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A business without an online presence seriously jeopardizes its reach and potential profits, because people automatically turn to the internet when searching for products or services. As a result, it's important that your company has an easy-to-navigate website with strong uptime. It doesn't need to be fancy; even a simple webpage listing your business hours and contact information gives your venture the air of legitimacy it needs in a cyber-connected world. To do this, you need web hosting to serve as the foundation for your website.
Regardless of the site you wish to build, the services listed here have the power and flexibility to handle today's internet. Bluehost, for example, is a PCMag Business Choice winner and a reader-recommended option. That said, the other services highlighted below are worth your time, too.

HostGator is a fantastic web hosting service with a varied selection, including feature-rich WordPress, VPS, dedicated, and cloud server packages. It also includes useful tools, such as the terrific Web.com website builder. In a nice touch, HostGator lets you select a Windows-based server, something not offered by every web hosting service.
HostGator is best for small and midsize businesses that want to quickly build a Linux- or Windows-based website, and have room to grow. Its shared hosting packages have unlimited disk space, monthly data transfers, databases, and email addresses across the board.
Bluehost strikes a balance between pricing and features, offering services that appeal to hobbyists and business professionals. Great uptime, WordPress-enhancing tools, e-commerce add-ons, and overall flexibility make Bluehost a web host you can count on for a rock-solid website. Its website builder delivers drag-and-drop simplicity as well, making it all the more appealing.
A massive portion of the internet is powered by WordPress (more than 40 percent!), so there's a good chance that you may go that route, too. Fortunately, Bluehost excels at WordPress hosting, offering plans that let you build nearly any website you wish. Plus, Bluehost has custom tools that make building a WordPress site an even easier affair.
InMotion is a top-tier web hosting provider that delivers reasonably priced shared, dedicated, VPS, and cloud hosting plans. Whether you need WordPress-specific plans or reselling options, InMotion has a well-rounded feature set that appeals to nearly every web hosting need.
This is the web host that you should check out when comparing features, as the company casts a wide hosting net. The big exception here is Windows servers, as InMotion uses Linux-based servers to host websites. InMotion also offers an excellent, 90-day money-back guarantee for shared hosting plans, which gives you plenty of time to kick the tires.
When it comes to delivering dependable, Linux-powered servers, DreamHost ranks as one of the best services that we've tested. The company offers valuable website-building tools, as well as excellently priced hosting plans for all of your needs, including shared, VPS, and WordPress-specific servers. DreamHost's cloud-based servers are also extremely affordable and flexible, earning the host an Editors' Choice nod for the subcategory.
With its easy-to-use tools, DreamHost is a great host if you're new to building websites. It also has fantastic cloud-based hosting with highly competitive rates, and a feature-packed toolset that includes site-building software and unlimited data transfers across the board.
When shopping for web hosting, a strong foundation makes a good first impression. A2 Hosting offers just that with robust hosting packages, excellent uptime, and superb WordPress plans (for which it is a PCMag co-Editors' Choice winner). In addition, the company has an incredibly helpful customer service team that quickly addresses your problems or questions.
If you have WordPress in mind, and don’t mind utilizing Linux-based servers, A2 is a host you should scope out first. Its plans include highly optimized environments specifically designed for WordPress, plus managed options that deliver 24-hour support and supervision.
Fantastic web hosting plans and helpful customer service aptly describe AccuWeb's services. However, the company's excellent dedicated hosting plans make it stand out in a crowded field. In fact, its dedicated packages are so robust that they earned our Editors' Choice award. What’s more, AccuWeb has Windows Server options alongside the common Linux OS, so you have an another potential foundation for your website.
Companies seeking high-powered dedicated hosting. Dedicated plans costs more money than shared, VPS, WordPress, or cloud options, but the steeper price tag comes with storage and data transfer privileges that are second to none. If you're on the prowl for enterprise-level business hosting, AccuWeb will serve your company well.
There's serious muscle behind LiquidWeb's wide range of cloud, dedicated, VPS, WordPress, and reseller server packages. It lacks a low-cost, shared hosting tier, making this web host more appealing to larger businesses rather than smaller ones. Despite that limitation, you can expect white-glove treatment with LiquidWeb's packages, so your web hosting needs will be handled with exceptional care and attention.
LiquidWeb offers premium hosting, at a premium price point. The host provides excellent, managed, enterprise-class service, with the muscle to power the website of your dreams. If you want powerful hosting options and impeccable, around-the-clock support, LiquidWeb is a good place to start.
Shared hosting is a great starting point, but as your traffic and demands grow, so will your hosting needs. VPS is the next step up, and Hostwinds handles VPS hosting extremely well. The versatile web host also has strong reseller hosting plans for people who want to open their own hosting businesses.
Hostwinds is an appealing hosting choice for a wide range of clients, from mom-and-pop shops to big business, as its services are attractively priced and fairly robust. Give Hostwinds a try if you want to migrate your website to a beefier VPS server, or wish to sell hosting of your own.
Many web hosting services offer unique packages to compliment the highly popular CMS, and WP Engine is no different. It delivers valuable and powerful WordPress hosting options, alongside other great plans, cloud-based platform flexibility, and reliable service. For managed WordPress hosting, WP Engine is a strong contender that offers plenty of power.
If you're thinking of building a WordPress-powered site, keep WP Engine on your radar. The web host covers most of your WordPress-related bases, provided you don’t mind turning to third-parties for domain registration and emails.
Hostinger is a versatile web host that combines excellent uptime, great customer service, and a mix of traditional and cloud-based hosting. The company’s services are fairly customizable, too, letting you create private video game servers for CS: GO or Minecraft.
Gamers who want to create their own private servers. Of course, Hostinger serves non-gamers, too. The web host constantly adds features to its excellent hosting options, or improves accessibility to make those options easier to use. Check out Hostinger's customizable packages if you need a web server that requires a specific build.
When it comes to scale, Ionos by 1&1 is a powerhouse. The web host has many well-rounded packages, including shared, VPS, WordPress, and dedicated servers. However, its cloud hosting plans are particularly feature-rich offerings, making Ionos an Editors’ Choice pick for the subcategory.  
Enterprises looking to open up shop online. Ionos’ cloud-based services are reliable and powerful, and let you easily scale server specs as your company grows.
Web hosting services offer varying amounts of monthly data transfers, storage, email, and other features. Even how you pay (month-to-month payments vs. annual payments) can be radically different, too, so taking the time to plot exactly what your company needs for online success is essential. Many of these companies also offer reseller hosting services, which let you go into business for yourself, offering hosting to your own customers without requiring you to spin up your own servers.
You should also familiarize yourself with the many web hosting tiers that are available. In your research, you'll find shared, virtual private server (VPS), dedicated hosting, and WordPress hosting plans. Each tier offers different specs and features that you should take the time to analyze. We'll break them down below.
Shared hosting is web hosting in which the provider houses multiple sites on a single server. For example, Site A shares the same server with Site B, Site C, Site D, and Site E. The upside is that the multiple sites share the server cost, so shared web hosting is generally very inexpensive. It's cheap web hosting. In fact, you can find an option for less than $10 per month.
You could think of the sites that share your server as your roommates; there's really not that much separating you from them. Sure, you can close the bedroom door, but they can still cause nightmares for you in the kitchen and the bathroom. In web hosting terms, all the sites share a single server's resources, so huge traffic spikes on Site A may impact the neighboring sites' performances. It's even possible that another site could take down the shared server altogether if it crashed hard enough.
VPS hosting is similar to shared hosting in that multiple sites share the same server, but the similarities end there. In housing terms, VPS hosting is like renting your own apartment in a larger building. You're much more isolated than in the roommate situation mentioned above; it's still possible that a neighboring apartment could cause annoyance for you, but far less likely. In web hosting terms, Site A's traffic surge won't have nearly as much impact on Site B or Site C. As you'd expect, VPS hosting costs more than shared hosting. Expect to pay roughly $20 to $60 per month, depending on the service.
Dedicated hosting, on the other hand, is both powerful and pricey. It's reserved for sites that require an incredible amount of server resources.
Unlike shared or VPS hosting, dedicated hosting makes your website the lone tenant on a server. To extend the housing metaphor, having a dedicated server is like owning your own home. This means that your website taps the server's full power, and pays for the privilege. If you're looking for a high-powered site—an online mansion for your business—dedicated hosting is the way to go. That said, many dedicated web hosting services task you with handling backend, technical issues, much as homeowners have to manage maintenance that renters generally leave to their landlords.
On the topic of dedicated hosting, many web hosting services also offer managed hosting. This type of hosting sees the web host act as your IT department, handling a server's maintenance and upkeep. This hosting option is something that you'd typically find with dedicated servers, so it's a business-centric addition. Naturally, it adds a few bucks to the hosting cost, but nothing that should break the bank if you have the resources for a dedicated server.
WordPress hosting is for people who want to build their sites on the back of the popular WordPress content management system (CMS) from WordPress.org. There are multiple ways to set up shop using this free, open-source blogging and site-building platform.
You gain the most web-building functionality if you create a self-hosted site. This typically involves transferring the free WordPress CMS to the server or signing up for a web host's optimized WordPress plan. With an optimized plan, the host automatically handles backend stuff, so you don't have to worry about updating the plug-ins and CMS, and enabling automatic backups. In these instances, the WordPress environment typically comes pre-installed on the server.
You can also host your website on WordPress.com, but that's different from the kind of hosting mentioned above. WordPress.com uses the same code from WordPress.org, but it hides the server code and handles the hosting for you. In that sense, it resembles entries in our online site builder roundup. It's a simpler but less flexible and customizable way to approach WordPress hosting. It's definitely easier, but if you want to tinker and adjust and optimize every aspect of your site, it might not be for you.
When it's time to set up shop, look for a web host that offers the aforementioned dedicated servers, as well as advanced cloud server platforms (such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud), custom server builds should you need them, and 24/7 customer support. Depending on your focus, you may need a web host that can handle pageviews or visitors that rank in the high thousands or millions. Many busy hosting plans offer an onboarding specialist who can help you get started, too.
If you're planning on selling a product, look for a web host that offers a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, because it encrypts the data between the customer's browser and web host to safeguard purchasing information. You're probably familiar with SSL; it's the green padlock that appears in your web browser's address bar as you visit an online financial institution or retail outlet. A few companies toss in an SSL certificate free of charge; others may charge you roughly $100 per year for that extra security layer.
If you're not sure of the type of hosting your business needs, you might want to start small, with shared web hosting. You can always graduate to a more robust, feature-rich package of, say, VPS hosting or even dedicated hosting in the future. Unfortunately, some hosts don't offer all hosting types. Consider how much you expect to grow your website, and how soon, before you commit to anything longer than a one-year plan. It's worth spending the time upfront to make sure that the host you select is able to provide the growth you envision for your site, as switching web hosting providers midstream is not a trivial undertaking.
Once you decide your price range, you need to consider how long you'll need web hosting. If it's a short-term project—say, less than a month or two—you can typically receive a refund should you cancel your hosting within 60 days. Some companies offer 30-day money-back guarantees, others offer 90-day money-back guarantees. Once again, it's beneficial to do your homework.
Many web hosts offer limited features in their starter packages and then expand the offerings (sometimes tremendously) for higher-tier plans. Read the small print to make sure the plan you are selecting offers what you need. If you need a site builder application to design your website, make sure that the low-cost web host you are picking actually comes with a site builder. Many of them require you to pay for the builder as a separate add-on. Website builders usually don't cost a lot of money, but if you can find a web host that includes one for free, that's money in your pocket. And, if it's integrated with your hosting service, you're more likely to have a smooth, supported experience.
You also want a web host with 24/7 customer support—if not by phone, then at least by chat. Forums, knowledge bases, and help tickets are all well and good, but sometimes you just need to communicate with another human to get things ironed out as quickly as possible. That said, not all 24/7 customer support teams are equal. Companies like GoDaddy and Liquid Web boast incredibly knowledgeable and helpful customer support squads—a fact that we confirmed in our in-depth reviews of those web hosting services.
When it comes to server operating systems, Linux is typically the default option. Still, some services offer a choice of Linux or Windows Server hosting. If you have specific server-side applications that require Windows, such as SQL Server or a custom application written in .NET, then you need to make sure your web host has Windows hosting. But don't let the idea of a Linux host intimidate you. Nowadays, most web hosts offer a graphical interface or a control panel to simplify server administration and website management. Instead of typing at the command line, you'll click easily identifiable icons.
Windows hosting is often more expensive than Linux hosting, especially in the dedicated server area. That's not always the case, but it's something you should be aware of as you shop around.
If you aim to have a web presence, you must have email. It's a convenient way for potential customers and clients to send you a message, Word document, or other files. Thankfully, most web hosts include email in their hosting plans. Some web hosts offer unlimited email account creation (which is great for future growth), while others offer a finite amount. You, naturally, should want unlimited email.
That said, not all web hosts offer email. WP Engine, for example, does not. In such instances, you must sign up for email accounts from a company other than your web host. GoDaddy, for instance, sells email packages starting at $5.99 per user, per month. That might sound like a hassle, and just one more thing to keep track of, but there are actually some webmasters who feel that separating your email hosting and web hosting services is smart. That way, one provider going offline won't completely bork your business.
The aforementioned features are valuable to the web hosting experience, but none match the importance of site uptime. If your site is down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your products or services.
We've added uptime monitoring to our review process, and the results show that most web hosts do an excellent job of keeping sites up and running. Web hosts with uptime issues are heavily penalized during the review process and are unable to qualify for top ratings.
One thing we learned in reviewing the services listed here (and many more) is that even though the packages are similar, they are not identical. Some are more security-focused than others, offering anti-spam and anti-malware tools at every price tier. Others offer a variety of email marketing tools. While most of the hosts we've reviewed have built-in e-commerce, you may want to consider using a more robust, third-party e-commerce platform, such as our Editors' Choice winners Shopify and Wix Stores.
Finally, if you're just getting started in the web hosting game, make sure to check out our primers, how to build a website, how to register a domain name, how to get a free domain name, and the best courses for learning how to build a website.
Since 2004, I've penned gadget- and video game-related nerd-copy for a variety of publications, including the late, great 1UP; Laptop; Parenting; Sync; Wise Bread; and WWE. I now apply that knowledge and skillset as the Managing Editor of PCMag's Apps & Gaming team.
PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering lab-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
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