Creating a website is now within the capabilities of just about every small business or individual. In 2012 alone, 52 million new websites were added to the Web to create a total of around 634 million sites. Thanks to this added stress, the average webpage became 4 percent slower in loading. In spite of some bad press, GoDaddy remained the largest domain registrar in 2012, taking up 32.44 percent of the market share. While average users don’t pay much for their domain names, the proud new owners of Investing.com forked over $2.45 million in 2012.
If you’re in the market for a good Web host, make sure you do some research to discover which companies offer the best tech and customer support, good uptime, and the design features needed to launch your particular site. A quality host will ensure that all of your problems are solved in a timely manner, because they have a staff around to troubleshoot them. The tech support staff will be available around the clock, since it’s impossible to predict when your website will suffer from problems. Near-perfect uptime means that your site will be accessible to users almost all of the time.
When a company offers users “unlimited” bandwidth or disk space, make sure to read the fine print. Such offers are too good to be true; you can’t create a website that doesn`t have caps on bandwidth and disk storage.
Perhaps the best way to select a host is to read both professional and user reviews. Doing so may save you from getting into bed with a terrible host with lackluster support options, hidden fees, and frequently overloaded servers. The worst Web hosts won’t answer phone calls or return messages, providing only automatic responses or robot secretaries. They often increase subscription fees without notice, force customers into paying for premium options, or refuse to make refunds. If their servers are packed too tightly, visitors may abandon your site when it fails to load after three seconds or more.
