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  1. #1

    Red face Please help me find a web host! Will give any details needed to help me!

    So here is the deal: I have created a website for my mom, a public school teacher, and we need some place to host it. She wants to spend around $40 per year, which I think is reasonable given the specs we would need:

    Type: Shared hosting (that would be the only one in our range anyways)

    Space: at least 3 GB
    Bandwidth: Upwards of 5 GB per month would be nice
    Domain: Already purchased

    I have checked out dozens of sites, but am having trouble finding one that has a low enough price and that the reviews don't scare the daylights out of me. For example, Cirtex seems totally in my price range and meets my specs, but some of the reviews make it seem abysmal. In addition, dreamhost has good reviews and seems like a nice host, but at $8.95 per month, it is just way too out of our range.

    Thanks for any suggestions you might have and feel free to ask any clarifying questions needed to help me limit my choices down.

  2. #2
    MDD hosting gets great reviews here, and has a coupon in the offers section that will bring it into your price range.

    Hope that was helpful. I can't think of anything else that cheap that doesn't get tons of bad reviews.

  3. #3
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    What type of site is it? If it's just plain HTML+Images then realistically you should be fine at any provider but you should still keep a local copy of the site just in case. If it's something PHP+MySQL powered like WordPress, Joomla, etc... then you would want to be a bit more careful as those types of sites are more intensive than a static site.

    At the end of the day, you'll just have to make a decision - but keep your own backups (no matter what your host promises they do as far as keeping backups) so that should you find you made a poor decision, you can easily shift.

    Also, don't spend more up-front than you can stand to lose. If you don't want to be out $300 worth of hosting, then don't buy $300 worth of hosting up-front just to get a good deal. It is better to pay $2/month more and go monthly, for example, and then find out 2 months later that they don't want to host you and won't refund your money than it is to lose a lot more.

    Good luck.
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
    Ultra-Fast Cloud Shared and Pay-By-Use Reseller Hosting Powered by LiteSpeed!
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  4. #4

    Seems promising

    Quote Originally Posted by Question Everything View Post
    MDD hosting gets great reviews here, and has a coupon in the offers section that will bring it into your price range.

    Hope that was helpful. I can't think of anything else that cheap that doesn't get tons of bad reviews.
    Thanks! They have really good ratings over at HostJury as well and their rating system is generally very trustworthy. Their specs are awesome and as you said, in my price range, so I will probably end up using them. Thanks!

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    What type of site is it? If it's just plain HTML+Images then realistically you should be fine at any provider but you should still keep a local copy of the site just in case. If it's something PHP+MySQL powered like WordPress, Joomla, etc... then you would want to be a bit more careful as those types of sites are more intensive than a static site.

    At the end of the day, you'll just have to make a decision - but keep your own backups (no matter what your host promises they do as far as keeping backups) so that should you find you made a poor decision, you can easily shift.

    Also, don't spend more up-front than you can stand to lose. If you don't want to be out $300 worth of hosting, then don't buy $300 worth of hosting up-front just to get a good deal. It is better to pay $2/month more and go monthly, for example, and then find out 2 months later that they don't want to host you and won't refund your money than it is to lose a lot more.

    Good luck.
    Thanks for the advice! The site is simple html, images, and a few flash objects (a video player for some FLVs), so yeah, it should run pretty much everywhere. However, I would prefer one with more advanced features, such as SQL and script support, because I might eventually want to transfer some of my personal Wordpress sites over (just cancelled old host).

    And I feel you on the commitment thing. The most I have been willing to commit to is about a year of service.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by coffeedrinker View Post
    And I feel you on the commitment thing. The most I have been willing to commit to is about a year of service.
    My advice, if there is no real drawback to going monthly, is to go monthly for a month or two and then ask the provider to upgrade you to annual. You will want to ask how this will work with any promotion you may be wanting to use (i.e. if it's on your first invoice only, they may only apply it to your first month, or they may be willing to apply it to your whole year if you upgrade within the first 30 days).
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
    Ultra-Fast Cloud Shared and Pay-By-Use Reseller Hosting Powered by LiteSpeed!
    cPanel • Free SSL • 100% Uptime SLA • 24/7 Support
    Class-leading support that responds in minutes, not days.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    My advice, if there is no real drawback to going monthly, is to go monthly for a month or two and then ask the provider to upgrade you to annual. You will want to ask how this will work with any promotion you may be wanting to use (i.e. if it's on your first invoice only, they may only apply it to your first month, or they may be willing to apply it to your whole year if you upgrade within the first 30 days).
    I would try to follow this advice, but the problem is that there usually is a major drawback to doing it monthly. For example, I'm checking out the MDD coupon right now, and I would save a ton doing it annually and be able to force it under my budget, but wouldn't be able to afford it paying it on a monthly basis. It works out to $38.25 if I pay for a year, and $81 if I pay by the month.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by coffeedrinker View Post
    I would try to follow this advice, but the problem is that there usually is a major drawback to doing it monthly. For example, I'm checking out the MDD coupon right now, and I would save a ton doing it annually and be able to force it under my budget, but wouldn't be able to afford it paying it on a monthly basis. It works out to $38.25 if I pay for a year, and $81 if I pay by the month.
    Which is why you would want to ask if you could upgrade from monthly to annual within the first 30 days and have the coupon applied to the whole year. Some providers will do it, and some will not.

    Then again, $35 isn't a lot to lose, in general, should things work out.

    I'm giving you good advice in general no matter who you end up going with and not giving you information specific to any provider.
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
    Ultra-Fast Cloud Shared and Pay-By-Use Reseller Hosting Powered by LiteSpeed!
    cPanel • Free SSL • 100% Uptime SLA • 24/7 Support
    Class-leading support that responds in minutes, not days.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    Which is why you would want to ask if you could upgrade from monthly to annual within the first 30 days and have the coupon applied to the whole year. Some providers will do it, and some will not.

    Then again, $35 isn't a lot to lose, in general, should things work out.

    I'm giving you good advice in general no matter who you end up going with and not giving you information specific to any provider.
    Ah, I get you now. I thought you were saying to stick with paying monthly the whole time, not switching to annually later. Good advice; I'll try to use it.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by coffeedrinker View Post
    Ah, I get you now. I thought you were saying to stick with paying monthly the whole time, not switching to annually later. Good advice; I'll try to use it.
    Some providers will let you do that, and some will not, the only way to find out is to ask them directly.
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
    Ultra-Fast Cloud Shared and Pay-By-Use Reseller Hosting Powered by LiteSpeed!
    cPanel • Free SSL • 100% Uptime SLA • 24/7 Support
    Class-leading support that responds in minutes, not days.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by coffeedrinker View Post
    Thanks! They have really good ratings over at HostJury as well and their rating system is generally very trustworthy. Their specs are awesome and as you said, in my price range, so I will probably end up using them. Thanks!
    Hostjury is not a good place to check about web host reviews, specially if you don't have good relationship with the owner of the hosting company which own the site

    They remove valid reviews, keep fake, indeed, is not better than most of the "top 10 host" review site.

    I'm not saying with this anything bad about the host suggested, my opinion is only related to HJ.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Jedito View Post
    Hostjury is not a good place to check about web host reviews, specially if you don't have good relationship with the owner of the hosting company which own the site

    They remove valid reviews, keep fake, indeed, is not better than most of the "top 10 host" review site.

    I'm not saying with this anything bad about the host suggested, my opinion is only related to HJ.
    I'll keep this in mind, but from what I have seen from them, I'm not so sure this is really true. In fact, they even did a blog post about how they caught, and removed, fraudulent posts left by iPowerWeb attempting to give themselves higher reviews. However, I never accept anything at face-value anyways and almost always cross-check ratings by searching sites, such as this forum, and looking to get as much information as I can.

  13. #13
    There are quite few cheap shared hosting providers with optimum feature set as you have specified. However, the reliability of the hosting provider need to be cracked. As a basic metric the reliability and service support comes with the experience of the one in the industry. Look for the cheap shared hosting provider with good experience in the hosting industry

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    Some providers will let you do that, and some will not, the only way to find out is to ask them directly.
    What is your policy on this?

    I'd like the answer to that too, as I'm thinking about setting up a site for myself, although self promotion isn't really my thing (so I'm dreading it). I usually host with Linode, but I couldn't justify that for a few static pages (or maybe a simple wordpress or drupal site) getting single digit hits a month.

    I agree the assessment of HostJury as less than trustworthy.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by coffeedrinker View Post
    I'll keep this in mind, but from what I have seen from them, I'm not so sure this is really true. In fact, they even did a blog post about how they caught, and removed, fraudulent posts left by iPowerWeb attempting to give themselves higher reviews. However, I never accept anything at face-value anyways and almost always cross-check ratings by searching sites, such as this forum, and looking to get as much information as I can.
    I can tell you with a 100% of accuracy that they remove real reviews and keep fake.

    HJ is owned by a host (check which is the first on their "ranking" there and you'll see it)

  16. #16
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    Hj is HostJury ???
    Resellerid.com
    Cheap & Powerfull Reseller Domain

    RESELLERID.COM | Affordable Domain Solution
    Reseller your domain and making profit

  17. #17
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    *

    Quote Originally Posted by coffeedrinker View Post
    So here is the deal: I have created a website for my mom, a public school teacher, and we need some place to host it. She wants to spend around $40 per year, which I think is reasonable given the specs we would need:
    I think you can find your price but that does not mean your going find a quality host at that price (even though you may come close in price and quality).

    Here is my advice to you. Try to go month to month for a bit. You don't want to pay for a year and find two months down the line the host does not deliver what they promised. These days you can switch hosts quickly and with rapid DNS updates you can move to a new host with zero downtime if you do it right.

    The #1 control panel out there today is cPanel. cPanel probably has between 60% to 70% of the market share for control panels (my unofficial guess) so a host using cPanel is a good start. If you do have to move your site you'll most likely find a better host quicker who uses cPanel solely based on market share.

    So don't put your eggs all into one web host and realize you can move your site with in a couple hours if you had to. And always, ALWAYS keep a current back up of your site.

    Good luck and good hunting.
    WebzPro.com Hosting Solutions Since 2004
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  18. #18
    There are many sites which lists you the web host companies. You can choose it according to your requirement. Reviews about the web hosting companies will also be present in those site for the users convenience in choosing the best web host.hostingcompanieslist is one such site. See if can help you.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by coffeedrinker View Post
    Thanks! They have really good ratings over at HostJury as well and their rating system is generally very trustworthy. Their specs are awesome and as you said, in my price range, so I will probably end up using them. Thanks!
    +1 for MDDHosting. I'm with them for a VPS, and I can recommend them based on their service and support.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Question Everything View Post
    What is your policy on this?

    I'd like the answer to that too, as I'm thinking about setting up a site for myself, although self promotion isn't really my thing (so I'm dreading it). I usually host with Linode, but I couldn't justify that for a few static pages (or maybe a simple wordpress or drupal site) getting single digit hits a month.

    I agree the assessment of HostJury as less than trustworthy.
    Mike won't be able to answer you directly in the forum because it will likely violate the forum's rules against self-promotion.

    I will say that my experience with MDDHosting has been very good in this respect. They allowed me to switch to semi-annual billing at the same discount rate quoted to me when I chose monthly hosting with them for my VPS (mods: I have removed my signature but the VPS was verified previously). But, you would probably have to ask him directly, via PM or email, about any current offers.

    Smaller companies generally try to keep their customers happier, in my experience, especially when you are usually dealing with the owner or a tech who reports directly to the owner. Larger companies accept a certain amount of "churn", and the employees you are dealing with usually report through layers of management more concerned with meeting "metrics" than helping customers. That's my philosophical reason for choosing smaller hosts like MDDHosting over larger ones (a lesson I "re-learn" every few years).

  21. #21
    When I have a choice of local or big business I always go local, I get better service, as the person I'm dealing with actually gives a damn, and it's better for my neighborhood because instead of giving my money to wallstreet billionaires I'm giving it to a middle class person like myself who I usually know. It's much harder to figure out who is credible and who is full of crap on the web instead of in the real world, but the logic still holds. You get better service for less with smaller business because they don't have the same level of overhead big business do, and the people you're working with give a damn about their work; it's just harder to find credible small business online do to the number of scammers out there.

  22. #22
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    I have had good luck with downtownhost and powermonsters.net.

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Question Everything View Post
    it's just harder to find credible small business online do to the number of scammers out there.
    I believe, in my honest opinion, that more of the "scammers" are actually people who legitimately wanted to host people and thought it was going to be a breeze/easy way to make money and then found out it wasn't and just gave up on it/disappeared than it is people actually actively trying to scam.

    I will be honest, if you're trying to scam somebody, there are better ways to do it than in the hosting industry.

    Maybe I'm giving people too much "benefit of the doubt", and I am sure there are scammers out there. I just don't think that most providers who are listed as scammers - that it was their original intent or purpose.
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
    Ultra-Fast Cloud Shared and Pay-By-Use Reseller Hosting Powered by LiteSpeed!
    cPanel • Free SSL • 100% Uptime SLA • 24/7 Support
    Class-leading support that responds in minutes, not days.

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    I believe, in my honest opinion, that more of the "scammers" are actually people who legitimately wanted to host people and thought it was going to be a breeze/easy way to make money and then found out it wasn't and just gave up on it/disappeared than it is people actually actively trying to scam.

    I will be honest, if you're trying to scam somebody, there are better ways to do it than in the hosting industry.

    Maybe I'm giving people too much "benefit of the doubt", and I am sure there are scammers out there. I just don't think that most providers who are listed as scammers - that it was their original intent or purpose.
    You're probably right, and there isn't a big entry barrier to hosting, unlike opening a business in the real world, so it's probably true that a bunch of people are doing it who aren't up to par. The difference between trying to make a quick buck without caring about how your actions affect others, and actively trying to scam people can get pretty thin sometimes.

  25. #25
    I think you should suggest her to signup HostGator Hatching plan with atleast 25%. You will need to signup for 3 years. HostGator is reliable hosting company.

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