Questions to ask prospective web hosts

SenseiSteve

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
Does your web host provider offer personal tours of their datacenter(s)?

Do they feature online tours?

How long have they been in business?

Are they members of the BBB?

What level of security do they employ?

What is their uptime?

Do they offer a Service Level Agreement?

What are their Terms of Service?

Do they have a money back guarantee?

Do they offer managed services?

Are their technicians certified?

Are they a one-stop-shop?

Do they offer control panels, and which ones?

Do they offer both Windows and Linux solutions?

Do they charge setup fees?

Do they have failover bandwidth?

Do they offer BGP bandwidth?

Do they offer cross-connects?

Do they offer live chat support?

Do they offer 24/7 phone support?

Do they offer live event monitoring?

Do they offer disaster recovery plans?

Are their plans scalable?

Will they customize a plan for you?

Will they provide references?

I’m sure there are many many more questions you may think of, but these are a great place to start. Finding the right provider with whom to entrust your data requires some forethought and research. Don’t over think the entire process. Search the Internet for positive / negative reviews, narrow down your list and then call each prospective vendor.

Gauge which provider best fits your business model. How important and relevant are each of the above? Assign a value to each, total the numbers and compare vendors. Often, the correct match jumps of the page and hits you square in the forehead. Often the offer seems too good to be real - for instance, an offer of unlimited bandwidth on a VPS. That’s just not realistic given the cost of bandwidth to the vendor.

I would recommend assigning a heavier weight to a disaster recovery plan. And also to their technical expertise, as it directly relates to the level of service you can expect to receive from them.

You’d be amazed how many hosts do NOT offer phone support, or only during business hours. Uptime can be verified to some extent as there are sites that monitor hosts, but those do not necessarily monitor every router - so the numbers can be misleading. If your prospective host publicly lists anything less than 99.99% uptime, I’d recommend looking elsewhere. Downtime can cost thousands in lost revenue and disgruntled clients.

Do you recognize their references? Are those references credible?

Even if your application doesn’t fit a plan you see featured on their website, call and ask them if they’ll customize a plan for you. You may be pleasantly surprised.
 
Does your web host provider offer personal tours of their datacente(s)?
Only companies offering dedicated servers offer this on there website, Liquid web, The Planet ect

Do they feature online tours?
Once again only dedicated server Companies Offer

How long have they been in business?
This is very imporant, dont get involved with new companies

Are they members of the BBB?
I dont think this is important, it is very easy to get approved all you need to do is fill out a form

What level of security do they employ?
This is important, do all works work from one office or are they all over the place

What is their uptime?
Most companies dont offer uptime reports direct on site, but if you ask for proof they should be able to offer uptime reports

Do they offer a Service Level Agreement?
I think every companies offers this, but is there tos copied from another site or is it orginal

Do they have a money back guarantee?
This is always nice :)

Do they offer managed services?
I think every shared hosting company is managed, VPS and dedicated servers should be looked if they are managed

Are their technicians certified?
How would you be able to tell untill you they there services

Are they a one-stop-shop?
this is always nice
 
Getting a BBB Certificate is just a matter of sending them $400 and you're good to go. Being a BBB member has almost no reflection on the business. We've been BBB free for 15 years :) Granted this year we ARE getting involved with a BBB in Omaha, but it for the sole purpose of being able to showcase our product at "The Big O!" - which is a B2B event of more than 400 vendors. So it's a strategic move more than anything else.

Certified Techs is another that I'm not too big on. If someone knows how to do the job but doesn't have a piece of paper, does that devalue their knowledge? Being a college dropout myself (I lasted 3 months), and running 3 successfull businesses and knowing about Linux & Unix etc - I'm more than qualifed to run the business, but I don't have a piece of paper. In fact, I don't think ANY of my staff have the paper. I gave TESTS to each on their skill levels, had them solve particular instances, and if they could do it, I hired them.

DataCenter tours can be a security risk. Knowing the certification of the DataCenter (ISO, HiPPA, etc) - these will be important depending on the type of clients you're hosting.

Backup and disaster recovery plans are important, but personaly, we don't disclose that information to the public on what steps we take.

Uptime is relative. Uptime on a router could be 100% and uptime on Server A could be 96% while Server B at 80% and Server C 100%. Every server will have a different uptime percentage, and the length of time is also relative. 100% uptime for the past 30 days pales in comparison to a 98.% uptime over the past 4 years.

24/7 phone support - or even phone support in general - how often is this really necessary? I see people wanting phone support for SALES in the very beginning, but once configured, there's limited necessity on the phone.

The questions are all great as long as the person asking them knows what the answers should be. What is BGP Bandwidth or Cross-Connects? How will they affect me if they have them (or don't)? -- not knowing this information, and someone just asking the questions doesn't help make a decision. Other than that, I think everything on here SHOULD be disclosed and documented in a Terms of Service and that should be linked on their home page for public viewing.
 
your list is complete i think :)

i am agree that BBB is not important ,
when you want to sign up for any hosting company check their MoneyBack guarantee which is helpful some times :help:
i personally prefer Well-Known Hosting companies only ,
why trust on Un-known companies when we can get high quality services at affordable Price from Biggest ones ?!
 
Certified Techs is another that I'm not too big on. If someone knows how to do the job but doesn't have a piece of paper, does that devalue their knowledge? Being a college dropout myself (I lasted 3 months), and running 3 successfull businesses and knowing about Linux & Unix etc - I'm more than qualifed to run the business, but I don't have a piece of paper. In fact, I don't think ANY of my staff have the paper. I gave TESTS to each on their skill levels, had them solve particular instances, and if they could do it, I hired them.
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Handsonhosting I couldn't agree more with you. I only went to college for 6 months and then I dropout to start cyberworld hosting. I think college in general is over rated. If you know the skills/knowledge you don't have to goto college in my opinion. The college system is a ploy in my opinion because The banks/who ever else is envoled with it want you to go to college so you get loans for 50k+ and then after that they want you pay back plus an interest rate. See for me I teach myself everything I know. Mainly the reason behind that is that I have a slight learning disability or that's what they told me in school(they said I am dyslectic but Albert Einstein was dyslectic too and look what he did) But I love computers and have always been a self teacher.

your list is complete i think

i am agree that BBB is not important ,
when you want to sign up for any hosting company check their MoneyBack guarantee which is helpful some times
i personally prefer Well-Known Hosting companies only ,
why trust on Un-known companies when we can get high quality services at affordable Price from Biggest ones ?!
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With Un-know/small web hosting companies you most likely will get better support because they are small and will treat you better because they need/want you business more then the big guy. Plus the smaller companies don't see you as a cash cow like the bigger companies.
 
Sure,Small Companies has some benefits of cours,

but just for an example : if you encourage a problem in midnight , in most ( not all ) small companies you can not reach them at midnight by phone ( as i experinced only ) but with big companies they are at there to help you all the time even in midnight

any way,there are some small companies whic offer exccelent services surely ,but take care and be sure about them then try
 
That can happen but I still think smaller companies will appreciate the client more then a bigger companies and will treat them like a friend. I can't say that for everyone but that's what I do.
 
cyberworldhost said:
That can happen but I still think smaller companies will appreciate the client more then a bigger companies and will treat them like a friend. I can't say that for everyone but that's what I do.
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yes, i am agree that Small companies are more friendly and will appreciate their customers more

well-known companies has some benefits and small companies anothers, finally it's up to you and your needs
 
I have to agree,a one to one interaction is vital If one needs to succeed in the Hosting industry,may be that's why more and more hosting companies are opting for Live Chat softcodes on their websites.
 
~fine-networks~ said:
i personally want to talk with some one that i have to get best business deal. I make a list of my requirement, they can agree or not.
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And this is what most deals boil down to. The prospect spells out what they want to do and either you can accomodate them or not. Price is the primary driving factor, but providing solutions closes the deal.
 
Out of the original list, these are the ones that I value:
How long have they been in business? What level of security do they employ? What is their up-time? Are their technicians certified? Do they offer live chat support? Do they offer 24/7 phone support? Do they offer disaster recovery plans? Are their plans scalable?
-I would probably ask as well if their plans offer any type of guarantees, like a money back.
 
Should most of those questions be answered in the Terms of Service? I want some kind of guaranee that what they tell me is what I get. Not one thing from one person and something else from another.
 
Most of these SHOULD be available in the Terms of Service, the Privacy Policy and the Company Overview/History section.

Most contracts are not binding when an employee says "oh don't worry about that part" - having everything laid out in plain text on the site is the way to go. Also, when I setup accounts with various data centers, I get a copy of their terms of service from that date along with any policies etc. Also printed is a copy of the services that I'm purchasing and at whatever rate - this way if things are downgraded without authorization I have something to go back to. It probably wouldn't hold up in court, but it's something I can take to the company none the less.

Documenation is very important.
 
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