Web Hosting: In Search of the Greenest Grass

If you’ve kept up with any of my blogs about hosting, you know that I have a real passion about great hosting services and no patience for anything less.  I’ve complained a lot about certain companies as they tout themselves as being reliable and fast and end up being anything but.

Last weekend, my team successfully transferred over yet another website off of the IXWebHosting servers.  I really do hate to put down one company for less-than-desirable services since they obviously aren’t the only offenders out there, but considering the money my clients have paid for their websites, I have no choice but to fight for optimum web surfing experience and sometimes that means pointing fingers when necessary.

The website is MMLonline.com.  My team created that website in the fall of 2008 and we went with IXWebHosting for the web host.  It was a match made in heaven because the hosting company offered the newest ASP.net support and lots of other goodies. Sure, it was a risk suggesting a new hosting provider to a client of mine that I myself couldn’t attest to.  But I saw the cup as half full and went for it.  From about month 1 on, the website experienced sluggish loading time and within the year, the website had been down more than 5 times for a 1/2 day or more.  I gave them the benefit of the doubt because breaking up really is hard to do.  So I called….. A LOT!  I can’t tell you how many times we called the company to ask what the problem was (and make sure it wasn’t something in the coding) and the tech person tell us that we were on the “problem” server.  No matter how many times we changed servers within the company, we seemed to not be able to escape the issues.

Friends, I am a believer that sometimes we are better off with the devil we know than the devil we don’t, but I had finally realized that the problem here really wasn’t me or my impatience… it was them and I saw green pastures elsewhere.

So, here’s to a new relationship with a company called WinHost.com.  Like any beginning relationship, everything seems perfect.  The site seems faster and support seems compatible.  My only wish is for my clients’ website to be more accessible to their users and that I’m not writing a contrary blog about this company in six months.

Finding Stability in the Ever-Changing Web World

I recently had a client decide she no longer needed my hosting services because she found a website online that offered free hosting and she could save $50/yr. Yeah, free hosting has been around for years, but this new website was offering it with no strings attached. No logos, advertisements, surveys, nothing… just free hosting for budget-conscience folks and a user-friendly interface to help you pick out, edit and publish a pretty decent website on your own. (You just pay for the domain.)

At first this news rocked me to my core. I understand how someone could give away server space and website building tools, but WHY would they do it? It makes no business sense to offer something for nothing. It costs money to buy and maintain servers, program and update a website. Why would someone go out of their way to offer this service and get nothing in return? But more importantly, I wondered how I am supposed to compete in this new, ever-changing world of web giveaways.

It seems the services I offer can be found online for cheaper and cheaper with each passing day. First the internet offered cheap website templates, but you still needed some working knowledge of HTML to make it work. Then the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor came out. That allowed anyone with basic computer skills the ability to edit html text and pictures. The catch was, you had to know how to hook the new technology up to your template. Now, the art of web development has gotten down to an exact science and almost anyone can find a packaged design to suit their needs for free with no programming skills required to install.

Internet advances are overwhelming, frustrating, and sometimes downright discouraging. I love the internet and welcome new technology because it makes my life easier too. So telling myself and my client that free tools and resources aren’t beneficial when in fact they are… isn’t an option. That would be like keeping life-saving medicine from a cancer patient because I didn’t want to admit that someone else had a better treatment. At the end of the day, honesty wins out. So I have to find a way to not just survive in this dynamic world, but become a part of it. I have to find my niche in the chaos, find what’s timeless about me, what transcends a trend. I have to challenge myself to find stability in change.

So that’s where I am. I’m in a state of reinventing my business. While continuing custom web design and development, I’m brainstorming ways I’ll help people and businesses succeed online in the future. By combining the craftsmanship of yesterday with the new tools available today, I’m hoping to generate a new business model that exudes creativity, innovation, and stellar customer service.

To my client who wants to change hosting to save some green, I say, “Go, be free, enjoy the new service, and I’ll be here when you need me.” Because the help I provide, the advice I give, the ideas I plant and the many questions I answer in every email you send me doesn’t come standard with your new, free service. My expertise has value and that’s one thing that never changes.

Same Web Site. Different Servers.

The website:  gulfalliancetraining.com was being hosted on two different servers.  The original is with ixwebhosting.com shared windows hosting. The second is through winhost.com shared windows hosting.  Watch the difference is load time for each site.  This proves that all hosting isn’t the same.  Needless to say, winhost.com is my NEW favorite hosting company!

Downtime Comes Standard

Hosting companies want you to believe that downtime comes standard. They even tout it in their service ads. “99% up time,” they shout as if that’s some awesome feat.  But 1% downtime translates into 14.4 minutes/day that my website is off the air.  I don’t know about you, but that’s 14 minutes too long for me.

The good news is is that for many hosting companies, the 99% up time claim is actually a humble way to say, “Rarely there are glitches, but 364 days out of the year, you’ll be just fine.” On the other hand, some hosting companies use the 99% up time claim to mask true problems and you end up wondering why that 1% always seems to fall in the middle of the day, every day of the year for your site.

So, how do you know which 99% claim is humble and which is a mask.  To put it simply, you won’t know until you try it. But being in the web design business, I get to experience hosting service from many different providers and the following is a very short list of my tried and true hosts.

Godaddy.com
Bluehost.com
valueweb.com
yahoo.com

(There are probably many more out there, but I haven’t worked with them enough to have an opinion.)

My least favorite to deal with is a little company called IXwebhosting.  I do business with them because they support programming language asp.net v 3.5, something not many companies offer yet.  They also offer UNLIMITED storage. But what I gain in terms of advanced language support and space, I lose in reliability.

Every website I host with them – a total of 5 now – has server issues.  The most common is irregular speed. Sometimes the site will load in 2 seconds… other times is take 50 seconds.  I also experience several “runtime errors” and program shut down. (I guess a lot of people are enjoying that unlimited storage!)

As soon as I find another more reliable host that offers asp.net 3.5 support and unlimited disk space, I’m switching them all over. I know from experience that if hosting were a car, downtime wouldn’t comes standard on all models… just the lemons.

Why Should I Manage Your Hosting?

The reason is simple.  Don’t you have enough to worry about already?

When it comes to web site hosting, most people outside of the technology industry are clueless. And I don’t mean they are stupid, just inexperienced and uninterested.  Unfortunately, though, anyone who wants a website is going run face-first into that mysterious word – hosting – and most are going to say, “what is that!?!?”

As I describe it to my clients, your website is like a file folder in the sky and hosting is the cabinet.  In order to publish your information to the world wide web, you need a server to run it.  And since most of us don’t just have one of those hanging around the house, we rent space from someone who does.

Now, when I start a web project, one of the first questions I ask a new client is whether or not they have hosting.  If they don’t, I always say that they can either buy it themselves and give me their login or host through me and I take care of it for them.  You guessed it, nine clients out of ten say, “I’ll let you handle that.”  And here’s what they get for giving up control:

• Control… as in… everything’s under control and they don’t have to do anything.
• The most awesome customer service around. If they need help or have a question, they can email me, text me, or phone me… not a 1-800 number.
• Save money. I charge the same as the hosting companies charge, but because they don’t end up signing up for stuff they don’t need, because they didn’t know they  didn’t need it, they save!
• Save time. Whenever they need a change done to their website that requires server information, they don’t have to go searching the planet for it. Since I manage it, I have it.
• A knowledgeable friend. I know what hosting plans should offer and how their website should work.  If something’s wrong. I’ll probably spot it before they do.  I’ll be the one to tell if they need to upgrade or change plans all together.  (You can’t beat my friendship with a stick!)
• Security. I know of at least a handful of clients who lost their websites because they failed to pay the hosting bill. Either the email address was wrong or the they ignored the bills, but when they didn’t pay, the company dropped the account and they were out of the $$$ they had invested.  Don’t let that happen to you.

Now, sure, there are always those people out there, those do-it-yourselfers who enjoy learning something new and have a tight grip on everything around them.  Those are the same folks who change their own oil, fix their own leaky facets and dye their own hair.  To them, I say, “here’s your towel and gloves.”  But to the rest of you I say, “sit back and relax…”