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Looking for a webhosting company for personal or small business use? We recommend that you read this article to learn about the hosting industry and its dynamics so that you know what to look for before making a decision.

First, a quick overview of the webhosting chain: The end user is served by three upstream providers: the webhosting provider with whom they have direct contact, the webhost's upstream company, which maintains the servers and sells space to webhosts, and the datacenter, which provides the connection and houses the servers. Some webhosts are also server administrators and work directly with datacenters.

Because there are hundreds of web-hosting providers vying to provide cheaper and better services to businesses and individuals, the webhosting industry has been said to be near saturation. This increase in supply is largely due to resources becoming more readily available (and at lower costs) as diskspace and data-transfer prices fall. The barriers to entry in the web-hosting space are low because large resellers of server space offer low-cost hosting and reselling plans, allowing new webhosts to enter the market. Due to lower fixed costs and investment, more webhosting businesses are sprouting up to provide web-hosting solutions to business and individual websites as the number of suppliers with ever cheaper reselling plans grows. Furthermore, this increase in supply is not the result of any particular country's factors. Because the internet is global, datacenters in the United States, or indeed anywhere in the world, can provide the server and webspace for a local webhosting company. It is taking place in cyberspace, where consumers and providers can easily find each other and exchange services.

Increasing supply is obviously beneficial to the customer who is on the demand side. To compete in the tough market, new web-hosting providers have offered extremely low prices for their webhosting plans or packages. Customers can select from a plethora of hosting providers whose prices are constantly being reduced. This, however, may not be a good thing. Companies earn small margins by offering low prices, which may not cover their support costs. Support is essential in the webhosting industry because most customers want to be able to get assistance with their web-hosting accounts. If the profits do not cover the costs, web hosting companies will easily close their doors - and take their clients' websites with them.

So, what factors should you consider when selecting a website host?

The most important factor for any individual or small business looking for a webhost for their websites is support. Any internet web hosting provider that does not respond to emails within 24 hours is most likely having difficulty providing quick and dependable support services. These services are critical to customer satisfaction, and customers who are new to webhosting, in particular, will require assistance in publishing their websites on the webhosting account provided. Relationships between webhosts and webhosting customers are central to the webhosting industry. You should want to know that you can get help when you need it and that you will be notified when your website will be down for maintenance.

When selecting a webhost, stability comes in second. The amount of uptime you can expect from your webhosting provider is referred to as stability. This is determined by the servers and network of the provider. If they do not have dependable and stable providers, their servers will suffer, causing problems for your website. Because there are external factors beyond the provider's control, an uptime of around 99.5% is considered reliable in the industry. External agencies such as Alerta.com http://Alerta.com offer server monitoring services that webhosting companies can use to demonstrate their dependability.

The cost of the website depends on its purpose and budget. Personal/Individual websites may have a smaller budget and opt for a less expensive webhosting provider in exchange for support and stability. Business websites may have larger budgets and should prioritize stability and support over all else. Cheaper webhosting deals that offer massive diskspace and massive amounts of data transfer for pennies on the dollar have consistently proven to be a one-time hit that attracts a large number of customers but fails to provide quality support. Large client sites also result in sustained high server loads, which may cause the server to crash, affecting stability.

The server's location is generally unimportant, depending on your ISP's/connection country's to the datacenter where the server is located. Pings to the server can usually tell you how much network latency to expect when people in your area visit your website. Lower ping rates indicate that your site will load more quickly.

Finally, take the time to find and contact a webhost to inquire about their services. This will give you an idea of the type of support you can expect and will help you decide whether or not to go with the web-hosting provider.