Features One Should Look for When Applying for Good Hosting Plan

It is always very useful to get as much information as possible about the web hosting company and the services they offer when one is looking for a good host. To check numerous things about the web hosting company these are some pre-sales questions. This way one can get complete information about the services being offered, the web hosting plans they are offering and the features included there and so on.



Nowadays features of each plan are somewhat the same among web hosting providers as there is a tough competition between them. One can find very useful information in this editorial to learn about, some of the considerations to take care of when choosing a web hosting service whether one is a beginner or an expert.



This editorial will not speak about things like traffic, prices and space as there are innumerable interrelated editorials these days which can be found on the net. Our main aim here is to make clear some of the most important features one have to look for while selecting ones web hosting provider.



Given below are some basic features to be found in a Unix/Linux hosting plans that every good hosting provider should always offer.



1. POP3 email accounts & pseudonym - POP3 is an electronic mail protocol which is used to recover messages stored on an Internet/intranet e-mail server. Example of POP3 email is personalname@personaldomain.com. One has to connect to its Internet Service Provider's each time a client wants to check for messages.



2. Control Panel – It is a place where one manages ones hosting account. It is an on-line application that gives us the user ability to control many aspects of his web hosting account in the viewpoint of web hosting which includes, but not limited to: creating sub domains, setup email forwarding, park additional domains, managing databases, uploading and editing files, creating mailboxes, automated installing of ready to use scripts and programs, setup shopping carts. One needs to ensure what exactly is included in a given control panel with the web hosting company one have selected to go with. Third party control panel like cPanel or Plesk are used by some of the hosts. While few use an in-house developed control panel. One must be provided with a Control Panel to manage ones web space the moment one signs up a hosting package.



3. Backup - Automated Backups are taken by the majority of the Hosts. Users do not pay much attention on this feature while choosing the hosting plan. Though this feature is as essential as any other feature in this list.



4. FTP Accounts & Virtual FTP - This feature comes along with the CP. FTP Accounts & Virtual FTP is place where one uploads ones files, update them & delete them. One should make sure that one has handful of FTP sub-accounts also to provide ones clients/users password protected directories. Where the clients / users can use the FTP to upload /download files from particular password protected folder of ones website this is indeed very helpful.



5. Web Statistics - Doing Analysis of ones website visitors plays, a very significant role in the success of ones website. Supposing a website has been launched and one has got 55 unique visitors or more than 550 visitors per day. Whatsoever the case may be, the report can be viewed by one using Statistics Application that runs in the server backend. Webalizer is popular web statistic software.



6. HTTPS (SSL) access to ones hosting account - Between the user browser and the server, SSL is used for secure communication. The information is encrypted and secure. ECommerce sites and sites that need submission of other sensible information like usernames and passwords SSL is generally used. One can use the shared SSL certificate provided by ones hosting company to have an SSL on ones site or one can purchase an SSL certificate for ones site and ask the host to install it.



7. SPAM Filter - Spam attack can attack any email user. It is a similar to email but it junk mail. One of the biggest problems in the Internet today is spam attack. Therefore one needs to have spam filters installed on the server where ones website exists.



8. Sub-domains - Without having to use directories in URLs Sub-domains are used for creating sub-sections to ones site.



9. Shell (telnet or SSH) access to ones account. For secure access to ones account SSH or telnet is used. On UNIX hosting plans SSH is generally accessible. One can change permissions of files, zip, unzip files & run certain programs on the server.



10. Shopping Cart - A piece of software that acts as an online store's catalog and ordering process is termed as a shopping cart.



A good reputed web hosting provider ought to offer one at least these above given features in his hosting plans as these are the most common features of a good web hosting plan. One can even get some more additions from a good provider.