Internet Business 101

Internet Business 101 : Hosting Decisions

Hosting Decisions
Author: Jason A. Martin

Having your own website (or more) means one thing; you need hosting. The world of hosting companies has become exponentially noisy in recent years and doing your homework is essential to not become a victim in the hosting game. A search in google for “hosting” yielded 146 million results. Choices abound in the hosting world today and most of those choices are bad news. The terms, slang and spin is enough to make even the seasoned webmaster go nuts.

We can break down hosting companies (and I use the term companies loosely) into two main categories—real hosting services and middlemen. You want to stay away from the latter at all costs. The hosting industry is now full of so-called hosting companies who are nothing more than resellers. Joe Average buys a server from a hosting company then sets up shop as his own hosting company by reselling the space on his server. Why is this bad you ask? Let’s break down some points on these types of hosting companies.

• The hosting company does not actually own anything. They are simply renting one or more servers from the real hosting company.
• They have no control should something go wrong.
• They typically are not experts in the technical field which means you are left out in the cold should you need one.
• If they fail to pay the bill for the server, your site disappears for good even though you paid your bill.
• Maybe you are small now but you will grow and these hosting companies typically are not equipped to handle such a business.
• Additionally, you typically may be paying more for your hosting because you are going through a middle man disguised as a hosting company.

Think of it this way. You decide one day to buy lunch at your favorite fast food restaurant but instead of going there directly you go to Joe’s Restaurant and order your food. Joe then goes to your favorite restaurant, buys the food, keeps the overage you paid, and then delivers your food. One day, Joe stops along the way for a couple items and accidentally spends your money too. Now you are left with no lunch, no money and most importantly, no recourse.

Eliminating the fluff in hosting companies can be an extremely tough job and unfortunately, you will most likely have to learn through experience. However, there are some things you can do to improve your hosting success.

• Ask the hosting company outright if they are a reseller or if they have their own data center. Ask them if they would be willing to send this statement to you in written form. This should help you eliminate most of the resellers because if they lie and put it on paper, you have them legally.
• Ask how many clients they have. Make sure you specify clients and not websites. They could say we host 3000 websites but maybe they have 10 clients with 300 each. If so, this number would not tell you too much.
• Ask what kind of certifications/qualifications their tech staff has.
• Don’t be cheap. This is your business we are talking about. People who try to be extremely cheap in this field are the ones who almost always get into trouble. I am not saying to go out and buy the most expensive hosting you can find either—just be reasonable.
• Visit your favorite search engine and type in the name of the hosting company. Look for forums in which they appear to see what kind of outside feedback they have.
• Do normal business investigations. Don’t just assume because they are online, they are a legitimate choice.

Now that we are down to just the real hosting companies, choosing one is going to depend on your needs. If this is your first website or you are not technically inclined, you will probably want a host that provided lots of great support options. I have found a few hosts that meet these requirements. I am not endorsing them but I do know of them from past personal experience. These mainly cater to those needing their own server, which is a great idea since they are so inexpensive now.

• Rack Space
• Server Matrix

If you are a do-it-yourselfer technically, Server Beach is a good option. It is basically Rack Space without the support.

I have located a message board for hosting which would be a great place for you to go now to research possible hosting solutions. The site is: Web Hosting Talk.

Stay away from so called top hosting sites and lists as they are always just affiliate based chatter. There is no real top hosting list to my knowledge and it would be hard to do one with any credibility given the number of true hosting companies out there and the unique situation of each client.

It is a good idea to sit down and think what your site will need before seeking a host. For example, will your site collect emails? If so, you will probably want a host that provides php, perl, and MySQL. If you have your own server this is less of an issue because you can just add anything missing when you need it.

As mentioned in part one of this series hosting packages have three main styles: co-location, dedicated and shared. I recommend you go with a dedicated leased server because of the flexibility and freedom. When on a shared plan, you are affected by the actions of everyone on the same server and IP number as you. In today’s Internet business world where search engine placement is vital, you can not afford to get banned. If someone on your shared IP does something wrong with a search engine and gets banned, so do you. At the sites I mentioned above, a leased server starts are around the $80 per month level.

You are now ready to go out in the world and secure proper hosting. Don’t take hosting lightly. Do your research before jumping into anything. Read the fine print of your contact and make sure you will not be charges extremely high fees for going over your bandwidth limit.

Jason A. Martin has been conducting business on the Internet for 11 years. He is a free-lance writer on many topics and is currently working on obtaining a degree in Journalism and Law.

His official blog can be viewed at: Jason A. Martin

©2005 Jason Andrew Martin LLC

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