot of time and money.

Another distinct plus is that when you are the boss of the server, you can run whatever scripts or software you like, within reason. As long as you can install and maintain, or in the case of a managed plan, your web hosting company can; you can pretty much do as you will.

Some other benefits are increased levels of customer support, much faster site loading times, almost never any downtime, and state of the art hardware and software to run your site on.

While the price can and probably should be a consideration when choosing the best web hosting service for you, also do a bit of forward thinking to set yourself and your business up as well as possible for the future!

1.   Space and Bandwidth – How much room do you need? Do you need large capacity for databases and an ecommerce setup? Or other, more demanding requirements that will hog space and bandwidth? Better to have an idea of this up front, and have a plan for it. Don’t be seduced by promises of “unlimited” space and bandwidth, as there is always a limit.

2.   What Type of Web Hosting? – Are you comfortable on a shared server, hosting with dozens or hundreds of other sites, many of whom may be doing who knows what on their sites? Be aware that shared space is often responsible for many of the problems clients have with their web hosting companies. Complaints range from spam or malware attacks, to getting the IP address banned and ruining everyone’s day, usually through no fault of your own. Decide whether to reside on shared, virtual private servers, or your own dedicated server.

3.   Room for growth? – Is this a web hosting package you can grow with, in terms of domains and size? This will be important to you down the road. Consider it now.

4.   Software – Does this hosting company have the necessary goods to host your sites? Do you have specific needs, either now or shortly down the road, that will need to be accommodated? Better to ask the questions, and see that if they don’t have certain programs, they intend to, and that you are able to install programs you may want to, within reason, of course.

5.   Security – This is a big one. Knowing that your and your customer’s sensitive information and web hosting email is safe and secure is a major part of building trust and return customers. Having problems in this area will make your day go downhill fast!

6.   Support – Having a great web hosting support team is one of the most important items you can have in a hosting plan. When you have issues, (and sometimes you will; it happens) it’s comforting to know that there are people on your side, working hard to resolve the problem. Shoot for phone support if at all possible; it saves time, and is far more comforting than email.

7.   Pricing – The last of my considerations, as it is the least important. Suffice it to say that if the above aren’t taken care of, you will pay more in the long run anyhow. There is a lot of competition in the web hosting space; you won’t easily be taken advantage of in price.

Keep these 7 nuggets in mind when shopping for new web hosting packages, and you’ll soon be rewarded with a terrific new host you can live with for years!

In the absence of a formal education in the business of internet marketing, forums have become a low-cost alternative to high priced membership sites and courses. Many people spend a lot of time in these forums, and a lot of the time, they find the help they are seeking. It’s not uncommon at all for internet marketing veterans to make appearances in the forums, even the “gurus”. Doing so only solidifies their position as the mavens of the industry. This allows relative newcomers to find great advice on a wide range of topics, web hosting being among them.

So what should you expect from the advice rendered on a forum? First of all, most aren’t trying to sell you there. They may have links to their offers or sites in their forum signature, but for the most part (and there ARE exceptions!) people are genuinely trying to be of help.

That said, take the opinions offered there on balance, and with a grain of salt. People do tend to carry their past hurts or bad experiences around for a while, and while these may be legitimate, it may well be an isolated incident, and not reflective of the web hosting company as a whole. On the other hand, if you see a pattern emerge of poor support, downtime, and general indifference on the part of the host, then it’s time to make a note on that one.

Remember, a forum should be the starting point for your investigation; also look at the company’s Facebook fan page (many top web hosting companies now have one) and possibly send out a tweet, or search Twitter on the subject. You will get a lot of material on which to base your decision. Popular web hosts get a lot of attention in these places.

Obviously, you also want to make sure the host actually offers the type of hosting you need, and this can be gleaned easily from their site.

Some of the more popular forums on which to take a peek would include The Warrior Forum, SitePoint, DigitalPoint, WebHostingGeeks and WebHostingTalk. The latter two deal exclusively with quality web hosting, while the first three cover a wide range of internet marketing topics, including hosting.

Take your time, gather opinions and recommendations, and then carefully make your decision. A web hosting relationship is very important for your site. Don’t make the mistake of neglecting to check them out!

So many people are on the lookout for

1.   How Long Has Your New Host Been Around? – Fair question, and one that needs answering. The truth is that anyone can open a web hosting business right now. There are virtually no barriers to entry in this business, and the slick cheap hosting deal you just signed up for may actually be one of their first sales! You need to do your due diligence and find out who they are, how long they’ve been around, and what the general feeling is about this company out there. This is easily done by searching their name, doing a search on Twitter or Facebook, and checking out the popular internet marketing forums.

2.   Shared and Oversold Servers – On a cheap web hosting plan, you will invariably be sharing a server with many other clients exactly like you. The problem arises when one of them either starts getting too big for the web space, and the access is limited for all the other sites on that server, or when they run afoul of Google, and get the IP address banned. This affects all the sites on the address, not just the offending site. Guilt by association. Many times cheap web hosts will oversell these accounts, hoping that most of them won’t develop past a minimal size. (Often true!) The more sites they can put up on one server the more profitable they are.

3.   Poor Space and Bandwidth Allocation – Many times these hosting companies will limit the server space and bandwidth when sites start getting to be too large for their server resources. You’ll find your site “throttled”. Or slowed to an almost unusable degree, and you’ll be forced to upgrade to a “more suitable” account. And don’t believe anything you read about “unlimited” space, bandwidth and domains. Of course there is a limit! They’re just betting you won’t get anywhere near it!

4.   Hidden Fees and Charges – With a very low cost account, you can almost guarantee that essential, at least in your view, items will be subject to extra charges. You may find limits placed on your emails, databases, domains and more. Support may even be charged for at this level. Just be careful and try to read the fine print if you go down this road!

5.   No Opportunity for Growth! – Probably the most important yet least considered cost of going with cheap web hosting is the absence of room for growth! You likely have a vision of what you’d like your site to be; why hobble it out of the gate? You might be surprised how fast sites can grow and develop, but only if they are allowed to!

It’s my view that at least in web hosting, cheap is the enemy of good. For a very few dollars more per month, you can have all the features you need, and not have the headaches described above. When tempted to go with cheap web hosting, consider the costs!

There are several different flavors of web hosting packages out there, but our focus here is what is known as

Basically there are three main types of web hosting operating systems, Windows, Linux and Unix. Linux and Unix are similar in many ways, but Windows is based on the Microsoft Windows operating system. This affords users who are intimately familiar with a Windows OS to be able to dive right into a web hosting scenario with little to no preparation.

Some of the reasons one might employ a Windows web hosting solution would be

Frequent updating – Microsoft is continually putting out updates and supporting the Windows web hosting platform. This is not always the case with the other, open source web hosting platforms, such as Linux and Unix.

.NET and Visual Basic – If you are planning on using either of these programming languages, then you have to go with a Windows web hosting provider, as Windows is the only platform that supports these. This is also true of any other Windows-based web applications you plan on using. They will just play nicer in a Windows environment!

Compatibility with other Windows programs – A Windows web host will also be more compatible with other Windows programs like Microsoft Access and Microsoft Front Page. Especially Front Page, as it is very often used to create the very sites hosted on these web hosting systems. This is sometimes the deciding factor in a decision like this.

.ASP (Active Server Pages) and Dynamic Pages – Sites using .ASP language and pages pulled dynamically from a database often work better on a Windows Web Hosting solution.

Support – Support for Windows Web hosting comes from Microsoft, whereas the others are open source. This can be very good as well, but Microsoft is pretty good about jumping on fixes.

Windows web hosting does cost a little bit more than Linux or Unix hosting, presumably because of the name brand support.

The decision will ultimately come down to whether or not you plan on using a lot of Microsoft software products running on your web space. If this is the case, you should definitely opt for Windows web hosting, as it will give you far fewer headaches. If this is not the case, a Linux-based system (free, open source) will get you great results and the best bang for your buck.

Just remember, using a lot of Microsoft products: use Windows web hosting!

Moreover, you’re very concerned about just how much this will affect your business right now, and how it may damage your business relationships going forward, particularly if something as basic as your site email was compromised. Trust is a big factor these days, and people need to know that they can count on you and your site. Let’s look at several ways you can fight back against the spammers, and keep your site free from their clutches!

Get Rid of Catchall! – Most web hosting email accounts have a catchall feature, where undesignated mail coming to your domain ends up. This means that legitimate as well as spam could find their way there. All the spammers would have to do is type in anything at all @yourURL.com and it would find its way into that mailbox. Better to designate specifically each email account, possibly even common misspellings, and disable the catchall account completely.

Enable SpamAssassin – SpamAssassin is a powerful anti-spam tool located on the cPanel, as well as being available as an add-on for Plesk for both Windows and Linux. Enabling this tool makes it very much easier to deal with the influx of spam, as the software itself recognizes and categorizes according to your specifications. If you want to make things ultra secure, you can simply lower the score that SpamAssassin gives each email, and your standards will be adjusted accordingly. Very simple to use, this software is a must for dealing with spammers.

Register Your Domains Privately – Keeping your details out of sight makes it more difficult for problems like this to arise in the first place. An item as simple as a private domain registration can be the difference between whether or not your email gets harvested by spammers. It’s a small price to pay, and private domain registration has other benefits, as well. It can also help in disguising marketing efforts from competitors, and keeping network connections hidden. For the dollar or so they charge, it’s a no-brainer.

There’s Always BoxTrapper – BoxTrapper also resides on your control panel, but it is for more extreme situations. Say the spammers are already doing a number on your site. BoxTrapper directs all incoming email into a “box” where they have to verify their email to you before they are whitelisted. Once they do so, they don’t have to go through that process again. Obviously, this can put a damper on marketing or service oriented businesses, where you can get business from random emails. Better to deal with it on more sitewide levels, and get the problem resolved. But it’s nice to know it’s there if you need it, even if temporarily.

Keeping your email and site free from spammer’s annoying reach is a high priority task for any webmaster. Make sure you use the tools at your disposal and lock the doors!

The theory is, that while building up a particular site to be a huge money maker can take years, a swarm of smaller “niche” sites that each bring in a small amount can add up to a significant amount, particularly given the relatively short amount of time it can take to set them up. But how do we go about securing web hosting for all of these sites? Let’s take a look at what some webmasters do.

First, the practical aspects. Begin by ruling out free web hosting. Besides the fact that you NEVER want to put any of your business sites on a free web host you can’t control, eventually (usually quite soon) you would find that the resources allotted you simply wouldn’t cut it anyhow. Same situation with most personal or beginner accounts. While they advertise “unlimited” space and bandwidth, the reality is that when you start to consume more resources than they are comfortable with, they will either ”throttle” your domain, (put a slowdown in effect) or outright tell you to upgrade to a plan that more closely matches your needs. That’s okay, because if you’re planning on hosting dozens or hundreds of sites, you need a better solution anyway.

What many webmasters opt for is either a reseller account, or a virtual private server. Others who scale this big find that having a managed dedicated server is truly the way to go. Here’s hoping that your virtual real estate empire grows to the proportion that it requires resources like that.

Many times the web hosting is spread across several different companies, all with different Class C IP addresses, particularly if you are thinking of networking these sites in any meaningful way. Having all of your inbound links show up from your own IP is a sure way to make sure they are ignored by Google, a scenario which can also to lead to your site getting a penalty. Forewarned is forearmed!

Some have gone so far as to host internationally for these purposes as well. While this may or may not prove helpful for your VRE empire, it’s good to know that the option is there. It can also be useful if you are attempting to market a particular product in a foreign market. Having local web hosting there could be a positive ranking factor for that site.

Understanding that web hosting is an essential expense involved in this business, strive for the best you can afford. The lack of problems will more than make up for the small additional cost you may incur. Managing a VRE empire is enough work in itself, and having to constantly concern yourself with web hosting matters is counter-productive!

So, bottom line, for the best result with your fledgling virtual real estate empire, start with reseller accounts, spread them around, and go with quality hosting. Soon the cost won’t be mattering much!

The actual transfer is not nearly as fearsome as you may think, and in fact may be mastered in a day. Let’s look at some of what’s involved with using FTP to upload files from your computer to your web hosting account.

The primary reason FTP exists is to aid in the transfer of this content a great deal more swiftly than you would be able to do manually. Especially with today’s heavy graphic and multimedia content, it would take roughly forever. Enter the FTP client!

The good news is that it doesn’t even have to cost you anything. There are several good free FTP solutions, such as the popular FileZilla, which do just as good a job as many of the paid applications.   There are some extra bells and whistles on the paid tools, but for the most part you won’t need them.

Using the FTP client is relatively straightforward. The interface opens with basically two windows, the left one open to your computer’s files, and the right one connects to your web hosting account where it accesses the web site’s folders and files. There are usually a top and a bottom screen for each location, the top one containing only folders, and when highlighted, the bottom screen shows the folders within, thus making it possible to put files and folders exactly where you need them to be for your site to operate properly.

To transfer a folder or file, you simply highlight it, and use one of the transfer controls to move it to the highlighted location on your web host. You can also move files in bulk by holding down your control key to select more than one file or folder. You can also drag and drop these folders or files into the appropriate location, though this can be a bit tricky at times, and you may end up having to go in and fix things afterward.

This upload process also works well in reverse. This means that it is entirely possible (and recommended!) to back up your site onto your home or office computer. How many times have we heard the horror story from a web hosting company after a crash, saying that the backups were not done or are corrupted? It’s always a good idea to download your site’s important files to your computer to have a physical backup in your possession.

FTP is neither to be dreaded nor avoided. It is a useful time saving tool that makes the transfer of files a simple and easy to do procedure. Fear not!