Tag: selecting a web host

This is Part 2 of How to Choose a Web Host.  For Part 1, please click here.

What Is Their Definition of a Short Down Time?

I never would have dreamed of asking this question until I went through a lengthy down time with Midphase.  In fact, this is what caused me to finally toss in the towel with Midphase and find a new host.  It was early one morning and I was trying to work on my site.  I couldn’t get my dashboard to come up and quickly realized the site would not come up either. 

When I called Midphase they were not even aware the site was down.  In case you’re new to this, that’s what shared, managed hosting is all about.  THEY are supposed to manage the server, not you.  If your site goes down, they should have it fixed so fast that most of the time you won’t even know it was down.

When a site does go down it’s customary to have it back up quickly.  Quickly means between 5 and 30 minutes, or an hour tops.  It took Midphase over 24 hours to get my site back up. 

If you do the math, this completely blows their 99.9% uptime guarantee out of the water.  To be up for 99.9% of the time for a month, you could not be down longer than about 1.44 minutes or 86.4 seconds!  So clearly I was a bit concerned. 

When I interviewed Hostgator to see if I wanted their hosting, I asked them about this with a deliberately very open ended question.  They said what I just told you; a short time is between 5 and 30 minutes.  Any longer and they’d be looking at restoring their backup of your site to a different server. 

What Features Do They Offer?

Now we come to some of the more objective issues involved in selecting a host.  You’ll want to know how many domains they will allow you to host.  It’s not that important that their least expensive plan allow multiple domains.  Just so long as you can upgrade later. 

If you’re planning on using WordPress for your website, you might want to check if they offer the one-button installation.  Otherwise you’ll have a bit more work as you’ll need to upload WordPress to your site and install it manually.

One nice extra that Hostgator offers is they will transfer your entire website from somewhere else free of charge.  You will have some supervision to do, but they will transfer all the content. 

You might want to check into a dedicated IP address for your site.  This is becoming a less common offering as we are starting to run a little short of unique IP addresses on a worldwide basis.  When I signed up with Midphase years ago, they just gave you one if you wanted it.  Now, when I signed up with Hostgator, they would only give me one if I bought a business plan and installed an SSL certificate.

There are a multitude of other features that web hosts offer so be sure and do a detailed comparison of the ones that are important to you. 

In the first part of this article, I told you I’d give you an example of why price might not be such an important factor in your decision.  Let me give you that example now. 

The difference in price between Midphase and Hostgator ended up only being about a dollar a month.  Keep in mind that making this comparison was rather involved because each included different things in their plans and charged extra for other things.  However, in the end, it was only a dollar difference. 

Now think about some of the less objective features I mentioned in the first half.  The two that come to mind for me are the definition of down time and the ease of use of each one.  For a dollar a month more, I get a host that actually pays attention to when my site goes down and has it back up 23 ½ hours faster than the other.

I also get a host where everything can be done from one place instead of searching everywhere and having to do many things during their “regular” business hours.  Transferring my old site free of charge didn’t hurt the decision process any either.  There are a few other things that are better too, but these are the main ones.

Negotiating Price

As I said before, price should not be a big factor in your decision process.  That being said however, sometimes there’s quite a bit you can do to save some money once you select who you’d like to go with. 

Something many people don’t know is that you can significantly reduce your monthly cost by paying for more time in advance.  Usually you can pay for up to three years which results in significant savings. 

Many hosting companies also have ongoing discounts.  These discounts can be quite random and even the employees of the hosting company may not know when the next discount is going to happen.   They will usually know what the maximum discount is though so you can check back every few days to see what that day’s discount is.  When it reaches the level you want, than purchase your service. 

These discounts will normally apply to your first order.  If you pay for three years up front, that’s considered your first order.  I think I saved over $100 with Hostgater by doing this. 

Another thing hosts will do sometimes is price match.  At one point I was thinking about leaving Midphase (I wish I would have at that point) and I had gotten a dirt cheap quote from GoDaddy.  I told Midphase about it and they matched it.  The funny thing is, the price from GoDaddy was negotiated too so the ending price was pretty low.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even if you pay several years up front, you are not usually locked in.  Every host I have come across will refund your unused months should you decide to go someplace else.  So unless you are just strapped for cash and can’t afford the longer contract, it’s always best to pay as much up front as you can.  If you use a host I haven’t mentioned in this article though, be sure to ask about their policy and not just assume their refund policy is the same. 

Other Considerations

There is one other little piece of advice I’m going to throw in here for free.  This really has little to do with choosing a hosting company but is very important all the same. 

While it will be tempting to register your domain name with the same company you host with, this practice should be avoided. 

When both are in the same place, one company has control over your entire online operation.  This is usually a problem when your hosting company decides you have done something they don’t like or they consider unethical.  Even if you were not responsible, they may lock down your site and make it unusable.  If your domain is registered with them too, there will be little you can do until they consider the problem resolved. 

However, if your domain is registered elsewhere, and you’ve backed up your site, you can quickly move it someplace else and resume operations.  This can be a lifesaver if you make a significant amount of your income online. 

There are many, many other things people consider in their decision about which hosting company to use.  For example, my friend Amity of www.GreenGiftsGuide.com left a comment on the first part of this article.  She said that she found a host that used renewable energy to power their operation.  I find that totally cool, but I never would have thought of it without her comment. 

This article covers the basics that you should look at.  I’m sure you’ll be able to think up other consideration based on things that are important to you.  Whatever those things are that are special and important to you, be sure and ask your prospective host about them.  If it’s important to you, surely it’s important to others too and someone has worked it into their operation.  There are enough hosts out there that everyone should be able to find one that works for them. 

If you enjoyed this article, please leave a comment.  I would love to hear what other considerations you may have in finding just the right host.  Also, please click the like button in the “Find us on Facebook” box in the upper left. 

If you would like to receive notification of new articles and our free newsletter, fill in the box at the upper right or click here.  You will also receive our free video e-course on how to tune up your computer and keep it that way.  It will save you tons of time starting up your computer as well as while running programs.  It’s the same process the pros use and charge lots of money for.  You’ll get it completely free though and you can even share it with your friends.  Then YOU can be the expert!

Thanks for Visiting!

---

About Robert Seth

Robert Seth is a CPA in the Clark County, Washington area who has been serving individual and small business clients for the last 25 years. His business includes a growing number of remotely serviced customers throughout the United States. He’s also a writer and technology expert. He has a passion for improving the lives of others by helping them simplify the complicated stuff in their lives.

---

When selecting a company to host your website, it’s important to get it right the first time.  A little extra work in the beginning can prevent tremendous headaches later. 

I thought this was a good time to write about this topic as it’s very fresh on my mind.  I have gone through two changes of hosting company in the last four months.  Both changes were very different from each other and for different reasons. 

The first change came about in May when I wanted to transfer my site away from the company that is used for participants in the Ultimate Internet Boot Camp (UIBC).  This boot camp is an amazing five day course but leaves you with a site that is rather limited in what you can do with it. 

Since they only allow the installation of about 12 plugin, the functionality of the site kind of suffers.  The worst part however, is that you cannot install a backup plugin.  This not only has the obvious drawback of no backup, but it makes it very difficult to transfer your site to somewhere else should you so desire.  Their fees were also very high compared to everyone else.

So I moved the site to a host I’d been using for another site.  This host’s name is Midphase and I’ve been with them for around 10 years.  What made me choose them was their excellent customer service, low price, and the fact that I’d already been with them so long.  I soon learned though, that none of these reasons, by themselves, is a good reason to choose a particular host.   

When I transferred my site again four months later, I went to Hostgator.  By the time I did this I had lots more experience and had a much better idea of how to make a good selection.  Hostgater comes highly recommended and so far I have not been able to find any problems (or even concerns) with them. 

If you know me personally, you know that I ask a LOT of questions!  People that don’t know me can mistake this for just trying to cause trouble.  People that do know me love this, and count on it when they need information about something. 

Picking a hosting company was one of those issues that I turned the massive question mark to.  I’m sure many a customer service person was tired of talking to me when it was over.  However, now you get the benefit of knowing what questions to ask and what kinds of things to look for in a hosting company. 

Ok, now I’ll stop blabbing about how this all happened and give you some information you can sink your teeth into.

Cost of Hosting

You may find this next statement kind of odd, but, cost should not be a major factor in your decision process.  Most hosting is very competitively priced.  As long as the package you’re looking at is within a reasonable range (between $6 and $12 per month) DO NOT compare price until you are absolutely certain all other features are equal.  I’ll give you an example in a moment to show you why price is not a good measuring tool for this.

How Many Customers Do They Have?

Web host come in a huge range of sizes.  There are local ones with just a couple hundred customers, all the way up to ones with millions of customers.  My preference is for one somewhere in the middle. 

If you pick a host that’s too small, they have problems related to inadequate revenue. It will be difficult to make upgrades to stay cutting edge.  It will also be difficult to keep enough staff on hand to deal with unexpected problems. 

While it’s probably better to pick one that’s too large over one that’s too small, large ones have their problems too.  They can tend to lose their sense of how important each customer is.  They also can make arbitrary rules that are not necessarily in the best interest of the customer.  A good size range seems to be between one and five million customers.  This allows for adequate operating revenue while still maintaining that sense of customer appreciation.

How Long Have They Been In Business?

You can learn a lot more than you might think with this question.  Obviously this answer will tell you if they’ve been around for a long time or if they’re just a startup that might not be there next year. 

However, when you combine the answer to this question with that of how many customers they have, you start to get a much more complete story.  Let me explain.

Midphase has been around for around 15 years.  Yet they only have about 20,000 customers.  This fact alone should really bring some serious questions to your mind.  Especially when you consider that Hostgator has been in business a much shorter time but has over 1.5 million customers.  Bluehost which has been in business a similar amount of time as Hostgator has 5 million customers.  And GoDaddy, which has been around less time than any of these, has many millions of customers. 

So why would Midphase have so few customers after so much time?  This is a difficult question to answer without a lot of research.  However, it becomes painfully obvious when you try to move your site.

It turns out they are a hodgepodge of little companies and sites.  There is no one place where you can manage everything like with most hosts that have grown quickly.  You have to go one place to manage you domains, another to manage your name servers, and still another to manage your site.  There is little that’s automatic about them and much that has to go through the “billing department” during regular business hours. 

My friend Rose Mis helped me with this transfer and we both felt that we had never seen anything like the complications, loose ends, and unrelated details that had to be dealt with in this transfer. 

So when you hear that a host has been in business forever, but only has a few customers, dig deeper and make sure you listen to all those warning bells going off in your head.

What Interface Do They Use?

The interface I’m talking about here is the one between you and the back end of your website.  The overwhelming majority of hosts use CPanel.  If you don’t already know how to use it, it’s easy to learn.  It’s also known by virtually every tech person you’d want to hire to help you. 

Some hosts, like GoDaddy, have their own proprietary interface.  If you’re used to CPanel, you’ll have a learning curve if you sign up with someone that doesn’t use it.  Also, if you plan to use a host that does not use CPanel, make sure anyone you plan to hire to help with your site knows the interface you’re planning on using.

I actually briefly signed on with GoDaddy before I went to Hostgator.  I did not transfer my site but I did set up a new one just to see how it would go.  Between the constant technical issues and the foreign-feeling interface, I quickly decided this was not the direction I wanted to go.

Other Consideration

There are several other things to be considered when choosing a web host.  We’ll look at those in part 2 of this article which you can read by clicking here.

If you enjoyed this article, click the like button in the “Find us on Facebook” box at the upper left. If you would like other tips on using your computer, and keeping it running in top shape, click here to receive your free online video course.  It will show you how to get your computer running in top shape (just like the pros do) and keep it that way.  You can even share it with your friends and help them make their computers better too!

Thanks for visiting!

---

About Robert Seth

Robert Seth is a CPA in the Clark County, Washington area who has been serving individual and small business clients for the last 25 years. His business includes a growing number of remotely serviced customers throughout the United States. He’s also a writer and technology expert. He has a passion for improving the lives of others by helping them simplify the complicated stuff in their lives.

---