A website with more features or data may require a hosting server with more  memory, band-width (IE: the ability of the Gateway and the number of dynamic or dedicated IP addresses to handle multiple inquiries, multiple database inquiries or ‘PHP” functions, etc.).  Selecting a hosting provider for larger websites requires more care:

You will need to choose a host that can grow and “scale” up as your website becomes more successful.  (For instance: Hostgator.com where we have our dedicated, managed machine that Social Media Systems.com and a few client sites are on, offers free moving of the entire setup as long as you are upgrading with them). You need to consider not only the data, memory, and bandwidth fee structure and limitations of the hosting provider you select: also your own expertise for trouble shooting problems, the quality, response time and availability of support, and other factors.  As your website becomes more popular, it will need more and more bandwidth and a perhaps even a larger server.  If you plan on growing a very large website, you will want to consider different price points and the ability to upgrade your hosting to a larger package, and/or a dedicated server, or what is called a ‘virtual server’ or cloud hosting account, where a group of machines are shared by a group of users by way of software and hardware sharing configurations.

• You will need to setup a plan for backup and disaster recovery.
• You need to figure out the level of support you will need or want to pay for to keep your host running smoothly.
• What would you do in the case that your website gets hacked or goes down?
• How will you monitor that your website(s) are functional?

Support

Most large hosting companies use a “ticket” system for getting support.  They’ll usually have a large database or knowledge center for you to go through first to find solutions to common problems and then if you still need help you’ll fill out a form or do an online chat and your support request is put into a queue.  It can take as long as 24 hours to get a response and that response could ask you for more questions to help narrow down the problem.  Hosting companies do this to keep the cost down, because hourly support technicians are expensive.  This is why even great hosting is inexpensive.

Although this basic level of support is usually limited to problems or configuration help on the server, and will  not usually include help setting things up or going over server administration that you may want done or looked at.  However, by filling out support tickets in a very specific way, you can usually get extra support or help for optimizing your load and even solve problems you may have caused, if you know how and what to ask: this is where a qualified professional can really help to get a good value.

For an additional fee, or sometimes  from some hosting companies that specialize in premium support, you can have the option of actually calling a technician or having a server admin assist you with any request.  At the high level it is called a managed server and your not limited to problems, you may be able to have them install software on your server for you or help you optimize your page load times, etc.  (We have a managed server with Hostgator.com, for instance, where Social Media Systems has setup managed servers for larger clients for years). You’ll pay more for premium support or for a managed server, but you may save even more by not needing outside technical support: server administration is a specialty.  For a small website it is probably not needed, but as you increase website complexity and features it becomes more important to have options when or if there is a problem.  If you do not have a someone in your organization who can do some of the server administration tasks, it may be slow and difficult to get useful help from the ticket system.  With Rackspace, for example, you can actually call and get help / advice directly about your machine.  I’ve had to use this once for a client and I was very impressed with the level of support.  They’ll actually assist you outside of just troubleshooting errors.  You get what you pay for, of course.

I could go over each specific hosting service, but considering the price point I’m going to recommend a small list, which can accommodate websites of all sizes very easily. Most of you can find a perfect hosting package from the list that follows in this book:

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