How to choose web hosting

So you want to build a web site and need a company to host it for you. Or perhaps you already have a web host that you want to ditch for a better one. In any event, how to choose web hosting is not always an easy question to answer. We are the champions of hosting…or are we? The thing is, all web hosting companies claim to be the best, to have impeccable uptime, the most features, best support, at the lowest cost. But a majority of these have to be wrong, or the world wouldn’t have so many unsatisfied web hosting customers. Just have a look at an honest user review site and check out what customers, or former customers, are saying about some of the web hosts out there. The answer to how to choose web hosting just gets more complicated when you add the fact that even for good web hosts you will find customer that are unhappy, not necessarily because the web host is bad, but because expectations are unrealistic. The average customer experience This is why I personally always...

Recommended web hosting

I have been busy building some new blogs these past weeks and was in the need for an additional web hosting provider. It’s not that I am not very satisfied with my current host, HostGator, I just like to not have all my eggs in the same nest (so to speak). Actually, I am still extremely happy with HostGator! But, as I said, I needed a new host for some blogs, so I turned to hosting sites for recommended web hosting. “Top hosting” web sites The thing is, when you start to look at these recommend web hosting or web hosting review sites, you will see that there is a big discrepancy between the officially recommeded web hosting companies and the reviews submitted by users. The companies receiving five stars on the front page usually have tons of bad reviews from people actually using their services. You have to wonder if the recommended web hosting sites are just big advertisements for the web hosts that pay their affiliates the most. Disclaimer I confess open heartedly...

Best domain name registrar

In my opinion the best domain name registrar is NameCheap. I use them to register some of my domains, however since they don’t offer bulk purchase discounts I have had to go elsewhere to do large orders. The reason I like them is because of the ease of use of their web site, specially their order page. Compared to GoDaddy, where it feels like 3-4 unecessary pages of add-on offers, NameCheap keeps it relativaly easy. Perhaps the best feature at NameCheap is the private whois protection you get for free, even when only purchasing 1 domain. At Godaddy you need to purchase at least 6 domains to get this feature free, else it costs 8-9$ extra per domain. Now, I am not saying that you should not use GoDaddy, heck, I rank it nr. 2 on my list of domain name registrars. I just do’nt like their order page, or their marketing stragegies in general. To be fair I would recommend NameCheap for small orders and GoDaddy for larger, bulk, orders. My review of NameCheap Price:...

Best shared web hosting

In my opinion one of the best web hosting companies is Host Gator. I use them to host all my web sites and recommend them to anyone. They are the first “big time” web host I have been with that actually offer good web hosting, if not great! My past experience with the major players is that quality in service is often neglected in favor of marketing. This seems not to be the case with Host Gator, both from my experience and from the reviews and recommendations I have seen online. My review Price: Great Web space: A lot (more then enough) Traffic: Unlimited (don’t count on hosting the next google.com on an “unlimited” plan though) Control Panel: Cpanel (in my opinion the best control panel around) Support: Very, very, good (around 2 hours response in my experience) Add-on domains: Unlimited (this means you can host more then 1 web site on the same account) Money back guarantee: 45 days Best shared web hosting explained Opinions differ on who runs...

Web hosting basics: What differentiates the bad from the best web hosting services

Finding a reliable and cheap web host can be a daunting task in a market that is overcrowded with offers. The “cheap” part is easy, but finding a web hosting service you can rely on can often take a while. I know, because I have tried a lot of different web hosting companies up through the years, even run one my self. To give you a better understanding of what sets hosting companies apart from each other I will give you a “backstage” view. A web hosting company really only consists of two services (from the customers point of view): web hosting support Everything else usually goes on behind the scene. Your credit card gets charged each month, the techies at the company stop a network attack, you really don’t care as long as your web site is up and running, and that your questions are answered or problem resolved when you contact their support department. From the web hosting companies perspective, these are obviouslt the most expensive services to...