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Behind every great Web site is a great host. Whether you want an elaborate e-commerce portal or simply an electronic brochure, your site needs a reliable home on the Internet, with the infrastructure and the capacity for growth. Buying and maintaining all the equipment for a Web site would not be a practical choice for most businesses, so how do you choose a Web-hosting provider that's up to the task?

Thousands of services are at the ready to host your site, but for this roundup we've identified seven leading nationwide providers that target small and midsize businesses. We chose our list partly based on market leadership, and we consulted resources such as HostIndex.com and TopHosts.Com to see which services were getting the most exposure. For bargain hunters, we even found a few free sites, covered in the sidebar "Easy Site Building on the Cheap." And for a quick comparison, we've put together a chart showing what each plan delivers for less than $25 a month.

Since we last evaluated Web hosting plans more than two years ago (Finding a Hassle-Free Host, November 7, 2000), most of the companies we reviewed then have changed ownership or strategies—or have entered bankruptcy proceedings. Interland acquired AT&T Small Business Hosting Service. Verio is now NTT/Verio. IBM has refocused its hosting activities to its traditional strong suit—enterprise customers. DellHost is actually operated by Sprint.

ConcentricHost became XO Communications, which has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Also in Chapter 11 is WorldCom, which had acquired Digex and UUnet. Since you're probably risk-averse, and there are plenty of hosting alternatives from which to choose, we elected not to include these companies in our roundup.

For the companies that have survived, the market is intensely price-competitive. "It's exceedingly hard for a Web host to offer services that really differentiate it from other service providers," says Gartner senior networking analyst Ted Chamberlin. Hosting, though not a commodity, has clearly become a volume-driven business. Chamberlin notes that the winners are the ones "who drive massive economies of scale."

But don't overlook smaller Web hosting companies. A blossoming market for hosting resellers has made it possible for companies to provide services targeted at underserved niches and specialized markets such as religious-themed sites. If you like the idea of actually talking to someone at the hosting company, your local ISP can't be beat for the personal touch.

Share and Share Alike

Hosting plans fall into two large categories: shared-server and dedicated-server plans. Many providers offer both choices, but we focus on shared-server plans, the typical choice of small and midsize businesses. In a shared-server solution, a hosting company divides the resources of an individual server among multiple customers to keep prices down—to as little as $11.95 a month at one of the hosts we review.

Prices increase as you add disk storage space, data-transfer allowance, and e-commerce capabilities. Nevertheless, you can put together a database-driven commerce site with plenty of disk and transfer capacity for around $100 a month using almost any of the companies in our reviews.

With dedicated hosting, by contrast, you get your own server at the hosting company. Such plans usually start at about $100 per month. At the highest end of the hosting spectrum are co-located services, in which you own the actual hardware. For information on these and other dedicated options, see the sidebar "Dedicated Servers: I Don't Want to Share!"

Narrowing Down Your Options

You can narrow down the candidates by first identifying the features you need and eliminating hosts that simply don't offer them. One question to consider is whether you want to run your site on Windows or on Unix—if, indeed, it matters at all. For basic, static sites created with Web or HTML authoring tools or even for most simple e-commerce sites, the server operating system makes little difference.

For those who use FrontPage Server Extensions, they're available on many Unix-based hosting plans as well as on Windows. So are many popular scripting languages such as PHP and even Microsoft's ASP, thanks to Sun ONE Active Server Pages technology (formerly Chili!Soft ASP).

Some would argue that Unix is more secure and reliable than Windows. This conclusion stems from the numerous, well-publicized security holes that have plagued Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), Windows' Web server. But Unix and Linux have their own vulnerabilities, which are increasingly being exploited by those who write viruses. Some hosts we tested charge higher prices for Windows-based hosting, partly because a Windows server license costs more than the free Linux license.

Yet part of what you're doing when you choose a Web host is placing your trust in its infrastructure and administrative expertise. So the host's operational practices are likely to be just as crucial as the OS the server runs.

If you intend to write scripts or tie your Web site to a specific database back end, you need to ensure that your host offers the appropriate software versions, plus any modules and libraries you'll use. You may also want to consider debugging tools and whether you can access a command line shell (using telnet or SSH in Unix) and directly view your server error logs.

If e-commerce is part of your plan, you should consider three things. The first is the software to build your storefront. Miva Merchant and Mercantec SoftCart are two of the most popular options. Second, if you intend to process payments online, you'll need a payment gateway (before choosing one, you should check the monthly and per-transaction charges). And finally, to handle secure transactions, you'll need an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate—either one that belongs to the host and is shared among multiple customers or a private one you acquire yourself.

Don't forget to evaluate a host's infrastructure and intangibles. Learn what you can about the host's data centers, Internet connections, support policies, and reputation. Scour online newsgroups and talk to peers in your business community to get recommendations.

Picking a Pricing Plan

Hosting companies often sell different plans with similar features but varying storage capacities, monthly data-transfer allocations, and number of e-mail boxes. You obviously don't want to pay for more than you need, but be careful not to underestimate; overages can be very expensive. (Web hosts demand predictability in usage so they can plan their infrastructure spending.)

Study pricing plans carefully. The price many vendors quote most prominently is based on a prepaid commitment of 12 months or longer, with month-to-month plans often 20 percent more expensive. To be on the safe side, we quote the month-to-month rate throughout this story. Many hosting companies charge a setup fee, so you'll spend more if you decide to switch soon after signing up. And depending on the provider, extra features you may need—a database, extra POP mailboxes, commerce capabilities—may increase the base price significantly.

Selecting a host requires plenty of research, but we've done a lot of the work for you. Read on to find out which of the hosts we evaluate is the best fit for your business.

Copyright ?? 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.