After 17 years of web development, I have pretty much seen everything that can go wrong with website hosting. Here are the essential things your web hosting provider must have:
- cPanel -If your host does not use cPanel, you need to move. cPanel is the industry standard when it comes to administration of your virtual space on the web. It has everything your web developer (or you!) will need to manage your website, email, database (this is not optional – your website needs a database to run), security and a lot more.
- Daily backups that are kept for a minimum of 30 days, ideally a bit longer. Most cPanel hosts offer 1-click restore for these backups which you will be really happy to have if you get hacked.
- 24/7 support – If you have an international website this gets especially important, but I still only use hosts that provide 24/7 support even for websites mainly accessed in Australia.
If you are already using a web host – and you aren’t sure whether they are a cPanel host. Do ask them…and if the answer isn’t yes – Then you should make arrangements to bundle up your website if at all possible – and migrate to cPanel.