Selecting A Hosting Company

Website hosting is one of the most critical aspects of website development where many businesses fail. If you ever want to discuss "horror stories' with fellow online entrepreneurs, web hosting is a sure bet. 

The two main complaints are reliability and poor support. Reliability issues include down time, slow servers, security issues, etc. Poor support is the inability of the hosting company to quickly address the aforementioned issues. Unfortunately, unreliable service and poor support are almost always synonymous. 

One way to avoid companies with unreliable service is to thoroughly investigate a hosting company before signing a contract. An easier, and quicker way, is to check whether the hosting company has 24/7 phone support. 

Many companies claim to have "full tech support" that is only available to registered members. Don't fall for this trap. There is little reason anyone would want to call a hosting company's tech support line unless they had an account there. It is usually a ruse to get you in the door, then they offer sporadic tech phone support at best. The only way to know for sure is to find a company who displays their tech support phone number on the website. 

Which Type of Hosting

There are many types of hosting, but the four general categories are managed, unmanaged, collocation or dedicated.

Managed hosting: where the hosting company manages most of the server maintenance such as security updates, and they usually have easy to use administration panels.

Unmanaged hosting: where you are given full access to a server and are expected to do all server maintenance on your own. Unmanaged plans are primarily for well experienced web developers who are familiar with all of the techniques and programs associated with running a server.

Collocation hosting: where multiple users are on the same server. Check with prospective hosting companies to find out how many users can be on a particular server. As long as a server is not over loaded, collocation is a very cost effective solution for small businesses and personal websites.

Dedicated hosting: where you have your own server, there is no one else on it. The advantages of a dedicated server is that it will not be corrupted from another user and server performance will be based on your traffic levels, not adversely affected by another user.

If you run small business or personal website, a managed, collocation server from a quality hosting company is the best solution. For larger businesses, or websites with a lot of traffic, a managed dedicated server is recommended.

Recommended Hosting Companies

There are many well established hosting companies, below are a few of the companies we have used over the years. We strongly recommend DataPipe. Verio was a bit expensive and Interland had service issues a few years back. We list Verio and Interland in case they have a plan that is better suited for your needs.

*Please note, we are not affiliated with, or compensated for referring any sites listed below. 

The only hosting company we use. We originally switched to DataPipe several years ago when they were the first to offer affordable dedicated hosting solutions. Since that time they have grown to one of the largest hosting companies. DataPipe receives five stars because they have the best tech support we have found and their prices are very competitive among high quality hosting companies. DataPipe provides 24/7 phone support.

A bit expensive, but we have used Verio in the past and they were fairly reliable. Verio receives 4 stars because of their cost and their support center was not as responsive as DataPipe. Verio provides 24/7 phone support.

Interland is another well established company, however, we had several service issues which led to our change to DataPipe. Interland gets three stars because they are a well established company with 24/7 phone support with possible service issues.

If you are looking for an inexpensive, managed collocation plan, Hostica may be the right company for you. We list them because they have been around a while, and because many visitors ask for a cheap, yet reliable company for their small business or personal websites. Hostica gets three stars because they offer very affordable hosting and are a well established company, but they do not offer 24/7 phone support.