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So, you have a website and you think it's great. How exactly can you go about finding the best place to stick a web site so the rest of the world can see it too? Well, your web site is on your hard drive after a successful run through Frontpage or other web authoring software. It looks beautiful, with nice graphics and all the bells and whistles. So where does it actually need to go to be online with the rest of the web? Well, it depends - if this is a web site that absolutely, positively has to be online, a few hours of research can save a lot of headaches in the future. Take a look at your site, first of all, and take a look at what you actually need, and make sure you consider your future plans, like the hopes of selling your product online, or having a few online galleries of images that randomly display pictures for your family. Simple web pages with HTML and images are easy, since there every company can provide those services; database needs and custom scripting requirements are less commonly available, but still wide enough to make finding a provider simple enough. Next, take a look in your local newspaper or even search online to build a list of potential web host providers. Most telephone companies offer those services, and often have the more reliable networks as well, while smaller companies may offer rock-bottom prices and more questionable reliability. Try to include as many as you are comfortable dealing with, since it will be easy to knock them off the list. With the list in hand, begin comparing the technical facts. Note the details for the most appropriate package and what main features they have, including disk space, data transfer limits, and cost per month. Tick the companies on your list that actually offer what you need. Also compare the "soft side" of the companies. What do other customers say about the company on the web and in news groups? Gather info on how long it has been around, the hours of their technical support team, what guarantees of service up-time they offer, and whether they offer credits for service interruptions. Tick the companies that you are still comfortable with. Hopefully, you've narrowed down your list to between 2 and 4 solid choices and are ready for the next step - calling their technical support team or customer service group. Ask a few questions you already know the answers to, like the hours of operation and whether package X supports feature Y, as well as some new questions, like how they handle customer call backs on harder to resolve issues, what assistance they can offer in transferring data and getting your site working, and what contract options they have and if they will penalize you for leaving because of technical problems. This will give you a feeling for the people that work there, since they may be the ones helping you when you need it most. Ultimately, problems are inevitable making the people side just as important as the technology side. There are tougher questions that you should seriously consider, including the upgrade options they have if your online presence grows, and if backups are made of customer data, and if so, how often and how can they be accessed and restored. For important enough sites, you will want to know if the company has put its money where its mouth is - offering service level agreements, like a 99.9% uptime guarantee, means that the ISP will guarantee that the services will be online and available virtually all of the time every month, so they presumably have invested money in their web server system, with redundant parts or even redundant servers. These are tough questions, and with every "yes" answer, you have to expect an increase in price, but at least you can get the comfort of understanding what you are getting for your hard earned dollar.
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