Choosing a Web Host: Deciphering the Marketing Babble and Finding a Good Host
June 6th, 2007Some simple ways to find better hosting
Armed with these definitions, you have a fighting chance of understanding some of the terms you find on those seductive little hosting feature lists. Of course, knowing the jargon usually isn’t enough — a host can talk a good game, but when it comes time to play, they’re on the sidelines text messaging their classmates. So how do you know if a host will meet your expectations?
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Take a look at some of the hosting company’s clients.
After getting burned more than a few times by “budget hosts”, I started to look at the websites and weblogs I admired and check out who they used for web hosting. I also did a lot of searching on google, yahoo and other search engines for what people were saying about certain hosts. I spent some time in hosting forums but found that most of the time I got the most negative opinions of hosts on the forums, since people would use the forum as a place to vent their frustrations. The past two web hosts I’ve been with I decided on by word of mouth: friends, associates and people I respect have been clients of both companies for years and had a lot of good things to say about them. -
Make a list of your demands and see if they measure up to it.
There are some things that almost every host offers: databases, application installs, backups… the list goes on. There are other things that are a little more specific: call-in technical support, specific ecommerce packages (ShopSite is one that some web hosting companies specialize in), certain programming languages (django, Ruby on Rails), or specialize in a certain client demographic (blog hosting, ecommerce hosting, game hosting). Think of the specific things you want to do with your site, make a list, and go through the hosts that made it through the customer satisfaction research. One of my big demands was call-in technical support: I hope I’ll never need it, but if I do need technical support, I don’t want to have to create a ticket online and wait a few days for a response. I’m impatient like that, so I found a hosting company that has a technical support line. -
Remember, you get what you pay for
As I said before, I’ve been burned by budget hosting companies before. You’ve probably seen the ads: “Unlimited Domains! 5GB Server Space! $7.99/Month!” They sound too good to be true and they usually are. First of all, that low, low price they quote for their service is usually prepaid, sometimes a year or two of service in advance. If you’re confident that you’ll want to stay with the company for an extended period of time, by all means sign up for the prepaid, discounted plan. If you’re not sure, check their refund policy or pay a buck or two extra a month for monthly billing. Second, the way many companies can afford to do those insanely low account prices is by overselling the server space. This is a way of gambling on the amount of space a customer will take up on a shared server. Some customers will never use those five gigabytes of server space, some will use all of it. Many companies oversell their servers — if they didn’t, they wouldn’t turn much of a profit. The question isn’t whether a budget host oversells, it’s how much they oversell. Most companies won’t give you an exact percent (they don’t want to look bad or shady), but you can probably tell from the amount the servers are down. Just like your home computer, servers start to get shaky when they reach maximum capacity. They start to exhibit strange behavior like shutting down unexpectedly. While companies won’t tell you about their overselling percentages (and they won’t: it’s a dirty little secret), you can do some searching to find out how many people are experiencing outages. One way to do this is to go to my favorite place for public opinion, Google Blogsearch and search for a specific company name with the word “Down”. See how many there are in a certain timespan. That may tell you a little bit about the company’s service. If you’re not running a business site and aren’t very concerned about uptime, a budget site may be a perfect fit for both you and your wallet. If you need your site to be up, if your income depends on it, or if you’re just very particular about getting quality service for your money, I would go with a slightly more expensive company. I’m not saying this to be snobby, just practical. Budget web hosts have a lot of customers — more than some of the smaller companies can really handle, which leads to questionable customer support. Some of the more expensive hosts really don’t have as many customers: their prices weed out hobbyists and non revenue generating clientele, so they can handle individual support calls and get a little bit more personal with their customers. I’m not saying that the pricier hosts are always better, but with a little bit of research and the knowledge that you get what you pay for, you may just be able to find a quality host.
Disclaimer
While I know a bit about web hosts, namely from being a disgruntled customer a few too many times, I’m not an expert. If I’m wrong about something, please let me know. This article is intended to help anyone trying to find a good host, not confuse them further.
I also do not work in the web hosting industry. While I offer hosting to clients (mainly to make their lives a little easier), I’m not an employee of any hosting company. I’m also not in the business of trashing web hosting companies (unless it’s in person, with a few beers). Please don’t ask me which ones are awful and which ones are great. The only hosting company I can offer an opinion about is my current web host, MediaTemple, which I love. Seriously. If you want to know about a hosting company, do some research and find out if they’re a fit for you. Only you know exactly what you want to get for your money.
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