Choosing the right hosting is one of the most important decisions for your online business. Bad hosting costs you customers: slow pages, downtime at critical moments, and support that doesn’t respond when you need it most.
This guide explains what to actually look for before signing up.
Types of hosting explained
Before comparing prices, understand what you’re comparing:
Shared hosting
Your website shares server resources with other sites. It’s the cheapest option (from €2–5/month) and works for small websites or personal projects with low traffic.
The problem: if another site on the server has a traffic spike or a poorly optimised script, your site suffers. Think of it as student accommodation for hosting.
VPS hosting
You get a dedicated virtual server. Guaranteed resources, more control, and predictable performance. The natural step up when your site grows.
WordPress hosting
Shared hosting (or VPS) specifically optimised for WordPress: caching, automatic updates, staging environments. Warning: many “WordPress hosting” plans are simply shared hosting with a marketing label.
Dedicated server
The physical server is entirely yours. For high-traffic websites or businesses with demanding security requirements.
The 5 features that actually matter
1. Speed and server location
If your audience is in Spain or Latin America, the server should be physically close. A server in Frankfurt loads your site 20–40ms faster for a user in Madrid than one in the US.
Always ask where the servers are physically located.
2. Guaranteed uptime (real uptime)
99.9% uptime means a maximum of ~8.7 hours of downtime per year. 99.99% is under 53 minutes. The difference seems small until your site is down on Black Friday.
Look for providers that publish their real uptime history, not just what they promise in the contract.
3. Genuine technical support
This is where good providers separate themselves from bad ones. Ask before signing up:
- Is support 24/7 or only during office hours?
- Do they respond in minutes or hours?
- Is it real technical support or a bot with generic replies?
At miHosting we respond in under 15 minutes, without bots or call centres. It’s what you’d expect from a technician, not a telecoms company.
4. Automatic backups
Backups must be automatic, daily, and on a different server from your website. Backups on the same disk as the site are worthless.
Also check you can restore easily: a backup you can’t restore is no backup at all.
5. SSL included
An SSL certificate (the padlock in your browser) has been mandatory since 2018 for Google rankings and customer trust. It must be included at no extra cost with any serious hosting plan.
Common mistakes when choosing hosting
Choosing on price alone. Cheap hosting gets expensive when your site goes down on a campaign launch day or when you lose your Google ranking due to slowness.
Not asking about renewal pricing. Many hosts offer very low introductory prices that multiply on renewal. A first year at €1/month and the second at €8/month is a common trick.
Ignoring storage and inode limits. “Unlimited storage” usually has an asterisk: the number of files (inodes) does have a limit. A WordPress site with many plugins and post revisions can hit this.
Not checking the migration policy. Will they migrate your current site for free? A good host does it at no cost and with no downtime.
Checklist before signing up
- Where are the servers physically located?
- What is the guaranteed uptime and the real track record?
- Is support 24/7 and in your language?
- Does it include free SSL?
- Are backups automatic and stored on an external server?
- What is the renewal price (not just the introductory offer)?
- Do they offer free migration?
The question that defines everything
What happens if your site goes down on a Sunday night before an important campaign?
Your hosting provider’s answer to that question tells you everything you need to know.
If the answer is “open a ticket and we’ll get back to you in 24–48 hours”, find another host.
Real technicians. Response in 15 minutes.
No bots, no call centres. Professional hosting with 24/7 human support.