How to choose a hosting company that will maintain good services over the years?

[susansee]

How to choose a hosting company that has longevity? Some clients have had their hosting plans purchased by a larger company only to see services diminish. What guidelines do I give them for choosing a good hosting company?

 

[SenseiSteve]

Even good companies can turn sour once they've been purchased. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to tell if or when a company will be acquired by another provider. One example is WiredTree. Guidelines? Select from recommended providers on web hosting forums like Hosting Discussion.

 

[susansee]

Do you think it would help to choose the largest hosting companies? Are they less likely to be bought out? Some of the hosting companies my clients chose were small, independent businesses. Do I steer them away from the smaller sized options?

 

[Artashes]

The larger the company, the less value they place on one customer. What is 1 account when you have 100,000? Isn't the same as 1 account for a company with 10 or even 100 clients. Larger companies start to think in large scale terms, buying smaller vendors, hiring people so fast that standards in level of service often drop (remember HostGator's real struggle with hiring? The company literally spent more money advertising their job listings than their products.)

So going big doesn't mean getting better care. Ideally you want a perfect middle when you have a private medium-sized company that provides careful personal care to each of their clients, when the owner(s) still overlook all the tech, software and take direct part in crafting customer policies.

 

[robert4u]

Well personally I believe it does not matter a company is large or small, the thing what matter is how the owner is involved. In many cases when the company start getting clients, the owners interest shift to earn money. Now when the owner only care about money he will not value standard or quality.

So I will say look for a company who really care about customer and quality.

 

[PureVoltage]

I agree with Robert here if the owner doesn't care about the company why should the staff care?
Most companies I've seen that have gone from providing a good service change into long delays and lack of support come in after the owners don't care about it anymore then the staff most times are overworked and it goes down from there.

 

[mikemiller]

That is always a difficult task as it needs a lot of research and reading. You can check some reviews from other people but keep in mind that there are always such people who are unhappy with everything and there is no hosting provider without a bad review online. And there is one more thing, most of the satisfied users are not writing reviews as they don't think that is necessary, but almost all of the unhappy people are writing reviews, so that should be taken also under consideration.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Do you think it would help to choose the largest hosting companies? Are they less likely to be bought out? Some of the hosting companies my clients chose were small, independent businesses. Do I steer them away from the smaller sized options?

you have to carry out plenty of research.
you look at a large company they may have 1000 + staff and some may be students that have little or no training, so you have lost the personal touch, as you are just a number and $ to them and if they give you bad service and you leave it will mean nothing to them.

A small independent business may be a 1 man band, so 1 person (owner) who handles everything, you will get a personal touch and they will bend over backwards to help and assist you. You may not get 24/7 live support as everyone needs sleep.

but you can get both bad and good service from any sized host

 

[WPCYCLE]

This...

Well personally I believe it does not matter a company is large or small, the thing what matter is how the owner is involved. In many cases when the company start getting clients, the owners interest shift to earn money. Now when the owner only care about money he will not value standard or quality.

...cancels this....

So I will say look for a company who really care about customer and quality.

With many of the existing companies we all bad mouth...at one point years ago, they were the greatest companies on the planet. Service was top notch...support had issues resolved within minutes...and the owner would interact with customers through any form of communication to keep the customers happy. A perfect world.

Then, at some point down the road, the owner may want out and sells the company. Everything that was loved...gone. Service that was exceptional...gone. Websites, emails, files...issues, lost, etc.

It's a real hit or miss since no one knows who the next company will be to sell out. I have only seen a few cases where a company that was sold actually improved. The customers ended up with better Servers, better support, and access to a better network...an overall improvement from a host that already had great elements behind it.

 

[OffshoreDdcated]

I think the best way to check the potential of a company is by contacting them and discussing with them your concerns. If you feel satisfied after discussion then go for that company, otherwise leave them.
I get to hear a huge number of complaints and negative comments about some of the biggest hosting providers out there on daily basis. I am telling this negative remarks thing just to justify the fact that bigger is not the ONLY better option.

 

[Lampard]

You have to check their reviews, check that when it was started. About the reviews, check the reviews of every year and see how their service is. That will only help you find some good hosting company.

 

[susansee]

Thanks for your Feedback

Thanks everyone for the tips about selecting a hosting company. I will keep them in mind.

 

[WebHostFeed]

In my array of websites, most have had several hosts over the years. I stay away from large hosts where customer service is outsourced, my websites are just some client id and the plans are concrete and they refuse to work with you on any case. However many hosts come and go and sometimes they get bought out, moved over or in once instance, disappeared off the face of the planet (Always have backups ).

 

[ohostme]

never matter the size of the company or price of the products it's all depend on who run this and how run this

 

[Artashes]

I stay away from large hosts where customer service is outsourced

I think that is an incorrect assessment. Larger companies are the ones that generally try to hire their own staff, because they are at the stage when they can afford it and want to control things better. What you may have meant is that larger companies place lower value on each individual client because they have 100,000 other clients to worry about.

 

[easyhostmedia]

I stay away from large hosts where customer service is outsourced

You will find that it is small and mid sized hosts that outsource as they dont have large offices and the funds to hire their own staff.

Large hosts will have big offices and a bank of their own staff on their own payroll as they can afford this, but as Artashes says these host all you are to them is $$ as they have thousands of clients, so you hold little value to them as a person.

 

[saiefmahmud]

No one can guarantee of having quality for years. But you have to trust any of these companies. You can check the long time reviews of a company. You can search for their stability. Forums like Hosting Discussion are the best source to judge a hosting company as I think.

 

[Tucha]

Some criteria for choosing a hosting provider

According to this topic on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Hosting/comments/6q2xlw/the_main_quality_of_hosting_provider/) the main quality of hosting provider are:

• Stability
• Time on market
• Cost
• Competitive hardware,
• Responsive tech support

and a lot of others.
Try to browse Internet resources and find reviews of different providers. Also a lot of providers can give you a free test.
And the main advice I can give you - qualitative hosting worth its cost.

 

[easyhostmedia]

In a shared hosting environment, how many clients are assigned to each server? Is there a maximum? (This can be helpful in determining whether the host oversells space as well as whether you are likely to experience bandwidth or space issues)

very hard to say it is oversold or not as 'how many clients are assigned to each server' will not give you that answer as

lets say the host has 500 clients on a server then until you know the actual size of the server you cannot say they have oversold the server i.e. if they have these on an 80GB server then yes it will be oversold, but if these are on a 10,000GB server then they wont be oversold

 

[rebelnet]

at the end of the day, you need to do your research and homework. Also you need to look at your own busness and decide how will you grow and will your hosting vendor provide you the solutions you will need in the future. Are they only shared hosting or do they offer everything, cloud, VPS, etc. Do they offer things you do not need today, but might need in a 1 year, 3 years