Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Web Hosting for PHP

By Matt Ewing


Many folk are viewing this content as they wish to find a good web hosting service. Naturally, they would like the best offer available to them. For any firm or person, choosing the right web host is a massive decision, which can have an impact that lasts a long time. This is due to the fact it will be a feature in your business for a long period of time.

In the modern age the PHP style of hosting a site is now very inexpensive and offers many benefits which will please a user.

Some important points will follow later but knowing a small amount about PHP would be good. There is no doubt PHP is a popular language, used for programming and capable of being placed into HTML. Some of the reasons for its popularity can be seen here:

a. It is available for free

b. It can be used easily and with little trouble

c. It is able to be considered a fully object orientated language

d. It can be used on a variety of platforms

e. Its speed on the Linux server makes it very effective in building complex, and large web applications.

f. It is a great tool for programmers of an advanced nature and is suitable to be used on web pages

g. PHP is able to be used successfully with MySQL.

In order to choose a PHP web hosting service, you need to take a number of factors into account. First of all it is not all that easy to get a satisfactory PHP web hosting service. Most of the web-hosting companies are in the business for a quick buck. They don't really care about the service, so situations like your PHP domain hosting being down for 2-3 days, and you not being able to do anything about it, because no support was available, are quite frequent. Most people go through a long trial and error process, before they find the right PHP web hosting solution. This is because the best web hosting companies are usually not very well known.

These factors make selecting the best PHP provider a very hard task. However, it is possible to find some advice to follow.

A genuine PHP host will have these areas provided:

a. Issues of a technical nature. Applications such as MySQL, Perl,PHP, Cron, Python, or CGI should be provided to you. These things may not mean a lot to you but it is good to have them, so don't worry about them.

b. Bandwidth. This equates to how many visitors your site can have each month. For many users, 75GB per month will be satisfactory.

c. How much it should cost. Free does not always mean the best and low in price doesn't equate to low in quality. It should be possible to get a satisfactory service for $10.

d. Statistics of web use. You would be surprised how important it is to have information regarding how many visits you have and who or what is linking to your site.

e. Script installers for PHP web hosting. It is vital to be aware of these and include them in any search you undertake. An installation pack should be obtained for free from your provider. Do not trust providers that ask for a fee for this service.

Next up are PHP host sites who offer free products and services. The price may seem great but there are sown points to them. As firms need to make money to survive, how can a company with no revenue stream last long? To bring money in, many offer advertisements to companies and place them on their users' sites. These advertisements can be placed in the following formats

a. Advertisements on banners

b. Pop-up adverts appearing on screen

c. Frames including advertisements

There would be no control of these advertisements in your hands. This would be unacceptable for small and average sized firms. Also, examples exist of advertisements for a rival firm appearing on a companies own website. This is clearly a terrible state to be in. And as you are getting a free service, subsidized by these advertisements, there is little room to complain.

You will also find that these free hosted sites crash a lot. This is because they host a great number of sites.

Equally, as there is no charge, it is usually impossible for the PHP host to offer services, even services that a cheap host may be able to offer.

These factors suggest choosing the paid option is the way to go. Although it may cost a bit, the benefits will make it worthwhile.

To be fully focused on the best cheap service of web hosting, bear these issues in mind:

i. You should look for balance among the benefits you aim for. This is because when you opt for a low cost service, you have to make some sacrifices which may affect uptime, customer service or even security. So think about it and determine what would be the ideal combination of benefits you would like to have.

ii. Cpanel is a feature that is useful for installing tools like blogs, discussion forums, shopping carts. It is also used for handling MySQL databases and support centers.

iii. Having access to support services. It is vital to always have a support service available. Who knows when a crisis may hit your firm and you need to be able to react.

iv. Available space on the disc: Depending on how much content will be on your site, how much disc room you will require will alter greatly. It is also good to consider future development when planning how much disc space to have.

v. Email Accounts: If a web hosting company acts cheap with essential facilities like email accounts, you should not think twice before dumping it. Web site hosting is a very competitive business, so you will be easily able to get a provider that offers unlimited email accounts.

There is always more research to be done and it still matters at this stage. You should look for firms providing offers. Does a firm with 30 day money back guarantee sound appealing to you? Would you be more interested in a firm that provides a guarantee of uptime? These firms are not always easy to find as they all require a level of money to make these promises. However they are available and if you can find them, they could be a good reason for choosing that firm.

The decision process should never stop and with your own budget and requirements in place, you should be able to choose which host best suits your needs.

Can you ever be sure you made the right choice? If you are happy with the cost, the uptime, how many email accounts you have, the level of support that is available to you, if you can have access to vital statistics and having the option of PHP and Windows, then yes, it is possible to be happy with your choice.




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