Finding the right web host for high traffic websites can be tricky. Obviously if you’re getting tens of thousands of hits per day, a dedicated server will be needed. However, if you’re a medium traffic web master, there are cheaper options available that will save you a ton of money in the long run, while still allowing large traffic spikes. Using a caching system is a great way to save CPU cycles, while still allowing heavy amounts of traffic on shared accounts as well as VPS users.
If you don’t need a lot of customization for your website and it doesn’t have an extraordinary amount of traffic, a shared host is probably for you. Many lesser known companies will make claims of unlimited disk space and bandwidth, but that sometimes comes at a cost. Be careful with such claims because the quality of service my lack compared to other more well known companies. I’ve been using HostGator for years and have had absolutely no problems with them. In fact, they’re one of the few that offer unlimited amenities, while still providing an excellent quality service. Hostgator-Coupons.us has quite a few coupons that will save you a lot of money on the initial sign up fees.
Another option for people who generally need more customization is a VPS. It gives many of the benefits of a dedicated server at an affordable price. You have root access to your server so you can change core Apache and PHP functions so you can tailer to your needs. Many advanced PHP scripts such as text based RPGs require customization of your PHP.ini file that could otherwise not be done on shared hosting. The only downside is you’re sharing resources with a few other people on the server, but for medium scale websites, this usually isn’t a problem. Click here to check out some of the latest deals on this popular type of hosting.
Many websites today use WordPress as their CMS. WordPress has a lot of great plugins to handle huge traffic spikes on shared hosts, and even dedicated servers. Wp-Cache is one of the best methods to handle those massive traffic spikes. This plugin renders your blog into a static HTML page so the server doesn’t need to query a MySql database each time the page is loaded. This can allow your server to handle 3-4x as much traffic before overloading as it would without such a plugin.
Whatever your choice is, make sure you review the company you pick carefully. Some will handle high loads better than others, and some are consistent and reliable and have genuine 99.9% uptime. Check out HostLibrary.com for honest opinions of the thousands of different companies out there that you can pick from.