Phil’s tips on choosing a web host
I’ve had websites online for six years now and have been through about six web hosts - the shortest lasting one week, longest lasting maybe two years. I’ve had shared hosting, virtual dedicated hosting, and dedicated hosting - so I have a bit of experience. Surfing online for a good web host is like surfing online for good erectile-dysfunction or penis-enlargement pills, you’ll just get flooded with bullshit and lies. So here’s some tips…
1. They all suck - This is the sad truth. Anyone who runs a site with high traffic knows this. They’re all misleading on their websites and won’t deliver on their promises. If your livelihood depends on your website, you’ll need to spend thousands a month for a company that treats you like a real client. Not to start off sounding pompous but, if you’re saying to yourself “My web host is great!” you’re either a new client or your sites don’t receive that much traffic.
2. Never pay more than one month in advance - Trust me on this one. Never pay in advance. Never choose a web host that forces you to pay more than one month in advance. When they get your money, they’ll never give it back. And one day, you’re gonna have a beef with your host, and you’re gonna want to quickly leave.
3. Get shared hosting - Start off with an inexpensive shared hosting plan, for two reasons 1) Upgrading to a bigger server is easy, downgrading is difficult. They’ll bend over backwards to get more of your money, but won’t be too willing to take less of your money. Even if you think you get so much traffic you’ll need a bigger server, start off small. 2) If you’re on a shared plan, you share your server with dozens, if not hundreds of others. When there’s a problem with your server, 100 of their clients are angry. When there’s a problem with your dedicated serer, only one of their clients are angry.
4. Investigate the company - Only trust well-respected companies (but they still suck). Do research on the company, read other customer’s complaints. If a site is giving web host recommendations, make sure they’re a respected companies, there’s web host review sites out there that give out phony reviews for a profit. Try out their support e-mail and phone contacts, see how long they take to respond.
5. Forums & blogs are plus - When you find a company you’re interested in, make sure they have public forums and an official blog, look for complaints from members. If you don’t see any, bad sign, they’re probably filtering out any negative messages.
6. They always blame everything on someone else - You’ll never get an apology from them, they’ll always blame your account’s problem on something or someone (like your ISP or registrar) that’s out of their control. A denial-of-service attack is a popular one cause they can’t control them, and they can’t stop them. If they say your account is receiving DoS attack, be suspicious. Typical IT-support bullshit, they’re always quick to blame it on everyone else just to get you off the phone.
7. You’ll never get a refund - Read the fine print of your refund, most likely you’ll never get one. Anytime something happens to your account, they’ll pull a #6, then they don’t have to give you a refund.
8. 24/7 support is just front-line - All sites promise 24/7 support, right? Well that’s just “front-line” support. It’s just one retard who answers the phone and if your problem is anything more difficult than “How do I setup my e-mail?”, the support ticket gets passed on to bigger retards, but these retards work Monday-Friday, 9-5.
9. You’ll probably know right away that they suck - Transferring your sites from one server to another is a goddamn nightmare, there’s a good chance you’ll have some difficulties (make sure you have two overlapping accounts for a few weeks so you have time to migrate and work out the kinks) and will need their support right away and they’ll quickly show their true colors. Find a web host that offers a 30-day no-questions-asked money-back-guarantee (including setup costs!!).
Interesting. Seems like a real jungle out there. One of these days I’ll start a website, so this is great info. Thanks!
So, from where do you get most hits? US, Finland or other? I’m really curious about the ratios. Do tell…..unless it’s a big secret of course
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Sun, Jan 28th, 2007 @ 10:40 pm
On 3) those review sites have usually the same 10 hosts featured, those are the ones who take better care of their affiliates
And since that is such a profitable business they can easily buy their way to ppc ads and invest on proper SEO - outranking more honest discussion sites.
Here~s a finnish one that is honest (not to say that won~t be rigged or have biased threads): http://www.hostingvertailu.org/
but yeah, hosting is a huge market for lemons
Comment by aNtonio — Sun, Jan 28th, 2007 @ 11:05 pm
So, from where do you get most hits? US, Finland or other? I’m really curious about the ratios. Do tell…..unless it’s a big secret of course
Nah, no secret. One of these days I’ll make a post with all the info. It’s just that, I haven’t really followed the stats in over a year. FfT’s readership kinda leveled out. I follow the number of visitors I get on blogads.com, cause the more I get, the more I can ask for advertising space.
Comment by Phil — Sun, Jan 28th, 2007 @ 11:47 pm
You left out the most important advice:
0. Never have your DNS SOA with your web host.
Other than that I agree with you. They all suck. This is why I’ve operated my own servers for the last 16 years.
Comment by Liber Al — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 7:33 am
Godaddy is the best hosting/domain company I could ever find(quality, support, cost).
Comment by Belino — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 10:39 am
Godaddy is the best hosting/domain company I could ever find(quality, support, cost).
Funny you mentioned that, after just 9 days with GoDaddy I canceled my hosting with them. They suspended my account after just two days - they assigned me an IP that had previously been receiving a DoS attack. Seven days later, they hadn’t resolved this, and haven’t even sent me an e-mail to update me on the situation. Buh-bye!
Comment by Phil — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 11:37 am
have you banned me from making comments? none of them show up?
Comment by John Evans — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
Have you banned me from commenting Phil? None of the comments I post appear on your site anymore
Comment by John Evans — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
Phil have you banned me from commenting because my comments no longer appear on your site.
Comment by John Evans — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
Hmmm, phil either your comment forms are broken or you have started to ban people from commenting
Comment by John Anthony Evans — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 6:15 pm
Why not just say caveat emptor and you get what you pay for.
Infinite resources (CCIE’s answering the front line numbers) are not an option at any web hosting service (e.g. utopia is not an option)… unless you pay for it.
Utopia is not an option.
Comment by Thane Eichenauer — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
If you are a newcomer, want to start a simple website and speak some Italian try this http://www.tophost.it . At a ALL-included 10 euro PER YEAR, they offer a standard product,with standard support, you may take or leave. Hard to believe they are earnest. Strudel
Comment by strudel — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 7:41 pm
How come all web hosts suck? I was under the impression that the free market fixes these things. Invisible hand and all.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Mon, Jan 29th, 2007 @ 9:52 pm
They don’t all suck. The invisible hand has created many great hosts. You just have to pay $$$ for them. Read post 11.
Comment by maksalaatikko — Thu, Feb 1st, 2007 @ 1:54 am
maksalaatikko:
“They don’t all suck. The invisible hand has created many great hosts. You just have to pay $$$ for them. Read post 11.”
Franklin has a point (as usual). The invisible hand creates markets for EQUAL products. Not for products a-priori priced differently. Then the products compete on different markets. But then you can’t talk about the “invisible hand”. The “invisible hand” simply makes the price “equal” for “equal” products.
Comment by Thomas — Sat, Feb 3rd, 2007 @ 12:18 am
> Godaddy is the best hosting/domain company I could ever find
> (quality, support, cost).
In my experience GoDaddy is a solid domain registrar, but have heard quite a lot of criticism concerning their hosting. Some have complained their hosting being slow for example. Haven’t tried myself though, as I have several websites and there are cheaper alternatives for hosting several websites on a single hosting account.
Which reminds me of one more comment I would like to add to this list… If you are planning on having more than website in the future, make sure your host offers hosting plans with the ability to host multiple domains from the same account.
Comment by Web hosting multiple domain names — Thu, Oct 4th, 2007 @ 4:33 am