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As America's Focus Expert, Susan Gilbert helps individuals and organizations focus on what matters to create the results they desire. Author of the award-winning book, "The Land of I Can" , Susan is also co-author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting and Running a Coffee Bar". A successful entrepreneur for over 25 years, Susan brings both inspiration and practical knowledge to help others achieve their goals. Oh, and why the muffin icon? Her first business was called "Lil' Miss Muffins" :-)

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How to Select a Good Hosting Company – not all hosts are created equal

August 10th, 2010 • Related • Filed Under

If you are considering the development of a professional web site then don’t underestimate the importance of a good web hosting service.  Not all hosting companies are created equal!

First of all, do not ever – in any case – choose a free hosting account provided by your ISP, etc.   Some main reasons are:

-Generally the service provider will force you to display their advt. or banner in your website. They want this in exchange of the free service.
-In 99% cases free hosting services will not provide you with unlimited bandwidth and disk space.
-They may not give you FTP access. Means, they will force you to edit your site with online editors only.
-You may not install new CMS or Blogging software like WordPress

So what should you look for in a paid and professional hosting service?

The most important thing you must keep in mind while choosing web hosting is “the reliability and up time”. Your site will surely lose many visitors if it is down frequently and does not load fast. So, always go for hosting with the provider which has reliable uptime and has good record. The uptime must be at least 99.9%.

I believe the second most important thing to look for is if they list an 800 support telephone number that is available 24/7.

Always choose service provider giving unlimited band width, data transfer and disk usage. You must have FTP access, PHP, SSL, SSH,.htaccess and the flexibility in installing scripts and software (CMS, blogging and others) which will allow you to grow your online presence.

Most people can use a shared hosting account (the least expensive).  Others may find that a VPS (Virtual Private Server) or a Dedicated Server is necessary – but for the average website a shared account is just fine.  However,  inquire with your prospective hosting account as to the secu

Here are my favorite two hosting companies.  Click on each to find out more:

Bluehost

Hostgator

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  1. Pingback by Publishing Insiders wrap-up: A Self-Publishing Success Story | Author Marketing Experts, Inc. on 12 August 2010:

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