Results 1 to 23 of 23
-
03-22-2011, 07:15 PM #1Junior Guru Wannabe
- Join Date
- Aug 2005
- Posts
- 39
What do you look for when purchasing web hosting?
I've been working with web sites and web hosts for a while now and I'm trying to compile a list of qualities one would look for in searching for a web host.
Please feel free to throw any more suggestions you have when searching for a web host.
Here's what I got:
1. Price
2. Uptime
3. Customer Service Quality and 24/7 Support
4. Bandwidth & Storage
5. Control Panel
6. Features (Domains, Sub Domains, MySQL DB, IP Addresses etc.)
7. Money Back Guarantee
-
03-22-2011, 07:48 PM #2Newbie
- Join Date
- Mar 2011
- Posts
- 9
8. Live chat
-
03-22-2011, 07:51 PM #3
Quality over quantity.
[ IncogNET LLC ] Privacy By Design [Liberty Lake, WA][Kansas City, MO][Allentown, PA][Naaldwijk, NL]
[ Web Hosting | KVM VPS | Dedicated Servers | Domain Names | VPN | Censorship Resistance ]
Services provided in the United States and Netherlands with privacy and freedom of speech being our top priority.
-
03-22-2011, 08:01 PM #4Temporarily Suspended
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- India
- Posts
- 858
How long the company has been in business
Quality of technical support.
-
03-22-2011, 08:06 PM #5Moving the Web Forward
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
- Location
- Modesto California
- Posts
- 6,858
I think you pretty much covered all of the bases, however I think its important to know that depending on the client, the needs are going to be very different. Personally I always like to break it down into two categories, A.) what the company is offering and B.) The history of the company (length of time in business, reputation..ect).
Looking for an awesome VPS Offer? CLICK HERE
"Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do." – Bruce Lee
-
03-22-2011, 08:07 PM #6Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Posts
- 1,785
The first page I visit is the about us page. If they can't tell me something about the company without regurgitating more of what they offer, I move on.
-
03-23-2011, 12:08 AM #7Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Jun 2003
- Location
- California
- Posts
- 2,786
I would add:
8. Data Protection Features
8.A. RAID 10 (hardware redundancy)
8.B. Daily off-site backups
8.C. Data Center w/Fire Protection, Power Backup, etc.
-
03-23-2011, 12:47 AM #8Disabled
- Join Date
- Mar 2011
- Posts
- 65
I will know about-
* Any Connectivity Problems Ever?
* The FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
* Hosting Reliability
* Having SSL (Secure Sockets Layer?
* The Right Web Hosting Price
* Web Hosting Customer And Technical Support
-
03-23-2011, 01:01 AM #9Web Hosting Guru
- Join Date
- Jan 2011
- Posts
- 296
I'm into Quality over Quantity as well. If that particular Web Hosting offers quality and it suits my standards then I'll go over them!
-
03-23-2011, 01:01 AM #10WHT Addict
- Join Date
- May 2010
- Posts
- 153
Hi Mate,
I would add support+ Customer reviews + Age of the company.
Thanking you,
David.Transition to wordpress today!!:wordpressmonk.com
Contact us -Hotmail :abacies@hotmail.com
Gmail :abacies@gmail.com
Skype :abacies
-
03-23-2011, 03:58 AM #11Newbie
- Join Date
- Nov 2010
- Posts
- 8
Non Affiliate Reviews
I am looking for reviews without affiliate links to the company. Real reviews of people wanting to share their experience using that particular web hosting company.
Antonia
-
03-23-2011, 08:45 AM #12Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- May 2010
- Posts
- 615
When i look for hosting i look at the following
Reviews of the company (if they get good feedback Great, if they get bad feedback what if any are there responses?)
Price (does it seem to good to be true?)
support ( i fire off a few emails to support departments and sales and ask questions, this also allows me to check the response times)
Live chat is a plus but a lot of the time it's not manned 24X7 and sometimes it's outsourced to another country to people who may or may not have access on any level to the hardware (so it proves useless if they cant help when you need it)
again it's a case of quality over quantity. i don't believe the biggest company is always the best they just have the biggest advertising budget a lot of the time small-medium sized companies are best because they have a smaller client base and want to do best for their customers as all smaller companies have is their reputation for customer service and quality (this can be said about alot of smaller companies in a lot of industries)
joewww.JGwebhosting.co.uk - CPanel Control panel, domain registration, Reseller packages And 24X7 Technical support! - Now Taking in Hosting Refugee's
www.JGpcrepair.co.uk - Computer repair, New Systems, Software, Hardware
-
03-23-2011, 09:21 AM #13New Member
- Join Date
- Mar 2011
- Posts
- 2
I look for a lot
Price is important but not as important as a MYSQL Server PHP5
if you cannot have a database you can not build much!
-
03-23-2011, 11:03 AM #14Junior Guru Wannabe
- Join Date
- Aug 2005
- Posts
- 39
Thanks for the replies everyone, this is some good stuff.
-
03-23-2011, 11:42 AM #15Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Posts
- 3,816
Customer service - Don't treat me like I'm stupid
Price - Reasonable, but not ultra low
Bandwidth and storage - ^
Features - SSH must be by default with no further BS, must have RAID, the usual: python, ruby/rails, latest php (5.3.6, iirc)
I don't care about a money back guarantee - never do long periods, always month to month anyways. the amount is negligible for shared hosting.
I don't care about live chat. I don't think I'm the "average customer" - absolutely despise cPanel/Plesk, and dislike Directadmin. Would much prefer command line.
-
03-23-2011, 11:54 AM #16Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Posts
- 6,884
If you have written that in priority basis, I have disagreement. The first point would not be price in my list. Definitely price is a factor. But I would always make adjustment in my budget if I get best service. Yeah reliability, uptime, track record and all such points will follow as others said.
iHubNet Ltd - Premium Hosting Solutions 4 ALL
• Solid Support • Solid Equipment • Solid Network
Shared Hosting / Reseller Hosting / Managed Server
Matt A.
-
03-23-2011, 09:59 PM #17Retired Moderator
- Join Date
- Oct 2002
- Location
- EU - east side
- Posts
- 21,920
Generally, when I judge a hosting company I will look at customer reviews. As much as possible, I try to find well written, nicely balanced ones. The overly enthusiastic or the ones that are overly negative often hold little actual information. They either try to sell you too much, or they're just venting and partially irrational.
I then try to see how company representatives present themselves and communicate on forums.
The cost, the features and all that stuff is of course important, but those things are so in your face that there's little to talk about it. There's much talk about the control panel, which one's more user friendly etc., but I have rarely found the control panel to be an insurmountable problem. Most of them will do most things you need just fine, even if it will take longer than it really should.
Things like the guarantees often don't really matter to me. I will try and take advantage of them if necessary, but in my purchasing decision I will assume the worst (i.e. money spent is money gone), and I won't spend more than I can afford to lose.Last edited by ldcdc; 03-23-2011 at 10:02 PM.
-
03-24-2011, 03:34 AM #18Newbie
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
- Location
- Bogor, Indonesia
- Posts
- 5
don't forget to green powered hosting.
-
03-24-2011, 04:30 AM #19Disabled
- Join Date
- Jan 2011
- Posts
- 875
-
03-24-2011, 05:23 AM #20Newbie
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
- Location
- Bogor, Indonesia
- Posts
- 5
absolutely right. they must accommodate chat support, would be better if there phone number to call for free.
-
03-24-2011, 05:42 AM #21Web Hosting Evangelist
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Posts
- 544
What to look for in shared hosting...
Hhmmm... I just have to jump in here on this one. It seems that many folks want to attach qualities that are unneeded to a commodity product. The common nickname for this product is cheap hosting.
First you have to know that your project will work in this environment. After that has been determined, just find one that has the capabilities that you will need to run your project - at the lowest possible price - Then buy two (1ea from two different vendors) they are cheap. Build your site on one and then copy it to the other, continually back up the first to the second so they are closely synced. Then finally have a fail over policy in place.
Up time history is really not important, this type of product is going to be down from time to time. Be sure your policies (not the vendor) take this into account and mitigate your exposure.
Customer service and support are truly useless in this arena, purchase the service and use it. Why pay to be able to call some one who will only say "Yep, it is down". The hardware providers of the service will be looking after their hardware, they don't need you to call and say they are down. If you need help building your project, look elsewhere.
Bandwidth and storage are of minor importance but if your site is going to take gigabytes of space you are probably barking up the wrong tree anyway (even a 3GB WordPress Blog is a nightmare to keep backed up). CPU, memory and other resources will be so limited that reaching even the lowest advertised bandwidth limits will be nearly impossible.
Control panels can be fun but are tremendously resource intensive, using cpanel to back up your multi-gigabyte site (10GB limit) every night will not only take you inordinate amounts of time, it will violate most TOS's. Just find one you like if you must.
Domains purchased through a hosting vendor (even if they are free upfront) become a pain in the posterior when you want to move your project, and you will.
Sub domains are really a DNS issue, using the DNS servers on a shared host is not a good idea anyway.
Databases, Dedicated IP availability, etc... are a part of even the cheapest providers offerings... Watch your project, don't bet the bank on this product.
I'll just throw in that if you think the mail servers on a shared host will be good enough for any business use, think again.
You are going to pay for any money back offer, whether you use it or not. This is certainly not important, this is cheap hosting.
Well, that is my opinion anyway.
-
03-24-2011, 11:02 AM #22Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Posts
- 6,884
iHubNet Ltd - Premium Hosting Solutions 4 ALL
• Solid Support • Solid Equipment • Solid Network
Shared Hosting / Reseller Hosting / Managed Server
Matt A.
-
03-24-2011, 11:55 AM #23Disabled
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
- Posts
- 10
Please check reviews on that company too.
Similar Threads
-
Which one is db and which is web? Purchasing two machines
By djdeepen in forum Web HostingReplies: 4Last Post: 02-22-2008, 03:09 AM -
Interested in Purchasing SMALL web hosting companies (resellers) - £50/~$100
By thomase in forum Other Web Hosting Related OffersReplies: 3Last Post: 05-30-2006, 11:07 AM -
Purchasing Fully Operational Hosting Web Site...
By Arvida in forum Other Web Hosting Related OffersReplies: 7Last Post: 02-26-2005, 03:29 AM -
Checklist / list of questions when purchasing another web hosting company...
By hytek in forum Running a Web Hosting BusinessReplies: 6Last Post: 12-28-2004, 07:09 PM