Archive for the ‘Hosting’ Category
Hosting Companies Updated
I decided to go shopping again for some reseller hosts after one that I have been using and recommending turned out to be a major dud. I would NOT recommend Power360Hosting anymore. Lousy uptime and very slow to fix issues. Plus, they have a trouble ticket system and I’ve upped the bar now. The hosting service needs to have at least online chat support if not 24/7 phone support.
I saw this list on webhostingtalk.com and will be checking them out.
http://www.downtownhost.com/
http://www.hostcaters.com/
http://futurequest.net/
http://www.handynetworks.com/
http://www.cartikahosting.com/
http://ljhost.com/
http://pair.com/
http://ez1host.com or http://www.techark.com/
http://www.clook.net/
http://httpme.com/
http://www.glowhost.com/
http://spiderweave.com/
http://www.agilehosting.com
http://glowhost.com
http://ljnetworks.com
http://mxhub.com
http://www.utropicmedia.net/
I’m on the fence for HostGator. The have a good price for their reseller hosting and a lot of positive reviews although some VERY negative reviews as well. The negative reviews are kinda scary because it seems like people have had their sites shut down for minor infractions and the impression I get is that HostGator is not too sympathetic.
I was considering AQHost until I chatted with their customer support. Very poor and rude, I felt. So no signups for me there even though they came highly recommended.
I’ll let you all know who I finally picked.
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11/27/07 – Update. I finally picked downtownhost.com. At first I thought there were a little pricey for me at $22.95 / month for a reseller account. However, when I asked their online sales guy if they had any cheaper plans he told me that had a 25% off coupon. Nice!
So far they’ve been pretty helpful in getting my accounts transferred over. I hope they work out for me because it’s a royal pain to have to move hosting services…
Best Hosting Sites
Here are my thoughts on web hosts:
When I first started out looking for web hosting many years ago, I went for the ultra cheap. I just had one site and I couldn’t afford the $40 / month prices that popular companies like Hostway were charging at the time.
So I ended up using a company called DirectNic. They were cheap for the basic hosting — I think something like $5 a month. The problem was that they would nickle-and-dime you for everything like having extra email addresses. Also, they didn’t offer any phone support. You could email them and they typically would respond within a day. Because uptime for my site wasn’t super-critical the slower response was OK for me. It was the tradeoff that I assumed came with cheap hosting.
After a while I got tired of paying for every add-on and I switched over to HostGo. They were about $10 / month although they didn’t charge for each email address and they had a lot of webspace and bandwidth. Plus I could administer some of the features using cPanel. They only offered email support although I was used to that already.
The next step up for me was hosting that allowed multiple domains. I found two hosting services for about the same price. The Prime Host and WestNic. They were basically doing reseller hosting and that was cheaper for me because I could have lots of websites for almost the same $5 / month price I was getting at Direct Nic for just 1 domain. Both The Prime Host and WestNic also only offer email support.
Since that time the industry has matured and I’ve settled on hosts that typically use a cPanel interface, have reseller plans, and now I’m also looking for phone support and extra IP addresses if they have it.
Today, here’s my list of good and bad hosts that I’ve used or have heard about from VERY reliable sources:
Good List
HostGator – www.hostgator.com. They used to be on my Undecided List and I’ve moved them up the to Good List. Uptime is good and I haven’t had any issues with them shutting down my sites.
HostMonster – www.hostmonster.com. Cheap and reliable. Just the way I like it.
PowerVPS – www.powervps.com. I’ve heard only great things about this host, although they are a step up in price for me. $45 / month is a bit steep although for $4 more you can get an extra 4 IP addresses so perhaps it’s cheaper to use them rather than 4 different cheaper reseller plans. Also, for $45 / month you get great support and a Virtual Private Server which is better than shared hosting on my reseller plans and right below a dedicated server. All the benefits of a dedicated server at a reduced price.
SLHost – www.slhost.com. Competitive with PowerVPS at about $45 / month as well. Good reports on this host. I see lots of discounts so the true price may be closer to $35 / month.
Bad List
I can honestly say that you should avoid these hosts!
The Prime Host – www.theprimehost.com. They were my first cheap reseller host. However, I’ve come to realize their support is awful and I don’t have to live with it. I can get better support for the same price. They’ve shut down my sites before without any email notice. I don’t know how many times I would email them a question and they would either answer only half of my question or give me a totally useless response. They are the worst of my bad list.
Host Go – www.hostgo.com. I’ve decided to move away from this host. $9.95 / month is too much to pay today for single domain hosting and no phone support.
DirectNic – www.directnic.com. Too little support and not enough features for the price.
WestNic – www.westnic.com. They are borderline problematic like The Prime Host. I’ve had a site or two shut down from them and later unsuspended after I sent them an email. I still have sites with them and I plan to slowly migrate my sites to another host.
Host Nine – www.hostnine.com. I used to love these guys when they first came out. After about a year, their uptime and support collapsed so I moved my sites over to HostMonster.
Undecided
Reseller Zoom – www.resellerzoom.com. I’ve had OK service from them so far. A few people have had problems with them. No phone support. I might stick with them for a while because they are so cheap. Budget reseller plan for just $5 / month.
For higher end hosting you can check out offers here. Expect to pay about $40 – $50 per month for this type of host. However, you can expect great uptime and phone support.