Posts Tagged ‘advice’

Pay up front for a year or go monthly?

December 18th, 2011

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.

pay_increase

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.

No comments »

Posted in Hosting

Tags:

Which recommendations can you trust?

December 18th, 2011

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.

Recommendations

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.

No comments »

Posted in advice

Tags:

Web hosting services checklist

November 26th, 2011

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.

checklist-web-hosting-service

  • 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.

No comments »

Posted in advice

Tags:

Is it worth paying extra for hosting?

November 8th, 2011

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.

webhosting

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.

No comments »

Posted in Hosting

Tags: