Web Hosts – the Metrics that Matter

When it comes to web hosts you are usually snowed under with stats, facts and promises that they throw your way. The problem is that with so many facts and figured (form an obviously biased source) it can be hard to know what matters.

Whilst a lot of those figures are useful to have in most cases there are only a few essential ones that you need to look at from web hosts, everything else is just icing on the cake. So how do you know what stats matter? That's where we come in!

The Metrics That Matter

Whilst the metrics that are important can, to a degree, vary from person to person and project to project there are a number of things for you to consider that are almost always essential.

Reliability. Up time is vital, crashed hosting means no visitors or money coming in. Which means you need a hosting package that you can rely on. Most promise 99% up time, but that is not to be believed. Ask around on forums and blogs – see what people think about the hosting. All hosts crash at some point, you just want it to be as minimal as possible.
Bandwidth. You don't want host providers throttling back your bandwidth if you are successful – so make sure that you get a good offering here, and ask around to make sure they stick to it.
Hard disc space. You want room to grow, so make sure that you have a good amount of hard disc space to be able to use for growing the site and project.
Customer Service. People often forget this one but the fact is that a good customer service department is vital to a good web host offering. They can help with all sorts of things, from backing up your site to transferring it from another host.

Obviously other considerations come into play as well, such as price, how long they have been around, hosting other sites etc. But stick with these metrics; you won't go too far wrong.