Im new here,my experience so far with webhosting...

[Zorgoid]

Hello members of hosting discussion!

I am a new member of this forum,i joined it after a lot of thought and after some problems i have encountered on the "world of choosing a webhost". I am speaking ofcourse from the customer's point of view and i have to say that my experience so far has been somewhat of a horror story...I will explain shortly...

What does a customer want when it comes to webhosting? Just what the word itself says,webhosting!That is uploading a webpage on the web and being sure that it stays up (as long as no terms of contract are violated) and if problem arises some people to be there for you.Its a simple and logical demand from a customer,just to have his webpage online and have support but it seems so difficult to come by...

Me and a close friend of mine did a webpage on an account shared with his hotel bussiness at a friendly server but we decided to move on because we wanted more options (php and MySQL support) and also because he wanted the account to be only the hotel's account.So good so far...Another friend recommended a company called 1giagbyte.com which hosted his website and he was happy with them so we decided to "board the ship" as well for a year...To cut a long story short the hosting was ok for 3-4 months,although the uptime left alot to be desired.They were some hack attempts against us which 1)the host credited to us whereas it was his fault (he didnt monitor critical updates of things like PHP and pearl scripts he had installed and wasnt our responsibility) and 2) he didnt notify us until the situation became unbearable although he had noticed all allong (those hackers were stealing data from us).One day he simply pulled a Hundini dissapearence act,leaving all customers wondering where did their websites go...He didnt answer any emails, his phone numbers where unreachable and i had to spend many hours in the internet and employ "social engineering" in order to speak to him on the phone! The conclusion was that his little company went bankrupt,he didnt notify anything and then went running...

Our critical fault is that we didnt tend to backups so we lost all our data...Now we are at a point looking for another host and recently i found out about ace-host.net and was ready to join with them.They looked decent,they looked perfect and one could fall for them easily!!!Thank God i did a background search and i have found many derogatory comments on them on webhosting forums...That was a move that propably saved me money and a lot of distress of finding out myself (apparently their support is nonexistant ,they balme it on you and after the moneyback guarantee period there is a high chance they delete your website saying "you use too many resources).

I wonder sometimes...Does the simple customer wanting his website on the internet have to transform into a CIA operative using social engineering to reach "Hundini" webhost managers otherways unreachable ,and use spying skills in order to see if a new company is trustworthy? All a customer wants is his website up and running and some support...Is it generally that difficult to get it? Is it a usually a game of "spot the scam" with 75% of the companies advertising their webhosting just trying to get your money?

Thats why i decided to join those forums...I believe that some experienced people "reside" in here and it certainly feels more safe to take a desicion helped by the members of this forum....Any guidlines on how i should start my search and what i should be aware of? How should i procceed?I would appreciate even hearing about mistakes other forum members made so i can learn from them the easy way...and not the hard expensive way!

Well,here i am ,Zorgoid the new member !

 

[webfreak08]

First off, welcome to HostingDiscussion, Zorgoid!

All a customer wants is his website up and running and some support...Is it generally that difficult to get it? Is it a usually a game of "spot the scam" with 75% of the companies advertising their webhosting just trying to get your money?

There are many great hosts to choose from on the Internet. The only problem is that you have to know who the honest ones are and who only care about making a quick buck. One of the HD moderators, Dan (ldcdc), runs whreviews.com. He has a list of Honest Hosts (along with reviews from customers) that I believe would be worth it to check out.

Any guidlines on how i should start my search and what i should be aware of? How should i procceed?

Very good questions. First, you are starting right by joining hosting forums like this one.

You can find many threads about what you should look for, but I'll give you a summary. First, do not go with a host that offers unlimited bandwidth or diskspace as these are simply not possible to provide. Second, look for or ask for reviews on hosting forums. I wouldn't trust hosting directories as they can be biased because sometimes hosts pay for them. Be aware of hosts that seem "too good to be true" (low prices and high bandwidth/diskspace) because most likely they are. Finally, you may find it useful to send an e-mail or request a live chat with the hosting company. By doing this you can find out what kind of people you will be dealing with if you go with them.

I'm sure other members have more to add, but I hope I got you off to a good start.

 

[Zorgoid]

Thanks!

Thanks for the quick reply and the information...

I already started educating myself on webhosting using the webpage at you signature (composed by Mark,are you that person?) so as to get the basics ,and i have found that Dan's webpage is a real gem.He has a forum that some could call "strict" but i would call "honest and with a serious approach towards enforcement of rules" a thing i like of course...

My morale has gone up already,i started checking out webhosting companies on peoples signatures and i finally come to see that finding a honest ,reliable webhost is not something out of a Science Fiction book...What i value most is honesty of course,i can cope with some mistakes but dishonesty is a huge no-no in my book (that could translate into : if the person wants to close down the company and live with Zapatistas in Mexico ,it would be honest of him to drop me an email or announce it at least a week before so i can prepare :agree: )....I hold my enthusiasm somehow back so i can make sure my decision will be the most educated one i could make.

Its good im finding support on these forums! I dotn knwo if my approach makes up for a safer choice but here it is : i might go for companies that their people are involved at those forums ,and when i say involved i mean have a good number of posts.This way i feel that a)my webhost can be reached at a forum b)since he/she frequents these boards and is a respected member there is a good chance that he is reliable and not a scam and c) if anything was "fishy" at a company a member advertised there is a chance that other forum members older than me would have spotted it....Of course this is a first level check but i think its a sound approach...What do you think?

I started aslo reading on guides on "how to choose a webhost" and i would like to recommend that approach to all the members..You may see some clauses in them repeating over and over ,but believe me it takes some time for the information to settle in you so you make a mental checklist of them when you are considering a host.

As im still studying the issue ia have nothing more to add,or any companies to ask comments on but be sure that in some time i will come back asking for some views...I have somewhat of a picture of what im looking for (1GB of HD space,30-50 GB transfer,prefferably unlimited or around 10-20MySQL DB,Cpanel, in otherwords something i will be able to put Mambo CMS on and a nice forum) and the price issue is still open.What i mean is that propably i will utilize the "minimum" packadge of a company ,not a huge one and price comes second.First comes Honesty,Reliability and Support..

 

[webfreak08]

(composed by Mark,are you that person?)

Yes, I am Marc.

I have somewhat of a picture of what im looking for (1GB of HD space,30-50 GB transfer,prefferably unlimited or around 10-20MySQL DB,Cpanel, in otherwords something i will be able to put Mambo CMS on and a nice forum)

If you would like to request hosting from the companies that are represented on this forum without contacting them individually, you should try creating a thread in the Web Hosting Requests forum:
http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22. There is a guide on how to choose the right host in this forum.