May 08, 2005

By: Mari Anne Hussen
Website: http://www.hosting-your-website.com

Reliable Managed Hosting Services Pay For Themselves Time And Again

Online businesses may balk when they see the array of potential domain hosting plans available for developing their website and online store. There are many new providers as well as many that have a proven track record of providing excellent service, software and assistance to new and established businesses.

When a prospective client reads the great promises spouted by these hosting companies they must take a moment to evaluate the truth, understand whether the promise has any value and research the company’s track record.

Some of the best ecommerce domain hosting plans will have 99 or 100% up time. This translates into less than a minute off line. In a world where transactions are made 24/7 downtime is a definite disadvantage. Companies that are unable to provide this service should be avoided.

Reliable managed hosting services should offer the best prices available. Companies should compare prices and packages to find the one that best suits their needs. The package should be expandable to grow with the company with out inflating the price unreasonably. Many hosts will offer 100% money back guarantees, free trials or introductory packages to entice a new client.

Affordable hosting services will include a control panel where the client can have access to many areas including sub-domains, file managers, Apache Handlers, analog statistics, web statistics, error logs, email accounts, spam filters, forwarders, autoresponders, mailing lists, web mail, password controls, back up, edit contact info, check bandwidth usage, chat room set up, FTP managers and more.

Some of the best ecommerce domain hosting plans offer reseller plans where they provide their clients with the platform and tools to establish their own web hosting services. When reselling web space a company becomes responsible for billing the new clients and providing technical service.

A reliable hosting company will offer 24/7 customer support. It should be easy to access, and supplied by knowledgeable and friendly technicians. They may provide a customer service center, an open support connection to get help immediately, service forms to take care of little details like upgrades, parking domain names, update credit card info and more. They may also provide FAQs, network status announcements and a customer account login.

When looking for an affordable Windows 2002 hosting plans businesses might want to sign on with a host that caters to an all Windows platform, while Mac users might choose to sign on with a host run by Mac users for Mac users. However: most hosts can accommodate programs like Dreamweaver, GoLive and Pagemill since they generate the standard HTML coded pages and HTML code is the language all web pages are built with.

Some of the best ecommerce domain hosting plans will cater to those companies who’s stores only market a dozen or so items while others are better suited for stores with product lists into the hundreds. They may offer affiliate or associate programs where others will market their products for a percentage or for a flat fee.

Some hosts offer great deals to businesses that are dissatisfied with their present host. With relatively no downtime they can transfer their store over to the new host site lock stock and barrel. In the world of This is why great care should be taken when signing up with a host.

For more information, see Managed Hosting Plans.

About The Author:

Mari Anne Hussen is a successful author and regular contributor to http://www.hosting-your-website.com.  Promote your website by using reliable yet affordable web hosting companies, plans and services.