Home Articles Web security & compliance Why good web hosting matters
You should carefully consider where to host your website or software application. After investing in a system, you want to make sure it is well supported and secure. Like all services it’s about finding the best web hosting option that suits you – do you want to manage your own hosting or a managed web hosting package? Shared or cloud hosting? Our guide to web hosting can help you find the right option for your website.
But how important is it that you find the right hosting package? Why exactly is good web hosting important?
Importance of a well-maintained server
You naturally want your websites and software to be kept up and running as much as possible. This means you need a reliable server. Websites are likely to be your primary web-presence and software is often business-critical. Therefore, any downtime can be detrimental to your business. A reliable hosting company keep servers well-monitored, maintained and up to date. Constant monitoring ensures any issues are identified early and can be solved quickly and prevented from re-occurring.
Servers can:
- detect intrusion
- identify malicious files
- check email blacklists
- highlight site issues and much more.
Cheaper alternative hosting providers cannot guarantee all the safe practice that might be available elsewhere.
Website backups & recovery
When things go wrong, data stored on servers can be lost. It may be malicious or accidental, but lost files can be irritating and cause expensive problems to resolve. For peace of mind, find a hosting provider that provide regular backups to your website and check how long they keep them for. You want your system backed up as much as possible – particularly if it is large, regularly updated and handles a lot of data.
Although this may have added cost, it will ensure in the long-term, your website will be safe as it can be restored to its correct state.
Server security
SSL certificates are now common practice on the web, ensuring websites stay secure. They also help with your Google search ranking. They are not offered as standard by all hosting companies and are often found as an add on. If they are standard in packages, this is usually a good indicator of a company wanting the best for your website.
There are many other ways hosting servers can improve on security. It depends how much money, time and effort the hosting provider put into making them secure. But do ask questions, if they don’t give specifications in their sales and marketing literature.
How does web hosting benefit your SEO?
The server your website is hosted on affects your SEO. Search engines will rank websites poorly if they are slow to load or are hosted on servers that have been blacklisted. Often this is because dated, spam-like and budget websites are also hosted on these servers.
The loading speed of your software or web application can be affected by a server’s performance too. Slow response times can also be frustrating for users.
GDPR compliance
As a British-based company, it is important to keep your server within the EU. With GDPR in place, it is more important than ever to make sure data is handled and stored correctly. Overseas-based servers cannot guarantee to comply with laws that aim to keep data safe in the UK.
Closely managed
Some hosting providers provide quantity over quality. It may be appealing because it is cheap, so they have lots of small sites on their servers. You can’t control what others are doing which may affect the reputation of the server. These websites and software applications won’t be looked after as they should be either.
You want your website to be closely monitored and protected by a dedicated team. For peace of mind, you want your website managed by people who you know are only a phone call away. If the company who built your application also have hosting servers, you will likely have an established relationship with them, and they will know it well.
You want a communication process in place which informs you about scheduled maintenance and troubleshooting. Most of all you want to be kept in the loop by down-to-earth support staff who will look after one of your most important sales and marketing tools.
