Choosing a Good Web Host
February 8th, 2006
This post was sparked by a thread on Jim Boykin’s blog where I’ve also posted a comment or two.
I resell Web services from site5.com and have found that they work quite well for many of my clients. There are always trade-offs in Web hosting, especially for those with limited budgets. Another hosting company I use is United Hosting from the UK.
My take on what to ask a Web hosting company is this: Ask them for features that you really must have (PHP/Mysql, Stats Reporting if needed). Then, of the companies that have those features, ask for uptime statistics and some referrals from hosting clients.
Usually, at the low end you either can get fairly decent stability with very few features (Hostasaurus) or many features with occasional stability problems and excellent customer support (Site5). Another notable hosting provider that has occasional stability problems but does everything they can to minimize them is 5 Dollar Hosting.
A word of caution about using returned phone calls as a barometer of reliability: Most hosing companies use email for support requests and handle them swiftly. For anything other than high-dollar hosting such as Rackspace, you will be hard pressed to speak to anyone on the telephone for support issues and really don’t need to anyway since email works so well. Of course during the inquiry phase, you are also judging the responsiveness of the sales department and not the support department.
Another way to go is with a hosting middleman like myself who handles phone calls and gets the tech support taken care of. In addition, someone like myself adds value by actively watching the servers for outages and submitting support tickets even before my clients call (though not always!).
Other recommended hosting providers are Dreamhost and Media Temple.
Entry Filed under: Technology, What's Happening Here
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1 Comment
1. Harvey Ramer | November 18th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
I’m crossing Dreamhost off my list of recommended Web hosting providers. I moved a site there to have it go down in a couple of days. I’ve moved off and am convinced from the volume of complaints in the last months that they have problems that need resolution.
I’ve found Media Temple’s product to be very solid and their support to be responsive.
For the last 6 months, my server at Site5 has been rock solid. I’m quite pleased with their level of service, though if phone support was added some of my clients would be much happier.
So that’s my take on the world of Web hosting.