You are reading this article because you are looking for a good web hosting service. And of course you would like to get the best deal that you can afford. Choosing a web hosting service is a decision that is going to have long term effects, because you may use it to support your business for many months or even years.

In the present times, PHP web hosting has become very cheap and offers a host of benefits which make it very attractive.

Some important points will follow later but knowing a small amount about PHP would be good. There is no doubt PHP is a popular language, used for programming and capable of being placed into HTML. Some of the reasons for its popularity can be seen here:

a. It is free.

b. It can be used easily and with little trouble

c. It is able to be considered a fully object orientated language

d. It can be used on a variety of platforms

e. It is very fact on the Linux server, which makes it great in building difficult web applications

f. It allows advanced programming and is very easy to integrate with web pages.

g. PHP also integrates very nicely with MYSQL.

Before receiving the PHP service to host a web site, first you must take many issues onboard. Firstly, and especially, it can be difficult to get a good PHP service for hosting web sites. The majority of web hosting companies are in the matter for a fast return on their money. They do not want to offer a full service, so it is common to be without PHP for 2-3 days. Equally, you can do nothing about this as support was unavailable, which is often the case. Finding the right PHP host solution can take many attempts to find the best solution. A reason in this is that not all the firms are commonly known or discussed.

These factors make selecting the best PHP provider a very hard task. However, it is possible to find some advice to follow.

A PHP provider you can trust will offer these issues:

a. Issues of a technical nature. Applications such as MySQL, Perl,PHP, Cron, Python, or CGI should be provided to you. These things may not mean a lot to you but it is good to have them, so don't worry about them.

b. Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the volume of files (in gigabytes or megabits per second) that are transferred in and out of your server on a monthly basis - and ultimately determines the number of visitors that can view your website in any given month the more bandwidth, the more users. In this case a bandwidth of 75 GB is a good starting point; though many websites can use 1,000GB, 10,000 or more.

c. How much it should cost. Free does not always mean the best and low in price doesn't equate to low in quality. It should be possible to get a satisfactory service for $10.

d. Web Statistics: Getting accurate web statistics like the amount of traffic your web site is getting, and the sites that are linking to you, are information that you need to have.

e. PHP web hosting script installers: These are among the essential features to be included in your PHP hosting search. One should get a PHP web host script installation pack, at no extra cost from the service provider. You should be wary of providers that ask you to pay extra money for PHP web host script installation pack. On such application is "Fantastico", which comes free with cPanel in most cases.

Turning attention to the free of PHP host provision, they can have many disadvantages related to them. All firms need revenue and if a firm provides this service for free, they may not be able to do it for too long. This income is produced by them, by advertisements placed upon your Web site. Some forms these advertisements will come in include:

a. Banner based advertisements

b. Adverts that pop-up on screen

c. Advertisements placed within new frames

You would have no control over these advertisements. This is not a satisfying solution for small to medium sized business. In fact there have been instances, were users of free PHP web site hosting services, have complained that they were having there competitors' advertisements running on their websites! You can imagine how distressing such a situation could be. You cannot even complain to your service provider, because they are being able to provide you with free services, only with the help of those advertisements.

It is also true to say that free sites quite often crash. If the host caters for a great number of sites, this is likely to occur.

Also, with no other source of income, the host may be unable to offer even the minimum of services, even less than a very low cost provider.

Keeping the above in mind, it is a better idea to go for a paid but affordable web hosting service rather than a free one. The extra benefits offered by the paid services would easily make-up for the few dollars a month that they cost.

In order to zero in on the right cheap web hosting service, you will have to keep the following things in mind:

i. You should look for balance among the benefits you aim for. This is because when you opt for a low cost service, you have to make some sacrifices which may affect uptime, customer service or even security. So think about it and determine what would be the ideal combination of benefits you would like to have.

ii. If you want to have blogs, shopping carts or forums then installation tools would be good and this is where Cpanel could be handy. Cpanel can also assist with running centers of support and controlling MySQL databases.

iii. Services of support: 24/7 has to be your requirement. You can never predict a crisis so having this support is vital.

iv. How much disc space is available: The amount of content is on your site will impact on the disc space you need. Bear in mind any expansion before deciding what disc space you need.

v. Email Accounts: If a web hosting company acts cheap with essential facilities like email accounts, you should not think twice before dumping it. Web site hosting is a very competitive business, so you will be easily able to get a provider that offers unlimited email accounts.

There is always more research to be done and it still matters at this stage. You should look for firms providing offers. Does a firm with 30 day money back guarantee sound appealing to you? Would you be more interested in a firm that provides a guarantee of uptime? These firms are not always easy to find as they all require a level of money to make these promises. However they are available and if you can find them, they could be a good reason for choosing that firm.

These ideas should be added to your own research to make a decision on who best to sign up with to meet your needs and budget.

Now if you have gone through the whole gamut of analysis and research, and finally signed up with a PHP web hosting service provider, how do you know, whether you made the right decision? This is simple- if the rates make you happy, because they are so low, you have at your disposal unlimited email accounts, and reliable 24/7 support, you get free statistics about the traffic at your site along with windows and PHP option, then you have taken the right decision!