While most people reading this post have had some experience with web hosting services, there are some common misconceptions of what the important factors are, when choosing one host over another.

Most site owners tend to check only for how much disk space and bandwidth they get for the lowest price, when in fact there are overlooked parameters that are equally important (if not more).

Here are some important considerations:

Host server location

Why it’s important
Would you like to increase traffic to your site? Is positive user experience important to you?
Assuming the answer to these 2 questions is yes, you should make sure your host server is located in the same country as your website’s target audience or otherwise very close.

Both people and search engines like fast websites, and search engine also detect geographical proximity when indexing your site.
google.co.uk for example, will not only prefer websites that have the co.uk extension, but will also give higher priority to sites hosted in UK (indexing priority depends on many other factors as well of course).

The distance between your host server and your targeted audience should be as little as possible, because long distances will cause bad user experience and your visitors to leave your site as quickly as they came.

How to check
Type the host domain name in this site.

Backups

Why it’s important
The most overlooked consideration when choosing a web host is how often they do backups and how accessible these backup are for you to restore.

There are 2 types of backups  – directory backups and database backups.
An important thing to check with your host is whether they do database backups at all, if yes how often, and will they get those backups restored upon your request without extra charge.

Directory backups are usually performed over night each night of the week and can be restored by requesting the host. Ask the host how often they backup directories, and if the restoration is free of charge (as a web hosting provider myself, I know it should be free of charge as it takes approx. 3 minutes to get it done).

If you choose a Linux host and it provides cPanel or Plesk as your control panel it’s a good thing, because it means you can generate a backup of your files and databases through the control panel at any given time. These backups cannot be automated or scheduled though.

How to check
Read the host’s hosting plans details or just ask them.

Years of experience

Why it’s important
Looking for the product/service provider with as many years of experience as possible is only natural.
The same goes for web hosting, the longer a web host is around, the more experienced they are with various situations and have the ability to avoid issues.
Bare in mind however, that if your host is a robust company, their support will probably be less personal.

How to check:
Use this online tool.

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