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There is an endless number of hosting companies all over the Internet. The choice can be bewildering, and sometimes confusing. One of the best starting points is to look to your own Internet Service Provider (ISP). Many ISP’s offer their clients a range of hosting packages at preferential rates. However, don’t assume that just because your ISP happens to be a major telecommunications company that they have the expertise or service levels you may need. Check them out carefully, and where possible, check out some of the sites they host.

When selecting a hosting company, don’t place too much emphasis on the price. There are many companies offering very low cost hosting deals, but this doesn’t mean they are offering the best value for money. Trisel has dealt with many hosting companies, and we have often found some of the cheaper companies fail to deliver in one area or another. Maybe their servers suffer a lot of down-time (keeping your site of the Internet for long periods), or maybe they don’t include certain facilities in their standard price. This can involve you in hidden costs once you start expanding your site to include databases, forms handling and other features that modern websites may need.

Although we advise against making a hosting selection based on price alone, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t some good low cost hosts out there. What you are looking for is a good balance between price, facilities and service levels. The ideal scenario is to get as much as possible for the least amount of money.

We would also recommend that you leave the final decision until you know what your website actually requires to make it function. When Trisel designs a website, we advise our clients what will be needed from their hosting company in terms of storage capacity and server facilities. Armed with this information, you can make more meaningful comparisons between various hosts. Of course, you could leave the whole hosting selection process to Trisel. We have very good arrangements with a wide variety of respectable and established hosting services with whom we can liaise directly to ensure your site is up and running in the shortest possible time. Many of them also offer FREE domain name registration as part of the deal.

On a final note, we would advise against buying monthly hosting plans. It’s usually far more cost effective to purchase annual plans, which also relieve you of the worry of having your website taken down if you happen to forget a monthly payment. It can seem like a good deal to pay €2.95 a month for a hosting package, but it gets expensive if your site goes down every 30 days because the payment arrived late!

 

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