How to Choose a Web Host (15-Point Checklist)

There are many aspects to consider when choosing a hosting provider, and at first the process can seem cumbersome. That’s why we’ve listed the 15 most important questions when choosing!

How stable is the hosting server?

Performance and uptime can be damaging to your website. Website performance affects SEO (search engine optimization), bounce rates and conversion rates, as well as how reliable the site is to visitors. It’s not an exaggeration to say that server reliability directly affects a website’s revenue.

All of the vendors you are considering must guarantee at least 99% uptime. This makes a website virtually unusable to visitors. DreamHost has a 100% uptime guarantee according to our Terms of Service.

It is also wise to check the performance related features provided by the host. This may include built-in caching, content delivery service (CDN) access, and more.

Instead of taking claims and reviews at face value, you can check the responsiveness of the host yourself. For example, if you know the Web site hosted by the company you want to use, you can enter that URL into Google PageSpeed Insights. If possible, you can also access your test account or sign up for a free trial to run additional tests.

Can I easily upgrade my plan?

If you create a website that has all the elements you need to succeed, your site is likely to grow. If you’re lucky, your traffic and conversion rate will increase. This means you need to upgrade your web hosting plan.

Most new sites start with a generic low-cost plan. However, as you expand on the Web, you need more resources, bandwidth and disk space to maintain your site for all users. Hosts that can easily upgrade to a Virtual Private Server (VPS), managed WordPress, or dedicated hosting plan make this process smoother.

If you’ve chosen a hosting plan that’s difficult to change your plans on, you may want to switch to a new provider within a few months of launching your site. This may end up being a waste of time and money.

Is it easy to add domains?

As your digital brand grows, you may want to expand your current site or create a new one. Or you may just want to collect domain names and get involved in promoting websites.

Whatever the reason, you need a host that can easily acquire and manage domains to acquire additional domains. If you choose a provider that offers unlimited domains, you won’t run out of space.

For example, DreamHost allows you to add domains and subdomains to shared, VPS or dedicated hosting plans as much as possible.

Is there a significant difference in the cost of subscription and renewal?

Choosing an inexpensive hosting plan is very important. When you sign up, you don’t want to be ripped off by a plan that costs more than you can afford. With that in mind, most hosting companies offer subscription discounts for new customers, but renewing your subscription may cost more.

You should research potential hosts’ renewal and initial sign-up fees. Some of the differences between the two are industry standards, but we recommend that you keep the difference as low as possible and avoid higher renewal rates.

Does the host have a generous refund policy in place?

If you first choose the perfect host in the perfect environment, your website will thrive and you won’t have to cancel your service. Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned.

If you need to cancel your hosting service for any reason, you will want to avoid excessive fees. It’s also wise to choose a host that offers a free trial period, so if the problem isn’t resolved within a few weeks of launching the service, you can cancel without penalty.

Is there a one-click installation program?

WordPress, the most popular CMS on the Internet, often gets extra support from hosting companies. Managed WordPress plans and WordPress-related features are especially useful if you have a platform to use.

A particularly useful feature provided by some hosting companies is the one-click WordPress installer. This feature allows the hoster to install WordPress.

Does the host provide an email address for the domain?

You may be familiar with handling personal email through Google or other services. This is one of the reasons email is often used later in business and on websites.

If you want the email to match the name of the Web site, you also need a host for that service. In some cases, your email address may be included in your hosting plan, and your use may be limited. However, if you plan to use email marketing to attract your customers, we recommend that you explore your email hosting options:

There are pros and cons to combining email hosting with web hosting. If the host has no means to protect either of them, there may be a “if one goes down, all go down” scenario. This means that if the web hosting fails, the user’s email is also used.

On the other hand, keeping both services in one place can make life easier for users, and reliable web hosts should be able to avoid these problems. Fortunately, Dreamhost offers several email hosting options. Whether you’re looking for standalone email hosting or a web hosting plan with secure email, we’ve got you covered.

Is SFTP easy to access?

Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) is an important tool for website maintenance. You may need to use it to troubleshoot errors, configure site files, and perform other tasks.

You must provide credentials on the host to be able to use SFTP clients such as FileZilla. This information should be easy to find so that you can access it at any time:

In addition, some web hosts also offer users their own FTP clients. This is a nice privilege, and it may be an easier and safer option than third-party clients.

How hard is it to find and edit. ht access?

For WordPress users, .htaccess files are an important part of your site. It contains various configuration information that affects the structure of each link, caching, 301 redirects, file availability, etc.

To eliminate errors, improve security, or perform other tasks to improve your site.You may need to edit htaccess.This is not the easiest task because htaccess is a hidden file.

Even if you can find the file, editing the file via SFTP can be dangerous. You have web hosting .Providing a file manager to edit htaccess is useful because it minimizes the risk to the rest of the site.