Web hosts are companies that maintain stacks and stacks of servers — computers that "serve" files to the Internet. No hosting, no website. You must have a Web hosting account with one of these companies either directly or through whoever handles your site.

Many Web developers charge modest fees to create your site, and then charge continuing fees to host it and maintain it. Since they control the hosting, they have complete control of your site. Most are very honest, and the model works fine. At Dreamhand, our policy is different. We charge more up front, then arrange hosting we think our clients can learn to manage themselves. Power to the people, kind of thing.

You own the hosting, you own the site. At a full service host, a client can add mailboxes (all you want) and stack up domain names (usually $10/year per) that might come in handy. You control the domain name. Of course, we're willing to manage it if you prefer.

Dreamhand.net is hosted at Bluehost, and we encourage our clients to let us set them up there. It is our preferred host, in other words. In several years, we have not been disappointed. You may want to choose your own host, though, so here's the process we used to decide on Bluehost. There are number of honest and competent hosts, and many are quite good. Be a good shopper, and you'll find a host you can trust and who won't leave you hanging.

• Use Google to search out rankings of Web hosts — try search parameters such as "10 Best Web Hosts". Because some of these lists may be "pay to play" (hosts paying to be listed high), cross-reference a good number of them to get an honest reading.

• Click through their site, pretending to buy hosting to get a feel for their site. Does it feel like you're being hustled? Well, you probably are. If they're trying to charge you a little, then sell you all kind of other stuff, leave.
• Look at the features. These days the best hosts offer:
  • Unlimited hosting storage — the number of files you may have on the server.
  • Unlimited file transfer — the amount of traffic on your site.
  • No limit on the number of domains you can host — you want a second site? Use the same account.
  • Huge numbers of mailboxes allowed (thousands) — a mailbox for everyone in the company.
  • Registration of domain names (this used to be a totally separate business); it's handy to have it all in one box.
    
  • One free domain name — the name is maintained on the hosting: smart and simple.
  • Lots of scripts — this one is for your hard working Web developer.
  If you have features like this, it is unlikely you will ever need to upgrade your service unless you become a pretty big company.
• Check out the expense per year. Expect it to be around $60-85 per year and to pay one, two or three years in advance. Hosts we don't like charge small yearly fees, but limit mailboxes, storage and traffic — then when you upgrade, it's more expensive than the best hosts for the goods. Trust us: don't go cheap!
• If you can, have a look at the interface you would use to operate your hosting account. The worst one are poorly designed and hard to understand. The best ones look simple, clean and well organized. We love hosts who run using the "C-Panel" user interface.
• Check out the customer service. Call their number and see how long it takes you to get a real human being ready to answer your technical questions. This is important.
• Do they give a figure for downtime? All hosts in this category experience an occasional glitch or denial of service hack-attack. Still, this should be rare.
  

Stick to this guide, and you won't go too far wrong.