I figured this might help Webmaster-talk members with future purchases of web hosting plans. It's a article I wrote a long time ago. You need an algorithm for choosing the right web host, right? Well, here it is. Let’s go through the considerations that you need to ponder in order to ensure that you get what you need. This is an important decision and you don’t want to charge in blindly. You want to choose the web host that is going to provide your needs as they stand now as well as where they lead to in the future. Here we go:


1. Understand the differing types of hosts: shared, collocated, unmanaged dedicated, and managed dedicated.


2. Go for stability, not just size. Research how long the hosting business has been in operation. See if they have recently changed ownership, and if they show positive cash flow.


3. The possession of fully redundant data centers. If you are considering doing business with a smaller hosting vendor, ensure that they have adequate power and connectivity capabilities. Inquire as to the number of lines the facility has. Do they possess an on-site generator? Does the generator receive regular checks and maintenance? What is the average utilization of the connections available?


4. How skilled is their staff? When you need customer service of a technical nature, you need it immediately, right? Find out the availability of their systems administrators. Send them an email and check for their response rate.


5. Other customer’s reviews of the hosting services. Same as any business, the hosting vendor should be able to provide good references.
6. Is the potential host flexible? In the future, your needs may change. Can you upgrade services should the need arise?


7. Make sure that the host does not have blacklisted IPs. The host that you want to do business with would not be one that promotes illegal sites, spammers, or other security issues. You are considering associating your business with this host. Think about it.


8. Begin with and maintain a clear and written understanding of all services and all charges for them.


If you do your research before beginning business, you will find a better avenue to the successful hosting, and thereby promotion, of your online business. Take your time in making this important decision.

Make sure that the host does not have blacklisted IPs.

Rather hard to test, as there's probably no host that maintains a public list of all their IPs. Second, a temporary blacklisting can happen, and it's not the end of the world, as long as the host acts quickly on it. It doesn't mean that the host is actively promoting illegal activity.

If you do your research before beginning business, you will find a better avenue to the successful hosting

If a Web Hosting Company offers you 1,000GB of space, you can bet they're hoping that they will get themselves a sucker. The biggest HD these days is 500GB's but even then you need to ask yourself a question - they will give me and each of the next 500 customers space on HD that cost $200.00 and all I have to pay them is $5.00 per month?
Hmmm... What is wrong with this picture?
Or maybe something like:
how BIG is the computer that house all those Hard Drives?

Now, lets not forget the Monthly Transfer of 1,000GB’s, which cost them (that is if they ever bought that amount themselves) $5,000.00 per month and they offer that to every client? Give me a break! I'm not even mentioning the cost of a server at about $1,000.00 each and Administrative and Tech Support cost etc.

Now, lets grab a calculator and start adding.
They will need at least 4 (3 is a must) technicians to run 24x7 service.
Add 24hrx$15.00x30 days = $10,800
Customer service around the clock - $7,200 per month
Sales Rep./Marketing. Lets pay this person $3,000 per month
Running the books is another $2,000 to pay a bookkeeper
Data center, office, $5,000 more

So far it costs them $28,000/month.
To payout that amount they will need 5,600 customers paying $5.00 per month.
Assuming one server can handle 500 accounts, they will need 100 servers.
1 server costs $1,000 x100 =$100,000. If the company takes back $1,000.00/month on that investment then they will need 40 more clients.

But here is where the problem comes.
To handle 5,600 they need at least 3 technicians, 12 around the clock. The best technician can physically answer only 12 - 16 emails per hour thus a second technician must fix the problems and third to constantly monitor the servers.

So, we need to add another $21,600 for salaries.
Again, we need another 4,300 customers and 80 more servers.
Wow, 10,000 customers and we never even paid any money yet for advertising, TAXES, twice more of support staff to handle an extra 4,000 customers and lets not forget the Company owner and we are looking for another 10,000 clients to cover the cost of operation and of course more servers, technicians, a bigger data center and more money to pay to the upstream providers and so on.

Oh man, I have to catch my breath.

Sure, they will offer you a Cadillac whereas in reality you will be lucky if you get from them a bicycle. They have to cut the costs and the only place they can do that is by sacrificing Quality of their services by cutting Tech Support and Customer Service Departments.

500Mbs of space and 20Gbs of transfer per month will satisfy 99.9% of users but most importantly is you will know that you are going to deal with an honest Company that won't take you for a fool and will not treat you as such


fastreplies

Good replies, ldcdc you can always ask your proposed host what IP you will be using too.

Good post.. These steps (except #7) are obligatory.

you can always ask your proposed host what IP you will be using too

That is indeed doable. The host still can't be judged based on the status of that lone IP though.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.

It will probably look as if I argue my own points but I can promise you this is not the case.

When someone offers you Unlimited Bandwidth (Transfer per Month) then you should always
ask your projected Host: what kind of speed do I get?

You see, the Host Companies may get Unlimited Bandwidth from their upstream providers if
they are buying 1mbps service.

Translation: your site will have maximum of 1000kbps download and 125kbps upload speed.
Of course most sites with couple of text pages won’t need more than that but if you expect
heavy traffic and will offer large size files, then you better think twice.

Also before you signup, visit: http://whois.domaintools.com/host-domain.com or
http://www.webhostingstuff.com/uptim...ebHosting.html
(replace our name with your new Host Company name) and a few other places where,
I am sure you will learn a lot about someone you have plans to stay with for a year


fastreplies

That's a good post but i do not think you should be taking overselling as a bad thing. Well i the host DOES NOT allow you to host beyond a particular space limit then ofcourse it is an issue but otherwise i don't think you should blacklist a host because they are overselling.

Originally Posted by ashish1987

i don't think you should blacklist a host because they are overselling.

I lost you here...
Why would anyone blacklist Host for overselling?



fastreplies

i think there might be some confusion, that doesn't happen, your SMTP server/ip will become blacklisted if any of the sites are mass emailing. Or if your SPF records are not correct.

Originally Posted by fastreplies

You see, the Host Companies may get Unlimited Bandwidth from their upstream providers if they are buying 1mbps service.

Do you have a link describing service conditions in such words? Quite interesting, because 1mbps means a maximum of about 300 Gb a month.

Originally Posted by fastreplies

Now, lets not forget the Monthly Transfer of 1,000GB’s, which cost them (that is if they ever bought that amount themselves) $5,000.00 per month and they offer that to every client? Give me a break!

Very strange logic here. Similarly you can argue that all health insurance companies are frauds because they can't pay every policyholder a 100,000 when they only pay a premium of about $600 a year. But not everyone needs medical treatment, not every year at least.

Similarly, very few websites will ever get popular. Thus, webhosts can offer high monthly bandwidth limits similar to how health insurance companies can offer high maximum coverage.

However, whether the webhosting company is going (or, even, have recources) to let few popular websites to approach its advertised monthly bandwidth limit is another question.

Originally Posted by Mikhail Simkin

Very strange logic here. Similarly you can argue that all health insurance companies are frauds because they can't pay every policyholder a 100,000 when they only pay a premium of about $600 a year. But not everyone needs medical treatment, not every year at least.

Similarly, very few websites will ever get popular. Thus, webhosts can offer high monthly bandwidth limits similar to how health insurance companies can offer high maximum coverage.

However, whether the webhosting company is going (or, even, have recources) to let few popular websites to approach its advertised monthly bandwidth limit is another question.

Insurance companies are highly regulated entities and must proof to licensing bodies they have enough in their piggy bank to cover cost if occasion arise and they must to cover the claims cost.

Where as on another hand WHC owners as a rule take their numbers from the blue skies and offer i.e. disk space twice of what hard drive can hold only because they believe that the public in bunch of morons who will buy anything because public has no idea about what is hard drive is all about in the first place


fastreplies

1. Understand the differing types of hosts: shared, collocated, unmanaged dedicated, and managed dedicated.

Sometimes people do not understand the вшаауктсу and sometime they do not want to learn. In this case all depend on web hosting company honesty.

Insurance companies are highly regulated entities and must proof to licensing bodies they have enough in their piggy bank to cover cost if occasion arise and they must to cover the claims cost.

It's never about certainty though, it's about likelyhood.

wow, i haven't checked this thread in months, i'm glad i was able to start a heated debate.

Thanks for the info.

Originally Posted by fastreplies

If a Web Hosting Company offers you 1,000GB of space, you can bet they're hoping that they will get themselves a sucker. The biggest HD these days is 500GB's but even then you need to ask yourself a question - they will give me and each of the next 500 customers space on HD that cost $200.00 and all I have to pay them is $5.00 per month?
Hmmm... What is wrong with this picture?
Or maybe something like:
how BIG is the computer that house all those Hard Drives?

Now, lets not forget the Monthly Transfer of 1,000GB’s, which cost them (that is if they ever bought that amount themselves) $5,000.00 per month and they offer that to every client? Give me a break! I'm not even mentioning the cost of a server at about $1,000.00 each and Administrative and Tech Support cost etc.

Rock on mate, your absolutely right on that, and its crazy how people offer unlimited space and bandwidth for few bucks, and i also mentioned abt this issue on one of my articles "How to choose a web hosting service"

As for point #7, I guess there are services that allow you to check the state of things with your host http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
I recommend to ask your host for the IP of the server your account will be on, thast's a sure way to place your site in a better environment. I used this service before signing with a2hosting.com, and recommend this to everybody.