A Word of Warning to All Web Site Owners
When you say "I need a hosting company.", do you know what you're actually saying? In a sense, you are saying you intend to entrust your entire online presence, your profits, and even your customers sensitive billing information to (in most cases) a complete stranger.
Think about that for a moment. As part owner of a hosting company, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that any company you choose to host your web site has COMPLETE access to ANY information you place on their servers. In addition to the fact that they physically own them, they also occasionally have a need to perform various maintenence tasks that might put them face to face with your entire directory structure, which will list each and every file you have stored.
Unfortunately, most small business owners and indviduals fail to consider the potential ramifications fully.
I have a good friend who found a 'bargain' hosting company, who promised 99.9% uptime, as well as rock-bottom domain name pricing, for an amazingly low monthly cost of just $9.99/mo! To make a long story short, the 99.9% uptime garuntee was shot when 3 days after she signed up, she experienced hours of intermittent availability for over two weeks. She finally tired of this, and attempted to have her domain transfered to another host, only to find out her 'bargain' host would not release her domain name to her. As this host happened to be located internationally, and also stopped responding to e-mails, her domain name is tied up in arbitration with ICANN to this day
I have plenty of stories like this, and time and time again I ask how they came to choose such a disreputable company. They infallably state "Price.", with the sheepish look of remorse and a lesson well learned.
The bottom line is this: If you don't have any experience with the internet or web hosting, GET A REFERRAL! The chances are extremely great that someone you know has or knows someone who has a web site. Ask them what they think, how much they pay, and ask them about the relationship they have with their host. And ask what they charge to do maintenence and other tasks.
I know of one host who actually charges $85 an hour... and they charge $39.95 a month for a hosting plan WITHOUT a database. Do the math... If you need them to re-upload a SINGLE file (They do not pro-rate their fee), it will cost you more then what they charge you monthly to store those files online. It takes less than one minute to upload a static HTML file. If they do it for you, they have made $85 in approx. 2.7 seconds according to the test upload I just did. Wow.
I would be glad to give advice on choosing a good host to anyone who email's me, or, if you'll pardon the plug, consider Box35.com, Inc. for a great deal on hosting.(We even offer $8 domain names with the purchase of any hosting plan!)
posted by Webmaster @ 1:03 AM
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