What has website design got to do with hosting? You're going to need a reliable hosting service for your website. We need to look at this as part of the design process. There are vast amounts of people and companies that will host your website for you, but be aware that you get what you pay for. There are plenty of cheap offers going for website hosting. What you really need to understand is the difference between these providers.

Your best option will be to talk to your website designer. They may have the ideal solution already available for you. There are a few things you should keep in mind when it comes to website hosting.

To illustrate how important it is to have a reliable host, you would not want to buy an apartment if you knew you would have to live next to bad neighbors. When it comes to hosting, you can end up with this situation. Hosting for large websites may require dedicated servers and this will mean that you will not have a neighbor problem at all.

Smaller websites that use shared hosting can experience neighbor problems.

Imagine an apartment block of say 20 apartments. With just one bad neighbor in the group, the whole block can get a reputation as being a problem apartment building. e.g. The Police are always turning up to the same apartments. People that live in the area look on this whole apartment block as a problem . Everyone else living in the apartment block may be good neighbors and get on well and the trouble is always caused by just one tenant.

We need to use the above illustration as a warning. To keep website hosting costs down, some web hosts offer shared website hosting services. This is not bad for your website but you must be aware that a bad neighbor may be detrimental in your efforts to secure top search engine results. If your neighbor is banned by search engines you will be affected by the ban as you are sharing the same IP address.

Again, at this point, we suggest you talk to your web designer. They have the experience and will be able to advise you and assist in the hosting process. If they don't provide hosting themselves, they will usually have someone they use and recommend.

If you choose to use shared hosting servers and want to avoid being affected by bad neighbors, it is a good idea to ask your host for a dedicated IP address. You won't have any neighbors to worry about then. So you can still use shared website hosting with your own IP address.

You have invested in building your website. Make sure you give your new website the best possible place to be hosted.

One last reason that you should have a dedicated IP address is that in some situations there can be a mismatch of domain names since you are sharing an IP address. What can happen is this...someone clicks to go to your website but instead of arriving at your website they end up arriving at a completely different site.

Not a good look at all. We hope this helps you in your efforts to get a great website up and running.

Looking for somewhere to host your website? Need a stable hosting Platform? We use and recommend: Host Gator.