Magento Hosting is an extremely popular e-commerce solution, so it’s perfectly understandable that individuals are trying to find hosting packages that happen to be optimized accordingly. Just as specialized blog hosting companies, phpBB hosting companies and others have managed to produce subniches so far as hosting is concerned, “Magento web hosting” will be a term increasingly more people shall be using.

You will find several cPanel hosting companies, let’s say, with web hosting plans which have been optimized for Magento and if that’s the case, you will probably find a descriptive sales page on their website which does the explaining. If the hosting company does not have a hyperlink with a Magento hosting package on its homepage, it is possible to still determine if it could represent a Magento hosting solution by:

Finding Magento’s Requirements

To begin with, you should grab a Linux box, this much is certain. A magento store supports Apache 1.3.x, Apache 2.0.x along with Apache 2.2.x, so most web hosts would be eligible from this perspective. Now as far as PHP is concerned, there are specific things that you need to keep in mind.

Magento is compatible with PHP 5.2 (go with a memory limit of 128 Mb at the very least) but you’ll want to make sure that Safe_mode is off. In addition there are certain required extensions which you may need to recollect about: simplexml, hash, PDO_MySQL, DOM, mcrypt, curl, SOAP, GD and iconv.

Your server needs to be able to run cron and it also needs to be able to override options as far as the .htaccess file is concerned. And eventually, with regards to SSL, you need to know that it doesn’t support self-signed certificates.

Which Web Hosting Services Make the Grade?

Most companies which offer Linux hosting (i.e. cpanel web hosting, reseller web hosting, domain hosting , etc.) solutions can cater to your requirements, nevertheless it’s extremely imperative that you ensure that your package supports Magento before making the payment. When you’re not 100% sure, contact the sales department of every host and ask them.

A great deal of companies have a live online support interface, which means you’ll be capable of finding someone who can answer this query right away and without even using the phone. If an internet support interface isn’t available, you are able to simply email them or (if you want a response ASAP) give them a call. Most good cpanel reseller companies along with unlimited domain hosting companies offer 24×7  support, so getting in touch with someone really should not be complicated at all.

It’s extremely important to choose only companies with whom you’re 100% comfortable. On the one hand, it is true that cheap webhosting packages will always be tempting, but when it comes to Magento hosting, going with providers that have proven themselves time and time again is definitely the perfect long-term solution.

In fact, would you rather save a couple of dollars here and there but face the chance of your web site being offline a great deal? The consequences are a lot more than obvious: less traffic, ultimately fewer sales, you’d probably wind up losing considerably more money than you’ve managed to save by going with the lowest priced option. Better to spend a bit extra money but know that you’re working with true professionals.

Magento Hosting Errors?

Unfortunately, there are a lot of mistakes related to Magento hosting which could cost you. Leaving the previously mentioned mistake aside (always going with all the cheaper options), you will find quite a few other things which could cause problems.

To start with, not monitoring your site on a daily basis is definitely not a recommended practice. You never know what could fail, so keeping track of things will certainly not hurt. Maybe your hosting companies will upgrade one thing or another and that may interfere with Magento, you just never know. When you notice problems, contact your host ASAP and don’t forget to say you’re running Magento. A good Magento Hosting support representative will be able to determine the cause of the problem quickly and will make the necessary changes within moments.

Don’t forget to be careful when installing other applications in your server. You will find instances where certain scripts or applications can interfere with Magento. It’s not uncommon to change your settings in order to be able to run a particular application, only to find that the new settings caused problems with Magento afterwards. Anyone makes mistakes and, again, that’s why always monitoring things is recommended. Any time you follow these simple guidelines, finding an excellent Magento Web hosting company and running a profitable Magento website is going to be a piece of cake.