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Choosing the right web host for your forum can be quite a frustrating experience. If you go by the advertisements, most hosts would appear to be good for your particular needs. But there have been cases where web host have started out by providing great service, only to get mired later - overselling the shared servers, providing low service quality, not responding to problems promptly, etc. Such experiences lead to a renewed search for a new host yet again.

The way to avoid this predicament is to get quality information and to know the basics about web hosting clearly. This guide will attempt to take you through the paces so that choosing the right web host for your forum becomes an easy proposition for you.

What you need to know about web hosting

An online presence has never been more important and this makes having the right web host vital as a poor choice can ruin some sites. There are many reasons that will impact on your choice such as selling items on your site, having an individual site or passing data efficiently amongst work colleagues around the globe. Making the right choice is very important and price and value can't be your only choices, you need to evaluate quality and links and connections too.

Now that you have a little bit of idea about the basics, we can move on to the methods and strategies you can use to identify the best web host for your requirements.

Here you'll find a list of Web Hosting Companies that can help you with your forum hosting. The following companies run forums on their servers and have been known to do so economically and efficiently.

Leading Web Hosting Companies that support Forums (Arranged alphabetically)

1. Webhostingpad - www.webhostingpad.com

2. Hostgator - www.hostgator.com

3. Powweb - www.powweb.com

4. Hostpapa - www.hostpapa.com

5. ServerPronto - www.serverpronto.com

6. Powweb - www.powweb.com

7. ServerPronto - www.serverpronto.com

8. Hostmonster - www.hostmonster.com

Even when you have a list of best web hosts (for your particular purpose) to choose from, you still may need answers to a number of questions so that you can make the final call. These would mostly be questions relating to your own requirements e.g., the amount of storage space that you would need, or the bandwidth amount that would be just right for you.

For forums, there is a rule of thumb. You generally need about 50 GB bandwidth monthly and around 10 GB of storage space. Again, these figures are for average sized forums and may vary on a case by case basis. If you have a forum where users discuss software problems, you would not need too much space, since they would use only a limited number of images. The situation would change dramatically if the forum in question is one where the users discuss the latest car models. Here, images would consume a lot of space and your requirements would thus increase significantly. Generally, your web hosting provider would guide you based on your needs, and you can choose a hosting plan accordingly.

Stability is the key

Moving your websites from one web host to another can be a nightmarish experience; often leading to downtime, loss of data and a number of other problems which may prove to be detrimental to your business. So stability is a very big criterion when you are choosing your web hosting provider. So try to find a well established web hosting provider. Make sure you do a background check and talk to the existing clients to see whether they are satisfied with the service provided. If you have any doubt, don't take a risk. The hassle is not worth the little effort you may save on the research.

Price

This is of course a deciding factor for a number of people. How much money you need to pay primarily depends on your storage space and bandwidth requirements. Hosting is usually sold in packages based on a combination of these three options:

Hosting that is shared

Shared Hosting

Dedicated Hosting

You need to make your choice based on your budget and the size of your forum.

Some of these options are discussed in more depth here:

Shared Hosting - In this option, the server is owned by the web host and is rented out in parts to a number of people. This is the most economical option if budget is your primary concern. But your performance may suffer since the various sites on the server keep competing for the server's resources on a continuous basis. This may result in your site running slow and you may also suffer outages.

Dedicated Hosting - Having a dedicated server, on the other hand, gives you the best performance at a high cost. Since only your own site is present on the server, there is no competition for server resources. But this requires you to have a good knowledge about managing servers. Else, you can pay a third party to manage your server for you. You have the choice of either taking the server on rent or buying it outright.

Dedicated Hosting - This is the high end option providing top quality at a high price. There is no other site competing with you on the server which is great but you may need to know a lot about how to run a server. It is possible to pay a firm to manage your server and you can either buy the server or rent it.

Service

This is another major deciding factor in your search to find the best web hosting provider for your forum. Good service and technical support form the backbone of the web hosting service. You may safely choose a provider which is very popular, since a large number of clients is a good indicator of the quality and stability of the web host. Just remember that they are also the ones who are under the maximum amount of resource strain, since they are servicing such a large number of clients. If your web host has too many clients, service may suffer or your site may become slow because of resource competition on the server.

Be sure to test the technical support capabilities of the hosting provider that you choose. Check with the existing clients. The following checklist may aid you in your efforts:

Will they provide a speedy solution to problems?

How good are the solutions provided?

Can you reach technicians by phone?

Are holiday periods and out-of-work hours catered for?

Do they respond quickly by email?

Do they fix your solution or do they offer excuse after excuse?

Positive answers to these questions would indicate a good firm to choose.

Conclusion

Searching for a good web hosting provider can be quite a daunting task, but the above guide will help you in your efforts considerably. Just remember one thing - choosing a web hosting provider is like getting married divorce is a messy affair you'd rather not go through! Look around, do your research well, and then take a final decision after weighing all the pros and cons.
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About the Author

This article is published with permission from http://www.webhostingmadness.com, a publisher of hosting company ratings, comparisons and detailed articles about the web hosting industry.

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