WEB HOSTING

Web hosting providers give you the ability to connect your web page to millions of people on the internet. Though a variety of services, you can set up web pages to be viewed, and to interact with, your site visitors. Some of these services include the following:

•  Space.  In general, you want to keep the size of the web pages down, so as to increase the display speed on the visitor's pc. Still, as your website grows in pages, and with graphics becoming an ever-important part of a website experience, you need enough space to store all the elements of your website.

•  Bandwidth.  The amount of data that is transferred from your website to your visitors pc. This increases if graphics are to be transferred.

•  Scripting.  There are thousands of uses for scripting, from date processing to accessing inventory. You will eventually most likely use some form of scripting on your website.

•  Email.  How many email addresses do you need? Host providers offer between dozens and thousands depending on the program you select.

In addition, there are other services which may or may not be important to you. These include such things as streaming video, website builders, web statistics packages, and database support. While you may not have a need for these features today, you may find in the future that you wish your web host provider offered these components.

When looking at web hosting solutions, there are a number of factors you should consider. Some of these include:

•  Cost.  Heated competition continues to drive the cost of web hosting down. Be careful not to overpay for the same or better features offered by another company.

•  Reliability.  Does the web hosting provider offer an uptime guarantee? A website does you no good if it's down during critical business hours. Are they reachable for support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

•  Options.  Does the web hosting provider offer only one plan? If your web hosting needs grow, can they offer you options that grow with you?

TopConsumerReviews.com has reviewed and ranked the best web hosting programs available today. We hope you find these reviews helpful in finding your web hosting provider!

 

Setup Fee:	None
Entry-level Cost:	$3.99 / month

 

GoDaddy is the undeniable leader in web hosting platforms. They offer a supreme variety of dependable hosting options at a fraction of the cost of other sites.

GoDaddy lists a 3-tiered option for non-dedicated servers depending on your needs. Storage options start at 5GB and go up to 200GB - since you'll generally want to keep web pages small in size, this gives you a wealth of space to use. Data transfer starts at 250GB and moves up to 2000GB. With regards to email addresses, GoDaddy offers 500 at 10 MB per address in theirlow-end option, and raises this to 2,000 email addresses for clients with greater needs.

Unlike many other web hosting sites, GoDaddy doesn't charge a setup fee - another feature that saves you money and reflects their determination to keep you happy as a customer. To further maximize their affordability, they offer month-to-month billing for every hosting plan except the Economy Entry package. For that package, you can pay every 2 months - though at $3.99 a month it's one of the cheapest plans you'll find!

Another benefit of GoDaddy's services is their approach to scripting. For the same price, they offer PHP, Perl/CGI, and ASP scripting choices. ASP scripting typically requires a more costly windows server to provide, so the fact that they offer this at no additional cost is an unexpected surprise.

Included in all tiers are 10 MySQL databases, which allow for more complex applications offerings such as eCommerce applications.

GoDaddy offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee for your website, along with 24/7 phone and online support. We found their support staff was responsive, knowledgeable, and helpful. With GoDaddy you also have name recognition that might comfort you when it comes to backing up that guarantee.

GoDaddy should be your first choice when it comes to web hosting. With the lowest prices, best offerings, and dependable service, GoDaddy delivers a truly first-rate option for your web hosting needs.

 

Setup Fee:	$30.00
Entry-level Cost:	$6.95 / month

 

Startlogic does not offer a wide variety of hosting options, but their entry level option is priced well at $6.95. They do charge a $30 setup fee, however. They support month-to-month billing, with some discounts in cost if you pay for 1 or 2 years up front.

Startlogic offers 50GB of storage on their entry level hosting plan. Data transfer is 750GB, which for an entry level price is very good. They offer an unlimited number of email accounts.

For your scripting needs, Startlogic.com offers PHP and Perl/CGI. Missing is the ASP scripting option found on top-rate GoDaddy and Gate, but so is the price that is usually associated with ASP. Startlogic also offers MySQL database support for your database needs.

Startlogic guarantees 99.9% uptime and has 24/7 phone and online support for your website needs.

Although Startlogic does not noffer a lot of options, their entry level hosting plan is affordable and covers the basic needs. If you don't mind the $30 startup fee, don't need ASP scripting, and don't have huge bandwidth requirements, Startlogic and their entry level plan is worth considering.

 

Setup Fee:	$30.00
Entry-level Cost:	$7.95 / month (3 month minimum)

 

Hostmonster claims no hidden fees on their homepage. However, until you go to signup you don't find out that their "free domain name, no setup fee and $5.95 price" is only good if you pay in advance for 24 months. While that may not be hidden, it is not exactly obvious either. To keep things simple, they offer just one plan. Instead of month-to-month billing, the minimum amount of time you can purchase from Hostmonster is 3 months at $7.95 per month. They also charge a 3 month setup fee of $30.

Hostmonster offers 50GB of storage space, along with a surprising 999 GB bandwidth for data transfer. The data transfer bandwidth is a very good deal for the price. They also offer unlimited email accounts, with no storage space limit specified.

Hostmonster offers PHP and Perl/CGI scripting support - missing is support for ASP. They also offer up to 100 MySQL databases associated to your site. If you need more than this, you would probably be better of with some sort of dedicated package.

Hostmonster guarantees 99.9% uptime, with 24/7 phone and online support.

We found Hostmonster's claim of no hidden fees misleading, and their offer of only one plan somewhat lacking. However, once you get down to the real price and compare the options of their plan, they show themselves to be a competitive player in the crowded web hosting field.

 

Setup Fee:	$30.00
Entry-level Cost:	$9.95 / month

 

Bluehost is another hosting company with only one plan. Unfortunately this one plan is not as inexpensive as some of the other sites in our review. It does, however, offer an impressive amount of bandwidth. The plan they offer is $9.95 a month (we did not review plans that claim to be a certain fee a month but then only offer that fee in an annual lump sum). This does not include the $30 setup fee that Bluehost charges.

The plan that Bluehost offers has 50GB of disk space, with 999GB bandwidth. While not the best deal available, this is a fair value for the price. There are many other programs that charge just as much or more, and do not offer this high rate of throughput. Email addresses are limited to 2,500, but that is probably more than enough for most applications.

Bluehost supports PHP and Perl/CGI, as all of the sites reviewed do. They also offer a MySQL database, but much like Powweb, they do not specify how many instances or how much disk space each one can have.

Unfortunately for Bluehost, we could not find anywhere on their site where they proclaim an uptime guarantee. In fact, according to our research, Bluehost servers were down for 36+ hours in August of 2006. While we believe this to be an aberration for Bluehost, we still believe that an uptime guarantee is something that a website hosting company HAS to provide. If they cannot guarantee uptime to at least 99% then you will not be assured your website will be up during business critical situations. Bluehost scored below some other sites that offered less price/performance simply because of this reason. They do offer 24/7 phone support and online support, which of course will be needed if they don't have an uptime guarantee!

Bluehost offers a decent plan for the price. We would have liked to rank this program higher, but given the fact that they do not provide an uptime guarantee, we are forced to view this as a more risky option than our other higher-rated programs.