Hosting

Choosing the right package

[Sunnydale]

I currently have 5 websites hosted with one provider all of which are fairly small. The hosting is due for renewal and because I do not use many of the facilities in my current package I am looking to downgrade my package to reduce the cost, however because I am looking to host 5 sites separately on one hosting package they appear unable to offer me a competitive price. I have researched into some other providers and have found some suitable packages but the providers are in the US (I am in UK) would this make any difference to my hosting?

Also is anyone able to recommend any good hosting providers who should be able to provide what I am looking for?

[stapel]

Well, you haven't actually said what you're looking for. You say that what you've found costs too much, but what sort of price-range were you looking for? What services do you require? And so forth.

Eliz.

[Sunnydale]

I am looking for someone who can host each of my 5 sites separately but through one control panel, I need Frontpage Server extensions, a good control panel and am not really sure how much I should be paying - those who I am currently with are now charging approx Ł155 per year whilst I have found others in the US who appear to be a lot cheaper.

Also the package I currently have offers a lot more bandwidth and web space than I require and I'm sure I must be paying a fair bit for this.

[netscan]

Be REALLY careful when choosing a cheap host. They're cheap for a reason, most of the time they are grossly oversold or their company consists of a 16 year old in his moms basement.

[crescenta]

That's true about the cheap host. Anyone can open a web hosting "reseller" account, and then sell hosting plans to an unsuspecting public. It doesn't mean that they will be honest, or know what they're doing. (I own a few reseller accounts, but I use them for my own domains and for my friends. I'd never want to start a reseller business—I'd be in over my head!)

I'm not sure what you want either, or what you consider a "good control panel." I also don't know what difference it would make if your host was in the USA, unless you believe that most of your visitors are from the UK, and a site coming from a USA host would take longer to load. (I don't know if there would be noticable lag in speed or not.)

I am the queen of hosting—I have tried out many, and I tend to be drawn towards the budget hosts. I've found a few good ones for my somewhat modest needs. They average about $10-15 US a month. (You can sticky me if you are curious who'd I recommend, but I emphasize that just because I like them, it doesn't mean they'd be right for you.)

All the hosts I use offer FrontPage extensions (that's pretty standard these days), are Linux hosts (which I prefer) and have a nice cPanel control panel, which offers lots of features, nice stats (usually AWStats, which I really like), web mail, hotlink protection (a big deal for me), an easy way to set up add-on domains, (which is what you'd be using—it would create a subdomain and point a new domain to it, so that extrasite.com actually points to extrasite.primarysite.com). As an alternative, you could get a small reseller account and manage your domains through it. Reseller accounts can be a little more expensive—maybe more like $15-20 US (or more) a month, though there are a few that are as little as $5. (But how good they are I cannot say.)

The hard drive space offered on a lot of these sites is plenty—usually 1-3 GB or so, and bandwidth can be anywhere between 10 GB to 60+ GB. If all these features sound like they'd be what you need, then that's what you should get. I know of some decent hosts who have been reliable for me, and that fit these descriptions.

[Essex_boy]

I recently switched from a host I had been using for 5 years on and off, to ahost offer tons more for teh same money.

Sticky me if you want any info