For most people and businesses, their first web page is usually connected with their Internet Service Provider (ISP). This is mainly because the ISP may give you free web space with your internet dial-up account. Other places on the Internet offer you free or low cost web pages on their server's. These are starting points and great places to learn and practice web page design.

Unfortunately ISP's are not always good choices for serious web-site projects. Their main business is obtaining and maintaining dial-up accounts. Those sites that do offer free web pages are only interested in the advertising opportunities that your free site is going to generate for them. Usually the level of professionalism presented to your clients is quite low. More and more, servers are being set-up that do nothing except host web-sites. In many cases these domain hosting services are less expensive that ISP's and offer you many more features to improve your web-sites.

Issue # 1 - Pricing

Like any other product or service you would purchase, compare prices. How much space do you get? Do you get direct access (see below) to that space? Do you get at least one email account is specific to your new web-site? What is the main business of your potential host: dial-ups or web-site hosting? What hidden costs exist like surcharges for higher volume web-sites? Are long term contracts required?

Overall, don't purchase services and features that you don't need but make sure that as your web-site grows, additional resources can be added. Avoid signing any long term contracts until you can see how well the relationship is going to work out. There are many choices so make sure you don’t get locked into one.

Issue # 2 - Access

When you search for a place to host your web-site, shop and compare. In some cases, an ISP is so focused on the dial-up accounts that very few resources are spared for hosting web-pages. Many ISP's will host your pages but give you no direct access to their server. This means that you cannot easily update your own pages by yourself or you have to pay the ISP to do it for you.

In our opinion, avoid the servers that will not give you telnet or FTP access to your web space. Without that access, you must go through them each time you want your pages updated. They may charge you an hourly rate to do your updates for you.

Issue # 3 - CGI Access

If you plan to add interactive qualities to your web-site, the ability to run CGI scripts on the host's server is crucial. Some servers will give you no CGI access on their server. Others will give you limited access to their CGI-BIN directory. The best option is to be able to set-up and use your own CGI-BIN directory. Check with your potential host for their limitations and rules regarding CGI access and running CGI scripts.

Issue # 4 - Bandwidth

Bandwidth refers to the connection to the Internet that your host maintains. The larger the bandwidth the faster your web-pages are going to load when a client requests them. This is one of the problems with ISP's as web-site hosts. They may have good Internet connections, but much of their bandwidth is used up by their dial-up accounts. In general, a T3 connection is better than a T1 connection which better than an ISDN which is better than a dial-up modem connection. But remember, how a host uses their Internet connection is as important, if not more important, than the actual size of the connection.

Overall, shop around and compare. Ask for references and seek out feedback about potential hosts. Introduce yourself to your potential hosts and get a feel for how good the relationship will be. Are they knowledgeable and helpful? If and when problems happen, you want allies, not landlords.