All of the websites you have ever visited are housed on a server. Web hosting companies lease space on web servers for websites to accommodate their files. The web host makes all website files, including HTML, CSS, and images, accessible online.
But are all web hosts made equal? Unfortunately, they are not. While some companies can guarantee a smooth experience for your website and visitors, others can significantly harm you online.
Today, you’ll learn the importance of choosing the right host for your website. Moreover, we’ll teach you how to select the right company for your gaming site. So, without further ado, let’s dive in!
Why Is Choosing the Right Web Host for Your Gaming Website Important?
Having a good web host implies that your gaming site offers a quality service to the audience. But what are the benefits of good hosting and the drawbacks of a low-quality one? Let’s take a look.
- Strong Security: Good hosts provide robust security levels and protection from third parties. On the other hand, you might experience content theft, data corruption, constant DDoS attacks, and other security breaches with a lower-quality web hosting provider.
- Performance: Your gaming website will get better site productivity and response times with a good web host who offers 99.9% uptime or above. While with a low-grade host, your gaming website will experience more downtimes, meaning users might not be able to access it at all times.
- Speed: Users will leave your website if it takes too long to load. Therefore, it’s key to find a fast web hosting service to ensure a better user experience.
Factors to Consider When Choosing the Right Web Host for Gaming Website
Now that you understand the importance of choosing the right host for your gaming website let’s teach you how to do so. Here are the most critical factors.
Server Speed
Your online experience can be improved or broken depending on the server host you choose, whether you’re playing your typical Roblox or Minecraft server or another multiplayer game like GTA V.
A dedicated server provides low latency configurations that allow gamers to play at their highest level of efficiency and speed without experiencing crashing, lagging, or unavailability.
If you want the most outstanding performance, look for dedicated gaming server hosting that can offer a smooth and secure experience for the data center and the players. Of course, the more RAM the server has – the better performance.
>You should also look for the server’s network quality and speed by measuring the total time spent on the upload and download processes.
Nowadays, cyberattacks are a threat to all websites. Therefore, you should protect your gaming website from the damage of content theft and data corruption. Choosing a web host with solid security protection will save you time and money.
>Quality Over Price
Choosing a web hosting provider offering the lowest price can be very appealing if you’re a new website creator with a tight budget. Regardless of how corny it sounds, remember you get what you pay for. The lowest price could be associated with thousands of unprofessional websites, slow servers, poor uptime, frequent outages, or lousy customer support.
At the same time, buying the most expensive option doesn’t always entail the best quality.
So, doing in-depth research to get the best value for your money would be best. Read customer reviews, analyze the included features, opt for discounts, and test their customer support.
Reliable Uptime
Your web host’s uptime represents how long your website is online. As every website must remain online all the time, the same goes for your gaming website.
Most users deem an uptime ratio of 99.99 % (52 minutes and 36 seconds of downtime per year) or 99.98 % (1 hour, 10 minutes, and 7 seconds of downtime per year) to be considered satisfactory by many service providers.
Gamers hate downtimes hitting them when they are not needed. So, to start, you should aim for a ratio of 99.95% (or above) of uptime.
24/7 Customer Support and Reputation
Customer service differentiates between a website going out for several hours and rapidly resolving a situation. Therefore, you should opt for a responsive and knowledgeable web host to assist you with any issue 24/7.
Furthermore, you can try to put them to the test by yourself. First, check if you can quickly get in touch with them via phone, chat, or email. If so, that’s excellent. Next, test their experience by asking them a variety of questions. Is the technical team helpful, or are you talking to a chatbot?
Scalability Options
When your gaming website develops and generates more traffic, you will need to scale up your structure. Unfortunately, some web hosting companies do not offer this option. As a result, you must select a provider that provides scalability options.
With faster bandwidth and shorter load times, VPS hosting offers better functionality. That makes VPS and cloud the best for scalability. Meanwhile, shared hosting is the most limited; therefore, you should avoid it for your gaming website.
Conclusion
Your gaming website needs a dependable web host to offer top-notch service. Any type of gaming on the web, such as streaming platforms and virtual gaming experiences, can gain or fail because of hosting.
Make sure you thoroughly consider what the host providers have to offer and whether it will meet your gaming website’s demands. If it doesn’t, don’t rush, and take the time to discover a web host that will suit your gaming site demands. It will pay off in the future; we promise you that!