Okay, finally taking the plunge.

With Matt Marshall's advice, I decided on “Mega-Long Headline –.

Now I'm looking for a company to host me.

I don't know if there's going to be anything there other than a self promo page and some samples, but I'd like some sort of cheap upgrading in the future in case I want to host multiple domains on one account and things like that.

I'm seeing deals all over the place: godaddy... ipower... dot5... IX web... etc.

Anyone know the best deal out there right now?

We use 1 and 1. Don't think they're running specials, but they've met our needs so far.

Good choice on the name!

A.

A word of advice. Don't look for the cheapest deals on your hosting. Look for reliability, up-time, tech support, etc.

I personally use Midphase Hosting.

They won't cost you an arm and a leg, they're reliable and they have among the best tech support in the industry.

Dale King

Thanks guys.

Dale... as for reliability, I'm finding this the hardest nut to crack. Almost every single site claims they have a 98 or 99% uptime.

I'm gonna look at both midphase and 1 and 1.

thanks again.

As Dale said, deals are all around, but it's worth paying a little more for better service and uptime when your business is on the line.

I've had a reseller account with www.insiderhosting.com for over years with hardly a problem, and I've also used www.hostway.com for a few clients with good results. I've also heard good things about Midphase hosting that Dale mentioned and also Host Gator.

My best advice though is to do some searching at www.webhostingtalk.com and read some reviews on companies that you're considering using before you sign up. Different hosts all offer different features and benefits so it'll help if you know what you want up front before you go shopping.

Cheers!

Steve

Thanks everyone. As of right now, 1 and 1 looks like they might be getting my business.

Andy... which plan are you on?

Hi,

Try this out: Linux Webhosting and Windows Webhosting: Get your site secured with the hosting experts at webhostindia.com

thanks & regards

Something to keep in mind is that 98% or 99% uptime isn't that great. Most of the hosting companies measure this over a month's time or a year's time, so even despite an extended outage, you'll have no way of getting a credit for it. (Not that the credits are that big anyway -- they don't reimburse you for lost business).

A web host that has a 98% uptime guarantee can have 14.4 hours of downtime per month and still meet their uptime.

A web host that has a 99% uptime guarantee can have 7.2 hours of downtime per month and still meet their uptime.

And then you will get the other end of the spectrum of hosts who guarantee 99.9999% uptime, which frankly is nearly impossible/simply not realistic. We all know from our own computers at home/the office that problems happen. If nothing else, security updates must be installed, and those alone sometimes require reboots. Occasionally patching goes badly or a service (like the web server or e-mail server) must be taken offline for 10-15 minutes to re-install it cleanly. "Stuff happens."

All things being equal -- let's assume you've narrowed it down to solid, reputable hosts -- the question to me becomes "what kind of host do you want?" There is no perfect host, there's only the perfect host for you.

• Do you want to be a "number" where you are just one of masses of customers? Where they don't know you, don't personally care about your sites, where you get a different tech every time you put in a ticket? (Which for some folks, is what they want, and that's fine)

• Or do you want to do business with an company which is focussed on building a relationship with you, remembers your name, is willing to work with you to tailor their services to meet your needs? (Well, within reason )

The example I offer is a server management company that I contract with. Although I and my staff administer our servers, we do contract with another company to take care of a few specific tasks. It is less expensive for them to do it (as opposed to me paying staff rate), I am able to free up my techs to spend more time on customer support, and as a "bonus" we can tap the management folks' brains for feedback on various projects. What I didn't expect though, was that the server management company is a relationship company. Servers are dry stuff, I wasn't expecting that. But my tickets are almost always handled by the company president (!), he remembers various things I have going on in my life and asks about them (e.g., "how's your Mom, is she feeling better? Last time we talked, she was sick") etc. Can't tell you how good that feels. It was entirely unexpected and it's genuine. At first I was scratching my head but it turns out that Ethan (the co. president) is just a really nice guy. So I walk away feeling really lucky to have stumbled across his company and I also feel more confident that his company actually cares what's going on when they work on my servers. (Whether they do or not, who knows??? LOL ... but then that's the marketing, isn't it?)


FWIW, 1and1 has not received very good reviews at Web Hosting Talk. One, their servers are based in Germany. If you and your clients are not also in Germany, there is absolutely no sense in putting your website half the planet away, separated from you and your customers by any number of foreign POPs and backbones. (Too much room for things to go wrong before the data even makes it to the States) Two, they notably have a record of recent extended downtime, which was entirely preventable.


Web Hosting Talk is a great resource for checking up on larger hosts, but you won't find many reviews for smaller companies. You also won't find much for reviews of more expensive companies. Web Hosting Talk is (by and large) overrun by clients of cheap/discount hosts bemoaning their lesson in "you get what you pay for." Granted I personally spend a lot of time there, trying to help folks. I've been an active participant there since 2000. I always have my ear to the wind regarding my suppliers, previous hosts, watching reports on new hosts/companies that I might end up doing business with, etc. But for instance, you won't find any reviews of my hosting company there, and if you ask for feedback I don't know that you would even get any replies... my customers just aren't on WHT. So on one hand it is a great place to check up on the larger companies and get a feel for what's going on in the industry, but on the other hand you won't find the smaller high-quality companies like many of us here @ Copywriters run.

HTH! And good luck with your search!!!!!!

Bailey

Okay, found a host... I'm about to squeeze (not pull) the trigger.

Since I'm a total noob when it comes to this stuff, here's what I'm wondering.

Do I choose the "plesk" control panel or cpanel? Should I care?

Also... is 2 domains, 300 mg disc space, 2 gb traffic and 4 mysql databases going to be enough? I have no idea about what it takes for any of this.

One last question. Probably for Bailey. Have you heard of Colo4Dallas datacenter in TExas? Any good? Bad rep? What can you tell me?

Vin

Okay, I couldn't wait for answers. I went with "Known Host". They're highly spoken of on the site hosting forums and the deal was unbeatable.

10 bucks a year!