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  1. #1

    Trying to find a Host

    I'm going to start a Art website and Im looking for a good host to do just that. Im also wondering in all hosting aspects do you have to pay the full slum of the money up front? I always see this 7.77 month deals and stuff, just wondering why they might display that then make you pay the full slum up front?. Help me out finding a good host for my soon to come art website and a good reliable host.

    SimpleHost.com was a site i was looking at, i wondered if they charged the full amount up front.

    ~BoardTng

    help me along the right path plz.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    New York, NY
    Posts
    10,710
    BoardTng,

    Personally, I would not recommend paying annually for a web host because you may not like the web host and want to switch before the year is up. Then issues start..

    The search feature on this forum is extremely useful for people looking for a host.

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/search.php?s= (the URL)

    Simply look around (even people's signatures around here) and search their company's name. You can also check out the offers section towards the bottom of WHT and search hosts whose ads you may find to see if they are perfect for you.

    Cheers
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  3. #3
    Do you have any idea of your needs with regards to disk space etc. Do you expect >99.9% uptime. There are a lot of great hosts who provide great uptime and great support for a good price., and using the abovementioned criteria, you may be able to limit your options slightly.

    Just have a look through the boards and you will see there are a number of hosts around here with good reputations.

    Remember to email them and check their response times before you sign up.

    Good luck finding a host.
    Ovica.com : Web Hosting Is What We Do!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Northern VA
    Posts
    1,582
    It's funny you should ask about the per month price. We just spent a lot of energy discussing that.

    There are quite a few hosts that let you pay monthly that don't charge any setup fees.

    If you're going to have an art website then the questions to determine your needs would be:

    1. How many pictures do you plan on uploading?
    2. Will you upload originals as well as thumbnails and scaled images or do you plan on just displaying scaled down images?
    3. Do you expect to have thousands of visitors a month or just a few hundred or a few dozen interested parties?

    The questions kind of combine to give you an idea for storage and bandwidth. If you have a lot of 1 MB images (say thousands), you might need a couple of GB in storage. Then if you're going to have a lot of people looking at the pictures then the bandwidth requirement starts to creep up.

    If it's a small site, however, without aspirations of tons of visitors you could probably get away with 1-2GB of storage and less than 10 GB a month just to guess. I'm not trying to decide for you but trying to help you guage your needs when you go look.
    Rich
    Husband, Father, Retired Marine, Geek

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    New York.
    Posts
    775
    Definitely try out the host before pre-paying for a year. I would only recommend paying ahead for 6 months. Some hosting companies don't last a year .

    That is a good price range to find a nice deal on hosting. Best of luck.
    GenerousWebHosting.com Home of Generous George the Red Monster.
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  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Baltimore, MD
    Posts
    1,211
    Originally posted by generouswebhostin
    Definitely try out the host before pre-paying for a year. I would only recommend paying ahead for 6 months. Some hosting companies don't last a year .
    You may want to do a month first, then if everything is looking good, switch to 6 months. This way you don't waste money on something that doesn't deserve it.
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  7. #7
    I prefer continue paying monthly... even if the host is good.. just use paypal subscription and it al happens automatically...

    the thing is not only good hosting.. say if your site becomes a hit and you need to shift to a VPS or a dedicated server in 3 months..then why to waste a year or 6 months fee?
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  8. #8
    Most hosting companies will give you a choice between paying at least monthly or year on a $7,77 account.
    You should also get 30 day's money back or a trail period to test out their hosting and SUPPORT system.
    If paying for a year, you should get a month or two free.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Northern Europe.
    Posts
    2,573
    You may want a host that gives you generous space+bandwidth. DreamHost is one that comes to mind. I have two graphics-intensive sites hosted with them myself.
    You can choose between various payment options, as is usual - monthly is one option. (But then you pay a setup fee)
    Note that this host has a 97-day money back guarantee!

    Another good host, in my experience, is Micfo. There you pay no setup fee even if you have the monthly payment option.
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  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
    Location
    Texas, where else?
    Posts
    1,571
    In agreement with the above.
    Most hosts do not charge set-up fees these days. Stay monthly, and look for realistic plans or offers. Sounds like you are "in the range" for many normal sites with lots of good hosts.
    Also if you are into "art" as well as computers you may want a host with extras like site builders, CMS, blogs or whatever. Most hosts offer these type things and if you have a combination of some web site skills with an artistic flair I've seen some great looking sites done with common software available from probably 70-80% or more of the hosts out there by people doing some "artistic" web site work instead of using base templates.

    Do your shopping & just remember, "if it sounds too good to be true...it is".
    What DevilDog said is true. With graphics it's all about what you do and your images & traffic. We have one client who is a professional graphic artist and uses his site for portfolios of his work as well as a separate kind-of side site just for blogs with friends & such. I like to check it out now and then because his work amazes me. He has hundreds of images. But he doesn't use much bandwidth or space because he has everything well optimized and while I don't know I presume his site is more of a portfolio for potential clients than a public site like someone who was trying to sell or display art to the public with lots of traffic or downloads.
    First you need an idea of what you really need.

    PS: Another reason to stay monthly and be careful with "deals" is the occasional fine print if you don't watch your statements and/or the fine print closely. We actually had a customer call last week thinking we had double-billed him AND way over-billed him.
    Turned out he has been with us for 2 years but his old host had some fine print that switched the "special" he signed up for originally to an annual plan after so long if you didn't submit cancellation in writing 30 days in advance etc. etc.
    He had just called them and said he wanted to cancel, but had not followed the terms of his agreement for their special by doing it in writing (and for some reason whoever was on the phone didn't explain it to him).
    He was embarrassed when he realized we just told him he had been paying for annual hosting for 2 years with a company he wasn't even using...and he hadn't noticed
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