Web Hosting

[James & Zelma Litzmann]

I ask this question here, because I trust you guys. Does anyone have any suggestions on a good web hosting company?

A friend of ours decided a couple of years ago to switch us from a well known web hosting comany to a "friend" of his that has a web hosting company. Our friend quit doing websites and now his "friend" is not so friendly anymore (haha). Anyhow I woke up this morning and found an email stating I was over my limit on storage, I haven't done anything with my website for months, possibley over a year. So, I am looking for a reputable company, a good one, that won't cost me an arm and a leg.

Any help is much appreciate.

[Mike Troncalli]

You will most likely get as many opinions here as there are web hosting companys. I would recommend you go online and search places like CNET, etc. for web hosting articles ,"Best Of" or top 10. There are as many variables to a website as their are hosting companies and you just need to find the one that fits your current and future needs, skill level, etc. (Personally I use Yahoo, only about 13.00 per month).

[Randy Digby]

We've been using Yahoo since 2005 and maintain the site with Yahoo Sitebuilder. We use their shopping cart because it allows us to collect customer info, including credit card info, without actually having a merchant account. We have a QuickBooks merchant account and process payment when orders are ready to ship. We get an email sent to our smart phone when orders are placed which allows us to review the order and contact the customer immediately, if needed, since most of our products are customized and we need to talk to the customer before we can process their order.

[Steve Busey]

I've had good luck with FatCow. For $8.95/mo they offer a lot of tools.

[Liesl Dexheimer]

I use surpasshosting, been very happy with them (I've been using them for approx 8 yrs). Only once and a great while the server goes down but 99% of the time it's up and running.

[Jeff Belany]

I've been using GoDaddy and the hosting has had no issues. But, I don't care for their website so much, mainly because whenever you go to pay or buy something they try REAL hard to get you to buy extras. Just a little annoying.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Peter Odell]

I use rds hosting been with them for 15 years no prob I also have a server through them that I can host sites on

[Bob Lloyd]

I have been using Yahoo for 6-7 years. I had one problem that what nothing to do with them, their tech support solved it for me.

[Doug Griffith]

That's a story I've heard often.

I personally use Hurricane Electric which, by the way, is ranked one of one of the world's best (http://www.he.net/releases/release103.html). They haven't given me a problem in 15 years.

One thing you need to take into account is your website. Is it static HTML, PHP, Perl, ASP, Cold Fusion, etc... Is it programmed for Unix, Windows, etc... Content management system, etc...

If your website is static HTML there are no worries and you can put it anywhere. If it's dynamic, you need to do a little research.

I would try to get YOUR friend to help move it since they've done it before.

[Paul Cohen]

I have hosted multiple sites and domains with GoDaddy for the past 5 years, support is excellent and in the US. It runs about $5 a month for unlimited storage and multiple databases. They also provide help with getting your site searched by Google and reasonable reporting for free. The only hard part is to only spend the $5, when trying to purchase then trying selling everything except the kitchen sink to you. All you need to do is when you get the to credit card page make sure it still says ($60 per year).

If you don't mind ads on your page they also have a solution for $10/year including domain hosting.

[James & Zelma Litzmann]

I still want to switch, but I received an email yesterday morning about 10:30 that it was a false email sent out about being over out limit, this morning I receive another email telling me not to worry about the emails I received about being over the limit, that it was not true and I would not be billed extra . . . followed by another email telling me I was over the limit.

Thanks everyone for your response you have giving me places to start looking, I want to find a company that I don't have to worry about this happening.

Thanks again, hope to get it switched over soon.

[Dave Mura]

If you only need to host one website, stablehost.com is pretty good. You can also go to http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ and ask there.
http://chdsolutions.com/img/11d867796d85db8cad5280ac44cec7c1.jpghttp://chdsolutions.com/img/a57d48399922b03419153a9760c5ce53.jpghttp://chdsolutions.com/img/cabad3b9bc0afe08cd9ec861638ed1d9.gif

[Kevin Gregoire]

try http://hostgator.com/
i have been with them for a year with a basic package, its cheap and they have great service!

[Chuck Wintle]

I ask this question here, because I trust you guys. Does anyone have any suggestions on a good web hosting company?

A friend of ours decided a couple of years ago to switch us from a well known web hosting comany to a "friend" of his that has a web hosting company. Our friend quit doing websites and now his "friend" is not so friendly anymore (haha). Anyhow I woke up this morning and found an email stating I was over my limit on storage, I haven't done anything with my website for months, possibley over a year. So, I am looking for a reputable company, a good one, that won't cost me an arm and a leg.

Any help is much appreciate.
I am very satisfied with Bluehost.com...and the cost is about $6 to $7/month for what i need. They have different packages available and are very responsive to question etc.

[Bill Cunningham]

I use HostPapa.com Unlimited storage/bandwidth/one domain free/and tons of free add-ons you can even host other domains in your space, and you only have to re-direct the DNS records for other domains..
Cost is 100.00 a year and cheaper if you pre-buy multiple years..Been there 5 years now, never a problem..

[Raymond Fries]

I used netnation for 10 years and they served me well.

http://www.netnation.com/

There are many choices and I hope you find someone that meets your needs.

Regards

[Doug Griffith]

That's a story I've heard often.

I personally use Hurricane Electric which, by the way, is ranked one of one of the world's best (http://www.he.net/releases/release103.html). They haven't given me a problem in 15 years.

One thing you need to take into account is your website. Is it static HTML, PHP, Perl, ASP, Cold Fusion, etc... Is it programmed for Unix, Windows, etc... Content management system, etc...

If your website is static HTML there are no worries and you can put it anywhere. If it's dynamic, you need to do a little research.

I would try to get YOUR friend to help move it since they've done it before.


I checked out your site and it is programmed in php, database driven, uses oscommerce for the cart, and has a shared SSL certificate. It's going to take more than just uploading to another server.

[Ryan Mooney]

Another +1 for he.net, although what I have there is insanely low volume and I don't do anything interesting with it so I can't really say much for really active sites. They do host a lot of "high volume" (cough) sites though and seem to be competent overall.

Another option might be to consider "modernizing" your site to use one of the cloud services like amazons EC2 - but that is a MAJOR rewrite and rethink and only makes sense if you have sufficient revenue to justify it or sufficient skills to do it yourself..

[Jim Becker]

I have used MyHosting.com for many, many years. Totally pleased.

[Tom McCloskey]

As a side note, regardless where you host your site, you may want to consider registering your domain name with a different company than your hosting company.
I realize many hosting companies off "free" domains, and that's fine, until you are confronted with an issue at your hosting service. If your company closes up shop, or you become embroiled in a dispute, or experience a lack of service or up time, your site could suffer longer than it needs to if the hosting company also has your domain registered. I have heard horror stories of successful sites, and reputations, being crippled because a website or domain was unusable/unreachable for a month or longer due to a dispute with a hosting company.

Registering your domain with a separate company will avoid any such thing from happening, as you can move to a new host at any time, and simply redirect your domain name to the new host immediately.
You can always go back to arguing with your old host if you like, but at least your site will be up and running while you do. Just something to think about.........

[Doug Griffith]

As a side note, regardless where you host your site, you may want to consider registering your domain name with a different company than your hosting company.
I realize many hosting companies off "free" domains, and that's fine, until you are confronted with an issue at your hosting service. If your company closes up shop, or you become embroiled in a dispute, or experience a lack of service or up time, your site could suffer longer than it needs to if the hosting company also has your domain registered. I have heard horror stories of successful sites, and reputations, being crippled because a website or domain was unusable/unreachable for a month or longer due to a dispute with a hosting company.

Registering your domain with a separate company will avoid any such thing from happening, as you can move to a new host at any time, and simply redirect your domain name to the new host immediately.
You can always go back to arguing with your old host if you like, but at least your site will be up and running while you do. Just something to think about.........

Regarding this, i suggest not going the cheap route and registering with Network Solutions. Avoiding problems with your domain name is worth the few extra dollars a year.

[Bill Edwards(2)]

I still want to switch, but I received an email yesterday morning about 10:30 that it was a false email sent out about being over out limit, this morning I receive another email telling me not to worry about the emails I received about being over the limit, that it was not true and I would not be billed extra . . . followed by another email telling me I was over the limit.

Thanks everyone for your response you have giving me places to start looking, I want to find a company that I don't have to worry about this happening.

Thanks again, hope to get it switched over soon.

I've been with these people for a number of years.

They're price is very good and I have virtually no limits.

http://www.bluehost.com/

[Joshua Culp]

Another happy Yahoo user here, since 2004. I used their free Sitebuilder software for years and had no problems with it.

[Tom McCloskey]

Regarding this, i suggest not going the cheap route and registering with Network Solutions. Avoiding problems with your domain name is worth the few extra dollars a year.

Network Solutions is a very good choice Doug, I personally use Namecheap (don't let the name fool you.. lol) As with any service, there are a few that best be stayed away from, but they are easily determined with a little research. Another handy feature of this is, you can maintain email addresses for your domain, and forward them to another address, through the registrar, without actually having hosting or a website. For instance, you register "yourcompany.com", you can then assign email addresses to that domain ("you@yourcompany.com") and have them forwarded to any email address you choose. It adds an air of professionalism to your correspondence with clients, as they are unaware of any forwarding features you are using, and it keeps your company name at the forefront, instead of gmail or yahoo's. IMO this alone makes it worth the $8 - $20 a year it costs to register your domain....