Whether you operate a site for personal or commercial purposes, a reliable web hosting service is an absolute must. With so many different options available, however, it can be difficult to find a web hosting service that meets your needs.

Fortunately, this article offers a variety of tips and advice that can help to demystify web hosting.

Make sure you, and not your web host, controls your domain name. If you let your host control your domain name, you may be stuck with that host if you don’t want to change domains. Some unscrupulous hosts won’t release the domain info if you leave on bad terms. If you control the domain, you can point it at another host’s nameservers and start fresh.

After you have your site up and going, it is important that you gather statistics about your site. These statistics tell you many things including how many customers …