I have used over a dozen different hosting companies for my web sites and blogs for over 5 years now, and I have been burned badly by some of them, and some of these companies are in the so-called “top ten”.

I have registered over 100 domain names, and hosted over 80 of them with various hosting companies with varying results. The cheapest servers claim to be reliable and have 99% up times just like the expensive hosting companies. Price has almost nothing to do with whether or not the server, box, machine, computer, or ISP is reliable.

Below I will tell you my experience with so-called cheap hosting companies and give you a few rules-of-thumb to keep in mind.

Cheap Hosting Does Not Mean Unreliable

I learned this the hard way initially in my business because I at first I assumed that if I spent the big bucks on a so-called superior Web hosting company I would have 100% up-time and 0% downtime. I assumed that the expensive hosting companies would also provide superior customer service – I was dead wrong.

What I have found is that smaller hosting companies built by smart IT technicians provide the best customer service and some of the most solid servers available to Webmasters and businesses alike.

The problem is you really don’t know which companies in which servers give you the most up-time, speed/bandwidth, billing customer service, solid database structures, and tech-support until you have actually use their services. It’s literally a trial and error situation which is really frustrating.

I could go on a rant that would last for 10,000 words or more just complaining about some of the Web hosting companies that I have dealt with over the past five years. I make my living from web sites (full-time living) and when they go down it is very costly for me. For example, just this last three months three of my web sites which average over 5,000 unique visitors a day have been going down almost daily for a small period of time. Well that small period of time and cost me hundreds of dollars in profit, and there is no way to recoup those losses from the hosting company that has failed to keep your web sites up.

Ironically, the company that I’m talking about (which I will leave nameless but I call them WSS – so if you’re an experienced Webmaster you will know exactly who I’m talking about) claimed to be inexpensive and reliable – they have cost me thousands of dollars in downtime over the last few years.

It has taken me many many hours of work to migrate web sites and blogs over to different hosting companies because of databases and scripts that I have to run. I wish that somebody would have written and article like this one so that I would have been better prepared to make a smarter choice what I signed up for hosting.

The issues I’m talking about above are just some of the issues I’ve had with inexpensive AND expensive hosting companies and that includes some of the biggest hosting companies on the planet. What they cost has almost nothing to do with their reliability.

Web Hosting Customer Service

Customer service became the most important factor for me when I choose to try a new hosting company – and I still try new companies regularly so that I can maybe find the best of the best. And like I have mentioned above not necessarily the cheapest of the cheapest.

When it comes to customer service the first thing I look for is a dedicated staff that uses a “live support” chat system so that their IT techs can help me 24/7/365. I have signed up for dedicated hosting (but almost always choose dedicated hosting instead of shared hosting) because the company had a live support chat system and after a year or so they discontinued their live chat support system or they only had it opened on regular business hours (9-5 Monday through Friday) and here is the rub;

It’s painful to have to migrate databases and your domains over to a new hosting company because of the fear that something might go wrong and you will lose your data or destroy your web site or blog. It is no big deal to migrate your database to a new server once you know how to do it, but if you include having to migrate nameservers (which often comes with downtime due two DNS propagation) migration is something most of us Webmasters and web site owners try to avoid. As a matter of fact, I have held off from migrating from they unreliable hosting company to a reliable hosting company for months because of this hassle.

My suggestion is not to signup with a hosting company out of a whim and deal with a trial and error approach. I would spend some time reading posts like this one so you can learn from people who have made mistakes and learn from them. As we speak I am getting ready to migrate three of my web sites (blogs) to a different hosting company and I am not that happy about it because it’s a waste of time when I could be writing or creating more web sites and making more profit.

What Do Reliable Hosting Companies Look Like?

From my experience to reliable what posting companies look a certain way. They need to be big enough to have redundancy technologies firmly in place and they need to have a healthy enough bottom line to make customer service and tech-support a high priority.

A small Web hosting company may not have enough profit and the cash to provide the above, while a big hosting company does not have enough staff to manage all of their servers 24 4/7/365 and enough staff to provide tech-support.

So what you are looking for in a reliable Web hosting company is one that is smart enough to avoid rapid growth which overextends their human resources and their hardware resources. You need a Web hosting company that is willing to slowly grow in the small steps in assuring the reliability other servers and the experience of their tech support team. Greed kills many a hosting company because they grow too fast and destroy their good reputations.

So Who Do I Recommend These Days

I have recommended some hosting companies to friends and family (and Clients/Associates) just to be wrong, embarrassed, and disappointed in myself for giving them a bum steer. I recommended one hosting company that I thought was solid and reliable and that had, what I thought was, a superior tech-support system, just to find out that in time they were bought out by new owners and everything tanked. They’re hosting servers were down frequently, their customer service was nonexistent, their phone was always busy, and they would never get back to you. Not to mention their servers were as slow as tractors.

I learned never to recommend any hosting company to anyone and less I have used their services for at least two or more years. I even look into the viability and the health of the particular Web hosting company so I don’t expect them to be bought out and disassembled into a complete catastrophe.

All of my new domains for the past three years have been hosted with Mocha Hosting and the reasons are very simple. Good customer support/tech-support system and reliable servers. Why? I don’t know – except to maybe assume they have a sound management structure in place with a high priority on reliability and tech-support.

The the reason I chose Mocha was because they had been ranked #1 for customer support for a long time now and I was just taking a gamble again – doing a trial and error test with them. I could only hope that their claims of being #1 for tech support were legitimate but it sees I finally made a lucky decision.

So before this starts sounding like a blanket endorsement of a particular hosting company and some sort of bogus Web hosting company review all leave it at that (in the end you will have to do exactly what I did and take a stab in the dark hoping for the best) I have to say that I still use six different hosting companies for my bank of web sites and blogs. Why? Because I need the best redundancy possible over my complete network of sites.

What if a web hosting company had a building that started on fire and Burt to the ground and they did not have their own in-house backup and redundancy system? I would be in trouble at all of my data and all of my content could be lost forever. My business would be destroyed and I would have to start all over again. This is why I always recommend that people who make a living online download the contents of their web sites and databases on regular basis and backup everything on an external drive of their own. This is a real – you could lose your whole business model.

I suppose it is one reason I chose Mocha as well because they have a redundancy and backup server system in place so in the case of a total catastrophe such as fire, flood, vandalism, or theft I would still have all of my database data.

Mocha Web Hosting Costs/Prices

2 Year Hosting Plan
NO SETUP FEE
1 FREE LifeTime Domain (save $9.95/year)
6 months FREE (price already discounted)
30 Days Money Back Guarantee
Total cost for 2 years is $89.10

6 Month Hosting Plan
NO SETUP FEE
30 Days Money Back Guarantee
Total cost for 6 months only $29.70
$4.95 per month

1 Month Hosting Plan $4.95/month
Setup fee: $5
30 Days Money Back Guarantee
Total cost for 1 month only $4.95

More on Mocha and their other hosting plans…..

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Why:

1) Host Gator servers are faster.

2) Host Gator customer service is better.

3) Host Gator cron jobs are easier to setup.

4) Host Gator will let me run ANY kind of site I want. (do you understand).

5) Host Gator mysql databases are running smoother.

The list is getting larger too. Logging in is way faster too. Some of these hosting companies sites load like tractors!

Z

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They charge me $4.95 per month for hosting on 4 seperate domains. These are not sub-domains – they’re seperate domains. Their servers are fast, their online chat customer service has bailed me out many times, and their downtime is almost never.

So use this link and make me a nice little commission……or………..don’t.

Affordable Website Hosting Services

TTFN

TZ

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Once you have your database setup, you need:

- the database name
- your created database username (I make it the same as the database name for ease)
- your created password

Just leave the localhost as is if you’re using Startlogic hosting.

With the above information you open your WordPress “wp-config.php” file and amend the above information. Then upload the file to your hosting server where your “index.php” file is (WordPress root folder)

Then all you need to do is go to:
(h)ttp://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php

…..and follow the WordPress online install guide.

Technorati Tags: Startlogic Database Setup

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Server space of 15,000 Megs (15 Gig) – plenty for most all applications you could require

First domain is free - standard for most hosting companies now

Unlimited email accounts - great for large companies, but for a small business it’s generally not required

Bandwidth transfer 500 gig – this is a high bandwidth allowance for this price range (very nice touch)

30 day refund guarantee – Cost at $4.95 a month – very competitive (arguably the most competitive)

Setup fee is zero – software support – may not seem like a big deal, but it’s something you want

Cgi. perlscript, mysql, and php functionality – a must, and also becoming standard

Ssl server secure – never used it, but an important feature if you collect sensitive information from visitors

Ssi management – as above

Site stats and log files – good to have and becoming standard

Web browser email – becoming standard, nothing to write home about (excuse the bad pun)

Shopping cart applications – generous addition for this price range

Web hosting control panel – Shopping cart applications -  Frontpage 2000/0/2/3 – good to have, becoming standard

Multimedia, real audio & video, streaming audio, macromedia shockwave, MIDI file, and MIME types included – in this price range….very impressive, but you’ll have to keep your eyes on bandwidth restrictions as your site begins to receive heavier traffic.

File manager, host manager, ftp manager, anonymous ftp, password security, backup programs – so far I’ve noticed my file uploads and downloads have been quick, faster during peak hours for sure

Web builder with professional web templates, slogan and logo editor, change designs any time, web page and doc editing, publishing program – nice touch and not a standard with packages in this price range
standard with most web builders

Unlimited pop3 emails, unlimited forwarding emails, unlimited autoresponders, unlimited email filtering, unlimited web email, form mail, guestbook, bulletin board, php nuke, chat, blogger, multiple java applets  – I don’t use any of these features, very important for some

Ecommerce, Agora shopping cart, OS commerce, paypal shopping cart – not standard in this price range

Marketing guides, promotions, SEO positioner, search engine submitter, meta tags generator, keyword generator, link checker – good services but you can find all these for free anyway

Ad credit of $50 – I’m seeing advertising credits offered more and more with hosting packages. A good idea for new-comers so they can get a taste of traffic

Traffic statistics, access and error logs, bandwidth usage – also becoming the standard

Settings options, gnupg, frontpage extensions, customizable error pages, redirecting, mime types, and handlers – I’ve used the settings options and that’s it

Pricing Options

a) If you want the lowest price per month you have to commit to a 2 year plan. Your cost per month is $4.95

b) If you want the above hosting for $5.95 per month you have to commit to a 1 year plan.

c) If you can’t afford to pay out the bucks, and get the lower price, you can do it for $6.95. Your domain is $8.00 a year, so your total cost for your new domain and hosting package is $14.95. You are then charged the $6.95 every month. This comes off your credit card automatically, so you don’t lose your hosting, and they get their money (of course)

Overview Of Startlogic’s Hosting & Domain Services

What Startlogic has done is offer all the services, bells and whistles to all of their customers. Some hosting and domain outfits only provide extra services (such as ecommerce functions and higher bandwidth) to premium package customers. Startlogic has been doing very well because of this pricing approach.

The two most important traits I require from hosting and domain services are; low down-time and a good customer service. Price is an issue of course, but I’ll pay more if I they have solid servers, and quality customer service. Startlogic has online chat, email, and phone customer services. I use the online chat window when I need help and it’s available 24/7/365.

The web sites I host with Startlogic have had next to no down-time, and their customer service has been exemplary.

Startlogic’s web site for more information.

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I use various web site hosting companies in an attempt to diversify servers. Just a sort of redundancy backup in case of server down time. I’ve used Yahoo, Godaddy, Start Logic, Bluefish, Midphase, Gate, IX, and Pow-web. I have my personal favorites and I will be reviewing those companies in future posts.

It’s important that you buy hosting from a company that provides the essential services required to maintain a database, cgi, php, .htaccess mod rewrites, and dedicated server upgrades. Your hosting company should have a quality customer service program, solid servers (very little down-time), and of course low monthly fees. All of the hosting companies listed below have most all of these characteristics. 

Here are some of the advertising blurbs these outfits are using for their sales and marketing – basic pitch.

StartLogic - Unlimited email accounts, eCommerce enabled, free setup, free domain, CGI, PHP, mysql, website builder enabled, Front Page 2002/2003, 99.9% uptime guarantee. $6.50/month. Click here for more info.

Midphase - 15,000 mb web storage, 500,000 mb bandwidth, free domain for life, ecommerce, 24/7 customer support, simple control panel, free web design software, $7.95/month. Click here for more info.

Gate - Free domain name registration, free setup, disk space 5 GB, data transfer 200GB, mailboxes  500, 100 mb mysql server database, symantec brightmail antiSpam, web-based control panel, 24/7 toll-free phone support, 99.99% uptime guarantee, $9.95/month. Click here for more info.

IX - total domains 6, free Domains 3, disk space 20GB, email accounts 5,000, bandwidth 300GB, sub domains 200, database 50, webmail included, $6.95/month. Click here for more info. 

Powweb – Free domain name, Community forums, 24/7 customer support, host unlimited domains, 400 gig transfer per month, 20,000 mb web storage, $7.77/month. Click here for more info. 

See my hosting category for individual reviews of the above hosting companies.

Technorati Tags: web hosting companies, web hosting services, discount web hosting, domain hosting

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