Comments on: Website Hosting Company Results - Found 7

By: Brian Turner

Brian Turner — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:59:08 +0000

Generally my preference is good e-mail support. I can usually explain my problem must better via e-mail.

I try out lots of hosts, and focus my operations with those hosts who provide responses within a couple of hours. Many do it in minutes.

Trouble is, lots of the better companies have their own racks, which can often mean just one or two IP ranges across the entire set-up.

I also search http://www.webhostingtalk.com for past discussions on any selected company, to gauge a sense of reputation in the industry for service and support.

Datacenter location and connectivity is also important to me, where specific national search markets are being targeted.

2c.

By: Lea de Groot

Lea de Groot — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 00:17:32 +0000

Phone support is generally not on my list as a must have - as I am overseas, it would take something incredible, like days of no email response, for me to pick up the phone, and their business hours are my sleeping hours anyway!
Although I do use the phone support for localhosting services. Hmmm…

By: Choosing a Good Web Host - Design Notes: A Web Designer’s Blog

Choosing a Good Web Host - Design Notes: A Web Designer’s Blog — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:29:29 +0000

[...] This post was sparked by a thread on Jim Boykin’s blog where I’ve also posted a comment or two. [...]

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:13:12 +0000

I shot down Dreamhost - no phone support - that’s crap in my book…but then again, it might not be in others’ books.

By: Harvey Ramer

Harvey Ramer — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:09:51 +0000

I also am surprised that no one mentioned either http://www.dreamhost.com or http://www.mediatemple.com. Both of these are midlevel in price and I’ve heard very good reviews of the stability of dreamhost servers.

By: Harvey Ramer

Harvey Ramer — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:08:39 +0000

I resell Web services from site5.com and have found that they work quite well for many of my clients. There are always trade-offs in Web hosting, especially for those with limited budgets.

My take on what to ask a Web hosting company is this: Ask them for features that you really must have (PHP/Mysql, Stats Reporting if needed). Then, of the companies that have those features, ask for uptime statistics and some referrals from hosting clients.

Usually, at the low end you either can get fairly decent stability with very few features (http://www.hostasaurus.com) or many features with occasional stability problems (http://www.site5.com). Another notable hosting provider that has occasional stability problems but does everything they can to minimize them is http://www.5dollarhosting.com.

It’s a tough thing to choose a hosting provider. I wish you well.

A word of caution about using returned phone calls as a barometer of reliability: Most hosing companies use email for support requests and handle them swiftly. For anything other than high-dollar hosting such as rackspace.com, you will be hard pressed to speak to anyone on the telephone and really don’t need to anyway.

Another way to go is with a hosting middleman like myself who handles phone calls and gets the tech support taken care of. In addition, someone like myself adds value by actively watching the servers for outages and submitting support tickets even before my clients call (though not always!).