2009 Web Hosting Recommendations

These are the top web hosting companies in the business today. Each web host listed here has a well rounded, solid web hosting plan. But each host also has a unique strength that seperates them from the rest. Our emphasis on comparing these web hosting companies isn’t on their disk space, bandwidth, or even price as many other websites try to do. With the web hosting industry so competitive, these are the least qualities that you want to use in deciding on a web hosting provider. They all offer so much resources that you will never use all of them.

What really matters in matching up the right web host with your needs. Some will be a better fit than others so our comparisons are done based on the strengths of the web hosting company.

What Is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is essentially just a service provided by web hosting companies to allow your website to be accessible to anyone on the World Wide Web. The web hosting company has specially configured computers called web servers which are connected to all the other web servers on the World Wide Web. The web hosting company you select will hold your website files on their web server so that people will be able to view your website.

Now web hosting can take on many different shapes and forms. For example, you can have a website on either a Linux or Windows web server. You can have a shared hosting account where you share a server with other people or have a dedicated server which means you have a web server all to yourself.

But regardless of which web host you select, web hosting is to allow people to build a website and have it “live” for the entire World to view and browse. As you visit the rest of our site, WebHostingGPS.com, you will find many more useful guides and information to help you navigate the world of web hosting. We are your personal web hosting navigator.

Essential Web Tools

So you decided to build a website. Just like building anything, you need to have the right tools to build it the right way. Here we are going to cover the most essential and basic hosting tools needed to not only build your website but maintain it as well. You can think of this as your web hosting toolbox.

Web/HTML Editor

The first thing you are going to need is a decent web or HTML editor. Look for one that is or includes a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) interface or basically a graphical editor. With this type of editor you make changes directly to the site design instead of in the source code. If you have the funds, I recommend purchasing Dreamweaver. This is a very feature rich and powerful editor. But for those of you on a tight budget, there is no need to lose hope…you can get free ones, too. A really nice one is NVU.

FTP Client

Next in your web hosting toolbox you want to have a good ftp program. All it needs to do is upload and download files from your computer to the hosting server where your website will be viewable on the Internet. For an ftp, I really don’t see a need to pay for this since there are so many free ones available for download. For example, one of the most popular ones used today is Filezilla which is free and really easy to use.

Web Hosting

After that you are going to need a really good web hosting provider. This is essential because they are the ones that will be presenting your website live on the Internet. You don’t want to select a host with reliability issues or downtimes. I recommend Lunarpages as a reliable and budget friendly host. Their support teams are very efficient and friendly which is a bonus.

Backup Solution

Finally, no web toolbox is complete without a backup solution. I have lost count the number of stories I have heard about something happening to person’s website and losing everything because they never had a backup of their site. It is a really easy thing to do but so overlooked. Whether you choose a local backup drive, an online backup service or even hiring someone to do it, I can’t stress enough to just have something in place and backup regularly. It is better to do regular backups and not need them, then to not backup and be out of luck if something does happen.  There are even some online backup services that will give you 2GB of backup storage absolutely free.  One such service is Mozy.  Isn’t it worth it to backup your site especially since it is free?

These are the 4 basic tools that every website owner and webmaster should have in their possession. These tools make hosting possible and make it easier to do. So whether you already have a site or planning to, keep in mind what you have in your web toolbox because you might be missing something essential.

Email this post