How to look for a Host for your new Joomla or Mambo site.

If you've heard about Joomla or Mambo Content management Systems and are thinking about or want to get started building a site based on Joomla or Mambo there are a few things I would strongly suggest to help make your first time go smoother.

First of all you need to find a host if you don't have one yet. Here are some points to think about when looking for your new host or hosting company.

1. Your new host for your Mambo or Joomla site must have a Unix/Linux operating system on the server along with PHP and MYSQL installed or your database driven Mambo or Joomla site won't work.
   
   
2. Look for a hosting company that has good knowledge of Joomla/Mambo and PHP/MYSQL in general. If you're new to content management systems like Joomla and Mambo it really helps to have a host that has some knowledge..believe me it may make the difference of having your site up or down. There are many web site hosts out there and I know some of them add that extra value by offering some support for your Joomla and mambo install. It may not always be free support but knowledge is valuable.
   
   
3. Automatic daily backups and either multiple servers to insure your site doesn't go down or some type of redundancy system are important.  These are very valuable because once your site is up and running, it can have a negative impact if it goes down and that can happen when your host runs everything off a single server and has no backup plan in place....it has happened to me in the past with a few of my sites. Most hosting companies will not guarantee 100% uptime for legal reasons but anywhere in the upper 90's is standard. Look for (low server loads)  in other words some Hosting companies will jam the hard drives full to get more sites on thier servers to make more money but the ideal situation is to have a host running at hard drive at 30 to 60% capacity so the hard drive remains at optimum speed. Fast servers are important, look for dual processors or name brand servers like the ones DELL sells that are made for the web as apposed to a home built pentium web server. Sometimes they will advertise the details of thier server including speeds...it is a good sign when they are willing to display thier specs.
   
   
4. Try to avoid affiliate sites that display and offer hosting for other companies because it is best to deal with the system administrator if possible. Look for the "about us" and "contact us" buttons to find out more about the company, if there is no information or just an email form, it's probably best to look further. Find a host that makes it easy to ask for support if you need it. Some hosting companies actually have location addresses published and 24/7 email support.
   
   
5. There are many hosts and hosting companies that will provide you with a Control panel like "CPanel" or "Plesk" for your site or (domain). A control panel allows you to easily add and manage email addresses, get statistics for your site so you can track your site traffic, do your own full site backups with a very simple process along with many other features. Many of them make it very simple to install a new Joomla or Mambo system into your site with one button. This is very important if you are a newby unless you want to try a manual install.
   Cpanel as an example has a Feature called Fantastico that makes it very simple to install Joomla, Mambo, Drupal, PHPNuke, and many other scripts depending on the configuration.
   
   
6. Look for extras, Hosting is a very competitive business and you may find some great extras that you can use for your site like extra stats programs or even valuable Joomla/Mambo components built into the hosting and available for your site for free like Emir Sakics "SEF Advanced" which makes your site very search engines friendly and is available for hosts to provide to thier Joomla and Mambo clients.
   
   
7. I like to check the "Hosting Forums" to see what other people have to say about their experiences. You can find those through Google or most search engines. The hosting forums are also a great place to shop for deals on hosting and ask questions to help you learn more or decide on a host.  I usually try to avoid the huge companies like GoDaddy and look for someone with more personal service if possible.
   
   
8. Generally if an error occurs in a content management system it may be much harder to hide from the public than it would be on an html site. In other words if a component install goes wrong for some reason you will have visible errors and probably error codes showing to your users. If you start experimenting with the configuration files and add something that doesn't belong, your site will probably not show up and just display errors. Before I was familiar with PHP/MYSQL and Joomla/Mambo I was incredibly lucky to find a host that saved me a few times and really helped me.
   
   
9. OK with all that in your pocket...it is important to add up everything you would like and then check your budget. Remember you get what you pay for and it is worth a little more to insure your site has close to 100% uptime, is fast for visitors and the host may be able to help you if you get stuck.