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The website hosting industry is EXTREMELY competitive right now. Hosting services are becoming as important as regular utilities. They're the engines driving innovation on the web from the latest website ideas to the hottest blogs.
So, how do you get in on the action? How do you choose the best host for your blog or e-commerce business? As I've written about before, if you want to be taken seriously on the web, you need to have your own domain name on your own hosting.
The good news is that hosting is so competitive right now, it's easy to get a cheap deal on hosting if you search hard enough.
What Website Hosting Features Will You Need
If you're looking for start your first website, what are some of the features you should look for? Whether your buying hosting for a blog or for an online store, these are the things you should look for.
Unlimited Space - So you can throw whatever you want on your FTP server and use it as a backup source
Unlimited Transfers - So you're site doesn't go down if it gets a spike in traffic.
Unlimited Websites/Domains - So that you can start as many websites as you want.
Unlimited SQL Databases - You'll need SQL databases for most Content Management Systems and E-commerce systems.
Unlimited E-mail - So you can have as many e-mail accounts as you want.
Latest Web Hosting Deals
I've rounded up the latest deals and offerings from the major hosting providers and have compiled a list for all of you. You can see that many of the hosting companies have cheap hosting but vary on the features.
List of Web Hosting Providers:
$4.99/Month - 6 Months Free
1,000 GB Storage
Unlimited Bandwidth
Unlimited Domain Hosting
Unlimited E-Mail
Unlimited Databases
Unlimited Everything
$5.95/Month
600GB Storage
6,000GB Transfer
1 Free Domain
Free Setup
2500 E-mail Accounts
Unlimited Domain Hosting
$9.99/Month
300 GB Storeage
3000 GB Transfer
Free Domain
100 Domain Websites
1,000 E-mail boxes
25 SQL Databases
$4.95/Month
Unlimited Space
Unlimited Transfers
Unlimited Websites/Domains
Free Domain
Unlimited E-mail
Unlimited SQL Databases
Free Setup
$5.95/Month
Unlimited Hosting
Unlimited Transfers
Unlimited Websites/Domains
Free Domain
Unlimited E-mail
100 SQL Databases
$9.95/Month
300 GB Storage
3,000 Transfer
5 Free Domains
1,000 Email Accounts
Unlimited Websites/Domains
$4.99/Month
10 GB Space
300 GB Transfer
100 Free E-mail Accounts
10 SQL Databases
$7.95/Month
Unlimited Storage
Unlimited Transfer
Unlimited Websites/Domains
Unlimited SQL Databases
Unlimited E-mail
How to Choose a Good Web Host Conclusion
Which would I go with? Well, I currently use GoDaddy.com and have had no problems with them. However, if I was going to get new hosting, knowing what I know now, I'd go with HostRocket.Com.
Why?
GoDaddy's hosting packages don't provide a good value for money compared to the other hosting companies. For example, I only get 25 SQL databases and if I want more, I'd have to upgrade to a more expensive hosting package.
HostRocket.Com has a great package. It's amongst the cheapest and pretty much has unlimited of everything (except data storage - which is 1 TB - plenty if you ask me). You can host all the websites you want and won't have problems with data transfer or database limits.
Once I hit the limits at GoDaddy.com I will definitely get an account at HostRocket.Com.
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