boron
07-31-2007, 10:26 AM
When checking the home page of a hosting company, you can get info about features but not about real speed and reliability.
Testing a hosting for a speed:
Domain Name Server Timing (http://www.dnsstuff.com/) shows a speed of the hosting server (A is the best value, F the worst). Recheck few times, results may vary a lot (or not).
With Alertra.com you can check how fast a hosting server may be reached from different parts of the world (US, UK, Germany, China, Australia). Good values are about 1 second or below. If you expect most visitors from e.g. China, it is important that the test shows good access time for them.
You can contact hosting owner and request a testing file for download. This is important, if you intend to put a new content on your site often.
For reliability, you can ask some random technical questions via their support tickets and see how fast and how quality answer you'll get. You can type in search engine: "this and this hosting review" and read opinions from others. Be careful: many reviews are sponsored, mostly they are in the form of "top 10 hostings" or so. Check for particular hosting in webhostingtalk.com.
Testing a hosting for a speed:
Domain Name Server Timing (http://www.dnsstuff.com/) shows a speed of the hosting server (A is the best value, F the worst). Recheck few times, results may vary a lot (or not).
With Alertra.com you can check how fast a hosting server may be reached from different parts of the world (US, UK, Germany, China, Australia). Good values are about 1 second or below. If you expect most visitors from e.g. China, it is important that the test shows good access time for them.
You can contact hosting owner and request a testing file for download. This is important, if you intend to put a new content on your site often.
For reliability, you can ask some random technical questions via their support tickets and see how fast and how quality answer you'll get. You can type in search engine: "this and this hosting review" and read opinions from others. Be careful: many reviews are sponsored, mostly they are in the form of "top 10 hostings" or so. Check for particular hosting in webhostingtalk.com.