The 10 Most Important Questions To Ask Your Web Host NOW!

So, you’re looking to build a web site or so fed up with your
current web host that you are desperate to transfer your site
elsewhere? You may not even be aware of your current host’s
vulnerabilities in an industry where each week there is news
about a host going down for one reason or another. Your first
problem is narrowing the thousands of choices down to a few that
you can research further. Seek friends or associates that have a
web site and ask for their advice. Visit one of the many forums
about web hosting, ask the members for advice or search threads
from those that have asked before you. Once you’ve located a few
hosts to research, the ten questions below will take you a long
way towards making an informed decision. You may be able to find
many of the answers to these questions on the hosts’ web sites,
but always feel free to call the host and quiz them about their
operations. The quality of the answers and degree of
professionalism you get from a potential host often transfers to
the type of support you’ll receive once you become a customer.
Without further ado, the ten question to ask your web host:

1.How long has the web host been in business? 2.Does the web
host own its data center? 3.How many upstream Internet providers
does the web host have? 4.Does the web host monitor its
customers’ sites twenty-four hours per day? How? 5.Does the web
host provide 24/7/365 phone and email support? 6.What levels of
redundancy does the web host’s architecture provide? 7.Does the
web host automatically backup customer web sites in case of data
loss? How often? 8.What is the web host’s billing policy? 9.Does
the web host provide the features that you need for your web
site? 10.Does the web host have the products and services to
handle your growth?

1. How long has the web host been in business? The length of
time that a host has been in business can be related to their
ability to provide a quality, reliable product. If your host can
satisfy its customers, then those customers are likely to stick
with the host’s service. Therefore, stay in business. There are,
of course, situations where this is not applicable or becomes a
bit hazy. Be sure to also inquire about whether a host has
recently been involved in a merger, acquired what was once a
well-known brand name, or launched a new brand. If any of these
apply, then delve deeper into the story behind what has happened
and determine whether quality resources are still with the
company. •Complete a domain name “whois” lookup on the web host:
http://www.internic.net/whois.html. Type in the web host’s
domain name and determine what year the domain was registered.
If only registered in the recent past, ask the host about it. If
the domain name was recently registered this is not necessarily
a red flag. Simply inquire with the host about it. They may have
recently launched an affinity-based brand to cater to your
market. •Type the host’s name into a search engine and check out
the results that you get, other than those from the host itself.
You may run across reviews, interviews, or industry articles
about the host.

2. Does the web host own its data center? A data center is the
foundation from which all products and services are built upon.
If your host owns its own data center, then they are likely
quite entrenched in the hosting business. They also have an
experienced staff and knowledge base from which to draw from
when supporting your web site and building new products. In
other words, if a host owns its own facility, then it controls
more of the variables that can make or break your web presence.

3. How many upstream Internet providers does the web host have?
Your web site performance is not just a measure of your web
server’s speed. The ability of your web host to route traffic
through the cleanest Internet connections is also of great
importance. It is crucial that your provider have multiple
connections to the Internet. Accidental fiber cuts in
construction or telecom work and data center equipment failure
can cause your site to go offline for an extended amount of
time. This can be avoided if your web host has other connections
to the Internet that will reroute traffic that would have
normally been carried on the failed circuit. Yes, this means
your host must also have extra capacity on hand to handle normal
traffic levels when one connection is lost; which is another
area where a host can attempt to cut cost. This is much like
when driving your car, there are several streets that you can
take to get to your desired destination. Sometimes you will
encounter construction or an accident that will require you to
take an alternative street. Well, the Internet works the same
way. There are several routes that traffic can take to a
destination. Your host should be able to choose the cleanest, or
most efficient, route to your web site visitor. In fact, your
host should be able to continually tune these routes to find the
best path to your visitors. Another way to achieve this is by
minimizing the number of different networks traffic will pass
through before reaching its destination. It is extremely
important for your host to have direct connections to networks
that have lots of eyeballs. In other words, your web site will
be served better if your web host is using connections with
networks that facilitate Internet access to large volumes of
subscribers.

4. Does the web host monitor its customers’ sites twenty-four
hours per day? How? There are a couple of factors that can
influence the answer to this question. Does the host own its own
data center? If not, then they are physically removed from their
servers and likely paying a co-location company to provide
monitoring for them. When another company controls the
environmental systems that provide the home for the host, one
can argue that you’ve created another potential point of
failure; that being the communication of an issue from the data
center to the web host. That point of failure can increase the
latency between an issue and its resolution, resulting in
increased downtime for your web site. Second, if your web host
has an issue with its own infrastructure, then there may be
travel time associated with their engineers getting to the data
center to resolve it or, once again, increased latency by trying
to remotely resolve an issue.

5. Does the web host provide 24/7/365 toll free phone and email
support? You might be surprised at how many web hosts don’t
provide 24/7/365 support. The industry’s hosts run the gamut
from only email support to providing phone and email support 24
hours per day and 365 days per year. The best way to eliminate
not having support when you need it, is to choose a host that
can assist you whenever you need it. When an idea wakes you from
a slumber at 3 A.M., it’s nice to have your host on the other
end of the phone to discuss it. When your site malfunctions due
to a programming glitch the night before your store is to open,
it’s wonderful to have your web host on the phone to decipher
the issue with you. When your cat accidentally deletes some
important files, know that your host is there to help recover
them. Also make sure that your host is providing support over
the major holidays. Many web hosts will close their support
center, decrease their support to only email, or send their
support team home with a pager to be called in case of
emergency. All of these decreases can create latency if your web
site goes offline. And, holidays are often days which persons
will spend time on the Internet after they’ve completed all of
their social plans. Matter of fact, word-of-mouth business is
one of the most effective means to customer acquisition. When
people get together, they exchange ideas.

6. What levels of redundancy does the web host provide? Failures
that cause your site to lose connection can happen. Therefore,
it’s crucial to find a provider whose hosting architecture
provides the least-risk of failure. Redundancy is necessary.
Single points of failure are very bad, but many hosts attempt to
cut costs by risking single points of failure. Ask your web host
about their redundancy in server architecture (web, email, and
DNS servers), load-balancing, and file storage. A web server is
the hardware and software combination that serves requested web
pages, files, or other information. Servers answer requests from
web browsers to provide information from web sites, email, and
databases. They then send that information to the requesting
browser. Load balancing divides the amount of work that a server
has to do between multiple servers, which also adds redundancy,
so that more work gets done in the same amount of time and, in
general, all web sites requests within the network get served
faster. The load balancers stay in constant contact with the
servers to determine how busy they are and/or if one of them has
failed. It may sound like a no-brainer, but having your site
connected to the Internet is the whole reason for having a web
site and a load-balanced, redundant network is vital to that
endeavor. Has your email server ever been down? Redundancy is
also vital for email and DNS servers. A Domain Name System (DNS)
server translates requests to locate a web site. As you can
imagine, keeping email and DNS servers online is a
mission-critical task for a web host. For file storage, seek a
host that uses a reliable storage solution with multiple
auto-fail over and hot-swappable drives to ensure continuous
delivery of your web site.

7. Does the web host automatically backup customer web sites in
case of data loss? How often? Backing up web sites should be a
routine part of your web host’s operation. Backup is the
activity of copying files or databases so that they will be
preserved in case of equipment failure or any other catastrophe.

8. What is the web host’s billing policy? Look for a web host
that provides a money-back guarantee. This will allow you to try
out the host’s service. Should you find that the service is
sub-par in site performance, reliability, or lacking the
features that you seek, the ability to request your money back,
within the parameters of the guarantee, is priceless and liable
to save you from later trouble. It is always a good to idea to
inquire about the web host’s cancellation procedures. There are
many out there who require you to send them an email or make a
phone call to cancel, which can extend the time frame to
cancellation. A host who is confident in their service will have
a cancellation form or online avenue within their control panel.
Now, they will likely also have a retention program, so don’t be
surprised when they call or email you to ask why you are
leaving. After all, your feedback helps them to evaluate their
service.

9. Does the web host provide the features that you need for your
web site? Sometimes people choose a host because it has the
exact feature set that they need, but later find that feature
set means nothing when access to those features is unreliable.
Make sure that a host has your desired features and is also
reliable. To make sure that the host you are evaluating has
everything you need, use the following list: •A domain name, but
be sure to look for hidden registration fees or renewal fees •An
ample amount of versatile email accounts including web-based,
POP3, and IMAP •Email spam filtering and virus protection are a
must these days, unless you are providing this on your own
•Enough disk space to meet your site’s needs •Monthly bandwidth
allotments that will cover your traffic and the ability to
increase that allotment based on your site’s success •Site
building tools such as extensions for FrontPage or other
online/downloadable site building programs •Ease of upload to
your site via FTP or other means •Access to a robust traffic
analysis program or the raw logs for you to process yourself
•Programming languages, including CGI, PHP, MIVA (if needed)
•Ecommerce shopping cart alternatives •Database capability,
dependant upon your application preference

10. Does the web host have the products and services to handle
your growth? You might be surprised how many sites that once
started for fun or as a hobby have grown into some of the most
popular sites on the Internet. Hence, you never know when you’ll
outgrow your current product or service and need to move up the
ladder to the next rung. Make sure that your web host can meet
your anticipated growth, not only within the product range of
shared hosting, but should you ever need a dedicated server or
co-location solution, your host is there to discuss and provide
the best solution.

Do your homework by using the above questions as a template and
you will likely save yourself some major headaches down the
road. If you’ve gathered information about multiple hosts, you
can now compare apples to apples and decide on the best host for
your needs. Hopefully, the work that you’ve done will avoid
forcing you to use your gut, but rather make an informed
decision based on the facts. Perhaps, the best piece advice that
you will find in any article or forum about choosing a host is,
if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.