Forum Moderators: phranque
any thoughts?
In terms of hosting, you usually get what you pay for. I have had several hosts that offer the same services, however, usually the less you pay the less support you receive. Saying that, one of my host is both cheap, reliable and offers good support. The only way to find out what a host is like is to pay.
Chris
G,
A simple rule of thumb for myself (have hosted with both big and small) is as long as they have the facilities you need go for small and develop a contact within the company. The more senior the better... ...the bigger hosts just don't have enough staff or good enough customer services.
If they have live support (online support) even better.
Just make sure that you can get hold of people via voice or online.
Rich
The cheap hosts do seem to offer less support, such as online help.
What about things such as security? Will that be an issue on the cheap hosts or does that just vary regardless of cost?
A variable, yes. The services offered are usually a reflection of the existing skills of the technical team at the company. Sometimes you strike lucky, sometimes not. The big thing with cheap hosts is that they basically buy a rack or 2 in a datacentre, fill 'em full of near-identical, lowest-bidder spec servers, and put about 1000 domains on each, then pray they don't fall over.
Usually they don't so everythings cool, but when they do you can have problems, because then you sometimes DO get what you pay for.
Cheap hosting is also sometimes used as a loss leader to build the customer base, with all the real money coming from packages add-ons, like enabling SQL support, or increasing the monthly bandwidth allowance etc, etc
Regarding security with cheap hosting, they do all most nothing about security. Do not go to prowebspace. They lost our files, DNS entry is wrong, hackers getting the server easily! Same goes for bergainhost. They don't have proper patches and our site been hacked for a while. Its better to pay for service if you had quality customers.
Bravo
Its very hard to find a good web hosting. Of course you have to pay for quality services. There are some resellers offer good web hosting like I am considering www.pipeten.com. They do windows and linux box. They are reseller of an Irish provider. I asked them if I can do a hacking test on the webserver. I am waiting for reply. You can avoid hacking by asking ISP providers questions like: do u have a firewall? or do u have url scanner? How often do u do patches for windows? do u have backups and when its done? More advise able if you can get 'hackers beware' a books about security of your server and what method they use to hack your site. Its help if you know the patterns of the hack and you can minimize the problem. You can also try redstation.com which I been told is reasonable.
End of the day you decide based on your customer worth.
I hope it helped.
Bravo
