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Choosing a host for your site can sometimes be a difficult task. There are many factors to take into consideration. In this article I cover a few of the key ingredients in making the right choice.

What kind of web site do you intend to have?

Probably the very first consideration must be based on the kind of site you have and what the sort of traffic levels (number of visitors) you expect to have. Most web hosts have different packages available that are based on the amount of space you need and the amount to bandwidth that you will use.

For example, if you intend to have a youtube type site then you are going to need lots of disk space and an allowance for huge amounts of traffic - due to popularity and also the size of the video files that are downloaded. If however, you are not planning on a community like this with heavy graphics and large file sizes then your amount of bandwidth will be considerable less .. even if you are expecting lots of traffic.

Is the data that you are going to host sensitive? Do you need 99% uptime and 100% security?

Content type should be taken into consideration. If you answered "yes" to these questions then perhaps you should consider getting a "dedicated server". This is a set up where only one organization, i.e. you, leases and stores their information in the data center of the host company.

If you run an e-commerce site or accept credit cards, then perhaps a dedicated I.P. is what you require. This is where your server has a fixed I.P., as is normal, but no other sites that are hosted by the hosting company have access to that I.P. For example, with at vivid hosting, my domain is mapped to the I.P. address: 63.247.72.133. However you cannot access the site by typing the I.P. into the address bar it is shared by others on vivid hosting. With a dedicated I.P. you could because you are the only one using this address. You would have a requirement for this if you need services like private SSL, private name servers or other services that can not run from a shared I.P. address. Under normal circumstances a dedicated I.P. is not required.

What are your page building needs? Do you need to have dynamic content? Do you require some way of adding or updating a web site when you have little or no knowledge of how to do it?

These are other factors that most definitely come into the equation. If you are a novice, then you are more than likely going to need to start with an online editor or "what you see is what you get" interface (WYSIWYG). Many hosts provide this kind of feature. Vivid hosting is just one of these hosts.

If you require dynamic web sites, then chose a host that provides support for the scripting language of your choice. PHP is very popular these days, and is standard with many if not most hosting packages. Retrieving data can be from files or databases. Again if a database is required check out the support of these before continuing. Perhaps also the number of available databases is a factor too here.

What about software versions, configuration abilities, installation packages, control panel?

These may be important to you. Software: many hosts still use PHP4 as standard even though PHP5 has been around for about 5 years. The ability to carry out some configuration / modifications to the server may also be important. If you want "clean URLs" for example, you would ideally like to have the ability to use .htaccess and mod_rewrite. Many hosts include software on their servers that can be installed as and when you want. Drupal, Wordpress or forum installation packages make setting up your own site a lot less fuss. These installations should be available though a "control panel": a front end for all your web administration.

Back-ups, cost. Anything else?

Back ups are, IMHO, essential to the hosting package. There are usually options within the given package. Weigh up how important this process is to you. In my case I do manual back-ups where I have the ability to back-up / restore the entire site including databases. Other packages however include real-time data replication, daily back ups and 100% redundant back-ups.

Costs can vary, but you pay for what you get. In my experience I have only ever had 3 hosting companies in 8 years. The first was a free hosting company that were OK, but the site was down a fair bit. The second was phpwebhosting. These guys were good but I needed to host 4 domains and I was limited to 2.

That's when I found vivid hosting. With the package I was on I could host up to 6 domains for less than I was paying previously. The up-time has been pretty reliable and customer support has been very effective. I would recommend these guys for sure.

In summary, once you have answered yourself all these questions, and anything else that comes to mind start shopping around. I would suggest making a check-list and sum up the pros and cons of each host and then take your pick. If you want to create a successful web site it whole process starts here. As I said before, I would recommend vivid hosting, but then the choice ultimately is up to you.

Good luck!