The Importance of Having Secure Web Hosting

If you were ever looking for a good example of a case for needing secure web hosting then you need look no further than the recent GoDaddy.com outage which took thousands of websites offline for several hours. The case is still shrouded in controversy and as the hoary finger of blame is pointed in one direction, and then the other, there is still no clear picture about exactly what happened. This uncertainty can only make GoDaddy.com customers even more nervous about the security of their sites in the future.

Following the debacle the company released a carefully worded statement blaming internal systems and refuting allegations of ‘external influences’. At the same time an apparent representative of the internet insurgents; ‘Anonymous’, tweeted claims of responsibility, while elsewhere experts mused on a baffling array of possibilities for such a major breach of security. As the navel gazing at the GoDaddy.com office continues one thing is for sure; this was a costly and embarrassing experience for anyone who has a site hosted by this once popular internet registrar.
For the uninitiated selecting a secure web hosting service can be a mesmerising process. There are a seemingly-endless array of providers out there who are all very competent at selling their services. A quick surf will return hundreds of web hosts guaranteeing 99.9% uptime and boasting of security measures that are simply too-good-to-be-true.

Initially shopping for a hosting service may seem to be a fairly straightforward process. Most of the features that you can assess are measureable and it is easy enough to judge services against each other in terms of bandwidth, features, support and (crucially) price. Once you have figured out the service that fits your needs and offers the best value for money, you will feel that you can commit to buying in to it, but how can you know if it is secure?

Have they really got you covered?

Assessing the security of your web host is never an easy process but there are some key indicators that you can look for to help guide you in this process. Many of the services out there will claim to have 24/7 support, when this is not actually the case. Try test emailing them at midnight on Saturday night/Sunday morning, or during a bank holiday weekend and see how long it takes them to respond. Read the reviews posted by customers and not just the testimonials on the web hosts own site. If you cannot find a genuine positive review for the product this places a serious question mark over the service they provide.
For any online service having a secure web host is an imperative feature of the business. Without this integral characteristic you stand to jeopardize customer confidence. The online marketplace is an environment which is incredibly vulnerable and, with the limitless range of traders that frequent this market, customers can afford to be fickle. If your web hosting service has security lapses it is possible to see a hard earned customer base disappear in a few moments of madness. Choosing a secure web hosting service is one of the most important business decisions that you will make.

This was a guest blog post from Burfield Creative, a Web Design Agency in Bristol.