Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Need Web Host for Business

[muskilh]

Hi everyone,

I am looking for a good web host and thought maybe some of you could help give some suggestions.
The site I'm looking to host is for a small and new IT business, my main concerns are (not necessarily in order):

• Uptime of the site

• The bandwidth limit per month (it doesn't have to be "that" high but I might put a small video or MS Access/(Excel/Visual Basic files available for download in the future although)

• The host must register my domain name which currently does not exist, preferably for free

• I must have at least 5 e-mails from my domain (for example muskilh@insertmuskilhsdomainname.com)

• The hosting company is trustworthy and wont randomly shut down or go bankrupt

I know almost all web hosting companies offer some of these such as the e-mails and registering the domain for free. After doing a bit of research, I'm leaning towards one of these companies (in order):
Hostgator, GoDaddy, Bluehost, LunarPages.

What I'm hoping to get from the feedback is a final decision on which company is good and can be trusted.

Also, money isn't too much of a concern for me, I'm willing to pay up to $25/month but of course would prefer it to be cheaper.

Thank you very much,
Muskilh

Edit: I'm based in Canada, if that matters

[phenglai]

What your looking for is very reasonable and any shared host can offer you a plan. Most hosts will throw the domain in free if you pay for a year in advance or 6 months, etc. All vary and it just depends on the host.

As for reputation, do a search on the forums to find out about those you are interested in. You should get many replies toyour request, start there and then narrow it down from there.

Most people will be glad to help,

[nicolas_]

I would recommend reading searching some reviews on WHT or on the internet on the companies you have shortlisted.

I hope you find a host that suits you.

[Scientist]

Other from Hostgator, you might want to do a more thorough research on the remaining 3 hosts as they are rated very poorly in the *real* world. Everything you read from the best hosting, top hosting etc websites are likely fake information.

Start off with under $5 budget (even $3 can get you extremely good hosts) in mind then look at how much bandwidth/space your sites are using. You can upgrade your hosting plans later on if necessary.

[ldcdc]

The hosting company is trustworthy and wont randomly shut down or go bankrupt

No one can read the future. A company may be great today, but usually, all it takes is an ownership change for things to suddenly become very different. Generally, any business has a price, and when the right price meets the owner's eyes, a sale is a very real possibility.

The host must register my domain name which currently does not exist, preferably for free

Some say, and I'm one of them, that it can be less risky to use different companies for your registration and hosting needs. I'd say this is especially true when you're dealing with a smaller company, but big isn't a real guarantee either (see registerfly). $10/year per domain isn't a huge sum, especially for a business.

[MikeDVB]

Originally Posted by muskilh

Hi everyone,

Hello.

Originally Posted by muskilh

I am looking for a good web host and thought maybe some of you could help give some suggestions.

There are a lot of good web hosts but a lot of bad ones as well. The best way to weed them out is by doing plenty of research including looking for validated/verified reviews of their services such as you will find here on WebHostingTalk. My major piece of advice is to avoid the "Top 10 Web Hosts" sites and just about any other web hosting review site as most of them are geared towards affiliate payouts for the individual running the site and not towards actually directing you to the best possible hosting providers.

Originally Posted by muskilh

• Uptime of the site

As this would be a high priority with just about any provider it's not uncommon to see this on such a list. With any reputable company you shouldn't have much trouble with this but you have to keep in mind that things do happen such as routing issues/network issues/hardware failure/attacks on services/etc... Going with a company that is known and very reputable will help save you some trouble as they likely know how to manage their servers properly but no matter what always keep your own backups at least on a regular interval on an off-server location such as a PC in your office or home and make sure the backup includes any and all databases that are important to you.

Originally Posted by muskilh

• The bandwidth limit per month (it doesn't have to be "that" high but I might put a small video or MS Access/(Excel/Visual Basic files available for download in the future although)

I wouldn't worry so much about future usage as much as current usage - chances are you can always upgrade later and you can always move to another provider or find another solution to host your files. Basically don't buy something you don't really need because you may need it sometime in the future.

Originally Posted by muskilh

• The host must register my domain name which currently does not exist, preferably for free

1. I would register my domain name separately, that way if there ever is an issue where you need that aforementioned backup you won't have an issue with your domain as well. 2. A domain is pennies per day, if you really are going to be running a business related site a few pennies per day is well worth the piece of mind.

Originally Posted by muskilh

• I must have at least 5 e-mails from my domain (for example muskilh@insertmuskilhsdomainname.com)

Just check with the provider's features before you sign up and if you are in doubt ask them via their sales department or live chat if it's available. Most hosts do allow at least 5.

Originally Posted by muskilh

• The hosting company is trustworthy and wont randomly shut down or go bankrupt

It happens every day, hosts shut down - but if you go with a reputable one the chances of that happening aren't as great but I still advise that you maintain your own off-server backups. Who knew that GM and Chrysler would end up filing bankruptcy and had you said it 5 or 10 years ago people likely would have thought you were insane. Even the most stable companies can go under so you always need a backup/continuance plan even if you go with a stable and reputable host that has been around for a while.

Originally Posted by muskilh

I know almost all web hosting companies offer some of these such as the e-mails and registering the domain for free. After doing a bit of research, I'm leaning towards one of these companies (in order):
Hostgator, GoDaddy, Bluehost, LunarPages.

HostGator was great while I was with them, you need to run searches here for all of the rest and I am sure you will walk away thanking your stars that you did appropriate research.

Originally Posted by muskilh

What I'm hoping to get from the feedback is a final decision on which company is good and can be trusted.

Really what it comes down to is which company you feel is good and which one you can trust. I could tell you to trust XYZHostingProvider.com but that doesn't mean that they are trustworthy or stable; in the end you have to draw your own conclusions. Maintaining your own backups will be a safety-net in case you make a poor decision.

Originally Posted by muskilh

Also, money isn't too much of a concern for me, I'm willing to pay up to $25/month but of course would prefer it to be cheaper.

The cheaper the better, but with a budget like $25/month I would register your domain yourself for sure

Originally Posted by muskilh

Thank you very much,
Muskilh

Your welcome, I am always happy to help!

Originally Posted by muskilh

Edit: I'm based in Canada, if that matters

Not really, unless you're hosting latency sensitive content such as high definition media streams, voip, or gameservers just about any host should be able to host your site with speed

[LevelHosting Inc]

Originally Posted by muskilh View Post

* The host must register my domain name which currently does not exist, preferably for free

1. I would register my domain name separately, that way if there ever is an issue where you need that aforementioned backup you won't have an issue with your domain as well. 2. A domain is pennies per day, if you really are going to be running a business related site a few pennies per day is well worth the piece of mind.

I would also like to second Michael's suggestion in regards to the domain registration. It's an annual fee and there are many reputable registrars out there such as; mydomain.com etc.

You can get your own domain name for only $10USD/yr and at least have control over it through the registrars control panel Vs. your web hosts. I've read many horror stories of end users not being able to obtain their domain name from their web host so do keep this in mind before signing with a host.

Cheers,

Matthew

[HostColor]

Your requirements can be met by all well-established web hosting providers, including any of those mentioned above. I would say "don't" go with oversellers but there are not many site owners who care about quality hosting when it is compared to "unlimited". Another thing I would suggest you is to make sure that the support of the hosting provide you are about to use will work for you. this requires a certain level of personalization of the customer care.

[314Hosting]

As HostColor said your requirements are simple which can be met by all serious web hosting companies.

[daemon2008]

I prefer lunarpages and godaddy. Both are large companies. Any shared host plan of them could meet your need.

[Corster]

Since your in Canada I would look at http://iweb.ca or http://iweb.com (same site).

[DevTech]

You should absolutely for sure never get your domain name from your hoster. If you decide to change hosters it is easy and trivial if you manage your own domain.

I use netfirms.ca to get domains and they work great at a good price and they have good experience with the extra weirdness of .ca domains

As others have said anyone can go "bad" so backups are important and if you manage your own domain, you can be up and running almost instantly with another hoster.

More important IMHO is friendly fast response to any questions and there it is much more likely that a high quality smaller hoster will deliver a much better experience.

I use Arvixe.com which is such a smaller hoster and the response time is just fanstastic, usually 30 minutes or less for an email with the answer or fix.

Your list is about what one would expect from a google hosting spam search so really really look into suggestions here at WHT.

Also, I can't say I really like any email on a shared hosting account at least for important stuff so I use gmail and if google goes out of business I'll eat my computer for you. You can attach 25 free gmail accounts to any domain if you like that option. The instructions are on the google apps site. You can pay them some money to remove the usual advertising but that never bothers most people...

Anyways good luck with your new site

[IMeanWebHosting]

99% of hosts can offer what you're needing. Good luck in your search! =)

[NexDog]

Do more research and stay away from the big names (such as you've posted) if you want a more personal service. Now you're here, read, read, READ.

[Ryan-W]

You need to do a good amount of research to choose a good web hosting company, the requirements you have mentioned can be met by majority of web hosts out there. You just need to choose the right one as per the outcome of your research.