These days hosting plans on the web is very competitive and features of each plan are comparatively the same among web hosting providers. Whether beginner or expert, you can find some useful information in this article to learn about some of the considerations to look at when choosing a web hosting service.
In this article 
we will not talk about things like space, traffic and prices since there are plenty of related articles in the days rolling around on the net. Our goal will be to clarify some of the key features you need to look for when choosing your web hosting provider.
The following are 10 basic functions, which can be found in a Unix / Linux hosting plans that every serious provider should provide you.
Control Panel - This is where you manage your hosting account. In the context of web hosting is an online application that gives us a user to control many aspects of his web hosting account, including but not limited to: creating mailboxes, setup email forwarding, uploading and edit files, create sub-domains, park additional domains, automated installation of ready to use scripts and programs, managing databases, setup shopping carts. You need to check what exactly is included in a given control panel with web hosting company you have chosen to go with. Some hosts use a third party control panel like cPanel or Plesk. Others use an inhouse developed control panel. The moment you signup for a hosting package, you must be equipped with a CP to manage your webspace.
POP3 email accounts & aliases - yourname@yourdomain.com is an example POP3 email. POP3 is an electronic mail protocol used to retrieve messages stored on an Internet / intranet, e-mail server. When a customer wants to look for messages that connection to its Internet Service Provider's mail server and uses POP3 to login to his mailbox and retrieve its messages.
FTP Accounts & Virtual FTP - This is where you upload your files, delete them, update them. This time with CP. Make sure you have handful of FTP sub-accounts also to give your customers / users password protected directories. This is very useful, in which your customers / users can use FTP to upload / download files from particular password protected folder on your site.
Backup - Most of the hosts take automated backups. But users should not take much care on this while the choice of hosting plan. This function is as important as everyone else on this list.
Web Statistics - Analysis is of your website visitors plays an important role in the success of your website. Say, your website has been launched and you get 50 unique visitors, or more than 500 visitors a day. Anyway, you can view the report using the statistics program running on the server backend. A popular web statistic software is Webalizer.
PHP & MySQL - PHP is a scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP is mainly focused on server-side scripting, so you can do anything any other CGI program can do, such as collect form data, generate dynamic page content, or send and receive cookies. MySQL is a true multi-user, multi-threaded SQL database server. MySQL is a fast and flexible enough to allow you to store logs and pictures in it. Its main goals are speed, robustness and ease use.All Linux Plans support PHP and MySQL. Make sure you get it free when you buy the hosting plan. Get hosting providers offer good of MySQL Database Support & PhpMyAdmin.
Webmail & SMTP - A web-based e-mail program. Most web hosting companies do provide webmail access to their customers. Often comes with addressbook, rich text editor, spell checker, and all functions of all other e-mail program offers. Emails will be central in your life when you open the website. Check if the hosts provide the Webmail to check your mails through a web-based interface, such as SquirrelMail or Horde. Checking e-mail will be faster if you download the mails through email clients like Eudora or Outlook Express. Only if SMTP or IMAP support is enabled, you can use this option. All our recommended hosts has this feature.
SPAM Filter - No email user is free from a spam attack. This is the email equivalent of junk mail. It is one of the biggest problems in Internet today.Hence you have spam filters installed on the server where your website resides.
HTTPS (SSL) access to your hosting account. SSL is used for secure communication between the user's browser and the server. The information is encrypted and secure. SSL is normally used for e-commerce sites and sites that require submission of other sensible information like usernames and passwords. To have an SSL on your website that you can use the shared SSL certificate from your hosting company or you can buy an SSL certificate for your site and ask the landlord to install it.
Shell (telnet or SSH) access to your account. SSH is used to secure access to your account. SSH is usually offered on Unix hosting plans. You can zip, unzip files, change permissions on files, run certain programs on the server.
Sub-domains for creating sub-sections of your site without having to use directories in URLs
Cart - A shopping cart is a piece of software that acts as an online store's catalog and ordering process.
These are the most common features of a good web hosting plan. A reputable web hosting provider should offer you the least of these, in his hosting plans. There are some more additions you can get from a good supplier.
