How to find the best Hosting Provider

Before deciding which host offers the best package, you should first determine exactly what you need from the hosting solution. Not every provider offers the full range of features and services, but this is usually not necessary: the hosting provider that’s right for you depends on the specific re­quire­ments and con­di­tions of your web project. By comparing your re­quire­ments with what the different providers are offering, you increase your chances of finding the perfect solution. Here, we provide you with the most important criteria for choosing the right web hosting package – which can vary greatly depending on your web project.

Every web project uses hardware and software, which is why you first need to determine which resources and features you need. This could be suf­fi­cient web space, or a complete server en­vi­ron­ment, which ad­di­tion­al­ly has enough memory and processor power. You can choose between tra­di­tion­al physical servers and flexible virtual servers. The latter plays an in­creas­ing­ly important role thanks to the freedom that specific hardware allows, which enables excellent scal­a­bil­i­ty and high avail­abil­i­ty for the web project. You should also check whether the provider or the chosen web hosting package restricts some of the resources when certain traffic numbers or the band width is exceeded.

Before selecting a hosting provider, you should also know which software it supports. For example, are you free to choose which operating system you want to use, or does the host set it as a re­quire­ment? The same question applies to pro­gram­ming languages, web server software, and database man­age­ment systems, as well as all other programs that you use for web de­vel­op­ment and content man­age­ment. In the meantime, many hosts offer to install popular software, such as content man­age­ment systems, with just one click. If a service like this is offered, you can assume that the re­spec­tive tools and programs work as expected. This will save the time and effort of in­stal­la­tion and set-up.

If you don’t want to host a small blog or simple static website, but want to put an ambitious project online with potential for growth, then factors such as resource scal­a­bil­i­ty play an important role. With some packages, you can control the hardware per­for­mance that you need, whereas other packages require you to move to a new server in the event of an extreme increase in traffic. The decisive factor here is whether you decide on dedicated or shared hosting: with the first option, the entire booked resources are available only to you, but when it comes to shared hosting, you share the resources with other users.

The different forms of hosting are also as­so­ci­at­ed with different ad­min­is­tra­tive re­quire­ments and pos­si­bil­i­ties. In general, the more effort you save on setting up and main­tain­ing the server, the less ad­min­is­tra­tive rights you will normally have. For example, if you need root access, make sure the provider and the package offer it.

The domain belonging to the web project can, but does not have to be reg­is­tered with the selected web host. It is important that the web host enables easy domain re­lo­ca­tion, es­pe­cial­ly if you plan to change your own web presence to another host. You should also look into this before you decide on the provider, to avoid any bad surprises. If you require multiple domains, the number of domains being offered is obviously also important. The amount varies according to the provider and the chosen package.

Fast-reacting and readily available support (e-mail, telephone, or live chat) is crucial not only for beginners, but also for any users that have chosen managed server solutions, or com­pa­ra­ble hosting variants. This is because when problems arise and cannot be rectified due to a lack of expertise or limited rights, a long waiting period can mean a sig­nif­i­cant loss of traffic or revenue – es­pe­cial­ly at peak times or even during season business. How ex­pe­ri­enced a provider is often plays an important role, since es­tab­lished hosts have already set up a com­pre­hen­sive support team that is well-trained and organized. Some web hosting services also offer the pos­si­bil­i­ty of booking a personal service employee who is then the contact person in case of problems.

Although hosting in the US is becoming cheaper, it still makes sense to compare prices and contract con­di­tions. A provider should always disclose the set-up fees as well as the monthly costs and any ad­di­tion­al ones that may occur since this is the only way to get an idea of the ap­prox­i­mate overall costs. The contract period and can­cel­la­tion period must also be clearly regulated.

For many modern web projects, it’s crucial that all project in­for­ma­tion is available at all times, is quickly trans­fer­able, as well as totally secure. In this case, the quality of the tech­nol­o­gy used by the vendor, as well as the security measures taken, are probably the most important criteria for analysis. To ensure the rapid transfer of data, hosts should have an excellent internet con­nec­tion and rely on current, high-per­for­mance hardware (e.g. quick-access SSD hard disks) in its data centers. Some web hosting services allow selected content delivery networks (CDN) for a small fee. They assist the web server when de­liv­er­ing static content and large amounts of data, reducing the loading time of your web project. While the technical per­for­mance affects the user ex­pe­ri­ence and how a search engine evaluates the website, secure hosting is primarily for the pro­tec­tion of all relevant data. The more sensitive the hosted data and the more important it is for it to be per­ma­nent­ly available, the more crucial it is for the provider to offer a com­pre­hen­sive concept. Possible security measures include:

• Regular updates and backups
• Geo­re­dun­dance through separate data centers
• Redundant power supply
• TLS/SSL data en­cryp­tion
• Intrusion detection systems

The dig­i­tal­iza­tion of the economy has led to profound changes in the structure of en­ter­pris­es. Services and goods are dis­trib­uted through digital channels, pro­duc­tion processes are automated, and entire work areas are now being moved to the cloud. It’s apparent that the new situation offers first-class ad­van­tages for all those involved.

Sim­pli­fy­ing the company’s structure has various ad­van­tages for customers and consumers: payment processes are con­ve­nient­ly handled via online banking. Christmas gifts can be ordered from the comfort of your own home via online shopping, and personal music, video, or photo col­lec­tions don’t need to be displayed in cabinets and on shelves anymore, since they can be kept by a trust­wor­thy online storage service – and can be accessed anywhere and at any time.

Cy­ber­crime is becoming more of a problem as digital net­work­ing increases: companies are quickly targeted by hackers whose aim is to steal sensitive user data, such as passwords, addresses, bank details, which they then sell or publish – if com­pre­hen­sive pro­tec­tive measures don’t stop them in their tracks. Even attacks which 'only' aim to paralyze web projects, infect them with spam or malware, are not uncommon. While the company network, including all com­po­nents, can be secured on its own with the right know-how, the security of out­sourced content, such as web presence, customer databases, project files…etc. is the sole re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the selected hosting provider. You need a secure web host as a partner to ensure the pro­tec­tion of all sensitive data that is beyond your own area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Secure hosting is the key to building trust with your customers or users and con­tributes to your web project’s success. IONOS’s security campaign takes this into account; whether you’re creating a simple website with IONOS MyWebsite or hosting complex web ap­pli­ca­tions on the IONOS cloud servers, you can count on the following pro­tec­tion and security standards with our hosting solutions:

• 256-bit SSL en­cryp­tion: data transfer of sites stored with IONOS as well as external sites can be protected with Symantec SSL en­cryp­tion. This way, you gain the trust of your customers and at the same time can offer faster loading times and a better search engine ranking thanks to HTTP/2.
   
• Hacker pro­tec­tion: external attacks on your web project are reg­is­tered and defused using DDoS pro­tec­tion even before you’ve caught wind of it yourself.
   
• 360 Gbit/s optical fiber link: our data centers operate with an external con­nec­tion of over 360 Gbit/s, which enables excellent access times to your website or web ap­pli­ca­tion.
   
• Geo­re­dun­dance: all shared hosting packages run parallel in two separate data centers. If one component or an entire data center fails, the other one jumps in.
   
• USV power supply: an emergency diesel generator unit, together with lead gel batteries, provides an un­in­ter­rupt­ed power supply that is also available in the event of a temporary power failure.
   
• Daily backups: copies of your data are made daily so that if you ac­ci­den­tal­ly delete data, you can restore it at any time thanks to the backups.