The list below defines some simple standards when a site is looking for a company to host its Web site. The host company should provide standards on its own Web site for making comparisons.

Requirements:

1. Capacity: server space and total bandwidth. The server space accommodates all files for the site including articles, graphics and photos. The total bandwidth is the amount of data transfers each month that take place from site visitors downloading articles, graphics and photos.

2. Customer service: 24×7 live support from on-duty (not on-call) staff; immediate response to emergencies. An online system that allows you to submit a ticket for routine support and track the progress on that ticket is convenient and a simple standard of good service.

3. Reliability: Guaranteed 99.9% uptime, redundancy/data backups, site snapshots. Even if the host has properly functioning servers, a programming error by the site’s staff can crash the site or damage key files. Data backups and site snapshots can restore files or an entire site.

4. Security: shared SSL certificates and encryption, password protection, domain locking. Critical for protection from hackers.

5. Content management system support: Zope, Drupal, Joomla, etc. Newspaper sites that buy a CMS or use a free, open-source one like Drupal will find the implementation and maintenance much easier with a host that has experience in such a system. Some hosts can even install them automatically.

6. Scripting functionality: PHP, Perl, ColdFusion, Python, etc. Sites often require scripts for additional capabilities. Check to see if the host in question provides the capacity for the type of scripting that best matches the skills of the newspaper site staff.

7. Database support: SQL, MySQL, etc. Databases are crucial for providing classifieds, directories, calendars and other services.

8. Application support: blogs, ecommerce, message boards.

9. Reporting: audience, bandwidth, etc. This is a critical service for reporting results to management and advertisers. Sophisticated sites buy audience reporting tools from outside vendors.

10. Hardware: replacement guarantee on turnaround time. Although rare, the host’s hardware can fail unexpectedly on a server that hosts your site. That said, a good host will have a backup plan to keep your site running well.

11. Other services: FTP accounts, mailboxes, subdomains. These services are useful for basic business needs.