You've probably narrowed down to a few web hosting providers on your list after some research. Now, it's time to ask them questions that will help you make a sound decision on which web hosting company will provide the best shared hosting service for your small business.

In fact, asking questions before you purchase web hosting space from them is a good way to test their customer service. If they cannot answer your questions in presale, how can you expect them to serve you well after you buy their service? Agree?

Questions to Ask - about Server Uptime

It's crucial to ask them questions regarding uptime of their servers. That's because when the server (on which they host your website) crashes, your website will crash too.

1. What server uptime do you promise?

The higher the uptime they promise, the better it is. But if they promise you 100% uptime all the time, run.

It's possible to have 100% uptime through several months particularly for Linux servers. But it's never possible to have 100% uptime all the time because they may need to reboot a server upon occasional software/hardware updates or maintenance. Reboot incurs website downtime. Hence, 100% uptime all the time is a lie, whereas 99.9% (or below) is credible.

2. What do I get if you do not deliver the uptime you promise?

How will they make it up to you should you experience downtime on your websites? Don't choose a web hosting company that doesn't offer uptime guarantee. What you might get is just an apology and that's it.

3. How do you monitor your network and servers to prevent downtime?

A good hosting company should have a team dedicated to monitor their network and servers, and take care of your websites at all times. Not 9 to 5.

Question to Ask - about Web Page Speed

The faster your web page displays on your visitors' screens, the happier they are. And your Google search ranking may climb up because of that.

1. What is the network speed of your shared hosting server?

This is one of the most important questions to ask a hosting provider because network speed (aka connection speed, data transfer rate or network bandwidth) of a server can affect your web page loading time and overall website performance.

Let's say you offer a huge page on your site for your visitors to download. And there's a sudden increase of visitors downloading that web page off your site. If your hosting server's speed is 10 Mbps burstable to 100 Mbps, it will push its data transfer rate up to 100 Mbps to meet the download. However, this sudden burst of speed lasts for a few seconds only.

That means, your visitors will experience super fast downloading for the first few seconds and thereafter, the downloading will become slow for each visitor.

That's the major problem with burstable network speed. Its high-speed lasts for a few short seconds only.

But if you use a server running constantly at 100 Mbps, all your visitors will experience fast downloading time throughout, which in turn will improve their user experience.

Some argue that start-up websites with low traffic volume may not require a 100 Mbps-constant server, but you'll never know when your web page will be picked up by high-traffic websites and your traffic suddenly spikes up.

Hence, even if you're just getting started, I would suggest that you choose the web hosting company that provides you with server speed of 100 Mbps-constant, which means, the server will serve your pages constantly at 100 Mbps.

Besides asking questions about server uptime and web page loading speed, what other questions do you have in mind that can help you pick a good hosting provider for your small business?

Soon Chai invites you to find out more useful tips on how to pick a good web host so that you can quickly get a reliable hosting service, put up your website and start making money as soon as possible. You'll also learn about which of these types of web hosting services provides the best match for your current business needs when you visit WebSightSpy.com.