I saw the post at the top of this forum saying to not request hosting.. to use the "Find a Host" at the top. But that just leads to advertisers... how can I trust THAT? I need unbiased opinions from other users.

I'm currently with Gearhost..been with them since 11/7/02. I've really had like NO issues at all with their service OR their servers. Their control panel blows anything else I've seen out of the water, and they have LiveStats for web statistics, which I consider to be the best stats engine out there.

However, my sites hosted with them seem to load up a little slow compared to other sites. The odd part is, if I download one huge file, it comes down at about 180KB/sec, which is great. But if I surf to a page, the images and buttons seem to load up a bit slowly for some reason.

Anyway, I'm just kinda looking around casually for another host. With GearHost I currently have the Gold Plan ($15.95/mo or something), which gives me a max of 5 domains (though I'm only using 2 right now..I might add another later), 250MB space, I think 10GB transfer/mo, LiveStats, etc.

Is there any host that can compete with this, AND is on a very fast network? LiveStats (or some other comparable web stats reporting) is a MUST. I also need shared SSL, and at least 200MB space, and 10GB/mo. Cheap MS SQL Server 2000 would be a big plus, but not a requirement. Oh, and Win2000 Server or higher (I code my stuff in ASP).

Anyway.. if anyone has suggestions, let me know. Thanks!

You need Windows hosting...these are good with and upstanding reputation...

fluidhosting.com
crystaltech.com
infuseweb.com

I moved from GearHost.com to FluidHosting.com last year... I never looked back. Seems that GH is improving... when I was with them, they were worse than you described.

Anyway, move to http://www.FluidHosting.com... speak to dave and he will take care of you. With FH as well, you will have stats for each domain... and it does not cost extra.

Does GH still charge for livestats? I remember is was a one time fee to have livestats with GH and you could only have it turned on one domain. :angry: I remember telling them there was no mention of that on the website... extra "hidden" fees are a no no.

Thanks, guys! It's a toss-up between fluidhosting and crystaltech. infuseweb is not even an option, as I need at least 3 domains and maybe one more later, and they only include 1 domain even in their $18.95/mo plan.. and additional domains are $5/mo extra.. yikes!

crystaltech seems cool..because they give you more bandwidth, which is important for me (I have people downloading mp3s a lot).

Question: when hosts say they offer 10GB/mo or 15GB/mo, is that typically per domain you have? Or for all your domains collectively?

Question: when hosts say they offer 10GB/mo or 15GB/mo, is that typically per domain you have? Or for all your domains collectively?

All your domains together.

What I'd expect to pay per extra domain is, say, $3/mo per additional domain. $5 is pushing it in my opinion. I think if someone were to charge over $5/mo per additional domain, I would expect the additional domain to NOT share the same space/bandwidth as the other sites.. heck, you can pay $8.95/mo for 150MB/10GB.. you see what I'm saying?

Thinking about it more, even $3/mo doesn't seem right. Let's be honest, isn't adding another domain simply adding another hostname in IIS and pointing it to another directory? So if Bob owns www.bobsnacks.com, which points to /bob/www/bobsnacks.. and he wants to add www.bobweapons.com and point it to /bob/www/bobweapons.. all it is is just adding that to IIS. Right? Please correct & inform me if I'm wrong. I would think it would be more appropriate to charge a one-time fee for adding another domain.. not a monthly fee. Why? There's no additional consumption of resources. The customer is not being granted any additional space or bandwidth..it's shared between the two domains. I'd rather pay a one-time setup fee of $10/domain rather than $3/mo, if the two domains will be sharing resources.

Just my two cents.

OtherMDesign, I know that you've said that you looked through the offers forum. What you might want to do is actually look at getting a small reseller account. MOST companies will allow you to do that where you'll be able to manage/maintain most aspects of each domain, and in some cases, even give each domain it's own control panel system.

Your budgetary specs are pretty decent, and you're not shooting for a bottom dollar host with sky high demands.

Maybe what you could do is compile a list of hosts (I would start with 5-10 of them) and contact each one to test their response times. Check out their sites, their TOS/AUP and possibly even ask for contact information from their current hosting customers to see how happy they are with that host.

Come on back here, list the hosts that you like the best, including pro's and con's. Once we get an idea of the hosts that you're looking at, we can make better recommendations about what you're looking at. :)

It's never easy choosing a host in today's market. There's a LOT of great hosts with great plans... as someone has in their sig line... there is no best host in the world, just the one that's right for you.

OtherM, what you're referring to is a domain alias, which allows you to point one domain to another. I'm actually referring to a full domain, complete with an FTP account, scripting support, etc. I would gather pricing should be adjusted below the cost of a one-off domain since by that time you'd already be hosting with someone and like you said, it wouldn't be worth your while if you can go somewhere else and get a whole package for less.

Yeah but you can't charge for scripting.. ASP is built in to IIS. It's already there, there's no effort involved. ColdFusion might be a different story, since it's 3rd party and it must be installed. ASP doesn't. And if the FTP accounts are shared w/ the other domain, that's a moot point as well.

Maybe I'm trivializing it...and there's a bit more work involved than just pointing a hostname to a directory. I still think hosts should consider making this a one-time setup fee, not a monthly fee, UNLESS they are giving you new web space/bandwidth for that domain, separate from your other domains.

Summarily, monthly fees should be for consumption of resources. Setup fees should be for one-time efforts to set something up, where there is no consumption of resources.

Originally posted by infuseweb
OtherM, what you're referring to is a domain alias, which allows you to point one domain to another. I'm actually referring to a full domain, complete with an FTP account, scripting support, etc.

I thought a domain alias just lets you point www.one.com and www.two.com to the exact same content, whereas "additional domains" let you point www.one.com to one directory, and www.two.com to another.

The definition depends unfortunately on what host you're using. Same thing with the words "transfer" and "bandwidth".

He's more than welcome to clear that up for you though. :)

Thread cleaned up a little. When looking at Infuseweb and Fluid Hosting you might also consider the control your will get, H-Sphere vs. Helm.

Helm seems pretty cool.. I tried the online demo. I can't find a demo of H-Sphere though... but the screenshots look OK

try http://www.psoft.net for an H-SPhere demo. Both have thier pros and cons. You can do a search here to find out more also.

Originally posted by OtherMDesign
I thought a domain alias just lets you point www.one.com and www.two.com to the exact same content, whereas "additional domains" let you point www.one.com to one directory, and www.two.com to another.

You're right, that's the way a domain alias works.

I see your point, but consider the following. While ASP might be included with IIS (and it appears to be no extra effort to turn it on), who fixes it when a customer runs a bad piece of code and it crashes IIS or stops ASP from functioning correctly? There are things like support and maintenance that have to be included in those costs to keep those things running.

For example, say you have an ASP app and need to know how to make it work with your provider. Chances are, you'll probably call support. Someone has to pay the cost of the phone call, the cost of the customer support agent, the cost of the backbone to run it all. With a $1.95/mo plan you have to have thousands of customers to make it worth your while. Or, you charge a higher monthly cost, or a lower monthly cost with pricier options. It's quite interesting how the dynamics work.

Of course, there are the others out there who are just trying to rip off customers, but I'm not talking about those. So I see it getting harder and harder for the smaller folks to continue to host and make money because people have come to "expect" good service, but aren't often willing to pay for the resources to make it happen.

Adding an additional domain does equal more resources used per month, so does warrant a monthly fee. Otherwise everyone would just be selling space and bandwidth with unlimited domains.

Every domain requires DNS entries on the DNS server. That is increased DNS traffic that generally isnt counted as your accounts transfer. Additional domain often times (not always) means additional FTP account(s). It also means increased mail resources. Another domain for the mailserver to watch/filter for, and email accounts to be created for. These are just a few of the other expenses/resources used by additional domains.

As for Scripting like ASP and PHP and charging more per month... ASP/PHP and most scripting languages, even though they do often times come default with the webserver (IIS & ASP) it is more resource intensive for a server to serve ASP/PHP pages rather than static HTML pages. So a server that can hold, say for example, 1000 static websites (html) might only be able to serve 750 scripted sites, even though it has space for 1000, it only has enough CPU power for 750. So a host needs to charge more for scripted sites in order to make up for the gap to maintain their profit margins.

Too many people think of webhosting as just diskspace and bandwidth, and fail to take into account the extra costs/resources used. Thats why overselling exists.

Well said, Aaron :)

infuseweb,

I see what you mean. I guess I just don't make much of use support... I know how to make my code work without issues, and if I run into some problem that's a technical issue on the server end, I can identify it and I know it's something they need to fix (and thus I shouldn't be charged for it). Like with GearHost... I opened an account, set up shop, and I was ready to go.. didn't need any help. I mostly use the ticket manager to report problems on their end, or ask questions (because they don't offer enough detailed information on their web site).

Aaron: You're absolutely right... I didn't even think about the extra load on the DNS servers, and the fact that a person with a 3-domain account with all 3 sites using ASP will eat up slightly more resources than a 1-domainer.