The Best Shared Web Hosting for Australian Businesses and Organisations

As a web developer, I am wary when contacted by prospective clients who tell me that they have already arranged their web hosting. The selected web hosting company is often not the best choice for various reasons.

Web Hosting Tip:
My number one tip when choosing a web hosting company is to ask your web service provider before purchasing a web hosting plan so they can recommend a plan that is suitable for your particular requirements. Choosing the wrong plan can be a costly exercise!

With Google now including performance as a ranking factor, it is more important than ever to make good decisions about your web hosting provider.

Shared Hosting

Shared web hosting is an affordable web hosting option where your website is securely hosted on the same server as a number of other websites and usually located in a secure data centre.

Shared hosting suits most businesses and organisations with plans typically offering 5GB, 10GB, 25GB or similar storage space often with unlimited monthly bandwidth.

Choosing a Web Hosting Plan

Your choice of web hosting plan and server location depends on a number of factors such as cost, value for money, the geographic location of your target audience and the type of website.

The following plans are the ones I tend to recommend for WordPress, Joomla and similar websites. All of these service providers offer good uptime (reliability), security, performance, technical support and value for money. They also keep their servers up to date so you can always select a supported version of PHP.

Other Recommended Web Hosting Companies

For up to date information on the best and worst local web hosting companies, see Web Hosting Down Under and the latest posts in the Web Hosting Forum on the Whirlpool forums.

Web Hosting Companies to Avoid

The following web hosting companies are best avoided as these companies will have your web developer tearing their hair out!

• Crazy Domains and associated brands including Aust Domains and Cheap Domains.
• GoDaddy, SiteGround and HostPapa.
• Internet Service Providers. Some ISPs offer web hosting but this is not one usually of their strengths and the cost is usually overpriced.
• Melbourne IT and associated brands including AussieHQ, Domainz, Ilisys, Jumba, NETantics, Netregistry, SmartyHost, TPP Wholesale, UberGlobal, WebCentral and Ziphosting.
• Newfold Digital (includes EIG, Web.com, Dreamscape and Hostopia brands) including Anchor, Aust Domains, Bluehost, Cheap Domains, Crazy Domains, Crucial, Digital Pacific, Dreamscape Networks, Enetica, HostGator, Net Logistics, Panthur, Quadra Hosting, Vodien, Web24 and Webcity. For a full list of Newfold Digital and associated brands, see the article on the Research As A Hobby website.

With frequent mergers and acquisitions, the Australian web hosting landscape changes constantly. For up to date information, see the Web Hosting Companies to Avoid article on Web Hosting Down Under.

Web Hosting Tip:
It is often worth spending a little extra on a better quality web hosting provider to minimise downtime, improve the performance and security of the website, to ensure prompt support is available when it is needed and to ensure your chosen web hosting provider is still around to support you in future.

Website and Web Hosting Performance Check

The longer your website takes to load, the more likely visitors will browse elsewhere. Ideally, web pages should load in less than 4 seconds.

You can test your own website or competitors websites using GTMetrix, Pingdom or similar.

Create a free account on GTMetrix so you can choose which location to run the test from.

Another useful tool for comparing page load speeds around the world is the Sucuri Load Time Tester.