Web Page Hosting

[John Bailey]

I am thinking of developing a web page and would like input about different hosting services. Have any of you out there had good or bad experiences with different companies? I'm especially interested in a company that can offer "easy to learn" software, and good support. Thanks in advance.

John

[Keith Outten]

John,

Your a bit early but we are gearing up to offer web hosting on the SMC server. Our Moderators and Admins are in a group discussion right now looking at our options to pay the bills for SMC and provide for our future. We have been hosting Terry Hatfields web site for over a year now.

I expect we will iron out a plan in the near future and will announce our plans here in our Support Forum. Stay tuned, we will need the support of our members to keep "The Creek" free from advertising.

[Jim Fancher]

If you want a basic, easy to learn setup get a Geocities account. http://geocities.yahoo.com/

[Joe Unni]

John,

My website just went live last week and I can not say enough good things about the company who put it together as well as hosting. My particular site came with a content management application that is very straight forward. In other words now that the site is live, I don't need to rely on anyone else to keep it updated (i.e. posting new images, news, etc.).

If you would like any more info, please let me know.

Good luck,
-joe

[John Bailey]

Thanks Keith,

I'm not in a big hurry, so I'll keep watch for your hosting. Since I spend most of my computer time on the "Creek," it would be a natural for me.

John

[John Bailey]

Joe,

Site looks good. What company are you with?

John

[Joe Unni]

Joe,

Site looks good. What company are you with?

John
Grand Image Marketing

[Lee DeRaud]

Joe,

Site looks good. What company are you with?

JohnCould you turn that font size down a bit? I think I can still read it.:eek:

[John Bailey]

Sorry, I think this will do better.


John

[Frank Hagan]

I would wait for SMC's offer ... always good to help support the forums! I host a few boat building sites on my boat building forum's server, and the support from my readers does help.

As far as determining your needs for your website, think about what you want the site to do. If you want to post pictures of projects, provide a "contact us" page, provide "news" or "bulletins" that are posted on the site occasionally, then almost any web host will have a package that can do that. I call these kinds of sites "announcement only" or "static" sites, even though the content may change on the site from time to time.

For that kind of site, many hosts have "Cpanel" or other site management software that has automatic program installers, or they will install one for you. The "Content Management Systems" mentioned earlier are often a good choice for making a site easy to update. The disadvantage with them is that you are locked into a format for the look and feel of the site, but if you like the way it looks, you are 90% there ... you just configure it using your web browser and "upload" things into the site the same way. No need to learn how to FTP, use a shell account, configure software on the server, etc.

It gets more complicated the more "interactive" you want the site. While things like forums and blogs are easy enough, when you get to the point where you want to conduct transactions to sell things on-line you start getting into a more complicated area. The cost goes up pretty fast at that point. I call that kind of site "dynamic" because things have to change in response to events ... an item is sold, and is no longer available, so the inventory has to be updated or you may sell it to two different people. Then you get "dinged" with a "reverse transaction fee" from your credit card processor, have a mad customer, etc.

There are two other features to think about ... storage space and bandwidth.

Storage Space
On a Linux server, storage space for most sites can be relatively small. 25 - 50 MB works fine for most people for static or announcement only sites. I have three customers who use a fraction of that for their sites. Windows servers may use up more of the disk space; I hate them so I'm not that familiar with them (I have had bad experiences with Windows web servers!)

Bandwidth
Bandwidth is similar to "minutes" on your cell phone plan. Each web account usually comes with a limitation on bandwidth. Every time someone logs onto your site and views a 22kb picture, you are "charged" with 22kb of bandwidth. Its easy to use up bandwidth on a busy site, especially one loaded with pictures. So find out what happens if you use up all your bandwidth ... on some hosts, you pay for extra bandwidth just like you do those cell phone minutes. And the same problem may happen ... you could get a large bill if you go over. I know a guy who named his boat "Cindy Crawford" because his wife claimed it was "the other woman", and then he stripped the paint off the boat's bottom and had a picture captioned "Cindy Crawford's Bare Bottom" on his web site. It got listed in the search engines, and he had a pretty large bandwidth overage bill!

Other hosts "throttle" the bandwidth, so your site becomes inaccessible when you reach your limit. You don't pay any more that month, but that could be a very bad thing if the web site is critical to your business. For most personal sites, having the site down is better than owing money!

Finally, check with your ISP ... many offer free web space to their customers, and that may be a low cost way to start and experiment with building web pages if you want to "roll your own."

[Andy Hoyt]

I agree with everything Frank has to say; and to put it in perspective, take a look at my site. Noodle around and you'll find a ton of stuff and loads of pictures. I have never used more than 4 or 5% of my "disk space" and never more than 0.5% of my bandwidth and I get loads and loads of inquisitive visitors. It's a what Frank calls a dynamic site and has been great. Yup, I use CPanel to keep and eye on things and I used Fusion (came free with my digital camera) to create it and still use it to maintain it. Learning curve was way less than I anticipated and am extremely happy. But occasionally I get boxed into a corner and am clueless. One phone call or email to my webhost and he fixes it. All this costs me about $90 a year; and I consider it a bargain. You'll find a link to my host on my site.

And while there, feel free to check out all functions of the shopping cart. Pleeeeeeeaasse :D

[Bill Arnold]

Although I'm with another service at this time, I'd certainly consider swtiching to HRO to host my site. I'm completely satisfied with my host now, but I'd like to support HRO and SMC if the rate is comparable. With my current host, I get 500MB storage and 5GB bandwidth for $4.95 per month. Only a small percentage of the space and bandwidth is used each month but it's nice to know it's there for the future. The rate I pay included domain registration as well.

[John Bailey]

Frank and Andy,

Thanks for all the good info. It would appear a "static" site would be all I'll require. My wood working would not be a "business," although I wouldn't mind selling a few things. However, we do run a Sea Kayak Guide service in Greece that we would like to have a web site for. It would seem the "static" approach would suffice.

Bill,

Sorry, but I'm not sure what HRO is!!

John

[Bill Arnold]

... Sorry, but I'm not sure what HRO is!! JohnHRO = Hampton Roads Online = Keith's service on which SMC resides.

[Aaron Koehl]

This is indeed rather timely. Stay tuned for more information in the coming week, as I put together as plan and service package.

[John Bailey]

Aaron,

Great, I'll be looking for the info.

John

[Jim Ketron]

This sounds Great! I will consider this for im looking for a better place to host my site, BUT I think SMC should provide a link to our site in each post that we make, most forums has a (WWW) link for this and it could be added next to the "Edit" or "Quote" buttons at the bottom of each post. I know that you can look up personal sites on the profile section on every member, but its a pain to go through each persons profile just to see if they have a website up.

Just a thought:D

[Frank Pellow]

The timing might be good for me also. Aaron, I look forward to see what support SMC will be providing.

[Vaughn McMillan]

I'm currently running two web sites that are hosted by 1 and 1 Internet, and the price is very reasonable, but I'll be very interested to see what Aaron and Keith come up with. I'd be glad to help support the efforts here if it's workable.

- Vaughn

[Aaron Koehl]

This sounds Great! I will consider this for im looking for a better place to host my site, BUT I think SMC should provide a link to our site in each post that we make, most forums has a (WWW) link for this and it could be added next to the "Edit" or "Quote" buttons at the bottom of each post. I know that you can look up personal sites on the profile section on every member, but its a pain to go through each persons profile just to see if they have a website up.

Just a thought:D

Jim,

Try clicking on your name... you'll see a whole host of options without having to look at the person's profile..

[Jim Fancher]

I'm currently running two web sites that are hosted by 1 and 1 Internet, and the price is very reasonable, but I'll be very interested to see what Aaron and Keith come up with. I'd be glad to help support the efforts here if it's workable.

- Vaughn

1 and 1 is fantastic. I have two managed servers with them and they are VERY affordable.

[Frank Hagan]

Frank and Andy,

Thanks for all the good info. It would appear a "static" site would be all I'll require. My wood working would not be a "business," although I wouldn't mind selling a few things. However, we do run a Sea Kayak Guide service in Greece that we would like to have a web site for. It would seem the "static" approach would suffice.

Bill,

Sorry, but I'm not sure what HRO is!!

John

One feature you might look for is the ability to have "Add On Domains" with your account ... that way you can "point" a domain name ... say "www.GreekSeaKayakGuideService.com (http://www.GreekSeaKayakGuideService.com)" to a page on your parent site without having to buy two accounts. Many plans let you do that with 5 or more domain names. It works well for static sites that encourage people to email or call for more information.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I only pay $35 a year for 1000 MB of space and 10 GB traffic for each of my two sites @ WorldWebHosters.com. The same company registers my domain name[s] for $15 a year. My two sites cost me $100 a year. It's very hard to beat that price and I've only had one day of the site being down in two years. There are two packages that are less $$ than this and a few that are more.

[CPeter James]

I use a company called !&! for a couple of sites. $4.99 per month. works great ans supports all the features like "FrontPage" extensions. Price includes domain name registration.

CPeter

[Jim Ketron]

Jim,

Try clicking on your name... you'll see a whole host of options without having to look at the person's profile..

Yep I know about that, but I think that it would be much easier if everyone could see that you actualy have one, by seeing a little button at the bottom of each post. I think if you are going to host sites it would be a nice feature and it would help your customers. and get some visits from people on this forum?