My Best Shared Web Site Hosting Experiences

I chose Shared Web Site Hosting as my topic, simply because it is a very inexpensive and nearly maintenance-free alternative to running and maintaining your own servers.

As my business has grown, I've had to move to more powerful machinery, such as Virtual Dedicated and Dedicated servers.

But once you get into those leagues, you pretty much know what you want and need, and have a pretty good idea of what you are doing.

I want to concentrate more on the very small business, the individual, the beginner, the less experienced, perhaps the broke, because that's who would probably appreciate this sort of information most.

I've listed my Recommendations gained through personal experience first, because most people want to get straight to the meat of the subject, and because this Lens got a little longer than I wanted it to be.

These are the Shared Web Site Hosting companies that I've found to have best answered every one of the questions I've posed below (and more), and gave me the BEST Shared Web Site hosting experience.

Along with a link to each provider's home page, I've included Lens links to reviews of these providers so you're not having to scrolling through 30 pages of Lens to find what you want :)

NUMBER 1 - VIKING COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

VIKING COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES Home Page
VIKING COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES Review Lens

NUMBER 2 -

SITE5 Home Page
SITE5 Review Lens

NUMBER 3 -

TIERHOST PROFESSIONAL WEB SOLUTIONS Home Page
TIERHOST PROFESSIONAL WEB SOLUTIONS Review Lens

NUMBER 4 -

DREAMHOST Home Page
DREAMHOST Review Lens

NUMBER 5 -

BLUEHOST Home Page
BLUEHOST Review Lens

Separating the worthy hosting providers from the time-wasters:

There are 4 traits that really set a hosting company apart from the rest. They are pretty self-evident and self-explanatory:

1. HORSEPOWER

2. DISK SPACE

3. BANDWIDTH

4. SERVICE / TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Without really shining in these areas when you are a Web Site Hosting provider, you're just another hosting company with mediocre products and services and wasting my (and your) valuable time.

Horsepower:

Will your web site utilize a CPU intensive language? Do you have (or will you have) lots of scripts to run? Do you run lots of cron jobs? How much CPU will the scripts eat up? How much CPU will your cron jobs eat? Now, do the other denizens of your shared server (and there are generally a LOT of them) run scripts? Do they like to run cron jobs? I bet they do... How much CPU will they eat up? A crashed server is a really frustrating thing!

Disk Space:

Will you have enough space to put all your web sites and content? What about e-mail? Suppose you get a lot support requests? What about blog posts? What about Forums? Blog posts and forums can grow very rapidly. Do you want to put video, music or pictures on your website? When a web server starts swapping, it REALLY slows things down, and running out of room is a bad thing to have happen.

Bandwidth Capacity:

You don't want to be worrying about bandwidth overage charges. They can really add up. Ever heard of the Digg Effect? The SlashDot Effect? The BlackHat Effect? Perhaps you want to push a lot of video or music data? Do the other web site owners on your server like to push a lot of video or music? There is nothing worse than a really slow web site!

Technical Support & Service:

What happens if there is an application that you don't know how to use? What about if your account gets screwed up some how? Are your web sites down or coming under attack? What happens if the company bills you incorrectly? What about if you need to add a Perl module or need additional language support? It is very frustrating when you have to wait days just to hear back from someone. Does this company even give 2 shakes about you and your time-consuming ventures? 9 times out of 10, you are generally only limited to speaking with the more technical savvy constituent of your hosting company via e-mail, and time is money!

If your prospective hosting providers have answered to your satisfaction the questions posed above, now you can sift out the wheat from the chaff!

If you're on a shoestring budget, are a shopper and a deal seeker like me, if you are feeling adventurous and wish to strike out on your own, or plain just don't like my recommendations, keep these other considerations in mind, as you can really maximize what you get for that paltry 5 to 20 bucks a month, and save yourself a lot of headache and heartache.

1. REPUTATION / ESTABLISHMENT

2. OPTIONS.

3. LOCATION.

4. DOMAIN REGISTRATION.

5. DATA CENTER / NETWORK.

When your prospective Web Site Hosting provider does not shine in these areas, you and your business will suffer needlessly; you stand an excellent chance of shooting yourself in the foot, suffering migraines and generally kicking yourself in the butt!

Reputation / Establishment:

How long has the company been around? What do other people have to say about them? Does the hosting company have a blog or forum where users (past & present) can voice their opinion about their service? What about a blog where they post their happenings, be it server status, service outages, upgrades, whatever... Do they keep you informed?

There are a lot of new companies popping up every day. Are they on the up-and-up? Are they fly-by-night outfits? There is a terrible, sinking feeling you get when all your web sites go down, you haven't heard back from support in days, and the hosting company's web site is no longer there. Where did they go? Fly-By-Night hosting company's ARE out there, so are people out to burn you... and getting burned really sucks!

Options:

What does the company offer as far as applications, language support and other options go? What if you need to upgrade your package due to growth? What if you leased too much and need to downgrade? What operating system do their servers utilize? Do you have a choice? What if you really want to run Windows as opposed to FreeBSD, Linux or Solaris?

Location:

Where is the hosting company located in relation to you and your market? An internet business is still a business: 'Location, Location, Location' is still a mantra! Having a hosting company in Korea when you are in the Midwest and your market is in Europe is not a very efficient set up. It makes maintaining your web site slow, and even slower for your customers to get your web page on their monitor. A slow web site is guaranteed not only to frustrate you, but cause people to hit the 'Back Button' on your web site as well.

Domain Registration:

What about domain registration? Do they charge you an arm and a leg to register a single domain? What if you need to register 50 domains? Suddenly the cost per domain becomes very important. How easy do they make it on you should you wish to host your domain name elsewhere? Are you limited to only a few Top Level Domains? Will you have any power over managing your domain's DNS?

Data Center / Network:

Is your prospective hosting company forthcoming about the equipment on which they serve your web pages? Most companies that are shady or evasive about the equipment they use to put your web site(s) on, usually have a reason. Generally it is because it is crap and a far cry from state-of-the-art.

What about their connectivity? Is it reliable? Is it fast? Is the pipe big enough to serve their clientele base?