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View Full Version : What Host Site(s) Do You Use For Your Website(s)?



neil poulsen
4-Dec-2006, 09:19
For those who have their own websites, what hosting site (or hosting sites) do you use as a place to put your website for internet access?

> What do you like about them?

> What's their maximum space alloted per customer.

> What don't you like about them?

> How much do they charge per year for hosting a website?

> How much do they charge per year for domain name registration or renewal?

> What kind of technical support do they provide?

> How long have you used them, and would you recommend or not recommend them?

I'm asking, because I'm looking for a hosting site for a friend's site. But in general, I thought it would be interesting to hear about the different sites that people use, and why they might be good for photography.

I'll start.

I'm currently using www.ipowerweb.com. It's a little more expensive at about $97 per year, but they have a system that enables one to host up to 100 websites as sub-domains for that price, and their annual renewal for domain names is $6.95/name/year. As to sub-domains, to visitors it looks the same as separate websites. I have multiple websites that I want to upload, so this plan works well for me.

They alot up to 50 gigabytes for those up to 100 sub-domain websites and 750 gigabytes transfer. (Whatever the latter means?)

They have quite decent technical support BY PHONE! However, they avoid getting into questions about website design, and concentrate on possible problems with hosting. Still, after getting the right person, they helped me solve problems on uploading a website for the first time and instructed me on some stuff that could technically come under the "design" umbrella.

Not too much to dislike about them, except that one guy turned me down on helping me with something that someone else said they could help me with prior to my signing up. I called back again, got someone else, and no problem.

I like them, but too new to recommend them yet.

I tried 1sthostweb.com. Yuk! I needed technical support to get going, and using their email tech support didn't work. Might be OK otherwise, but I didn't get that far. Their "tech" support also didn't help me repointing my domain name that I have registered there. I had to go to sales to get that done, even though that service request falls under the tech support umbrella. Tech support also couldn't help me with something that turned out to be extremely simple. They said it was too complicated to answer. Their tech support was outsourced I think. Their written text had an obvious accent. (I don't mind the accent; I just needed the help.)

Walter Calahan
4-Dec-2006, 09:22
http://www.dogbark.com

Tell them I sent you.

http://www.walterpcalahan.com

QT Luong
4-Dec-2006, 11:43
theplanet.com

I've a dual 2.8 xeon box with dual 160GB drives and max bandwidth of 2.5TB/month.
The server is managed, 100% uptime SLA, with 24/7 phone/ticket tech support. Highly recommended, and an excellent value at $220/month.

Oren Grad
4-Dec-2006, 11:49
max bandwidth of 2.5TB/month

< gulp >

A different "planet", indeed.

Thanks to Neil for posting his questions - I'd like to add another: how much bandwidth do you need for your site, and what kind of site is it? That is, I'm curious to get a sense of the range typically needed to support a modest personal site aimed at sharing work with friends, vs a "serious" gallery site with e-commerce pretensions, vs a megasite like QT's.

j.e.simmons
4-Dec-2006, 13:50
I'm using hostgator.com - they have several hosting plans - a basic one is $10/month. They charge by the month, which I have decided I like. I previously used a host that charged annually, and when they failed me, I was stuck with having paid for several months that I would not use. Both addon and subdomains are allowed.

Hostgator has proved very reliable over the 10-months I've used it.
juan

Daniel Geiger
4-Dec-2006, 14:43
I used to be with ipower, until they screwed up my e-mail most royally, lost a bunch, and in the end had to tell them what went wrong at their end. They switched my account from one server to the other without telling me, so reference links got screwed up. I asked them to credit back the remainder, but don't thingk I got anything back. Not worth checking into for the few bucks.

I am now with startlogic. For the same price as ipower ($100/a) I get 10x the storgage (5GB). Tech support has been adequate, though I only had a few simple requests (e.g., reset password). My site is also pretty flat html, no flash, do database, no e-commerce. Just ftp-setup, and a couple of e-mail accounts. ipower and startlogic use the same server software so the transition was very smooth.

If you don't know what transfer rates are, most likely you don't need to be concerned about them. With my low cost option, I use about 1&#37; of transfer rate. Webup load is limited to files to about 30MB, for larger files you have to use a ftp-utility.

Rory_5244
4-Dec-2006, 15:32
Wow. "Ipowerweb.com" looks great.

I use FutureQuest (http://www.futurequest.net). My humble website uses their cheapest package (Visionary) with 100MB of storage space (of which I have used 33MB) and a 5GB bandwidth. I pay $100. per year approx. for the site and one "IRO". Their service has been excellent for the 14 months I have been with them.

Rory_5244
4-Dec-2006, 15:36
Holy crap! How is "StartLogic" so cheap!?

Ted Harris
4-Dec-2006, 15:46
I use DreamHost which is one of the older and larger hosting companies. www.dreamhost.com

> What do you like about them?

They are straightforward and large enough that I am sure I wil get the support I need. They are not particularly geared to the casual lower end user but can serve them fine. The services that they offer are very complete including a couple of web commerce extras that you would pay hundreds for elsewhere. They weren't my first hosting company but unless something better comes along they will be my last.

> What's their maximum space alloted per customer.

Depends on the plan you are using and how long you have been with them. I have 436.7 GB of storage and 5.028TB of monthly bandwith. This is on what they call their code monster plan and I have been with them for 18 months. Storage and bandwith keep increasing the longer you are a customer.

> What don't you like about them?

Nothing really. If anything it is that they offer so much that it can get confusing if you ae not a megauser.

> How much do they charge per year for hosting a website?

Depends on the plan. The most popular plan works out to $15.95 a month with a 2 year advance purchase. This price includes a discount from a rebate coupon that I can provide, otherwise 19.95 a month. This is also not the whole story because it includes an unlimited number of website and 3000 email adresses per website as long as the total usage stays within the bandwith/storage space. I am currently running 3 sites there and have a 4th in the wings. Two of these sites are fairly active, one of them an education site with a cadre of 200 odd folk participating in discussions, etc. Even with that I use only a small fraction of the storage and the bandwith.

> How much do they charge per year for domain name registration or renewal?

One is free and additional ones are 9.95 a year or less depending on the number of years registered.

> What kind of technical support do they provide?

24/7 ticket email and telephone tech support but phone support is limited for some plans. Additionally, they have a huge, easy-to-access kbowledge base. They will help with simple site design questions, will help a lot with setting up e commerce options, running forums, bulletin boards, etc. Knowledgable about vBulletin (sort of).

> How long have you used them, and would you recommend or not recommend them?

I'd absolutely recommend them but if you have fairly light usage you might find others services are beetter for your needs.

Michael Graves
4-Dec-2006, 15:51
My website is hosted through 1AND1.com. I used their Business Solution, which gives me the following:

I can host three different dedicated domains.
I have a total of 200GB of storage.
I can have up to 2,000GB of traffic per month without incurring extra charges.
It allows 1,995 more email addresses than I need (anyone want to rent an email address?)

It costs $9.95 per month.

Michael Graves
4-Dec-2006, 15:52
My website is hosted through 1AND1.com. I used their Business Solution, which gives me the following:

I can host three different dedicated domains.
I have a total of 200GB of storage.
I can have up to 2,000GB of traffic per month without incurring extra charges.
It allows 1,995 more email addresses than I need (anyone want to rent an email address?)

It costs $9.95 per month.

Oh, yeah...and it's $5.95 per year to register a domain name.

Brian Ellis
4-Dec-2006, 16:49
I use Pro Bass. Costs $250 a year which I think includes the domain registration. They designed the site under my instructions to keep it as simple as possible. I like ProBass because it's a husband and wife outfit and if I have a tech problem I just call and talk with the owners. If you're interested let me know and I'l dig out the contact information but looking at what others are paying I think mine is on the high side.

erie patsellis
4-Dec-2006, 16:56
IF:

This is for a moderate volume business/personal site

AND

You have either DSL or CABLE

AND

The site isn't mission critical (e.g. power goes out in your neighborhood for a week)

THEN

Google SME Server, it's a heck of a nice server/gateway software package.

Erie

Keith Pitman
4-Dec-2006, 17:39
I'm using lunarpages.com. About $100 per year including domain registration, four (I think) email addresses, and everything else. I actually use them for another business as well and am reasonably satisfied with them.

Bill McMannis
4-Dec-2006, 19:17
We are using ValueWeb for both of our websites. Each site is $19.95 per month. Support is excellent. They had some difficulty with their email server in October (only problem in two years), but once they had it straightened out I do not think we lost anything. Cannot recall how much space I have access to, but it seems to be huge.

Would not consider changing.

Oren Grad
4-Dec-2006, 19:22
IF:

This is for a moderate volume business/personal site

AND

You have either DSL or CABLE

AND

The site isn't mission critical (e.g. power goes out in your neighborhood for a week)

THEN

Google SME Server, it's a heck of a nice server/gateway software package.

Erie

Many (most?) service agreements for consumer DSL or cable accounts have an explicit prohibition against using the account for a server, whether or not it's for commercial purposes.

Jason Greenberg Motamedi
4-Dec-2006, 19:41
I pay $5 a month to share a piece of APUG's server at http://apughosting.org/

-3G bandwidth per month
-150M Storage
-5 email/pop mail accounts
-5 subdomains

The price is good and the service suits me fine.

Scott Knowles
4-Dec-2006, 19:58
I use a local ISP, http://port.harbornet.com/index.php. They're slightly more expensive, cheaper (20&#37;) paying for a whole year, but sometimes it's nice to have an office to walk in and talk to a real live person when you have problems or questions.

Doug Dolde
4-Dec-2006, 20:25
lunarpages

paulr
4-Dec-2006, 21:40
I've been using ipowerweb for over a year and haven't had any problems like Daniel's. My use has been pretty light duty, but their services seem fairly competetive (if i ever want to add dynamic elements to my site) and their support is good (24 hour phone, email, or IM).

Seems like there's a lot of competition right now. Who has the best deal probably changes monthly.

robc
4-Dec-2006, 23:42
< gulp >

A different "planet", indeed.

Thanks to Neil for posting his questions - I'd like to add another: how much bandwidth do you need for your site, and what kind of site is it? That is, I'm curious to get a sense of the range typically needed to support a modest personal site aimed at sharing work with friends, vs a "serious" gallery site with e-commerce pretensions, vs a megasite like QT's.

you can work it out fairly simply.

daily visitors × average image size kb × average number of images viewed by a visitor × 30 × 2

note that the × 2 doubles up the value to give you a safety margin and accomodate email bandwidth and backup bandwidth.


so for example, if you 100 vistors a day with avaerage image size of 100kb and each visitor views 20 images then you get

100 × 100 × 20 × 30 × 2 = 12000000Kb or 12000MB or 12GB per month.

You will need to look at your web stats to work out what the averages are for your site.

getting visitors will be the key to how much bandwidth you need.

ISP's can offer massive amounts of bandwidth to tempt you to buy in the knowledge that very few sites will ever use more than a tiny fraction of that bandwidth.

Also some ISP's include their daily backups of your webspace in your used bandwidth figures.

What is the most important thing is how well the ISP manages the load on its servers. Unless you purchase a dedicated server, then you are on a shared server and you may be sharing it with 5, 10, 50 or 100 or 500 other websites any of which might suddenly implement a high bandwidth web site and the performance on your site will drop accordingly. At that point a good ISP will do something about it. The cheap ISP's won't.

Nearly all ISP's only offer support on their services, they don't offer support on design and scripting. They may help you with FTP to your web space.

vinny
4-Dec-2006, 23:55
apughosting.org
$5/month
quick responses to questions
the rest has been posted already

kjsphotography
5-Dec-2006, 00:03
http://www.realwebhost.com/

Fast, Affordable and awesome support. I sell and makes site for a living and I use these guys not only for my own personal site but my clients also.

They are very good.

Kevin

jackies
5-Dec-2006, 11:27
I use betterphoto.com. They have various levels from free to Pro. Easy to use. They have templates, fonts to choose from and other ways to enhance your site. Great support but have never had ANY problem with them.

Highly recommended for those who want an easy way to setup a site. I would rather be doing photography than learn how to build and design a site.

Jackie

Chris_Brown
13-Dec-2006, 13:30
For those who have their own websites, what hosting site (or hosting sites) do you use as a place to put your website for internet access?

> What do you like about them?

> What's their maximum space alloted per customer.

> What don't you like about them?

> How much do they charge per year for hosting a website?

> How much do they charge per year for domain name registration or renewal?

> What kind of technical support do they provide?

> How long have you used them, and would you recommend or not recommend them?


For the last seven years I've used BlueHost (http://www.bluehost.com/) and have been very pleased with their customer service, tech support, up-time and server maintanence. It uses shared hosting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_hosting) so the cost is not shocking: $7 per month. Their list of features is here. (http://www.bluehost.com/tell_me_more.html)

Best of all, they use Unix/Apache for their server software, not Windows.

David_Senesac
14-Dec-2006, 15:49
Yahoo/AT&T. Because I already have other accounts with them and they are one of the 800 pound gorrilas one doesn't have to deal with usual net problems or lack of support tools with. Could be paying less since I live in a hotbed of high tech with lots of providers but for a few more bucks prefer simplicity and lack of worries. In my case, I just wrote my own html code for a simple yet unique visual site meant to look different and downloaded it directly. I regularly tweak, add, and remove html files with the default Yahoo filemanager tool so don't have the usual application tool limitations. Today I added a free to download 2007 calendar to my site for example which took just a few minutes. ...David

Gordon Moat
14-Dec-2006, 17:56
For those who have their own websites, what hosting site (or hosting sites) do you use as a place to put your website for internet access?

000domains
(http://www.000domains.com)


> What do you like about them?

Convenient and easy to access site controls with statistics. No sites on the SPEWS Block List within their realm of IP addresses.



> What's their maximum space alloted per customer.

Varies per plan agreement, though I am far from needing any extra storage. Maybe a video website would need more storage.



> What don't you like about them?

I chose my latest plan with them because they offered webmail services. Their webmail is a bit behind the times, and not as useful as I expected.



> How much do they charge per year for hosting a website?

Starter package is $5.25 a month currently. I have the Standard at $7.95 per month. That should cover a huge amount of traffic, even with the volume of images and hits I get each month.



> How much do they charge per year for domain name registration or renewal?

$13.50 and I think a slight discount for multi-year or more than one domain. They also tend to have specials for people signed up with them that provide slightly more discount.



> What kind of technical support do they provide?

I am not sure I could give a good answer to that. I only needed Tech Support three times, and they were very quick solving those problems. The only slightly slow one was a problem I had with my webmail, which took them nearly half a day to correct.



> How long have you used them, and would you recommend or not recommend them?

I have used them for site registration many years. Their hosting packages are new, so I have used that barely a year. The site controls, access, and statistics work fine. I would wish that their webmail would be upgraded or improved. If you really need good webmail, maybe another company would be better; though if you only want site hosting, they are very reliable with their uptimes.

A few things not many people consider. The SPEWS Block List, and similar sites, chart spammers and spam host providers. If you host your non-spamming site on a group of server known to be used by spammers, then you might find access to your site blocked from various servers, or at the very least find that your site e-mail is blocked going to various servers. This is a judgement call with host providers, though ethically we should carefully choose not to support companies that enable spammers to do their business.

Uptime is the reliability of the servers, which means when or if your site might become unavailable. You can check this through several internet monitoring companies, such as Netcraft (http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/). When you click on that link, just type in the name of a site you know to be on a particular server for a host company, or simply use the name URL of the hosting company. You can find out if outages are frequent, or rare.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com)