WEB HOSTING

[sriweb]

Can any one help me to get good web site hosting companies.

[M0rtym0use]

sriweb,
a lot of it will be decided by how much you want to pay and want additional features you want like sql server

mm

[ADAM Web Design]

Exactly. The best thing you can do is figure out what you want for the items below. Once you do that, and set a budget, you'll be ready to pick out a host:


Hard drive storage space.
Bandwidth per month.
Number of email accounts.
Number of email forwards. These differ from email accounts in that forwards send mail to one or more other email accounts e.g. sales @ your domain name may forward to bob @ your domain name, ted @ your domain name, president @ your domain name, or any combination of one or more emails you like. My personal preference is to use generic terms for mail forwards, and people's names for email accounts.
Databases. Do you need MS-Access, MS-SQL, MySQL, a combination of the above, or none at all?
Programming languages. Do you want your site to support ASP/PHP/JSP/Cold Fusion?
Do you have needs for your site that specifically require NT (such as an Access database) or can you use a Linux-based host?
Do you need any custom components, programs, or objects registered (such as a custom NT component)? Hosts traditionally charge more for this since they don't know what they're getting and since it can wreak havoc on their servers.
Does the host offer multiple packages and prices to meet the changing needs of your site, so that your hosting plan can be altered as your site grows?

There are probably other factors that I missed (someone add to this list if I did), but this should get you started.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Unlimited bandwidth and storage do not exist. I repeat, they do not exist. Just to make sure it's perfectly clear, unlimited bandwidth and storage do not exist.

There are a large number of hosts out there that, to increase sales, will offer unlimited bandwidth/storage. However, increased bandwidth and storage lead to increased server resource usage, and at some point, the server will reach 100% resource usage.

This doesn't even take into account the unlimited storage for a hard drive. There is no such thing as a hard drive with unlimited storage.

Hope this helps.

[rackaid]

Take a look over at webhostingtalk.com.

A tip I suggest is to call the company 2-3 times with minor questions. Call them at diffrent times of the day. You can learn a lot by the response. Now for budget hosting -- this may not be necessary, but for larger accounts its nice to know that the company answers their phone.

Also, do not let a few dollars in price put you off. Consider the cost to you of a single downtime incident. Evaluate this cost against paying for a slightly more expensive host with better support versus an inexpensive host with little support.

[ADAM Web Design]

WHT isn't anywhere near what it once was. Too many kiddies and not enough serious hosts anymore. I used to post there regularly till about March of 2003, when I couldn't take the constant bitching and backfighting anymore.

There is one good aspect about WHT though: because most hosts tend to take an ass-kicking from just-intelligent-enough-to-be-very-very-dangerous customers, hosts that have only positive reviews are all but guaranteed to be good hosts.

If a host has ever had a negative customer experience, that experience will be detailed on WHT for the world to see.

[Wildflowerdyes]

I use citymax for my website (www.citymax.com). I have found there customer service is really fast and they offer lots of features that can help you design a nice website and I think the monthy cost is afforable. I have worked hard putting my site together over the last 8 months. Still work to do but it's lots of fun!
Val

[jumpajoe]

I have found that some companies will promise 99.9% uptime, and then they are down every other week. Your best bet is to find other clients of theirs and ask them how they like it before you sign up. Can save you alot of hassle.

[jb3]

Hello sriweb,

I have two accounts with HostW3 (www.hostw3.com). One Linux account using PHP/MySQL and X-Cart, the other is a Windows ASP/Access using CandyPress shopping cart. They have been the best host I've been with yet (and I've been with a few). They aren't the cheapest or the most expensive. Great support and no downtime in the year I've been with them except the occasional reboot or update.

James
iToner Direct
www.itonerdirect.com

[tomtj]

I haven't compared prices for a long time, so I'm not much help there. But let me tell you that no one will beat their tech support, period. I've been with them for over 3 years and probably have called them 50-75 times and I have NEVER had to wait.

[ADAM Web Design]

I haven't compared prices for a long time, so I'm not much help there. But let me tell you that no one will beat their tech support, period. I've been with them for over 3 years and probably have called them 50-75 times and I have NEVER had to wait.

I don't know about that. Sectorlink (http://www.sectorlink.com) would give them a real run for their money, i think. They're the only company that I've ever had a site hosted with longer than 2 years (well, except Interland, and they have gotten too big too fast), and they're the only company who has ever answered a trouble ticket in 60 seconds.

I usually call them once or twice per week for stuff, since I just got my dedicated box with them in December and server administration isn't exactly my strong suit, and they're really patient as far as explaining things to me. They've also never had me wait longer than about 8-10 hours for at least a reply back to a trouble ticket or call. Now sure, some stuff can't get fixed in 8 hours (hard drive failures, etc.) but at least they let you know what the problem is and what's being done to fix it. They're really straight that way.

As far as downtime goes, it's been minimal. I had one issue with a hard drive failure last July (but again, that stuff's going to happen...they're machines, they break, right?) And yesterday, they were upgrading their bandwidth and ran into an issue; but again, that's an issue I understand and will accept because it's downtime that's associated with making things better, not just because some 11teen-year-old decided to use the server to play a game of Quake 3 and killed all the resources on it.

So Sectorlink's my recommendation, thumbs up, hands down, whatever you want to call it. They're not the cheapest, but at least they're stable, reliable, and a decent, decent company to deal with.

[Markll]

Service response seems to be the biggest concern.

If your examine the web hosting industry you will notice that there are relatively few "true" hosting companies. What I mean are companies that actually manage their own hardware at their own location.

There are thousands of "hosting" companies that are merely resellers. Avoid them like the plague. Even at best there is now an additional party between you and your actual hosting provder. If a serious problem occurs at the server level you need to go through a middleman(the reseller) to resolve a problem. This will compound service response time.

Some tips on finding a reliable hosting company:

1. Be certain they are not just a reseller. If they only provide shared hosting they are most likely a reseller. Look for a company that also provides managed servers or servers with root access.

2. If they don't have a toll-free service number, don't bother. If their toll-free number always responds with a message "Leave your name, phone and email", this, in my opinion is not true phone support and should be deemed inadequate.

3. Don't do business with a company that only has a hotmail or yahoo mail for their contact.

4. Do a Whois lookup to make sure they are not hosted by a third party. There is a whois lookup here: http://mtheoryit.com/resources.htm

5. Take suggestions from members in this forum. I find they are a knowlegable and sincere group.


I have been using 1&1 hosting for 10 months now and have referred many clients with no complaints.
http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=6475457

[compusolver]

If you do PHP / MySQL and looking for a stable, fairly fast, feature-laden server with an easy to use Control Panel, I've got a tip for you.

Finding a good hosting server can take years and cost you and your clients plenty in hard-earned lessons.

If you're a serious web developer / designer, check out http://www.smbizhosting.com

If it looks good to you, I'll give you a free 9.99 account for one month, (without taking any credit card info, etc.) to try it out. No obligation.

[kimboj]

Try http://webstarhosting.ca/

Ive used them and they are great.

[rosweed]

I use Globat and I am extremely happy with them.

http://tinyurl.com/2ooz7

[M0rtym0use]

I know i am self promoting here but if your looking for a reliable host then the company is an isp and the core of the business is web design / hosting. a payment gateway to uk banks and were one of the first uk payment gateways to support cv2 and AVS, and are VISA approved.

we are not the cheapest hosting company around but our service in my opinion is reasonable for the price and we have plenty of people manning the phones one of them is me so you never know who you could be talking to ;)

anyways for more info about us click on the image below...

promotion over! :D

MM

[ADAM Web Design]

Service response seems to be the biggest concern.

If your examine the web hosting industry you will notice that there are relatively few "true" hosting companies. What I mean are companies that actually manage their own hardware at their own location.

There are thousands of "hosting" companies that are merely resellers. Avoid them like the plague. Even at best there is now an additional party between you and your actual hosting provder. If a serious problem occurs at the server level you need to go through a middleman(the reseller) to resolve a problem. This will compound service response time.

Some tips on finding a reliable hosting company:

1. Be certain they are not just a reseller. If they only provide shared hosting they are most likely a reseller. Look for a company that also provides managed servers or servers with root access.

2. If they don't have a toll-free service number, don't bother. If their toll-free number always responds with a message "Leave your name, phone and email", this, in my opinion is not true phone support and should be deemed inadequate.

3. Don't do business with a company that only has a hotmail or yahoo mail for their contact.

4. Do a Whois lookup to make sure they are not hosted by a third party. There is a whois lookup here: http://mtheoryit.com/resources.htm

5. Take suggestions from members in this forum. I find they are a knowlegable and sincere group.


I have been using 1&1 hosting for 10 months now and have referred many clients with no complaints.
http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=6475457

Amen on all of this except for #1. First of all, I've seen companies that are non-resellers that only sell shared hosting since the 200 accounts at $7 they can get onto one server generates more profit than the revenue from the $100-$500 they can get off a dedicated box.

Also, a reseller of hosting isn't necessarily that bad of a person or company to be dealing with. Often times, the reseller will spot downtime or other services issues before a customer, having heard it from another customer, and will have fixed it with minimal inconvenience.

Overall though, very good advice to follow.

[mikeytj]

Hi all,

I've been using www.myhosting.com for some time now, and was reffered by a friend that had used them for several years. Have not had any down time, great service and tech support (it is combination of live online and email, but excellent) and they are very affordable especially considering all that they offer.

Hope this helps.

[webcare]

I've been with Third Sphere Hosting (http://www.webcareconnection.com/tsh) a few years and am very satisfied. Just this week, I spent two days pulling out my hair trying to get some advanced php coding to work. When I finally submitted a trouble ticket giving the specifics, I was up and running within 30 minutes. Tech support not only analyzed my code but gave me some better curl code to use in place of what I had--that would do the same thing as I was trying to do. In my opinion, that was WAY above the call of duty and so much more than I expected.

As others have said, it's not the cheapest one around. But for the list of features and the support I have received, it's well worth it for me.

Webcare

[edhan]

To be upfront and just my opinion is that there is no best hosting service instead what you require from the web hosting. Be sure to understand your needs with regards to the features you want like telnet, POP3 emails, bandwidth, database, frontpage, etc. Offering 99.9% uptime is just consolation as it should be 99% without any natural disaster. It is always concluded that when you can't access your site, it is down. But in many occasions, it is found that your ISP connection to your site has been interrupted. You can issue the command in dos prompt: tracert yoursite.com to check the connectivity. You also can use www.checkdns.net to view if your site is still 'alive'. My point is that as long as you know what you want and the hosting service can provide you then you should be happy. You can actually email the support of the hosting service to check their response time (usually within 24 hours) and how they handle your query or problem.

I totally agree that service is the most important factor for all types of business.

Edward

[witchhead]

I am using webintellects.com and hostgator.com for quite some time now. After several failed attempts to find a good web hosting company I am very happy with them. Both have very speedy customer service.

[hannay]

Another host you might try is http://www.123-reg.co.uk They are one of the most reasonable when it comes to prices and offer various packages. They also allow cgi scripts with perl if that is of interest to you.

[M0rtym0use]

hannay,
reg123 are cheap for domain purchases and hosting etc but are part of the hosteurope group. the problem with this is that there is no telephone support it is all web based to trying to resolve and issue is not the quickest! also they do not support .net with their windows hosting plans :'(

MM

[hannay]

Hi M0rty M0use

Fair comment, but out of the three hosts I use they have given me the fewest reasons to contact them.

Regards

hannay

[M0rtym0use]

hannay,
one thing you have to consider that if something does go horribly wrong how contactable are the company and how easy it to get a straight answer.
the last thing you will need that if server does blow up what is the likely hood of you being aware of the problem and the extent of the downtime?

The reason i moved away from HostEurope in the first place was that one of their servers did die and they had no backup of the data on the machine, as a hosting company if something goes wrong and it is ultimately your problem then you should not be telling customers that sorry we have lost all of your data.

[hannay]

Hi M0rty M0use

123-reg do have a support telephone during UK hours of 9am - 6pm Tel: 0900 22 11 123, but I take your point on the other issues.

regards

hannay

[M0rtym0use]

hannay,
note that it is a premium rate number!

MM

[Emory]

I've used ClookHost http://www.clookhost.com for a year or so now and couldn't be happier. There's also a forum that I use for web hosts with lots of reviews and comments about just about any host out there called webhostingtalk.com.

[SFRAHM]

The best webhost? I have personally tried over half a dozen and researched several dozens more over the last 12 years. Reliability is just about everything and value is also very important. I have used aplushosting.com for four years now and know of none better, 99.99% availbility for real. They rock! If you just need cheap and don't mind a little slower and not quite as reliable cleverdot.com If you only need domain registration and management with forwarding godaddy.com or URL forwarding with meta tags cleverforward.com None of these guys ever use spam but forget phone tech support, email only for all except godaddy.com My unsolicited comments...

[james3116]

I've used several web hosts over the years for my clients. I have settled with www.hagenhosting.com . They offer a full range of pricing and services. I was a little uneasy with no telephone technical support at first, but they have been very forthcoming with the few issues that have come up, and have done so in a very timely fashion. I was impressed enough that I recommend them to all of my clients now!

[sadcox66]

If anybody needs advise on how to create a very reliable service as described below you can contact me. Here is a typical example of the setup.

You buy two hosting packages and these will be located in two datacenters one on the USA east coast and other on the west coast. Your web site will be mirrored for changes and the traffic to your domain name will be load balanced. If there is a problem with a datacenter or communication line then all the traffic is directed to the datacenter that is active. Naturally you will need to transfer your domain name for load balancing to us.

[matauri]

Just to add a few other things to consider....

1. Because many host outside of their countries, toll free numbers are pretty much useless. So while they are handy for those nationally, they mean nothing internationally. Make sure they have an 'actual' phone number too.

2. In regards to getting recordings when calling your host during a downtime... If the hosting business does not have a 24/7 manned support center, and has many clients, you can expect that the phone will be busy with clients ringing up. In the past I have found phone numbers to be fairly useless.

3. Check to see if the host has a 'server status' page that is on another server. There is no point having a server status page on their site, because if the network is down, more than likely their site will be down too.

4. Alternate email addresses. Again like above, if the network is down, their email most probably wont be working either. Check that they have an alternate email address.

Support is more important than cost if you value your site. If you can't get hold of support during network problems, then you are flying in the dark.