Anybody who has been in web hosting long enough to at least know the tiers knows that when you move from a shared hosting server to a VPS hosting server, your entire website experience will be better. However, there are misconceptions about how much bang for your buck you will get with VPS hosting too. With that said, I thought it might be a good ideas of looking at some of the pros and cons of switching from your standard shared web hosting plan to a Virtual Private Server.
Archive | Shopping Advice RSS feed for this section
Pros and Cons for VPS Hosting
7 Questions to Ask a SEO Company
Now, anybody who has been following my websites over the years should know by now that I like to go down the, do it yourself route most of the time. However, if you are a company with a budget to spare, hiring a search engine optimization expert or firm might be a worthy investment.
However, before you sign on the dotted line and hand them over your hard earned cash, I would suggest you go over these seven important factors when it comes to the search engine optimization business.
Your Shared Hosting Shopping List
When visiting some of the web hosting forums out there, it seems that everybody is asking the same question, and nobody else has realized this but a select few. More times than not, somebody will have a list of four or five web hosts and then saying, “Which one is the best?”. There is no way anybody is going to be able to tell you that. Why? Well, what is good for you might not be good for the guy down the street. With that in mind, I have decided to give my own shopping list for people out there looking for perhaps their first web hosting account.
What do you plan to do on and with this web site?
Why put the cart before the horse? Before you go out looking for a web hosting account, you need to figure out what type of web site you wish to build. For example, if it is a store – you will want to look for deals on dedicated SSL certificates, payment processors and shopping cart scripts. If it is a blog, you will want to look for compatibility with scripts like WordPress or Joomla. The web host in question you look into should be able to tackle your questions about any web site niche you wish to develop and create. Ask them how they can make your web site work, and what will they provide you with to get the job done.
What features do you or don’t you need?
Once you figure out what type of web site you wish to create, you are going to need to dive a little deeper and figure out what do you need to get that web site up and running. Here are a few examples:
- Blog Hosting – look to see that they support the blogging script you would like to use, or if they provide any blogging tools out of the box.
- E-commerce Hosting – look for costs on dedicated IP, SSL certificates, payment processing and shopping cart scripts.
- Forum Hosting – See if they meet the needs for you forum script you wish to use, and see if they have had any trouble supporting that script’s necessities in the past.
Also, don’t get suckered in by features they promote that you really don’t need. Sure, we all love icing on the cake, however you need to make sure you have the eggs, flour and sugar you need to make the proverbial cake that will be your web site.
How much support are you going to need?
Support always plays a big part in any customer and business relationship. There is no web host alive that has perfect service, 24/7. If you go out trying to find the perfect web host, you will be shopping for a very long time. Instead, you need to go out and investigate how reliable support is when something bad does happen. Go check out the public forms of support they provide. Are their tutorials in-depth and user friendly? Also, if they provide them, be sure to check out their user forums. Here you can really see how well the customer and support relationship really is. The important factor isn’t that bad things happen (because they will, no matter who you decide to go with). The important factor is to find out how they react to problems and pressure.
Have you reviewed all the legal documentation available?
This is a step that many people overlook. Most people will never read the legal documents that a web host provides, and then when they break one of the rules – they act as if they have no clue what is going on. The key legal documents you need to review are:
- Terms of Service
- Acceptable Use Policy
Be sure to find these two documents (most web hosts will have them posted somewhere on their web page) and go over them from head to toe.
Figure out your budget. How important is price to you?
Money is the last important check mark box I want you to have on your shopping list. Do not just look at the final costs though. I want you to do your best to plan a budget around this web host and customer relationship. Add the hosting costs to the domain name registration costs, and then figure out the price for the next five years. Remember to add or subtract any discounts that are available. Now compare that with some of the other web hosts you are looking at. Your first instinct might be to go for the cheapest one. That is wrong. You should go for the one that gives you the most bang for the buck. Weighing in all the earlier questions, and adding those to the final price you get, which is the best offer?
I want you to copy this address, or quickly write down these questions before you go shopping any further for a web hosting company. If you can answer these five questions yourself, you should be in better shape to find the web host you are looking for. There is no need to submit a list of five or six web hosts to any group of people and toss your decision out to them. This is your purchase to make and to live with, so you had better do your best to make sure you find the right web hosting situation to meet your needs.
Best Blog Hosts
What makes a web host a great place to host a blog? Well these days just about any hosting account is ready, will and able for a good ol’ WordPress install or two.
Easy One-Click Installs?
Look at what scripts and software they have ready to install on day one. Do you have one click install access to WordPress, b2evolution, Nucleus or others. These are some of the more familiar names you might see tossed in with Fantastico, and addon for cPanel that gives you easy one click access right from your hosting control panel.
Disk Space and Bandwidth for Blogging?
Next thing you will want to check out is the disk space and bandwidth limitations. If your just starting your blog out – do you have enough room to grow? If your blog is already established then do they have enough disk space and bandwidth to support you for a long period of time.
Server Resources for Peaks in Traffic
Server resources also come into play when it comes to blog hosting. Just in case your article gets dugg on digg.com or hyped up on any of the other big social news and link sharing sites, can your web site take the punch in traffic? This is something you should discuss one on one with your web host – but it most cases (unless the host isn’t that established) you should be OK in this department too. If using WordPress there are also addons that will make sudden growths in popularity more bearable, such as the WP-Cache addon.
Truth be told, you might have to suffer through a few web hosting lemons before you find the web host that is best able to deliver you the best blogging experience. It never hurts though to have a check list like the one above before you start shopping so you know what it is you should be getting.
Which One, Reseller Plan or Affiliate Deal?
Now if you listen to the podcast here, you are more than likely more knowledgeable than the average Joe on the street about web hosting. One question I see come up a lot for hosting insiders or web designers that have friends and clients who need a place to host is which way should they go to get it done?
To give you a summary of things, there are usually two routes you can take. You can purchase a reseller account from any web host out there that you choose or you could decide to go the affiliate route and resell a web host’s shared hosting plans. So when should you do one over the other?
Reseller Web Hosting
If you want to act as your on “mini” web hosting company, then I often suggest going with the reseller hosting plan option. For much cheaper than it would cost to rent out a data center and worry about all the legalities of starting a business you can act as the web host for your friend or clients. You charge them some to help pay for the reseller hosting account and they go to you with their support questions. This is also a great way to beta test becoming a real web host too.
Affiliate Hosting Deals
On the other side of the scale, as an example lets say you don’t have a lot of free time but your friends are always looking for a suggestion as to where they should do their web hosting. Now if you have no real need to support them 24/7 and you would rather get them the web site hosting they need and be done with it an affiliate plan might be the thing you need. Many web hosts have them (just have to look around) and they will pay you a “finder’s fee” for bringing in new hosting customers to them.
Now I know somebody out there might suggest VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting or a dedicated server but those both might be out of the budget of your “guy on the street”. In conclusion, if you want to be a web host yourself for your clients and friends – get a reseller hosting plan. If you want to hook them up with hosting and then be done with it, a good affiliate deal with a web host you can trust might be the better way to go.
Learn to Find the Top 10 Web Hosts Scam Lists
Mention “top ten web hosts” lists in any hosting insider circle and you are bound to get a few girly giggles. You know why? 95% of the lists you find out there claiming to be a top ten list of the greatest web hosting providers known to man are crap. There are nothing more than a 2-bit scam to build up the webmaster in question’s affiliate account. So how can you tell the difference between the real top ten lists and the ones that are bought and paid for?
Look for Affiliate Codes
The first thing to look for is affiliate codes in the links. When you hover over the link for the web host on the top of the list, you should just see their domain name right? Say I am hovering over a link for Host Monster, I should see in my browser’s status bar that is is going to http://www.hostmonster.com. You know there is an affiliate code there when you see something trailing that address such as http://www.hostmonster.com/coupons/tophosts.php or something to that effect.
Sneaky Links!
Some top ten lists are getting sneaky though. They will link you to a page that looks like it belongs to them, but really they are hiding the affiliate code when redirecting you to the web host you are interested in. Very tricky indeed.
Ugly Web Site Design and Layout
Another sign that you are looking at top ten web host list gone wrong is the web site design and layout is ugly as sin. Need an example for that one? Check out web-hosting-top.com. Visually the layout here is bad enough to make any CSS guru die a little ‘bit on the inside. There is no color scheme, everything is too close together, you have random caps all over the place and different colored text. This page was not designed to be useful, it was designed to be at the top of Google. You want to know the sad truth? type in “top 10 hosts” into Google and you will find this guy is the third result down.
Prices for List Position
You can also keep an eye out for the obvious mention on their contact us or about us pages of how to get yourself on this list. Some places out there will go as far as putting up prices for position on the list they provide.
As you can see these people can get rather tricky when it comes to trying to make a buck out of your need for web hosting.
How to Find a New Web Host
Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 124!
So your stuck with a web host your not happy with and your considering the big move. You want to take your web site elsewhere and you want to do it quick. Should you pack your bags and make the move in minutes? No. It is always best not to rush into a situation as big as moving your web site from web host to web host.
Find a new web host before you move. Some people just get so unhappy with their current hosting provider they want to move right here right now. That is not he best way to go. Give your current web host a few more chances to impress you before you jump into another relationship. Think of it as that old ex-girlfriend that promised she would never cheat on you again. If they do better, you might eliminate you need to move all together.
Find several web hosts that are worth your time and money, contact them and see what they say about moving from your current web host to them. The good ones will give you a step by step process in which you can do it with the least amount of pain and suffering. Continue Reading →
Should I Collocate My Hosting Servers?
This is a question I get asked a lot, should folks collocate their hosting servers or have them all in one spot. Now both have their advantages and disadvantages, so I’m not going to tackle every single argument you might here for one side or the other right here, right now.
First, for those of you who might not know what collocation is, let us put a definition with the word. Collocation is the placement of hosting servers in more than one location. Another good way to explain it would be to call it a service whereby a company that owns a server houses it in another company’s data center due to the greater security, stronger backbone or other technological reasons.
I am a big fan of collocation, so here is my most defining argument on why you should be a fan of it as well.
The advantage of having your servers more spread out is that if a natural disaster hits, or something else really bad it will not kill your entire network. Say you have data centers located in the north, south, east and west of the United States. If you southern data center goes out – that is only one forth of your business that is effected.
Disagree with me? I would love to hear more reasons for this and against it. Drop me an E-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and let me know which side of the fence you are on.
+ Check Out the Podcast This Was From! Listen to the Web Hosting Show, Episode 95!
Free Web Hosting Positives and Negatives
Sure we would all like something for nothing, but everything has a price.
Getting on with a free Web host out there might sound like a cheap way to get a Web site going, but you are going to be paying some prices down the road. Sure, places like Freewebs.com offer nice looking free packages.
What are the advantages of this type of free hosting solution? What are the disadvantages of this type of hosting setup?
The Advantages of Free Web Hosting
- Hey, You Don’t Pay Anything At All
- Most Free Hosts are Built With Beginners in Mind
- Templates and Design Helpers Available
The Disadvantages of Free Web Hosting
- You Have to Put Up With Advertisements
- Usually Have to Use a Crappy Sub Domain
- Low Disk Space and Bandwidth Limits
If you have anymore suggestions for either side of the argument, please leave a comment and join into the conversation.
As you can see, every yin has its yang and every good point has a bad point. I would say if you want to really develop a brand or something that you see yourself contributing to a few years down the road, go with a paid for Web hosting account.
If you are new to hosting and you just want a place to show off to your friends – free might be the way to go.
+ Check Out the Podcast This Was From! Listen to the Web Hosting Show, Episode 94!
Subscribe
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter to receive updates.
