How much does website hosting cost?
Web hosting comes in all sorts of configurations and with that comes a wide range of pricing. The cost of hosting has dropped significantly in the last decade as improvements to infrastructure and equipment has allowed Australian web hosting companies to be more competitive. Competition amongst hosting companies is another factor for better prices and service offerings.
So what price should you be paying for hosting?
Well, this really depends on the size of your website and what features you will require. A small website on shared cPanel hosting can be as little as a few dollars a month whereas dedicated servers can be thousands a month.
To decide the best service for you, first identify your requirements. Here are a few quick questions to ask yourself:
- What software do you require? Will you be using a content management system like WordPress?
- How much space will you need?
- How many visitors do you think your site will receive?
- How important is customer support
The table below will give you a quick summary of web hosting companies and their pricing for basic packages.
What is cPanel website hosting
When it comes to website hosting, there are many factors to consider, one of which is a term called cPanel. You have probably seen cPanel mentioned when researching the best web hosting companies and different hosting packages, but what is cPanel?
What is cPanel?
cPanel is simply software installed on a web server that allows hosting companies to provide hosting accounts to their customers. It essentially is short for “control panel” and provides a user interface for customers to manage services on their hosting accounts.
Common Features in cPanel
cPanel provides users with a range of features that allow them to manage nearly all aspects of their hosting account. The most common features or applications include:
- File Manager
- Email Accounts
- Database Management
- One Click Installation of popular software (such as WordPress)
- Visitor statistics and analytics
- Backups
How to login to cPanel
Most installations of cPanel will create a direct login at siteaddress.com/cpanel however many hosting companies will have their own dedicated login process to hide the fact that their member area runs on cPanel, in this case, users would login through their hosting providers client area.
Migrating your website from one host to another using cPanel
If your current web host uses cPanel and the new host also uses cPanel then it makes it quite easy to move your site files over. cPanel allows you to “backup” your home directory and database and then restore the files into the new cPanel hosting account with ease. You will first have to download your backup files, so if your site is quite large, ensure you have enough bandwidth and diskspace to download the files.
How to find out who is hosting your website
As a web design agency, we often run into the issue where it comes time to launch a website but the client has no idea who their web hosting company is. We run into this issue a lot and it can delay the launch of a website which is not good if launch dates are crucial. There are however a few ways to track down who is hosting a particular website.
Let’s take a look at the steps to identify the host of a website.
1. Using Whois
Whois is a service where you can enter a domain name and it will tell you the domain registration information. From this info, you can see what company the domain was registered with. The domain registrar can quite often be the same company that hosts the website. To confirm this, you will also need to take a look at the nameservers. These can often include the hosting companies’ names in them which makes it easy to identify the host, if not, you may have to do an additional search for one of the nameserver codes.
2. Using an online service
There are a number of online services that will tell you who is hosting your website instantly by simply entering your domain name. One service that does just this is called whoishostingthis.com It gives a clear and concise of who the hosting company is via one simple search.
Using these methods is a good way to find hosting companies that provide services to popular websites. You may be wishing to build a website that requires a certain level of hosting services, so it’s beneficial to search for similar sites and see who is hosting them. You can then view their products and pricing and decide if they are a good fit for you.
What is web hosting and do you need it?
Put simply, web hosting is essentially a storage service where the files of your website are kept and delivered from to make your website work. Web hosting services and packages come in a wide range of configurations, all suited to different applications and types of websites. A small personal blog does not need the same hosting set up as a large e-commerce website or web app.
Web hosting accounts are generally stored on large servers in locations called Data Centres. In a single data center, there may be hundreds of servers hosting thousands of websites. Think of a data center as a room full of many computer hard drives storing files for websites being accessed by people all over the world. It is therefore crucial that these data centers are kept safe and secure and operating 24/7 to ensure websites do not go offline.
Why you need web hosting
Anyone that is running their own website will need a hosting account of some sort. The files and software required to make your website work need to be stored somewhere and that is what a web hosting account does. Choosing the right hosting account for you will really depend on the type of website you are operating, for example, if you are running WordPress then dedicated WordPress Hosting would be the best choice. A quick search for the best web hosting companies will bring up many options where you will be able to review the options and choose the right package for you.
Choosing the right web hosting account
As mentioned above, it’s best to choose an account that is suitable for the type of site you are running. It’s no point paying hundreds of dollars a month for a dedicated server when you are operating a small personal blog that can be hosted for only a few dollars a month.
When deciding on a hosting account it’s best to look at the following features:
How much disk space you will require.
This is how much storage you will need to keep all your files
Location of the servers.
Speed and website load time is an important factor when it comes to running a website. It is recommended that you choose a hosting provider with servers as close to your target audience location.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth put simply is the amount of data sent and received from your hosting package. Every time someone visits your website they will be shown images and other content that needs to be transmitted from the server which will use bandwidth. Many basic hosting accounts will offer unlimited bandwidth, but make sure you check the fine print on your package.
Support
Support is a major factor especially for anyone that is not skilled in online technology. If there is an issue with your hosting account it’s good to know that your hosting company is contactable and offers good support to assist you.
Types of Web Hosting
There are many types of web site hosting and it can be a bit confusing trying to decide what is best for you. The most common hosting accounts are shared hosting. This is where many websites will be stored on the same server. The ability to store many websites allows hosting companies to keep the costs down for their customers. The downside to shared hosting is that having many sites on one server can reduce the performance of the server and may affect the performance of your website. Dedicated hosting, on the other hand, is where you have a server all to yourself. This is great if you have a greater level of technical knowledge and can manage the server yourself. A dedicated server can be expensive, but if you are running a large site that needs performance and security then this is the best option.
Are there any free hosting services?
There are rarely any free web hosting services available, as the cost to run hosting servers is not cheap. Free hosting accounts such as WIX but will be limited in their functionality and features. Just because they aren’t free doesn’t mean you have to pay a lot either.
