Website hosting question

[PressurePros 249]

Who do you use for your website hosting, how reliable is your server, and how much does it cost you (setup fees, domain name etc)?

[Neil_Asheville 114]

Good morning, Ken. I haven't shopped hosts lately. I will though put a plug in for Register.com. I've used them for both email and web for 3+years now...most consistently email. They have been reliable, competitive price, and scalable email/web options as my needs come and go. I usually have several business interests going on at any given time and they have good admin tools that allow you to monitor all your web or POP3 mail accounts or multiple domain names. I spend about $130/yr with $99 of that going towards a 10-user 100MB email package. I don't have any reason to switch to another provider. Hope this helps.

/neil

[washdawg 14]

I have used in the past 2 web providers that are very competitive and have good reliability. 1AND1.com is fairly new, but offer Windows and Linux servers starting at about $5.00 a month. You can get 2000 Mb (2 gigs) for about 9.95 a month, plus web tools, search engine, photo gallery, 250 email accounts and more.

1planhost.com is another Windows based host for about 9.95 a month. 1 Gig of storage, 250 email accounts, domain registration, etc. Very Reliable. I currently have a test site running on this, but am shutting it down. Will be using 1and1 as I want to run PHP (Linux) apps.

My $.02

Dave

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

www.f5hosting.com

Tell them Beth from The Grime Scene sent you....

Beth

[PLD 14]

Just like pressure washers, you get what you pay for with web hosts. And the cheapest looks like a great deal till something bad happens. Then you find out what you didn't get for the bargain price (like insurance)...

I pay $59.95/month at Cybrhost. Some of that is because Cybr is an expert at Miva Merchant tuning/support and I run Merchant. Some of it is for other e-commerce features that are not needed for most sites. And don't forget that I take nearly 20k hits/day.... A static, non-commerce, low volume site would be significantly cheaper, but beware of the "budget" hosts. They have been known to disappear overnight leaving you with no site, no files, no backups, etc when their equipment is re-possesed.

Anyway, at a bare minimum you should be able to log into a command shell, tar up your entire site, and ftp it back home. And you should do this at an interval that coincides with your change frequency. I've written some scriots to automate it and I backup my whole site and download it daily. If something happens to Cybr (or our relationship), I can have my site up somewhere else (including my home) in 2-4 hours.

I also recommend registering your own name seperately from your host. That way if something happens you can re-point your DNS records to another w/o their assistance or permission.

HTH

[Power Clean 14]

Who do you use for your website hosting, how reliable is your server, and how much does it cost you (setup fees, domain name etc)?

I use lowesthosting.com. In over 2 years their server my site is on has never been down and it cost me about $80 bucks a year. They have great packages and good extras that come along with it. I'd check them out. Just my .02!

[RyanH 14]

I think I pay $99 per year for iPowerWeb.com 2 gigs storage, some huge number of bandwidth per day, detailed reports (who visited from where, which pages received the most attention, the order the pages were clicked through, number of visitors in given periods, etc.). A bunch of plugins (shopping carts, a handful of scripts for chats, blogs, php, and a bunch of other stuff I don't understand), multiple email accounts and access, etc. I basically use it for file sharing with friends and family but have never had a problem.

[Mathew Johnson 123]

I use ipowerweb as well.. they are great

[CCPC 26]

Ipowerweb.com

[bforbis 14]

I have been working on setting up a website, but not sure where/how to start.

I am headed for the last recommendation and look around.

Anyone care to summarize a few quick tips for starting, watch out etc, other than noted above?

Thanks

Brent

[bforbis 14]

Matt,

I really appreciate the info yesterday about ipower and building your own site. I found that my computer already has a web site building program. I have to look at it a bit closer and see if it significantly different.

Thanks again

[Mike 64]

So let me see if I got this right? ..when you register with a hosting company, you have to get permission if you want to move your domain name to a different server? How do you get around having to do that? I thought when you buy the name, its yours. I'm also looking at setting up a web page. Thanks for the information.

[Larry B 55]

At least with the hosting I have used, you get a discount up front to register with an agreement to stay with them for a period of time, usually between 2-6 months. After that you can transfer the name, for a fee, to the new hosting company.

[PLD 14]

So let me see if I got this right? ..when you register with a hosting company, you have to get permission if you want to move your domain name to a different server? How do you get around having to do that? I thought when you buy the name, its yours. I'm also looking at setting up a web page. Thanks for the information.

First, a little techno-speak. A DNS entry (commonly called a domain name, URL, or URI) is just a human readable representation of an IP address. Hence, you don't move a domain name to a server. You POINT a domain name at a server. For example www.OdorDestroyer.com = 67.99.206.41 If you go register www.MikesSite.com and point it at 67.99.206.41 then any user who browses to either domain name will see exactly the same site. FWIW, odordestroyer.com and www.odordestroyer.com are not the same entry. Most people think they are because they are usually pointed to the same address.

If you have the host register the domain name for you and they place themselves as the administrative contact, they effectively control the domain. You may legally own it, but if you have a falling out or they go under it may take you quite some time to get the issue resolved since the authorative regsitrar does not recognize you as the owner. Also, while rare these days you may find that a domain was registered and points to your site but is actually owned by the host and being leased to you. When it comes time to move you find out that you can go, but www.coolest-domain-ever.com stays behind.

To properly secure your domain name Register your own name with a registrar, and put your host only as the technical contact. They can make all the changes they need to but you maintain ownership of the domain at all times.

PS: Before we get into a long debate about domain names, I'm fully well aware that a domain/domain name and a URL not the same. However since most people never have more than one host in their domain, and for purposes of simplicity, I have avoided any discussion about DNS servers, root servers, and other things that would cloud the subject.

[steve r 14]

I use mysitespace.com .Its been good to me

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Philip,

Great post! Well put. Thank you :)

Beth