This doc is about how to select a hosting company for your site.

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How to Select a Hosting Company
Hosting company is a vital aspect f or your website. Once the day has come
and you decided to do it like the big guys, you need to choose a hosting
company that allows you to f ocus on creating high-quality content but not on
keeping an eye on how your hosting company does its job. You want your
hosting company to be reliable and as stable as possible. Sure thing, I’d like
you to read the f ull post I’ve put together f or you, but if you want to run a
WordPress site and you need a quick solution, which is nonetheless reliable as
well, you can just go f or BlueHost.com because that’s the hosting company
that WordPress recommends on their site.
In case you want to really understand what you need to take into consideration when you choose a web
hosting company, keep on reading.
Why Bot her?
Bef ore we go any f urther, I need to point your attention to the f act that your hosting company is one of
the f actors that will determine the f uture of your online business. If you select a wrong hosting company,
you can just waste your time or even lose all your data when a disaster strikes. So, no monkey business
here.
Screencast on How to Select a Hosting Company
Like videos? I got you covered! You can either just watch the video or read the post. T he content is
the same. Just choose whichever you like most.
Slideshow on How to Select a Hosting Company
How to Pick a Hosting Company for Your Site f rom Kenneth von Rauch
SoundCloud Audio on How to Select a Hosting Company
Fancy an audio? Here you go!
Web Space
It’s sorta hard to say how much web space you’ll need. You can start with just 50 Mb and chances are it’ll
be more than enough just to get you started. If you have a mind to deploy a whole lot of images, audio
f iles and videos, you should be ready to buy a bigger hosting plan bef ore you know it. Even if you’re
being said now that your web space and bandwidth are unlimited. You’ll see f or yourself . T hey are not.
T he usual gimmick that hosting
companies try to “surprise” you with is
unlimited hosting space and bandwidth.
Nothing comes unlimited in this world.
And so are bandwidth and hosting
space. T hey may seduce you with such
promises bef ore you buy, but once you
buy and have a spike in your website

2. traf f ic, you’ll be kindly prompted to
switch over to a bigger plan. And that
just means paying more money f or
something that you’ve already paid f or.
At least it sounds exactly like that. So, in
case you expect to host audio or video
f iles on your server, you’ll be asked to
increase your hosting space. If you have
a whole lot of traf f ic on your site, you’ll
have the same suggestion f rom your
host. Bottom line, you really need to keep it in mind and have some extra money handy and ready f or
overage charges.
Features You Need
You need to make sure bef ore buying a hosting plan that you’ll have f ull control over your f iles on the
server. You should be able to create, delete, edit and do whatever you see f it at any time. T here should
be no restrictions. You also need to be sure that your hosting company supports the technologies and
coding languages your site needs, but that’s not an issue f or most web hosting companies because the
majority of them supports all you need f or running a WordPress website.
In order to be able to easily manage f iles and databases on your hosting server, you’ll need a cPanel and
phpMyAdmin or any alternatives to them. So, contact your hosting provider and check if they provide
those tools as well.
Linux or Windows?
You may be perplexed as f or what kind of hosting to use – Linux or Windows.
It’s easy to be misled by the f ollowing logic. I’m on a Windows computer, so I need a Windows web
hosting. If I’m on a Linux computer, then I need a Linux one, right? What if you’re on a Mac?
T he thing is that all that logic is dead wrong. It’s not working like that in the web hosting server world. You
just need to use a Linux hosting regardless of the platf orm you’re on – be it Windows, Linux or Mac.
T hough Microsof t has released Windows server support f or WordPress as well, I would not recommend
using it just because I can’t see a benef it. I mean you’ll have to learn how to do it while Linux hosting will

3. work just perf ectly and just about every hosting company rep can easily help you with that. But if you’re
really techie and love digging deeper and investigate such sort of issues, f eel f ree.
Other than that, Linux hosting is usually cheaper and it’s the industry standard because about 70% of
websites are hosted specif ically on Linux servers.
WordPress Compatibility
T hough WordPress is a very lightweight script comparing to others, you still need to make sure that your
hosting company is compatible with it.
As of now, the of f icial requirements are as f ollows:
PHP version 5.2.4 or greater
MySQL version 5.0 or greater
You may still be unsure or unwilling to check those requirements. In that case you can just send a similar
email to your potential hosting provider:
Hey guys,
A quick question here.
I’m interested in running the open-source WordPress blogging software and I was wondering if my account
supports the following:
PHP version 5.2.4 or greater
MySQL version 5.0 or greater
The mod_rewrite Apache module
Please let me know asap.

4. Thanks!
If you’re one of the tech savvy guys, you may have noticed that the versions of both PHP and MySQL are
not up-to-date, but there’s a message right on this WordPress page that explains why it’s so. In a
nutshell, they don’t want to use the most up-to-date versions because they usually cause issues with
applications or as they put it they may “break applications”. Fair enough. Would you rather have a bit out
of date but stable sof tware or brand new but suspicious? I think I can read you mind now.
Online Reputation
You also want to check their online reputation because if there’s an issue with their services, most likely
there’s some evidence somewhere on the web. You can just do a simple google search f or the company
name. If they’re a really wise and prof essional company, they may have done some online reputation
management and made sure that there’s nothing negative about them on the f irst 2 pages of search
results. T hat’s why you need to do a more in-depth check-up and take a look as deep as page 5-6. If you
can’t f ind really well-grounded negative reviews or comments, you’re good to go.
Types of Hosting Servers
Chances are, you’ll be overwhelmed by the options that most hosting companies of f er in terms of
hosting server types. I really suggest reading the explanations below because you’ll be totally
comf ortable with those terms af ter that.
Free Host ing
As you may have expected, there’s always a catch in such things. You’ll either have banners
somewhere on your site or the hosting will be super unreliable. And the “best” thing is that you
can’t even complain about it because you don’t actually pay f or that damn thing. Well, you don’t
pay in cash but with yours and your visitors’ eyeballs. In either case, it’s not a good idea to save
on your online business. Just remember that if you’re not of f ered a product then you’re the product. A
f ree hosting company may sound good in the beginning, but not when you see all the pros and cons.
Plus it’s really easy to start a hosting company now. So all sorts of individuals are in the business
nowadays.
Shared WordPress Host ing
It’s when you share the same physical server with a lot of sites. Such accounts are cheap but the

5. problem is that – even if your web hosting company says the whole shebang is unlimited – you’ll
experience bandwidth restrictions if your site goes really viral. So, the catch is that it’s not really
unlimited but in this case your hosting is more reliable, compared to the f ree hosting scenario.
WordPress VPS Host ing
VPS stands f or Virtual Private Server. It’s much like shared hosting but in the case of VPS you
can install separate server sof tware, which gives you more control over your site. Plus if you’re
not exactly tech savvy, you can have your host manage the server (do upgrades and things like
that).
WordPress Dedicat ed Server
T his kind of servers mean that you’ll be using a separate physical server (without sharing it with
someone else). T he advantage is that you have a complete control over your server. Your web
hosting company provides you with a rep (administrator) that manages your server. Plus you’ll be
able to get phone tech support if needed. You need to go f or a dedicated server only if you have
huge traf f ic. Otherwise it’ll be just an overkill.
Managed WordPress Host ing
You can run WordPress only on such servers. So, if you want to run a dif f erent CMS, you’ll have
to buy another hosting account. In case you really need just WordPress installed on your server,
you’re good to go right away. T he good news is that such servers are extremely optimized f or
WordPress and you won’t have to worry about anything. Security, upgrades, updates, backups,
you name it! Everything is done f or you. T he only thing that can disappoint you a bit on such a server is
the price. It’s on the higher end of the scale. Duh! T his sort of solution is perf ect f or the non-techies
who just want to f ocus on quality-content creation without going into all that geeky stuf f .
Tech Support
Bef ore you actually make your purchase, I highly recommend testing how the customer support
department of your web hosting company works. T he best hosting company must have great support.
Make sure to contact specif ically their tech support department on the phone, chat and ticket system.
Doing so will clearly show you what you can expect when a real issue takes place. I pointed out that you
need to contact the support department because that’s going to be the place where people will transf er
you to when a tech issue occurs. It’s not OK to just get in touch with billing or pre-sales because they
have nothing to do with f ixing tech things when something goes wrong on your server.

6. Again, double-check if your hosting company has a comprehensive FAQ page, round-the-clock chat,
phone, and email support. If it’s the case, you can surely move on to the next step.
Uptime
T here are hosting companies that boast about their 100% uptime, which is simply … impossible. What I’m
trying to say is that if they ever update their server sof tware or hardware, they just have to restart their
servers. And that means your site will be unavailable f or some time. And that’s OK because it’s exactly
how things are operated on the Web. T hough you’ll stumble upon a whole lot of companies that promise
100% uptime (some are really reputable ones), just remember that it’s a lie and if they lie about that, you
can’t be sure that they are honest with you about the rest related to their services. So, you want to stay
away f rom such companies. Or at least be really vigilant.
T he standard uptime percentage is around 99.9% and
that’s enough f or running your website in a reliable way. I
am really starting to think that when they say 100% they
actually mean 99%, because I believe I’ve heard it f rom all
major hosting companies.
Security
As f ar as security goes, you need to make sure that your
web hosting company provides 128-bit SSL certif icate
encryption. T hat’s especially important if you want to do
some e-commerce on your site. Alternatively, if you don’t
wanna mess around with the technicalities of SSL, you
can just use a payment gateway such as PayPal or
Google Checkout.
Other than that, you need to double-check if their
servers support SFT P.
What is SFTP, and how do I use it t o t ransf er f iles?

7. SFT P, or secure FT P, is a program that uses SSH to transf er f iles. Unlike standard FT P, it encrypts both
commands and data, preventing passwords and sensitive inf ormation f rom being transmitted in the clear
over the network. It is f unctionally similar to FT P, but because it uses a dif f erent protocol, you can’t use
a standard FT P client to talk to an SFT P server, nor can you connect to an FT P server with a client that
supports only SFT P. Read more
You also may want to make sure that your server supports suPHP.
suPHP
Hosting is more secure when you run your WordPress script with the help of your account’s username
instead of the def ault shared username of the server. In our day and age, it’s usually done using suPHP .
So, you may also include a question about suPHP support in your email message to the hosting
company.
Access t o logs
To be in the know of everything that is happening on your site, you’ll also need access to your website
logs. If you use a reliable host, it’s not a problem whatsoever, but it’s always good to have access to
something that explains what exactly happened, when, and what af ter. Sure thing, it’s in case you’re a
tech guy and you can read logs. Otherwise you’ll need to call your techie buddy.
Speed Test
Also, you may want to test your host’s network speed f or both usability and strict SEO purposes. Some
SEO experts say it’s getting more and more important.
If you’re on a Mac, you can do it as f ollows. Select Go, then Utilities and f ire up your Terminal.
Once it’s running, just enter:
ping www.yourdomainname.com
You are supposed to be seeing recurring lines of code that show values in milliseconds. See the image
below.

8. In case you’re using a Windows computer (Windows 7), it’s pretty similar. Go to Start, then enter cmd in
the Search programs and f iles text f ield, and hit Enter.
Now just type in the f ollowing:
ping www.yourdomainname.com
You should see something similar to this.
T he result should be about 80-100 ms or lower. T he values can be way higher if your host is located in a
dif f erent country (like in my case). If you’re not happy with your pinging results, you may want to contact
your hosting provider and ask what’s wrong.
By the way, while researching f or the post, I did a test ping f or WebDesy.com and it gave me timeouts.
So, I went ahead and submitted a ticket to my hosting company, which is JustHost.com. I received the
f ollowing reply f rom them:
Our servers are configured to not reply to ICMP packet requests ie PINGS and Traceroutes. This is to
prevent the server from being attacked by certain types of DDOS attacks that use ICMP to flood the server
with fake requests.

9. T hat gibberish basically means the f ollowing, “Sorry, dude. We don’t allow it on our server”. So, some
hosting servers don’t allow pinging f or security reasons.
Update:
I tried to ping my site again and it’s working now, though when I did it a week ago I was just getting
timeout messages. So, it sounds that they enabled it f or me, which means it’s possible to switch it on if
needed.
I’m kinda not sure why they did it because I just asked why pinging won’t work on my server and they
replied that they disable it f or security reasons. And that made perf ect sense. Now it looks that they just
enabled it without my direct request. Is it me or it’s really kinda weird?
E-mail
Now let’s move a bit to the marketing side of things. As a rule of thumb, you need to use an email
address that is branded with your domain name. For example, in my particular case instead of using
webdesy@gmail.com I need to use ken@webdesy.com or admin@webdesy.com because it makes me
look more of f icial and reliable. But I still did not take the time to take care of that, though my my hosting
company does support that f eature.
T hough it’s not a biggie (in my humble opinion), you still need to make sure that you’ll be able to set up
an email address in this f ormat: your_name@your_domain.com .
Tips
As a rule of thumb, it’s a good idea to f irst come up with a domain name f or your site and then
buy a hosting account. But don’t hesitate with buying hosting once you’re ready with your domain
name, because some say that good domain names mysteriously get occupied af ter you f ind them.
I’m not exactly sure how that happens but I heard it in a podcast (not sure which one exactly) that
people were talking about multiple cases as f ollows. You just go and use some online tool, you
f ind a domain name to your liking. T he tool def initely says that it’s not occupied, but when you
return to double-check in a week or so, the domain name turns out to be taken but there’s no site
on it. And you have the option to buy it. And the problem is that it does not cost just $15 this time
around but rather a f ew thousand. Plus they (the guys in that podcast) said that it happened on a
very regular basis. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but just keep in mind that such things happen or
at least used to happen. Again, having f ound the domain name you really love, buy it right away.
Make sure to buy your domain name f or 5-10 years so that nobody buys it af ter it gets obvious
that you’ll be their competitor. You really need to mark the calendar so that it reminds you to renew
your domain name. It may sound ridiculous to you, but I know about such a case with a very well-
known company. T hey just f orgot to pay f or their domain name and their site was down f or a f ew
hours in a row.
You don’t want to shop on prices, because most cheap solutions have strings attached. And
those strings are not too pleasant most of the time. Instead, you can just check recommendations
and reviews of the hosting company that you consider using. Just Google f or the name of your
hosting company. T hat works better because if a hosting company is more than a year old, it
should have reviews out there. Just see what real people say about your f uture hosting company
and do your best to understand if you can live with what those people are saying about the
experience with the home of your f uture site.
You also wanna check how old and legit the company is. You can easily do it with the help of the
WHOIS service. If the company is younger than a year, you need to be really cautious in such
cases. Not that I’m trying to say that it’ll be bad experience f or sure. It just may be or may not be
tricky.

10. If you’re not tech savvy, you may also want Fantastico available on your hosting server. It’s an
auto-installer f or cPanel services, which translates into the ability to install all sorts of CMSs at
the click of a button. If you have Fantastico on your hosting, you’ll be able to install WordPress in
a hassle-f ree way. I’d recommend Fantastico if you want to run a non-prof it site, because, with the
simplicity, Fantastico also brings less control and more vulnerabilities, which you don’t want to
have if your whole f amily relies on your website perf ormance. Plus if you install with the help of
Fantastico, your version of WordPress is not gonna be the latest and greatest one.
Warnings
Don’t believe the hosting companies that promise you 100% uptime. It does not exist in reality. If
your hosting ever upgrades their hardware or updates the sof tware, they just have to re-start their
servers. T hat’s the time when your site will be down. It may range f rom a f ew seconds to a f ew
hours (if something goes wrong on the server), but such things are just inevitable if your hosting
company does its best to stay up-to-date. So, every time you see or read that your site will always
be up and running, it’s just a gimmick. Nothing else.
If a hosting company of f ers you a f ree domain if you use their services, make sure to check the
WHOIS record of your domain name. Chances are, it will be your hosting company’s name but not
yours. So, make sure to do some due diligence bef ore you pay hard cash f or something that you
don’t own. T he thing is that the legit owner of a domain is the one who’s in the WHOIS record.
Another bad sign is when a hosting company “f orces” you to buy a yearly plan instead of a
monthly one. Odds are, they are trying to hold back something f rom you and it’ll be way more
dif f icult to cancel if you embark on their services f or a whole year.
One more buzzword that you can hear f rom a hosting company is “unlimited”. Just like in the
case with 100% uptime, unlimited disk space and data transf er just don’t exist in reality. Even if you
get tempted and buy an unlimited plan, they will either restrict your data transf er speed (slowing
down your site) or just kindly ask you to buy a bigger hosting plan. Be sure to always get a hard
number of the RAM and CPU that you can conf idently use with a particular hosting plan. It’s just
naive to believe that you’ll be able to use the same hosting plan when your site goes f rom zero to
hero, because your site will just use more space and processor power than your hosting company
actually provides per account. Just be ready to pull out your wallet.
Conclusion
If you’re not sure whether your site will go big, just buy a moderate hosting plan. You’ll be able to build up
later. Your hosting company will be just happy to help you with that. T hough you don’t want to hunt f or
bargains if you run (or going to run) a prof itable online business, there’s no actual reason to overpay
either. Just buy what you need now plus the amount of disk space that you’ll need f or your f irst year.
Don’t buy based on the gimmicks like 100% uptime, unlimited disk space and data transf er. Especially if
the prices are way too low and too good to be true. You get what you pay f or. If a hosting company you
consider working with of f ers a f ree trial, don’t hesitate to take advantage of that.
And the last thing. You really need to make sure that your hosting company’s tech support works as you
expect. Contact them via phone, chat, and email bef ore you pay the money. Most hosting companies (and
not only) are pretty ef f icient in pre-sales, but when it comes to tech support with a really buggying tech
issue, the whole company can resemble apocalypsis with nobody alive who can help you.
If you can get in touch with their tech support real quick, it’s a very good sign. Such a company is really
worth your while.
What is your experience with hosting companies? Perhaps, you’d like to add something to my tips or
warnings?

11. What Next ?
Hope you liked the post. If so, please share it among your f riends and
f ollowers. You can also subscribe to our newsletter and you’ll immediately
get a f ree WordPress eBook on the plugins and widgets that you def initely
need on your site. Plus you get a f ree on-page SEO report of your site.
Name
Email Address
Kennet h
I love blogging about web design, web development, and SEO. In other words, all
things web. I strongly believe that WordPress combined with clever SEO is the best
solution f or most site owners on the Web.
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1. Hosting solutions f or Prof essional PHP (6.1)