Question about web hosting.....

M

Murky Depth

Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
200
Hello all.

Believe it or not, BF was the 1st place I thought of for posting this question. Why? Who knows -- intuition that some gurus might be lurking around here with the answers. Hell, you guys haven't failed me on knives, so why not give this Q a shot :p

I'm looking into getting free (or cheap) web hosting, and I don't have a clue as to who's got the best industry reputation. I was referred to 50webs, but as I looked around, I also found bravenet. Is there anything else y'all would recommend I look into before I go through the paces of putting my site together via this type of means [vs paying some designer boo-koo bucks]?

Thanks in advance.
 
I've used New Global Network, www.newglobalnet.com, for years now. Are they the cheapest? Probably not. But they'vee been great for service and all but 100% online reliable. I highly recommend them.
 
It really depends on what you plan on doing. Do you plan on buying a doamin name, or will you use one issued to you by whoever hosts the website? How much traffic do you expect the site to get? Most hosting services will have some limit based on the amount of data transfered. Free or cheap services have a very low limit, not good if you are planning a busy site. You also need to consider how you will design the site, will you need Front Page Extensions? Will you just be doing plain HTML? Java?

Another option to consider if you have broadband internet access is hosting the site yourself. You would need to check your contract with you ISP, and maybe even upgrade packages, but it gives you total control, and the additional cost can be comparable to a cheap hosting service. It really isn't all that hard to setup, and only requires an extra older cheap PC to serve up the files.

In the past I have used a service http://www.prohosting.com to host a website that I had. I found them to be reasonable, and offer good service. I never really went much of anywahere with my website because it took too much time and I was already busy with school and work, so I let it die.
 
I have my knife website through GoDaddy, which is probably about 50%, maybe 40% of the cost of FatCow, who I've used for three years for my practice website. FatCow is more expensive, but their site is MUCH faster for getting on and making changes to your account, works better, is more reliable and dependable, and has better customer service. If I start another site I'd pay the slightly higher cost and stick with FatCow.
 
I use http://www.schostpro.com
Good prices if you're hosting a small site at $5 a month or $55 a year for 350MB storage and 8GB of monthly bandwidth and they don't oversell their bandwidth or storage. Plus, they actually get back to you when you have an issue, give you a real 1800 number to call, and solve user stupidity issues without too much grumbling :D

Many 'cheap' hosts promise lots of bandwidth or storage for very little money with the (realistic) expectation that 95% of their customers won't approach those limits. This technique allows them to put big numbers up (which attract customers) without having the equipment required to back those numbers up... the downside is that if you start heading towards those limits some of the less scrupulous ones will cut you off and not restore your service unless you upgrade to a much more expensive hosting plan.

I've had no experience with the other hosts in this thread, so I can't comment on them, but it is something to worry about if you expect lots of traffic, and checking out a hosting review site like http://www.hostsearch.com is a good idea. (schostpro's reviews are here )

Good luck with your hosting search!
 
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