Names AT Names - Domain Name Information Site

This is an important checklist of things that you need to be aware of before making a web host decision. When you subscribe to a web hosting plan this means that you get an account on the provider's email server, web server, database server, FTP server and DNS server (the services), among other things (e.g.: a control panel account).


Accessing and Administering Your Web Hosting Account

You should be able to access your account from any computer with internet connection, located anywhere in the world. What we are talking about here is unrestricted access to the web server hosting your domain, the database server and so on.

As your website needs grow you will be required to make changes to certain services. For example consider Apache's .htaccess file, from where you can do usefull things. If the web hosting provider does not provide you with access to this file, it might be frustrating in the future in order to make changes to this file and test them to have to coordinate with their support.

Most modern control panels come with hundreds of features and include a web-based file manager which enables you to easily edit the .htaccess file (usually you can't see this file via FTP). If the web hosting company in question says that they have built a custom control panel, ask them about this.

One other important thing is access to the database server and whether a database management tool is available. On Unix systems where MySQL is the database most widely used, phpMYadmin is one of the best management tools available.

Additionally you might need to make changes to the DNS account settings for your domain name. For example you might need to "outsource" email management to a third-party provider. There should be an interface where changes to the A/MX records can be easily performed.

Recapping:

• Verify that you can access your domain from any computer, anywhere in the world.
• Verify that you have access to important configuration scripts (such as the .htaccess).
• Verify that the host allows you to manage the DNS server settings.
• Verify that you will be able to create/edit/delete databases and that a management tool is also available.
• Verify that you can upload and use ASP/PHP/Perl scripts.

Maintaining Your Web Hosting Account

For the maintenance of your website you need access to some important files on the web server side. These are the access and error logs, where the web server is storing information about all the hits that the site received. Verify that you can access these files because you will need to frequently check them to identify possible mistakes in your HTML code.

An important issue to ask is whether the hosting company provides backup services. Things can go wrong at any time, especially when you are developing complex applications and a more frequent backup than the usual overnight one. You need to check if you can restore the backup yourself or whether you will need to contact their support team for this.

Getting the Support You Need

Don't forget to ask about what kind of support the host offers. Most companies claim to provide 24 Hour support, but since most of them are located away from the Data Centre you need to ask whether data center support is also available on a 24hrs a day basis.