If you are wanting to place data on-line then there masses of free ways in which to do it. But ,, unless you wish to be at the mercy of somebody else and risk your information being lost forever, then free hosting is definitely not the best way to go. Look at Geocities for example. Many years ago it was one of the largest sites on the net and offered free hosting to just about anyone that wanted it. Currently it is being shut down and anyone that does not move their web site is going to lose their data and years of painstaking work.

If you would like to avoid losing everything you have got built up then you need to be master of your own destiny, and that ultimately means owning your own domain name and having your own hosting account. But how simple is it to find good hosting? Should you opt for a shared hosting account? Or what about cheap dedicated hosting? Selecting low cost reliable hosting can be minefield of problems. Lets take a peek at a number of things that you need take into account when checking around…

One of the most important things to think about is whether the web hosting company you are considering offers a hosting package that really meets your needs. Nowadays most hosting companies are pretty generous when it comes to the disk allowance that they provide you with. The times of 5MB hosting accounts seem to be well behind us, but it is still something that you need to check. Is the potential hosting company giving you sufficient disk space now, and enough to satisfy the future growth of your web site? If your site was to grow beyond your expectations are you able to buy additional disk space cheaply, or can you upgrade to their next hosting package up from yours at a low cost?

Bandwidth is another vital consideration. There are two camps that hosting firms seem to have split into. Those who supply a certain amount of bandwidth for your cash, and those who provide unlimited bandwidth. I said ‘seem to’ because in reality there is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth. For people who have got the time, it is well worth reading the small print before signing up to any packages that are giving unlimited disk space or unlimited bandwidth. Both disk space and bandwidth cost the hosting company and it’s usually the most competitive and lowest price hosts that supply these ‘unlimited’ packages, sometimes for costs like $3.95 per month. That simply isn’t a sustainable business model, and customers that attempt to take advantage of either the unlimited disk space or bandwith can quickly discover that they will be encouraged to either move to a higher cost hosting package, or move their hosting to another company.