With all the free hosting and cheap 7.95 hosting available,
and most mid-range hosting options priced at between
$15 and $80 a month, it begs the question, "Is
all this hosting the same?" and "What's
involved in deciding upon a good Web host?"
Just a quick story to set this all up... I was price
shopping hosting one day a couple of years ago and
wanted to be a reseller, so I was trying to find unlimited
domains, high data transfer, and a large amount of
disk space. In my mind, these were the three paramount
factors, and I bought what seemed to be a killer deal,
getting 50 GIGs of data transfer a month, and 1 GIG
storage all for about $35 a month, using C panel.
Within two weeks after purchasing, the Web site of
the company I bought from disappeared from sight...
gone, off of the Web. Vanished into thin air. Come
to find out a few weeks later that the "company"
was run by a 16-year-old kid from his father's basement.
D'OH! Nothing against industrious 16-year-olds, but
is that the kind of hosting you want keeping your
sensitive data secure and stable online? Not me, and
not most business people I know either.
So I came to realize quickly that there is more to
hosting than a "killer deal," a cool Web
site, and some snappy plan names. It really helps
if there's an actual company behind it all!
Since then I've done a lot more research, and now
have the pleasure of being the Managing Director of
a hosting division, called Friendlyweb.net, which
is one of 30 divisions in a company populated by many
long-time hosting, programming, and tech support professionals.
This insider's view has shown me the importance of
teamwork, support, good hardware in a solid Internet
Data Center (IDC), great planning, financial stability,
and easy to implement applications.
The problem with many sites designed to help one
shop for hosting, is that hosting packages are in
a way treated like features and options packages on
cars... you fill out a form saying the number of emails
you want, the number of Megs disk space you want,
data transfer, etc. and then poof! the database spits
out all matching hosting packages. When shopping for
a vehicle, the most important factors are the engine,
the company that made the car or truck, it's history
of reliabilty, the after-purchase support (often overlooked),
price, and the warranty. The extras package is really
a final icing-on-the-cake decision... certainly not
the core factor. Pretty much all cars can include
power windows and locks... the question is, what kind
of car do you want? A Hyundai with all the extras
or a BMW? Or maybe a Ford? In Web hosting as well,
the company who makes the hosting plan is of ultimate
importance.
