Are you looking for a web hosting service for your website? You should read this article to find out how you can select a reliable web hosting service in five easy steps.

Start by assessing your needs. Estimate the size of your website and your expected growth in the next year or so. You should also make a list of the features you would like to use, such as email address, secure databases to store your customers’ information, analytical tools and site-building plugins. You should also figure out what kind of formats and languages you want to use to build your website.

Use the Internet to find web hosting services. There are a few things that should be immediate red flags, such as a lack of details on the official site of a web host, negative reviews and complaints on their official message board. Avoid web hosting services with less than five years of experience since these hosts are likely to close down overnight. Make sure you are not purchasing a plan from a web host that rents server space from another company since you will have no way of getting a technician to help you if you run into difficulties.

You should never purchase your domain name from the same service you are using to host your website. If you are not satisfied with your web host, your best option is to switch to a different service, which will not be a possibility if you are tied down to your current host because you registered your domain name through this service. You will have to keep using the same web host, spend a lot of money to purchase your domain name for good or wait for your plan to expire.

Find a plan that corresponds to your needs. You should get enough storage space for your site to grow over the next year and find a plan with all the features you need to develop a quality website. Avoid subscribing to a plan with restriction on your use of bandwidth or on the formats and languages you can use to develop your site. You also need to find a web hosting service with an uptime of 99.9 percent. If possible, find a web host that offers different kind of plans so you can easily upgrade your plan as your site grows.

You can save money by using a shared server. If you decide to subscribe to one of these plans, you should find out more about the policies of your web host regarding illegal content. You need to find a web hosts that actively looks for illegal content on their server and bans the users who upload it, which is sometimes not the case if your web host’s servers are located abroad. If you share a server with users who upload illegal content or spam people, the I.P. address of the server will be banner by Internet providers.

Follow these five steps and take all the time you need to find the best web hosting service possible. Do not hesitate to switch to a different service if you are not satisfied.