So here is something I’ve been thinking about quite a lot lately, how do you actually work out how good the support is on your host? It’s not easy, after all if you don’t have a lot of problems and you never really have to test the host then how would you know? You really find out when you run into a serious problem that can’t be answered quickly.
“When you have a real problem will they be there?”
The problem though is that you don’t want to have to wait until that crucial time to put them to the test because that time could end up costing you lots of money. Can you afford for your ecommerce site to be down while your web hosting service provider works out why they have never seen this problem before? This is when good hosting support really makes a difference.
So how exactly do you tell beforehand, well it’s not easy but there are always clues available about any service before you go too far down the line. One big sign I always look out for is poor hosting documentation on the site for average users, because often users can fix/answer their own questions if they have the right information. So for a start they should definitely have a searchable database of common questions and issues for people to use, if they don’t have this I would start to worry if I were you.
Another really important sign to look out for is how quickly they respond to your support tickets, it’s not just a question of the time wasted but also the shows that they don’t care (if it takes forever for them to respond). Ideally you want a response (and not just the automated reply) to any ticket that you submit within around 6 hours. I really see no reason why any ticket should takes 24 hours to get a response, now I’m not saying they have to fix it within that time as it could be a serious problem and require some work, but they should at least tell you that they are working on it and give you an estimate of how long it’s going to take. Like I said before, the time it takes for people to respond to you is a legit way to work out just how seriously they take your custom, so keep a timer handy!
I also like to look at the content of those support answers in detail as there can be real clues there too about how good your hosting service is. I mean if they give you really general answers to your questions or even if it just looks like something that’s been pasted from Wikipedia then this too is of course a very bad sign. Answers should always have enough detail so that you can take that information and do something with it, at the same time don’t let them baffle you with technical jargon either, they only do this when they don’t know what they’re talking about!
This is one of the big questions in hosting and one I’ve never really worked out. Do you pay monthly for you hosting which means paying more but also if things go bad you can just take your website and go to another hosting service. Or do you pay yearly and get a big saving on the monthly contract but with the proviso that you’re locked into a year’s service even if your host has lots of problems.
“To be locked in or not, that is the question”
As you can see there are advantages and disadvantages to both situations and I suppose the whole thing hinges on one fact, do you trust your web host or not? It’s a tough question because the answer will determine exactly how much you are willing to invest in the company.
Another issue to look as is if you are required to take out a minimum contract or a certain type of plan. For example most plans for dedicated severs require you to pay for 3 months upfront (I have seen some that require 6 months). When you consider that even a cheap dedicated server is going to run you around £300+ a month that’s quite and investment for the 3 months.
You also have to look at things from the host’s point of view if you want to work out why they offer the discounts for longer term contracts that they do. The key for them is knowing that they have a customer for that period of time which is guaranteed revenue, this allows them to invest that cash in more servers/space/bandwidth etc. With the pay monthly guys it’s really up in the air how long they are going to be around.
So as I said it all comes back to “trust” and just how confidant you are that the host is going to deliver what they say. For me I’m never going to invest in a yearly contract with a company that I’m not familiar with or who doesn’t have a good history behind them. But if I’ve been with a service for a while and everything has been going “well” then yes Id usually be more than happy to go for a 6 month or even 12 month contract because of the money saved.
I hope this article helps if you’re looking for a hosting provider in the near future. Remember you really need to check out any company’s history before you commit to any kind of deal (even a 1 month contract). Don’t forget that if your website is your primary source of income then it’s not something you can’t leave to chance, so research and invest in a quality host. It really is worth it in the long run to know your site is up and running, there are too many horror stories of businesses down for days to risk it.
Here’s the problem, there can often be just as many people saying that they love a particular host as those who hate it. Everyone has a voice when it comes to the internet and this can make things quite complicated when it comes to evaluating which hosting service is for you.
One of the main techniques I use to find out what people really think about a host is the discussions search on google. Essentially this service allows you to search forums and message boards for all discussions on a particular phrase (the name of your host). It’s really easy to do too, just search in Google like you normally would and then expand the “more” tab and click on “discussions”. This then filters all the results and it’s a great way to get an overview of what real consumers are saying about the host.
It’s also really important to work out what part of the service a reviewer has purchased before evaluating their review. For instance just because someone purchases the hosts lowest £5 shared package and got bad support that doesn’t meant their top dedicated server at £500 is going to have the same problems. Don’t get me wrong how a company handles its customers should be taken into consideration no matter how valuable they are but you have to put things into context.
Looking for reviews of a host on blogs is another great way to get an insight into what people really think of a web host, but this too is problematic. A lot of the time bloggers are incentivised to promote a particular host as they are signed up to an affiliate program, this means they get paid for every new customer they send to the host. If this is the case then obviously it won’t be possible for this blogger to provide an impartial review, check the details before you take stock in any particular review.
If you’re worried about impartial reviews then you may want to check out some of the big review sites which try to collect lots of reviews for the same company into one handy section. I’m a big fan of sites like Ripoffreport and also Ciao which allow users to quickly rate services like web hosting. These sites can be a big help when you’re searching for hosting as anyone who is out and out scamming people will come to the surface pretty quickly, it’s hard to hide on the net if people are talking about you!
As you can see finding quality reviews on providers can be quite difficult. My main tip I suppose is finding a large collection of reviews and getting a feel for what they are saying before taking the plunge, don’t rely on one random stranger’s judgement. Until next time.
We all know how difficult it can be to find the right web host, there’s so many options and deals available, for the average consumer it’s pretty confusing. So to help I decided to create a checklist that anyone can work though when shopping for hosting. Hopefully this list will apply for all web hosting services and not just the discount/budget side of the market.
Try not to get locked into a yearly contract if possible. Yes it may be cheaper but if there are problems with the host you’re going to be paying them no matter what. I only ever buy a yearly contract if it’s with an established hosting service.
Pre-installed services like Wordpress, Joomla and oscommerce are really important because they can save you many hours in setup time. The main program to look out for is Fantastico de luxe which allows you to install virtually anything with just a few clicks.
Support is essential so find out beforehand what sort of turnaround time you can expect from your host, it’s no good promising 99% uptime if they take 2 days to answer an email!
Read online reviews! Please don’t skip this step as you need to find out what real customers think of the service, you can’t just rely on the host’s sales pages for an honest opinion. I like to use the “discussions” search on Google to find what people on forums are saying about the hosting provider.
What server languages are they using? Most sites on the net these days (especially small sites like mine) are run on a combination of php/Mysql. Php is only run on Unix servers so if you want to run a Microsoft language like asp.net then you need to buy Windows web hosting (which always costs more).
Do you need to host more than one domain? Most people start with just one site but more people are now branching out into multiple sites as they grow. If you want to host more than one domain name you will usually need a “reseller account”, check out how much more this account will cost and also how easy it will be to upgrade at a later date, do they want you to move everything or will they do it?
Don’t get blown away by numbers! When comparing web hosts it’s easy to get hung up on different stats like disk space/bandwidth/email accounts but it’s unlikely if you’re just starting out that you’re going to max out any of these variables. Instead look for a hosting service that can promise reliability and great customer service, it’s much more important than a few extra megabytes of disk space.
So that’s my checklist for buying hosting, I hope it helps if you’re in the market for your first host or even if you’re in the mood for a change. Remember probably the most important point is to research any provider online before you spend any money.
So I get this question a lot “is it really worth paying more than you have to for web hosting?” Of course not an easy question to answer because I don’t know which web host you’re talking about and what type of site your building.
The type of site makes all the difference because if this is just a hobby site and not something that makes you money then by all means feel free to skimp. But if this is a business/ecommerce site or something that you in any way rely on then you really don’t want to take the fact that it’s always going to be working for granted.
Now I don’t want to give people the impression that just because you’re paying more that your guaranteed better service, as we know from live in general this isn’t always the case. But when you look as hosting packages from reputable providers then you’ll often see that the more expensive options feature:
Better uptime guarantees
More space for files and databases
More bandwidth so if you do get more traffic you don’t get cut off
Better support (maybe a separate 24 hour line or guaranteed turnaround time)
Those are the main points to look out for and in general if you want to cover the above points like guaranteed uptime and better support then you’re going to have to pay for it. To be honest if you see a deal that’s too good to be true on the above points then it generally is.
I suppose it all comes back to how important the site is to you and how much if any money are you going to lose by it being down. Also consider the extra you may have to pay for a quality web host as opposed to a “cheap” one as the difference could only be around £30 more a month which to me isn’t huge.
Hopefully this post clears a few things up about how much you may want to spend on a service. Maybe in my next post ill compare some different hosting providers to let you really see the difference in prices, until next time.
So i was surfing around youtube yesterday (as i have been known to do) and i saw this rather funny but also quite useful video from this guy about web-hosting. Its not a bad video as hes explaining some of the same points i have gone over on the blog before about what you should look for in a host before you buy and its definitely worth a look.
He is right that the hosting service market is way over saturated and there are too many companies competing for too few customers however im not sure if hes right in saying the “most hosting providers are trying to rip you off”. It is true that there are some bad hosting companies out there but mostly i think its a case of a few bad apples giving everyone else a bad name. I think you could say the same of any modern industry if you look hard enough. So worth a view if you have time and i hope to have a few in depth posts with you guys asap.
I know that one of the biggest changes i have seen in the web hosting service industry over the past few years is the rise of the “all you can eat” pricing structure. What i mean by this is hosting accounts that allow you to host an unlimited number of domains and also give you unlimited data transfer. I can say that this has been a big shift in the pricing structure in a number of ways as i remember the days when you literally bought a hosting account that hosted a specific number of domains, like 14! Now thanks to the falling prices of both disk space and data transfer its possible to get some really cheap accounts where you can do have all you space and transfer you need. The prices are really pretty good to, i was looking at an American host the other day that was coming in at only £15 for unlimited transfer and domains.
I know at this point alot of people are probably thinking that they probably don’t need unlimited transfer and they only have around 5 sites at the moment. This may be true but one of the best things about this time of hosting service is it means you don’t have to worry about space or transfer anymore, you really will never have to check you bandwidth log again! This can also prove quite useful if you plan on getting some huge spikes in traffic. I know that a few years ago one of my articles went viral and hit the front page of Digg. This resulted in around 20,000 visitors in the space of a few hours. It ending up being quite a bit of data transfer as you can imagine but because i was on an unlimited plan it didn’t matter! This is also true of creating new websites as you can just go into your main control panel and have a new site up and running in a few minutes.
One thing to be aware of though is the small print as there will always be some clause about “reasonable usage”. Now with most providers this isn’t really an issue as all they are doing is trying to protect themselves from people who may abuse the service. There are however reports of some service providers using it to kick off some medium use users, ie they are hoping most people use very little of their bandwidth. Still i think this accounts for a very small percentage of web hosts and shouldn’t be an issue for most.
So there you have it, my roundup of opinions on unlimited web hosting, more to come soon!
So it has been said for a while but it looks like it may finally become a real fact. Google has announced that from 2010 the speed of your website could become a factor in the authority/ranking of your website. More and more businesses are looking to get an edge when it comes to ranking in google and even something which many only be a small factor (as i suspect it is) can make a huge difference when the competition is so fierce.
If you think about googles reasons for introducing this change it does kind of make sense. Google has always been about the overall experience of the user and what annoys users more than a website that is slow to load? However i must mention at this point that there can be two main factors why a site may be slow to load:
The web hosting service is just plain slow. This is obviously the easiest one to fix as i just means you have to get a new web-host. However finding a new host can also be alot of hassle too and will sometimes mean you have to pay more £££! Moving your site can also be a pain too, depending on the type of site you have. For instance if it is a ecommerce site there could be a bit of initial setup involved and you may have to get the person who initially created the site to complete the installation for you.
The second option is an often overlooked factor and it is that your website is too large as far as file size is concerned. So while the web host is able to send your site out the visitors at high speed the visitor can only receive the site as fast as their connection will allow. Dont forget that many people are still in slow dialup connections (especially in developing countries) and may not be able to view your site within a reasonable time. The solution for this is to re-design your site with speed in mind. Lose any very large pictures or flash movies and concentrate in breaking the content up into bite-size chunks.
So as you can see the two factors above require a reasonable amount of work no-matter which is related to your site. So why go to all this hassle in the first place? Is is just for Google? Well no, this shouldn’t just be something you are doing to keep google happy but because you want to increase the overall profitability of your business on the web. This is especially true of ecommerce sites as it has been proved more than a few times to me that potential customers do not hang around long if there are service problems on with your online shop. How confidant can they be of getting what they paid for if you can’t even get your website to work?
I once read that even amazon.com has a cart conversion rate of only 40% which is the number of people who add things to the online cart and then go on to buy. You may think this number is very low considering that amazon has so much trust with customers but it is a pretty standard number across the industry. However also realise that you as a start-up business are going to have an even smaller conversion rate as customers have never heard of you before and may be nervous about purchasing. The point i am trying to make is that if there are problems with the booking process or website in general such as pages being slow to load then your conversion rate is going to go through the floor!
As you can see a slow web hosting service isn’t going to just affect your position in google but the revenue of your site as a whole and so it has to be one of your main priorities for your internet business. Still one of the hardest things is working out who the fast hosting providers are, as they all they they have high speed connections don’t they! Well the main thing i would look for is the right account with plenty of bandwidth for the month as a whole. Also checking for guaranteed uptime is also a good thing to look for. So hopefully ive given you a few reasons to look for speed in your next hosting provider and maybe youll be zooming your way to the top of google in no time.
