Various Features of Web Hosting (attributes to look out for!)
So you’ve made your mind to buy a web hosting product but how to decide which one to buy and which suits your needs best?
You need to look at the features of web hosting product and additional services being provided by the web hosting company.
Most important features to look out for are:-
- 1. Single/Unlimited Domain:
Every plan will mention whether it is a single domain or a multiple domain web hosting plan. Suppose you are planning to launch 2 websites – so in a multiple domain website you can host both the websites under the same plan but in single domain you can host only 1 website ! Suppose in next 6 months you come up with another website idea- so it is advisable to buy a multiple domain package because generally one web hosting plan is too big for your website anyways.
If you are very sure you want to focus on a single website only for 1-2 years and also looking at costs, then you can go with a single domain web hosting plan. Single domain plans are obviously cheaper than multiple domain plans.
Click on single domain plans to check out!
- 2. Disk Space :
All web hosting products mention the amount of disk space they are providing. This is one of the most important features to look out for!
A basic web hosting product may offer as low as 10 GB disk space
but most offer in the range of 25-200 GB disk space depending on the tier of product that is basic, average or business/ premium.
If your website is going to be simple blog without much images and videos you may go for upto 20 GB disk space but if you are planning a medium to big sized website 100 GB of disk space is ideal.
Some products offer unlimited disk space depending on certain terms and conditions.
If you are buying cloud hosting which is a bit costlier but faster-
the parameters can be scaled up in same hosting plan. For eg If your cloud hosting disk space of 50 GB is becoming full, you can buy (scale up) an additional 50GB under same plan.
But in shared hosting you have to buy another plan itself.
If you are a novice don’t care about disk space and 100 GB is more than sufficient for you and you wont have to worry for at least 1-2 years.
- 3. Bandwidth:
Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred at one time. All web hosting products will mention bandwidth- suppose if your bandwidth is 100 GB then 100 people can download 1 GB of data at one time.
The lesser the bandwidth the more time it takes to load your website and vice versa!
100 GB of bandwidth is more than enough for starting websites.
Many offer unlimited bandwidth as well.
Again it all depends on your needs.
- 4. Email accounts:
Having an email account of your website makes your communications with your client look more professional.
Web hosting companies offer email accounts either as
a free service included in your web hosting plan or a paid additional service.
- 5. SSL :
SSL is an encryption certificate you need to install on your website to make it more secure. It transforms your URL from
http:// to https:// s stands for secure.
Https websites are ranked higher in search engine results besides it also makes your transactions secure.
Some webhosting companies will offer a free SSL in their plan or you can always buy one from an SSL provider.
- 6. Domain name:
Some hosting plans include a free domain name.
In case you haven’t already bought one. Or needing a secondary one.
- 7. Cpanel/hpanel :
It is the management front end provided by your webhosting company to configure the settings of your website.
Most companies eg Godaddy etc call the front end as cpanel while Hostinger calls it website manager as Hpanel. There isn’t much difference to it.
Basically a cpanel allows you to manage all settings of your website at one place.
- 8. WordPress installation:
Since wordpress is a very popular platform to start building your websites. You can also build a web ecommerce for free using WordPress and WooCommerce.
Almost all web hosting platforms come already installed with wordpress. Even if it isn’t already installed it is very easy to install wordpress on your web hosting server. Here is how.
In addition to these there are some other services being provided by a web hosting company, but it is enough to know the most important features as mentioned above for now.