As a rule, virtual dedicated hosting is available at a cheaper price than most dedicated server plans but care should be taken in selection. As with all things, those services that are much cheaper may be lacking in features and service level that are important in all website hosting services, irrespective of type.

You should find all the features available on dedicated hosting offered with VDS. There are however some restrictions on scripts, for instance, that might have an impact on the whole server, and therefore other websites hosted virtually. If the server is well monitored by your service provider, this should protect your site from the effects of any other site hosted on other partitions at the same machine. Such monitoring should be a prerequisite for any hosting service you use.

The requirements you would look to be filled by the service you choose would include those you would seek with any kind of hosting plan. These would include a service guarantee of at least 30 days, 99.9% minimum uptime, good support service with multiple methods of contact, adequate disk space and bandwidth, inclusive scripts such as shopping cart and forum, website builder if required, dependable, private FTP access or a good file manager, control panel, SSL, MySQL, PHP, and CGI.

Provided the service selected satisfies all requirements you have for your hosting, there is little to distinguish virtual dedicated hosting from fully dedicated hosting except the lower price point. This makes Virtual Dedicated Hosting an option for those looking for a better hosting service on a more limited budget.

Shared hosting is when your site is hosted on a server along with many, often hundreds, of other websites, all sharing the server´s resources. The security afforded to your website might sometimes be compromised, dependent on the service provider and the speed your website loads will also be reduced. You will, however, have access to all the most used features including email, file management through a control panel such as cPanel, and FTP access. Most shared hosting plans come with some pre-installed scripts such as a shopping cart, forum, guest book and statistics. With everything most websites require at a very modest price, shared hosting is by far the most popular web hosting plan.

Dedicated Server Hosting: Here your website is hosted on its own independent server and as such is considerably more expensive than shared hosting. An alternative worth considering is Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) hosting, often called Virtual Private Server (VPS). With VDS your site is hosted on a shared server, but in its own partition. This provides most of the benefits of dedicated server hosting but with some restriction on the software and scripts that can be used. The price point would normally also mean a lesser level of support. In both cases, a dedicated server solution allows a much higher level of security and technical support, much higher storage space and bandwidth along with the ability to upload and configure a wide array of software and scripts unavailable on a shared server.

1. Features

Every web-hosting package offers a variety of features inclusive of the level of package you select.
The features, such as PHP, CGI, MySQL, and PERL should be clearly listed for you prior to sign-up. The number of features included will be dependent on price and some forward planning is required to be sure that you are signing up for a plan that will allow your website the functionality you require. If you expect your website to expand and change over time and you are unsure what features you may require in the future, be sure to confirm that you can easily upgrade your package at a later date.
Also included under ‘features’ would be such considerations as storage space, bandwidth and support level. Hosting package prices begin at under $5, but it is often in these three areas that the greatest difference between price points can be found. Again, if future updates are possible, starting with lower bandwidth and storage can often make sense as you build and launch your website. If you are new to web hosting, however, it would be advisable not to sacrifice good support for a slightly lower charge.

2. Reliability

Support services would also come under reliability. How easy is it to make contact? Look for multiple communication channels such as phone, email, instant messaging, preferably on-site and even perhaps web-conferencing if you feel that ‘hands-on’ support would be of benefit.

The most important area of reliability you need to satisfy yourself of is uptime. A good web hosting company will extend to you a guaranteed uptime of 99.9%. This is vital, as time, money and effort you put into developing and marketing your new website are wasted if you are losing visitors due to your website being down when they visit. Not only do you lose them on that one visit, they will
most likely not bother trying again, so you actually lose them for all time.

This guaranteed uptime should be just part of their overall satisfaction guarantee. The longer the term of their satisfaction guarantee, the more confidence they have in the quality of their service. Look for a minimum of 30 days unconditional guarantee.

There are many hundreds of web-hosting services available online and for those new to web hosting selecting a good service can be daunting. If your new website is going to be core to your business, then the service selected is one of the most important and critical decisions you will need to make.
Thorough due-diligence and research is essential.

If you feel you would like further reassurance you could test the service operation. Simply try contacting them to see how long it takes them to respond. Visit review and comment forums and check if there are any negative postings. Look for a relative lack of negative comments to indicate a good reputation rather than looking for positive comments. Many positive comments are posted by the companies themselves, anonymously or by people paid to post for them.

Guarantees: Another decisive factor in the reputation of a web hosting service is the amount of uptime guarantee. This is how often your site is live on the Internet. Look for at least 99.9%. Anything lower is sub-standard and never justifiable. Also look for a money back guarantee (at least 30 days). Any company confident in the quality of their service will be happy to offer at least this level of guarantee. You might also prefer to avoid contracts tying you to a minimum period.

Storage and bandwidth: These two are the first and most vital components that you would need to be sure match your projected requirements. Most hosts offer a range of plans to cover most bands of usage, but make sure that the company has a plan supplying your needs in this area. If you are unsure of your future needs or you know you don’t need as much space and bandwidth early on, then make sure they allow you to upgrade your plan at a later date.

Your storage or disk space is the amount of data required to keep your website live. Remember, this is not only the website itself but also any images, media & scripts to make the site function. Bandwidth is the maximum capacity of data transfer in a web hosting plan. Consider how much data your visitors use when at your site. If you have a longer playing video on the site, for instance, this will take a large amount of your data transfer, or bandwidth quota.

These are just some of the most essential factors you would want to consider when searching for a suitable web hosting provider. They are the first, critical areas you need to have satisfied before looking at more specific features.

If you are new to running your own website you may also find much of the terminology confusing. Not understanding the terms and phrases used will also lead to some misinformed decisions. It is important that you take a little time to learn the main technological considerations required for an informed decision.

Often, if your requirements are relatively modest, you may be well advised to use one of the more established, well-known hosting companies and selecting one of their basic packages. If  you prefer to be more pro-active in your selection your first consideration should be how much storage space and bandwidth you require. A simple, static website with 3-4 pages and minimal multi-media built to serve a small business, family or community requires much less than an e-commerce site seeking large numbers of visitors to multiple pages. If you are unsure of your website’s future requirements, make sure that you can upgrade your hosting package at a later date. Most companies will be only to happy to accommodate this.

In addition to making use of users’ comments on forums and message boards, you may also find the use of a web-hosting comparison site useful, making speedy comparison of price and features easier. Be sure to use a site that lists a wide selection of providers and bear in mind that they will most likely be earning be earning a commission on their recommendations, so be sure to still use user reviews before making your final decision.

Also worthy of your consideration is the amount of storage space (often just enough for a more basic website of a few pages) and bandwidth the plan allows. Free sites are hosted on heavily shared servers so your site will compete for resources with many others, resulting in slower loading speeds and more downtime. This often renders a free hosting service as unsuitable for multimedia and it would be very rare to find one capable of supporting any database generated content.

If you looking to have complete control over your website and the ability to enter such items as  meta tags for SEO, for instance, you will want to ensure that you have FTP access to your website.
Many free hosts only allow site editing online, drastically limiting your ability to create the website you want.

Another consideration may be email provision. Some offer a POP inbox but fewer also offer SMTP for your outgoing email. Be sure you can send from other addresses using your existing service if you want to communicate using your hosted domain name.

Despite these and other drawbacks, free web hosting does still offer many benefits to some users.
If you are looking to improve your website building skills or perhaps simply require a website for a specific time frame, then free hosting could well provide you with all you need.

With nothing at risk except your time, it is worth seeking out a number of providers and select the service best suited to your requirements.