Affordable Shared Hosting - What to Look For.

You might have seen numerous web hosting companies advertising about their affordable web site hosting plans. And again you might have come across discussions in forums about the same. What exactly constitutes an affordable web site hosting plan? This article explains, some of the features that make a hosting plan affordable. Just like with all things in life, if things are cheap they are so because of a reason. This fact has to be kept in mind when buying cheap hosting plans.

The first factor that makes a web hosting plan affordable is the price. Usually, one can expect decent webhosting for a price range below $10 a month. Many good hosts like Hostgator have their basic plans priced below $10 a month. However, some hosts provide web hosting for even less. Choosing these web hosting plans is not a good option. If you are really serious about creating a long lasting profitable website, $10 a month is a reasonable amount that you may have to invest.

The next factor is the ability to host multiple web sites in the same account. Most of the web hosts offer this feature. However, certain web hosts have restrictions on the number of websites that can be hosted. There are two ways of hosting more sites. One is to add the new domain as an add-on domain. This feature has many disadvantages like the lack of a separate control panel. The other way is to create a separate new account for the new domain. This feature creates a separate control panel for the new domain. Only few web hosts support the second feature.

Other factors that are characteristic of an affordable web site hosting plan are support for unlimited databases and scripting languages like PHP, python, etc. Usually, the number of databases used is very low. For example, an ordinary site may need 3 MySQL databases, one each for the site, forum and the blog. However, support for unlimited databases is an added advantage. You never know when you may need more. Last but not the least, an affordable web site hosting plan should have the guarantee of a good uptime. This is the most important factor.

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