How To: Selecting a Good Host | Avoiding the Bad
Tips on finding a good host
Here's a little something for you prospective customers to watch out for when selecting a hosting provider.
Intro
I started my company due to horrible support from about five hosting providers I dealt with in the past (no names mentioned here for obvious reasons). It is not easy to satisfy everyone, however it is not difficult to offer overall satisfaction. Many [kids and not knowledable people] start their own little hosting company expecting to make great success without effort.
This hurts you, the client in the end when you get no support, no responses, no ability to reclaim your lost data because they [hosting provider] did not pay their bills, did not secure their servers, did not know how to solve a drastic issue causing lengthy downtime (and sadly, in some cases permanent downtime).
It is important that you stop your "cheapest hosting provider" mentality regardless of your budget. If you care enough about your data and you expect quality support, uptime and overall service you need to pay for this "package". Don't settle for the cheasy infomercial style "but wait!" hosting providers. You want cheap, you'll get cheap and worst.
There is enough hosting providers to have one per household out there (emphasis added), so it is best to do some research and background check on who you settle for.
Tip #1
Avoid Scams "to good to be true"
Do not be fooled by hosting offers that promise you a "fine wine for a cost of a beer" scam.
Example:
15GB of disk space
150GB of bandwidth transfer
$12 per month
This is unrealistic and is known as "overselling". Overselling means they sell more than what they actually have on the server (80GB disk space, they sell 160GB worth of plans on the server). They [poor hosting providers] will have 1,000GB bandwidth and sell 5,000GB of plans on the same server. In the end, they lose money trying to make a fast dollar, get shut down, you lose your data and all the Tower of Babel comes tumbling down. This happens daily and many customers are affected, devastated and ruined because they did not do necessary research on the hosting provider they went for.
If you want quality support, uptime and performance you must pay for it. Just like cars, the more quality, power and performance there is - it will cost you more plain and simple. Like houses, the larger the house and land - the more the cost.
Tip #2
The First Impression: Quality & Integrity Matters
How do you "test" to see if a hosting provider is good?
1. Live chat support / phone support (never settle for less than 24/7 unless your a pro admin yourself with root access to a server)
2. Website professionalism, layout, informational and "impressive". Lets get the fact straight, a pretty site with glamour is not a "good host" guarantee. However, a home made looking website can easily fend off an impression that there is quality in this hosting provider. It does not take much effort, time nor money to build a clean professional website for your visitors and current clients
3. Research on forums and host directories for reviews and testimonials. Some providers show this on their site. I personally assume all testimonials are lies if they do not provide actual domain and full name of the client who left the testimonial.
4. How long have they been around for? Do a whois to see when the domain was registered (
www.dnsstuff.com). This is the obvious sign when the company began. Some claim to have changed names and/or domains in the past. I personally find this to be either a lie or bad reputation under their original name that they wanted to start off fresh. If the company was doing well enough, they would not need to change the name/domain name. However, EV1 (formerly RackShack) did this and they own their own data centers (many opionions on EV1 range from 1-10, all opinions aside for now).
5. Do they offer a money back guarantee and uptime guarantee? (advice: do not settle for less than 99.5% uptime) Ask for stats as well for proof.
Bad testimonial example (made up):
"The BEST hosting provider EVER! They offer 100% uptime, never had any support issues, great prices, great value....."
John, TX
What's the problem here? Where's the proof that this is a genuine testimonial? Proof would be the actual domain itself. If you want to push for further proof, do a whois or dns report on the domain to see if they are in fact hosted at this company (
www.dnsstuff.com)
Tip #3
Avoid Gimmicks
There is NO such thing as unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth. If there were every hosting provider would be rich and every client would be happy. It really is common sense that literally speaking - there is a physical limit on disk space. For bandwidth - unlimited bandwidth is unrealistic at any given price. Unmetered bandwidth is another terminology and case.
Unlimited: not possible
Unmetered: not "infinite" but limited, just not metered. This depends on your servers actual network connection such as 1MBps 5MBps, etc. There is only so much transfer that can be done on each particular connection type, per month both in/out (aka ingress/egress). So technically unmetered means you can use up to the max possible transfer the server's connection will allow.
Tip #4
Illegal Activity
Stay away from providers that allow illegal content, even adult hosting. Why? Hackers love to break into adult websites to gain access for "pleasure". This can affect all clients serverwide and even possibly networks (DDOS attacks). Illegal content such as copyrighted file sharing can lead that hosting provider into legal battles or instant trouble with the government resulting in the server(s) and/or company being shut down for good without warning. Any providers that allows spam, speak for themselves. We all know the story about SPAM.
Tip #5
Big Is Not Better
Who said big is better? The big boys in the industry (most from reviews/experience/talk) do not care about your site. They have too many clients to focus personally on you and your problems. Sure, some provide great support but how great when you need it? Do not also settle for basement hosting unless you do not care about your data being lost.
Tip #6
Research Steps & Sites
1. Hosting forums
2. Hosting Directories (Host Search, Top Host, Find My Host, Host Review to name a few)
3. Testimonials (see above about genuine feedback)
4. Test support online via live chat, phone and email.
Tip #7
What is considered a reasonable plan not "too good to be true"?
First, if you are not sure about what is a realistic plan, ask around for opinions on the forums. More likely you will not only get an opinion on the package itself offered to you, but the hosting provider and everything in between (network, data center feedback for example). Second, if your instincts tells you something is fishy, more likely it is. Don't jump to conclusions however unless you are familiar with the hosting industry and how hosting itself works.
Tip #8
Know Your Needs
There is no direct need to buy more than what you actually need. Figure out how much disk space you need and add a little for growth. Same for traffic, emails, databases, etc. Some providers offer no downtime free upgrade to a higher plan, no setup fees. This is great for you.
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