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Looking for New Hosting in 2021? Five Criteria to Evaluate Hosting Companies By

A new year means new possibilities. If you’ve been with your current web hosting company for a while, you might be wondering what else is out there. And you should be. There are so many hosting companies in the marketplace now, that no one should ever feel like they’re stuck with their current host.

When you’re thinking about the level of service you expect, here are five parameters to help you evaluate your web host:

1. Average uptime

The most basic parameter and the easiest one to fulfill. At this point in time, your host should have uptime that’s basically 100%. Anything under 99.9% (a couple of minutes of downtime a day) is probably not worth your time, as there are too many great hosting options out there.

2. Website speed

This is a tough parameter to judge before you’re actually being serviced by a host, but you should know by now that your website’s speed is one of the biggest factors in whether visitors choose to stick around or not. Things to look for in your host are a robust network, up-to-date technology, as well as integration with reputable CDN

At CanSpace, we have over 10 Tbps of network capacity available in our data center to support our customers. We have multiple backbone bandwidth carriers, redundant storage, and our entire infrastructure is fully redundant at multiple levels.

3. Security

Hackers are getting more sophisticated all the time, and the more valuable your site, the higher the likelihood that you will be targeted. While the security of your site is your responsibility, many hosting companies provide a baseline level of security that eliminates basic threats before they ever become an issue. 

All CanSpace hosting services include protection against all types of DDoS attacks. A 160 Gbps anti-DDoS infrastructure has been set up in our data center to mitigate up to 480 Gbps of traffic, 24/7.

4. Customer service

Sooner or later, something on your site will break and you will have a question for your hosting provider. While there are many hosts that now provide affordable rates, one big question you should be asking yourself is whether that comes at the expense of customer service. 

At CanSpace we pride ourselves on our superior customer support. We aim to answer all inquiries within 20 minutes, although most are answered in less than 5. Our support staff are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

5. Technology platform

A website host’s job, aside from simply storing your site on its servers, is to provide you with the proper technology to make your life easier. Whether it’s one-click WordPress installs, up-to-date adoption of new releases (WordPress, PHP), or other features designed to make your life easier, look for a host whose service plan is rich in these types of tools.

At CanSpace, our automatic script-installation software makes installing scripts like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, osCommerce, and many many others, as simple as clicking a few buttons. Our free site builder, included with all web hosting plans, lets you get your site up and running with no previous design experience.

And remember, if you are coming to CanSpace from another web hosting provider, our experts will migrate your existing site over free of charge, and with no downtime! Reach out to us to find out more!

CanSpace Team

CanSpace Solutions is Canada's leading domain name registrar and web hosting provider. Keep an eye on our blog for expert information on domain names, websites, and running a business online.