Questions to ask when looking for a website hosting provider

1. What server reliability can the company provide?

You want your website to be live and fully functional all the time because any downtime will mean damage to your online visibility, resulting in fewer leads and fewer sales. Search engines are not fond of weak servers, meaning that your search ranking may be affected as well.

At Domains.co.za we sign a 99.9% Uptime Guarantee SLA with our customers. All our servers are hosted in a highly secure, N+1 Redundant Data Centre in Johannesburg boasting carrier-grade network infrastructure. We are also one of the only geo-redundant domain name server (DNS) providers in the country, which means downtime due to power outages, or issues affecting a specific city or country, will never affect us.

2. How fast will my website load?

Google’s algorithms have been programmed to online users’ likes and dislikes, if any site takes too long to load, the algorithms will earmark it. Note, should a site take longer than two seconds to load, bounce rates go up by 103%.

At Domains.co.za we make use of LiteSpeed on our latest web servers, SuperFast Enterprise SSD drives and all our servers are IPv6 ready, thus ensuring that our customers experience the fastest loading speeds possible.

We are based in South Africa and our servers are located in Teraco, Johannesburg.

3. What features are included?

While free features may be alluring, first focus on important features that matter the most; security, storage, traffic, backups, monitoring, support, etc.

Domains.co.za’s web hosting packages offer 1-Click Easy Installs, scalable storage, email addresses and unlimited traffic.

Added to this, we include a free domain name, free SSL certificate, free daily backups, 24/7 monitoring, malware scanning, SPAM and virus protection.

4. What scalability is provided?

You’ve got big plans for your business, so ensure you are hosting with a company that can accommodate your growth easily and efficiently.

At Domains.co.za, each of our five different types of hosting offer at least four different packages to allow for the streamlined growth of your business’ hosting. We also don’t believe in unreasonable price jumps between packages.

5. What security features do they offer?

Cybercrime is a worldwide problem, and in South Africa it is estimated that we have the third highest number of attacks globally, resulting in a R2.2-billion loss per year. As the foundation of your website, your hosting should help to protect your website and data from vulnerabilities.

Domains.co.za ensures that your website’s data is encrypted, by providing a free SSL certificate. In addition, we run daily backups, malware scanning, and offer our customers SPAM and virus protection.

6. How do they compare when it comes to customer service and support?

Website hosting isn’t a once-off purchase, it is ongoing and therefore superior customer service and support is crucial.

Service and support at Domains.co.za go far beyond the initial sale. We have a dedicated team and make use of a ticketing system to ensure all queries are dealt with in a timely fashion.

7. Which user interface is used?

The user interface used by your hosting company is incredibly important when managing your hosting. It should allow you to make edits, add and delete email accounts, hosting and the website.

Domains.co.za offers our shared web hosting customers a choice between DirectAdmin and cPanel web control panels. Both these control panels are industry-leading, easy to use and incredibly stable, providing customers with a series of advanced features including AI software installation, usage statistics, etc.

Learn more about our hosting packages here.