After many years as an IT consultant I find myself baffled by the number of new hosting
companies popping up on the internet and rather distraught at the blatant lies that
most of the companies propagandize and the so-called IT professionals that buy into them.
I am bombarded with buzz words, offers of 99 dollar colocations, promises of
unlimited bandwidth and 99.99% uptime (this number seems to be a default number for
anyone who "has" to say they guarantee uptime.)

The truth is, within the industry there
are only a select few out of the Hosting populous that have the financial capabilities and the technical know-how to deliver on these promises. After doing research on many of the companies offering these "ALMOST Unbelievable great deals, SIGNUP TODAY" I find that their bandwidth is in no way capable of handling any purchase of a package stating "UNLIMITED" bandwidth (or near UNLIMITED bandwidth), and their facilities and IT knowledge are
less than up to par.

As I continue to wade through the companies I find myself trying to understand how so many consumers, IT
professionals and decision makers can consider purchasing packages from these
companies. Are we really blinded that badly by the dollar amount? Ever wonder why
they are 99 dollars or less? How can these companies be considered when
they are stating such ridiculous offers and absurd amounts of bandwidth that not even
large telecoms in the area have access to (i.e. a small company in Orlando, FL stating
they have an OC48). The build out alone of an OC48 would be a tremendous amount of money, let alone the amount a company would have to pay just for the fiber and loop fees (I wouldn't want to see that bill).

I started to devise a selection structure to base hosting companies on and find myself asking this question. Should we as internet consumers stand for this or should we compare our hosting providers as we would car manufacturers (there is a reason why Mercedes and Porsche's cost so much, right? Or am I just insane? And should they be compared to a Yugo without taking into account any of the features that sets them apart?).

The purpose behind this post is, I would like to know what people do to sift through these seeds of bargain hosting providers that in the long run don't really turn out to be a bargain at all (after you take into account the money lost due to downtime and incompetent support). What experiences have people had when looking for a real hosting company? Do people really consider "bargain pricing" to be the right solution for there business needs? Does the internet community really think these companies offer stability and integrity to the Internet or only reinforce the reputation that the Internet is nothing but a place for thieves and miscreants that so many uneducated people feel? When did honesty stop being a major focal point in purchasing a product? Why should this type of hosting service be consider the *new* standard all hosting companies should follow?
:confused:

The above tactics are used because most people don't know what they need.

They don't have a clue whether they need 20 or 500 megathingies of something, or whether 10 gigawhatsits is better or worse than 100 gigawhatsits.

Many hosting providers buy the cheapest servers at the cheapest Data centers, put heaps of people on and promise them everything for nothing, knowing full well that the majority will not use even 10% of the capacity that they are buying.

So, in the absence of reliable information, un-knowledgeable buyers just compare numbers, and settle for the host with the fanciest looking website offering the biggest numbers at the lowest price.

Simple human nature.

Quality and service are intangibles that only become important when they are lacking. So - the disappointed client wanders off to be seduced by another and another host offering everything for nothing, and wonders why all web hosts are crap.

Like buying a series of different coloured Yugo's in the hope that one colour will be better than another one.

The car makers you mention have branded their products over many years. People know the names, and have the perception that they are quality cars, and therefore are prepared to pay a premium for this.

Web Hosting has not been going long enough to have this kind of recognition, although Rackspace would be one company in that sort of league.

We have found that some people are prepared to pay for quality hosting service. We charge more than most on these forums, and provide a mobile number to clients if they want it. We post alertra logs on our site PROVING 99.98% uptime for the last year or more. We pay several times the cheapest rate for our dedicated server, and pay to have it professionally maintained.

Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick any 2 - It's impossible to get all three, but that's what many people are constantly searching for.


Regards,
Eric G.

I agree with what you said. For example I had a possible customer in a livechat session with me the other day, and he asked what type of server the account would be on if he signed up. So I told him it would be on a celeron 1.7ghz with 512 megs of ram. He then went on about "so and so" that offered the same thing as me but was going to put him on a dual xeon with 2 gigs of ram for less money, blah blah. He also states that the other host owns their servers and colocates them, and most of my servers are rented.

So in the end I lost the customer to this other host. I go over to the other host, I pop into a template monster site, 99.9999 % uptime, unlimited bandwidth, etc... I run a traceroute on his server, and what do you know, rackshack....

How is it that we (the honest host) are supposed to compete with these other guys... I realize that people that are internet/webhosting savvy realize that these hosts are a waste of time, but your average consumer/buisness that is opening a webpage, sees these things and jumps for it. Why pay 25 dollars when you can spend $5 and get 10 gigs of space and unlimited bandwidth with 99.9999% uptime.

Also I hate the fact that customers do not realize that their 100 meg personal website does not need to be on a machine that has the power to control a spaceship. People hear the word celeron or in some cases duron out of my mouth and they instantly think crappy. They do not realize that these machines can handle a substantial amount of traffic and cpu usage and that they do not need a dual xeon unless they have a ton of databases and a million processes going on.

I rent out a 1.0ghz duron server to a client. He has 1 website setup on it and it gets on average about 550k hits a day. That is a ton of traffic and the website is a CMS (uses mysql database and is graphic intense) and I have never noticed the cpu go over 10%

The truth his there are only a select few out of the Hosting populous that have the financial capabilities and the technical know-how to deliver on these promises

Very true. This is one of the best posts I have read in a very very long time.

While some consumers do get battered around, if they look real hard they will see the forest clearly. The trees just kinda stand there offering the same tired boring laundry lists and have nothing of value to add except a markup to a resold service.

Watch for the ones that offer nothing but a markup and some hosting retoric they stole during an hour of googling!

AmishHost, in fact when I see 4.95$/month with 10 mySQL DB and 100Mb disk, I try to stay away as well. Even dividing 100$ for ev1 server on 20 5$ customers we get 20 customers per entry level server (and really, host would want some profit too so the number would be closer to 50-100 customers) and each of them has 10 mysql databases (even though big commerce sites rarely need more than 1-2). Imagining at least half of them decides to really start using mySQL, your server goes down.

Now, you don't state anywhere on your site about process limitations. So either you have to ulimit your customers or you have to kick out customers who actually start using 10 mySQL databases. In either case, I would have tried to stay away from such hosting which either hides something or can't adequately estimate processing time and costs involved, therefore I would have experienced a bad server uptime and overloads at peak hours.

Sorry if I'm missing some parts of the equation :)

From my understanding of this thread's topics were in all reality a split of the market. Whereas the comments being made seem to be directed towards a hosting market vs a corporate market. IT professionals, makes me think of a larger corporation, which from my experience are often deploying internal servers, or hosting their cluster of servers via a more prominent DC such as Exodus (years back), AT&T, etc. Those companies cater more to the corporate side of hosting. The shared hosting solution, described within this thread, from my experience does not merit the employment of a corporate IT tech for the management of said website. Why employ an IT tech for a shared hosting site to begin with. Yes, there are internal networks to be run of course, however the ease of expanding that to include an on-site hosting solution would be far more beneficial IMHO. With the IT professionals, there's also the downside of companies having to figure out which IT professional is really in fact that, rather than a course completed person who simply responded to the radio ads of enormous salaries thrown at you with an MCSE certification. Past experiences of being in a corporate (non webhosting industry) and seeing the rate of turnover with our IT staff simply because they were unable to effectively handle our needs was also alarming as well.

I started to devise a selection structure to base hosting companies on and find myself asking this question. Should we as internet consumers stand for this or should we compare our hosting providers as we would car manufacturers (there is a reason why Mercedes and Porsche's cost so much, right?
Each consumer, regarless of size / corporation should fully investigate their particular needs, review the host in question, actively speak to their reps & determine if that solution is the best for their needs. Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, etc. All brand names, absolutely, however, Toyota / Honda retain their value over the years much better, although they cater to the equivable low-end hosting market. Porsche just build (a god ugly IMHO) SUV, costing upwards of $100k but it carries the Porsche name, and granted is more powerful than most sportscars, but all in all, is it's worth really $100k, or is it what consumers are willing to pay for the branded name?
The industry as a whole is something that probably will never be contained. These forums speak as a portion of the hosting world, and yet in the majority of the hosting requests, the request is simply a bidding match to see who will go the lowest. We've all seen the "who can offer me the most at the cheapest rates". So it's also a decision from the start in regards to pricing being the primary focus. Webhosting as a whole, is not run by IT professionals, the industry is very young in age, and often we'll find the under 25 crowd being the sole decision makers for their respective companies, which is a sole ownership. Experience over time will lead these people to the best choices for their needs and as each person learns more, they can make those choices as you have from lessons learned.

Thanks,

Quote::topic:
"AmishHost, in fact when I see 4.95$/month with 10 mySQL DB and 100Mb disk, I try to stay away as well. Even dividing 100$ for ev1 server on 20 5$ customers we get 20 customers per entry level server (and really, host would want some profit too so the number would be closer to 50-100 customers) and each of them has 10 mysql databases (even though big commerce sites rarely need more than 1-2). Imagining at least half of them decides to really start using mySQL, your server goes down.

Now, you don't state anywhere on your site about process limitations. So either you have to ulimit your customers or you have to kick out customers who actually start using 10 mySQL databases. In either case, I would have tried to stay away from such hosting which either hides something or can't adequately estimate processing time and costs involved, therefore I would have experienced a bad server uptime and overloads at peak hours.

Sorry if I'm missing some parts of the equation " :topic:
END QUOTE


"The purpose behind this post is, I would like to know what people do to sift through these seeds of bargain hosting providers"

so you don't find the original post being offtopic and completely unrelated too? well I'm sorry then :) I just find it ironic that someone offering bargain hosting on a bargain hosting provider would post a "me too" post in an anti-cheap-no-quality-hosting topic. I should've kept it to myself though, right.

so you don't find the original post being offtopic and completely unrelated too? well I'm sorry then I just find it ironic that someone offering bargain hosting on a bargain hosting provider would post a "me too" post in an anti-cheap-no-quality-hosting topic. I should've kept it to myself though, right.

Not quite sure which poster you're speaking of, please do let us know.

Thanks,

What Matt said... Ditto.

Who are you talking about?



Edited to also add...

What are you talking about?

"Does the internet community really think these companies offer stability and integrity to the Internet or only reinforce the reputation that the Internet is nothing but a place for thieves and miscreants that so many uneducated people feel? When did honesty stop being a major focal point in purchasing a product? Why should this type of hosting service be consider the *new* standard all hosting companies should follow?"

It should not be the new standard and I don't think that it is. The market will eventually mature and the fodder will be swept away.

Well thought out commentaries such as yours are proof of that. They are the beggining of the end to the madness in the market. It's just not gonna happen overnight.

On a lighter note... Reading your post slowly I could almost see Carrie Bradshaw typing it out on her I-Book.

Originally posted by DedicateNOW
Experience over time will lead these people to the best choices for their needs and as each person learns more, they can make those choices as you have from lessons learned.



Very true, you live and learn. However, it is unfortunate how many, competant hosting compaines lose there prospects to larger companies that have been established for many years, after having some dealings with a "bargain host". The problem is that many first time investors in the internet will experience problems with these hosting companies offering unrealistic and unfulfillable packages. This in turn will lead them to stop looking at the internet as a means of additional income and communication with the world.


As for IT professionals being geared more to the corporate side of things, this no longer seems to be the case.The title itself has been over published and abused just like the network administrator title and the term Hacker (dont' get me started on that). It seems to be a growing trend that anyone that has established a home network now feels they have obtained all the knowledge it takes to be a network administrator and to create a production envoriment. I feel there are too many that assume they know everything about the computer industry, who take it upon themselves to share their false information to the end users of today. If I had a nickle for every absurd thing
a customer has heard from their "IT professional" I would be very happy person.


Essesntially, the worry is that a companies bad experience wont lead them to choose a better host next time, but to either choose no host whatsoever or to go with a larger established hosting provider.

Matt, centrahost, please reread first word of my first reply in this topic, it'll make things clear.

guess that does look like a pointless flame without seeing that it's a reply to Amish, his post, and his signature :)

Originally posted by makie
I am bombarded with buzz words, offers of 99 dollar colocations, promises of
unlimited bandwidth and 99.99% uptime (this number seems to be a default number for
anyone who "has" to say they guarantee uptime.)

Ever read the fine print on some hosts' SLA's? Your site could be down for hours, but the clock doesn't start ticking until you submit a ticket. You have to be offline for X amount of time in a row (so what if you're down 10 minutes every hour, unless it's two hours straight or whatever you get nothing). Plus scheduled maintenance isn't included (how many times have you seen a host schedule maintenance right when the network goes down?). It's all a big joke.

It's just like everywhere else. I've been in sales before, and it's hard to be completely honest to your customers when you see all the other guys making up whatever they can to get the sale. I'd try to find something that met their needs and their budget; the others would sell them anything that was in their budget (sell them something cheaper so they can get the extended warranty, even if it's not quite what they need).

Anyways back on-topic a bit. There will always be customers looking at just the numbers, and there'll always be hosts that promise everything for nothing. It's just like everything else. Customers will either keep buying the cheapest price and complaining about it...buy the cheapest and just put up with it...buy the most expensive because it must be better...or do some research and pick a host that's best for them.