I've got some questions which will sound pretty dumb but I'm a newbie as far as web hosts go. I've been with PennyHost and in the past 2 months, their customer service has gone down the tubes. So, I'm looking for a new web host. I promise -I have done research on this so I'm not coming in here asking anyone to do my homework for me.(I even did a search of this forum first! ;) :D )

I currently run a message board on ezboard. I plan to switch to wwwthreads and I'm looking for a web host for this. I need both Perl and MySQL to run the threads software. I can use either a unix, Linux, or NT server, but I'm more familiar with NT. I currently get about 600,000 page views a month.

I know that I will need to pay for good service but I also am not receiving any income from my site(I'm hoping that will change soon). I'm pretty shocked that the board is as active as it is, but I'm not complaining! A lot of my board members migrated over to my board when another similiar board they were on shut down without notice. Needless to say, they get very squirelly when ezboard goes down so dependability is a key factor in my decision.

Right now, I'm thinking of switching to FutureQuest, but I'm still confused about a few things and I'm very worried about making the right choice for my web host. People have mentioned in previous threads that FutureQuest does not give you a dedicated IP. What exactly does this mean and what are the ramifications for my website? I know that search engine placement has something to do with this.

I've had a few people tell me that with the traffic that my board gets, that I really should have my own dedicated server. I guess this would be ideal but right now, it's not very feasible financially. Do you all think that's necessary? I guess I could eat ramen and sell my blood for a few months if need be! :)

I ran a few test on NetMechanic for several sites that are hosted by FutureQuest. I got either good or very good ratings for all of the sites but I did get a few warning areas for DNS Look Up. Is that going to be a problem for me?

I also am confused about bandwidth. I'm looking at the gold package which says it offers 15GB of Unrestricted Bandwidth. What does this mean exactly?

If I need to clarify anything here, please let me know. Since I am such a beginner, I'm not even sure I'm asking the right questions! I really appreciate your help.

Thanks!
Kristina

I have 2 sites hosted on FutureQuest and I'm *Very* happy with them. I can't help you with the bandwidth questions but I thought you may not have noticed their forum http://www.aota.net/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi That's probably the best place to find out. It's one of the reasons I chose them, fast replies! I stay with them because of their reliable service (little to no downtime!), kindness to newbies :), extra features and their honesty.

I can also say that I've never encountered any problems with DNS look up or search engine placement (I hold top 10 placement for many keywords). Virtual IP's and community servers may have been a problem several years ago but I'm pretty sure the SE's have caught up.

600,000 pageviews/month is a lot, and speaking from experience, will definitely surpass 15 gigs. You'll probably be hovering around 20-25 gigs monthly. A dedicated server a must? Really hard to say, but it's only a matter of time though.

Somewhat related, I regularly visit a very popular forum hosted by ezBoard. From the surface, it looks like ezBoard is doing just fine, with a recent press release hailing their growth: http://ezboard.com/news012901.html

George

EzBoard may be doing fine financially but I have had tons of problems with my board recently. EZ Board was doing maintenance work on some of their networks, which meant our board was inaccessible for most of the day. We have an alternate forum for when EzBoard is down. I wanted to notify as many members as possible of this other board, so I used one of EZ Board's Administrative features. The bulk mailing feature is supposed to send blind copies, and not reveal any of the e-mail addresses to either the sender or any of the intended recipients; unfortunately, that's not what happened. The email that was sent out listed all 1,425 of my members' email addresses and I spent most of last night replying to irate emails.

EzBoard still hasn't gotten back to me on why this happened and what they're going to do about it. I understand that they provide a free service. However, we do bring in quite a bit of ad income for them since our forum is so big. Needless to say - I'm pretty ticked.

Thanks for the recommendations so far. I really do appreciate the help. :)

Kristina

Just my two cents, if you're currently not receiving any income from the site, it would be fairly risky a thing to move to a paid host at this point, especially considering the host may force you to upgrade to a dedicated soon. In the past, just slapping a banner on top of your pages solves the problem, but those days are obviously gone.

Perhaps you should first try and establish a dependable way of generating revenue, then take it from there.

George

I just started looking at http://www.futurequest.net for my miniscule site a week or two ago, and noticed that they *do* now have dedicated IP addresses. I don't know what date they added it, but it does say "new feature" next to it, so probably after you checked them out. I'm a completely ignorant newbie on the other stuff though.

Good luck to you!

spygrrl