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Tek Tip Topic: Web Hosting

It is very important to get your web hosting company right. You will need a company you can have a good relationship with. There are forums that discuss the pros and cons of many web hosting company's so Google potential hosts and ring them to find out what support they offer before you make your commitment. The cheapest is not always best in this regard. Check that the web hosting package includes your emails with ten or more email addresses. Also, if they charge extra for sub-domains, if they limit the number of pages you can have, or if the site size is too restricted - do you want to pay according to the number of pages you have? Ask yourself: do you think your site will grow? Will you be including a database straight away or later on? Will you want to let visitors purchase from your site? Will you have visitor registration?

All of these things will make a difference when getting hosting. If your site is written in PHP, check that the hosts have PHP enabled. If you are using a content management system like Joomla! or Wordpress check that your hosts have correctly configured servers available. If you purchased a number of domain names that you want to point to your web site you will need to check how much extra they will charge for each of these (the term to look for regarding this is: domain parking).