How How to choose the best e-commerce hosting?

1. Howtochoosethe beste-commerce hosting? • Choosingthebeste-commercehostingisnoteasy.Managingan e- commercesiteisadelicateactivitythatrequirestheutmostscrupleright fromthechoiceoftherighthostingservice.Ifwecanforgivea"normal" siteforsomeslowdowns,infact,thisisnotacceptablewithanonline shop.Thisisbecauseifthehostingdoesnotprovetobeuptopar,this couldleadtodropsinourturnoverwithseriousconsequencesforour business. • Choosinglow-costhostingforapersonalsitemaybeanacceptable choice,butfore-commerce,thepricefactorshouldnotbethemain discriminatingfactorintheselectionprocessastheinitialsavingscould soonprovetobeaweapontodoublecut. • WhatisE-Commercehosting? • AhostisanInternetserver,theactivityofwhichconsistsofhostingweb pages.E-Commercehostingis,therefore,aspecializedserviceprovider thatprovidesstoragespaceonaserverpermanentlyconnectedto the Internet. • HostingallowsyourdomainnametobeaccessibletoallInternetusers. It,therefore,hasanessentialandindispensableroleifyouwantto publishcontentonyoursiteandmakeitpublic.Thus,theroleofthe hostistostoreyourfilesonaconnectedservertomakethemvisibleon theInternetwhenthevisitorfindsyoursite. • ThemajorityofE-Commercehostingofferssolutions, including: • Adatabase; • Severalemailaccountsallowyoutoobtainagenericaddress. • FTP(FileTransferProtocol)accesstodirectlyaccessdirectories (productimages,forexample);

2. Statisticsofyourtraffic. • Choosinghostingforane-commercestore • Let'sbrieflysummarizethemainfeaturesthatmustnotbemissingina hostingplanintendedtohostanonlinestore: • Compatibility • Thehostingmustobviouslysupporttheserver-sidescriptinglanguage andtheDBMSnecessaryfortheapplicationthroughwhichwewill manageoure-commerce:it isimportanttomakesurethatthereisfull compatibilitybetweenthehostingandour software(ore-commerceCMSore-commerceplatform),sobeforebuyingthehostingitisgood tohavechosenthesoftwareortohaveveryclearthecharacteristicswith whichitwill bedeveloped. • Optimizationofresources • Compatibilityprovidesthatthesoftwareofouronlinestorerunswithout problems:choosingahostingoptimizedspecificallyforour softwarealsomeansmakingsurethattheprocessesarefastanddonotsuffer slowdowns,asthesystemhasbeensetuptocreatethebestpossible environmentin whichto runthespecificapplicationwehavedecidedto use. • Speed • Fasthostingiscrucialforeverytypeofsite(speed,amongotherthings, isarankingfactorforGoogleandthereforeaffectsindexing),but foran onlinestore,itisreallyanessentialfeature:aslowstoredisincentives userstopurchasebypushingthemtolookelsewhere. • Reliability • Thee-commercehostingmustguaranteeacontinuousservicewithout downtime:inthissense,itisadvisabletoverifythattheguaranteed

3. uptimelevelisnotlessthan99%,andthisisclearlyindicatedinthe ServiceLevelAgreement(SLA). Scalability Inane-commercestore,salesflowsmaynotbeconstantthroughoutthe year.Therefore,itisimportanttocountonahostingthatcanalsohandle anytrafficspikes-withoutsufferingblocksorslowdownsthatwould causeacollapsein salesin momentsofhigherdemand.Inthissense,the possibilityofupgradingtothehigherhostingplanincaseofneedshould beconsideredanaddedvalueor,betterstill,accessingadditional resourcesonlyforthetimenecessarytocopewiththeincreasedtraffic flow(inthiscasesenseacloudservicewouldseemthebestanswer). Security Ane-commercehostingmustbesecureasalotofcustomerinformation is managedinit(personaldata,purchasehistory,paymentdata,etc.). Thereforeyoucannotaffordtheluxuryofnotguaranteeinganadequate levelofsecurityandconfidentialityofarchiveddata.Inthissense,itis mandatorytocontactahostingproviderthatallowsyoutoinstallanSSL certificatewithinyourhostingplans.Ithasstrictsecuritypolicies, protectiontools(for example,firewallsconfiguredtocounteranyDDoS attacks),andbackupplansthatguaranteetheintegrityofcustomerand transactiondataevenintheeventofacomputerdisaster.