Internet hosting: What do you look for in an excellent net host?

[anne15o]

Hi, I'm a full-time webmaster who might be establishing a hosting business fairly soon. I am presently surveying the marketplace for information on what do other webmaster look for when subscribing to an online host. My firm is already shopping for the website hosting gears, and the HR manager is in search of individuals to workers the support division.

So what do you often search for in an online host?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Media Temple. And this is the wrong forum, so expect to be moved soon.

 

[AstroSmurf]

This is the wrong forum for this. Moving...

 

[Mr. B]

I've been a customer with Hostrocket for 12 years now and I am very satisfied, would happily recommend them. I believe a couple satisfied customers of HostGator are also members here.

 

[Kataaran]

I look at recommendations by other web designers, do they offer dedicated hosting, if it's regular shared hosting what's the contention ratio, do they offer full backups?

 

[Merky]

I do not resell or own servers, so I can't recommend in terms of service for that specifically. My current employer is a university so they own their own servers. I currently pay for hosting on a shared service with Surpass. I've been with them for about ... 7 years now and they're absolutely awesome. Prompt customer service, great uptime, and great prices. The perfect host, IMO.

 

[Odo not Frodo]

Uptime and bandwidth/storage limits. "Unlimited" is not always a good thing, it often means that the host is overselling.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ is a good resource when looking for reviews.

Go for Linode if you're looking for an unmanaged VPS running xen.

 

[carlrmiller]

godaddy is a good hosting company in my oppion

 

[94253]

I look for the cheapest monthly unlimited bandwidth with SSH access. I'm actually going to be moving soon so I'm looking for a new host. Most providers offer a $5/mo plan with SSH either included or an additional $2/mo, in which case I would buy that for one month and install everything at once.

I personally am not concerned about dedicated IPs vs shared IPs. I am not popular enough to get a billion hits per day or anything...

One of my domains is through GoDaddy, but I would NEVER host with them under any circumstance. They don't offer much access and assume all their customers are idiots. That is a safe practice, but at least other services give you the OPTION to get more access if you need it.

I wish you luck in your business!

 

[Robert Maxwell]

1. Uptime. My site is useless if it goes down.
2. Consistent performance. I don't want my site to be fast some days and slow the next for no apparent reason.
3. Responsive tech support. If I tell you my site is down and it takes you a day and a half to get back to me, I'm gonna be pretty pissed.
4. No nickel-and-diming. Sell a well-defined package with good features, including adequate space, shell access, and a control panel. Don't charge an extra buck or two a month for every dumb little feature a customer might want to add. I hate that.

I use Virpus Networks to host my VPS, and I am pretty happy with them. I can't beat the price, although there are (rare) service issues. Right now I've got a single VPS with them on which I'm running a handful of websites plus a Minecraft server and it all tends to work pretty well.

What I liked about Virpus was how they let me start with a base package and customize various parts of it to my liking. I wanted more RAM, a little more disk space, didn't care about extra IPs, and I was willing to go with the free control panel instead of paying for one.

Have well-defined default packages for most customers, but allow customization for power users who might have specific needs.

 

[Tom]

1. Uptime. My site is useless if it goes down.
2. Consistent performance. I don't want my site to be fast some days and slow the next for no apparent reason.
3. Responsive tech support. If I tell you my site is down and it takes you a day and a half to get back to me, I'm gonna be pretty pissed.
4. No nickel-and-diming. Sell a well-defined package with good features, including adequate space, shell access, and a control panel. Don't charge an extra buck or two a month for every dumb little feature a customer might want to add. I hate that.

This!

 

[Amaris]

I use iPage for my business. It comes with a solid essentials package:

Website Hosting
Free top level domain
Free Email accounts (unlimited)
Free SiteLock Service
WYSIWYG Site Builder
Webmaster Tools
Unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited storage capacity
Free Phonebook & Directory Listing Submissions

All with an uptime of 99.9%
All for about $50 a year.