Once you have your domain name, next decide on a few things for your web and email.

For Web Hosting

1. How much space is needed? There are web hosting companies advertising gigabytes or even tens or hundreds of gigabytes. From experience, a typical web site uses less than 1 Mb!!!! So they are massively overselling. One danger of it is, it takes someone to use his or her allocation to make the server you are in extremely unstable. Do not be greedy, get what you need. When a host quote gigabytes, just do a simple calculation, how many web sites can he hosted inside? Overselling hosts seldom last and seldom are stable. If a host sells unlimited web space, just ask him for the shop in Sim Lim where he gets his hard disk with “unlimited space”. They don’t exist.

2. Do you know how to design or program? If not, look for a web designer, there’s a lot in the market, but be careful, the cheapest may not be the best, what you get is normally what you pay for. I have seen web designers disappear. Web Designers not knowing how to design. Web Designers asking us how to design. Web Programmers telling us “Look at that web site”, can you create another web site that does the same thing? And we are a hosting company. Their excuse is, they do not know how to program and will keep bothering us and waste our time, why not program for them and save time for both sides? Given the horror stories, do pick a web designer or programmer that knows their stuff. Alternatively, you can ask us for recommendations.

3. Do you need programming, ASP, PHP, PERL, ASPX, JSP?

For Email Hosting.

1. Again there is no unlimited hard disk, so no unlimited email space.

2. Make a point to retrieve your emails into your computer and backup your computer. Do not assume that the emails in the email server is safe. They took up the space and a crash can wipe out all emails. Servers do not last forever.

It takes a lot of money to maintain a good server and lots more for a good datacentre and bandwidth. Such costs are ultimately reflected in the prices charged. If they are not, you should be suspicious. A typical 1 Mbps bandwidth about 320GB/mth traffic in Singapore costs S$350/mth. A basic calculation will gives you the facts on who is overselling and who is not.

Electrical prices had also been increasing exponentially, coupled with these, the prices I had seen offered by some web hosting companies are really mission impossible.

One last and most important thing, when something sounds too good to be true, it isn’t. This saying is perfectly valid in the real world, it is also perfectly valid in the Internet virtual world.