Web Hosting Question
 

The time has come for me to create a website, but my question is who should I go through? I know the domain name I want is available, but I don't know what features and benefits I should be looking for in one company or the other. I will be using Dreamweaver to create my site, and I'd be uploading from my macbook pro, if that makes any difference. I won't be doing online sales, I just want a place to put up sample video and photos with contact info and basic pricing information. I know many of you have websites, what companies do you use and what features do you need that you would recommend I get? Thanks!

I use ipowerweb.com. Their prices are competitive and I've had good experiences with their customer service.

Noah,
I've had good luck with GoDaddy hosting my sites. Responsive tech support and enough room for your reel. I just use their $3.95/month basic deal, but they also sell "upgraded" hosting.
Hope this helps.
Ken

Hey Noah -

I too am seeking a web host. I found a lot of useful information at http://www.webhostingtalk.com/

I found out that there are different types, not just pricing levels, of web hosting.

Shared = this is the most common for consumers; you know the $4.95 special for a trillion gigabytes of storage; but beware of what you pay for though. Also, if you value your work, this is the least secure option.

VPS or VDS = This is a more secure and reliable way, albeit more pricey, than the Shared option to host your stuff.

Dedicated = Probably the most secure and reliable way to host, as well as in most cases the most expensive. Designed primarily for high volume / traffic sites.

And there are many other variables to consider too; like bandwith allowance, RAM allowance, managed or unmanaged site, security, tech support, etc...

A suggestion, if I may, is try to find a web host provider that allows you to pay month to month. That way if you don't find their services adequate, your not stuck for a year or two year contract and can try another host.

Any which way you go, good luck and I hope whatever you choose it works out best for you and that you'll let us know how your experience with the host is.

Thanks for all the advice so far guys, but Andrew, what do you mean by most secure? Like as in the way Google owns any video you host on Youtube, or in the way someone could steal credit card number from customer orders?

As Andrew states:

"A suggestion, if I may, is try to find a web host provider that allows you to pay month to month. That way if you don't find their services adequate, your not stuck for a year or two year contract and can try another host."

In this particular case I use yahoo small business to host my web site. You can build it yourself, and pay month to month. If that's what you're looking for. I pay about $11 a month.

If you are looking for just a landing spot for a website and don't care if people searching find you then the above mentioned are fine. If you need a place to grow from in the future be careful...it is not always easy to move your website. Find out what the terms are if you want to move it. And don't be so sure about not wanting income coming from your website. More and more these days that has become an important aspect of business. Hope this helps a bit. :)

I have a couple sites up on IPowerWeb and everything is going fine with them. I have a customer up on GoDaddy, and it seems fine too.

For what it's worth...

I started my website about a year and a half ago. I'm not very bright when it comes to writing HTML and all the other web jargon. So I decided to go through Yahoo Small Business. Everything I needed I found in their service. It was a bit pricier ($11.95 per month) than a lot of the other hosting services I have since become aware of but I could create my own site albeit somewhat primitive due to my lack of web design skills.

About two months ago, I became a bit disgruntled with Yahoo because it seemed to take a rather long time to connect to my control panel and site statistics. So I looked around. I heard praise for this one hosting service called ... well I don't want to piss anyone off that's using the service still so I won't say their name. But I'll tell you, I got suckered in by their offer of "$700 worth of free coffecup software, $2.99 domains, ONLY $6.95 per month" sales pitch.

I had nothing but trouble with that service. First, since I continue to be a moron when it comes to writing HTML, I relied on their software to write it for me and I could do the drag and drop thing. Not nearly as easy to grasp as yahoo's sitebuilder, although it does do some cool things.

My major gripe however is not about the software, it's about the hosting service. I put small video files (8Mb and only 1 minute long .wmv files) on my site. After uploading the files, I'd clean out my cache with CCleaner to make sure my browser was starting fresh. Then when I'd try to watch the stream, my videos would take forever (up to 3 minutes for a 1 minute clip) to buffer, then start playing, then stop and re-buffer, then start, then stop. What a pain! I called lunarpages.com tech support (oops did I just say their name?) and was told the problem was in my ISP. I have DSL at 3Mbps. No other sites give me problems, just theirs. They blamed my DSL saying I was probably quite a distance from the station and that was causing it. I'm about 80 yards from the relay station.

My friend who lives 20 miles from me and has high speed cable experienced the same hanging and buffering problems when he tried to view videos on my site. Loony-pages' response was that there was no problem on their end. Of course, what would I expect them to say?

Well my whole point of posting is to make others aware that you do get what you pay for. I'm back with Yahoo now as of a few days ago. It still takes some extra time when I try to connect to my control panel but as for my site, the pages load quickly and when I click on a streaming video link, within a few seconds the video is playing and doesn't stop until the end.

There may be cheaper services available out there, but at this point, I don't think I'll ever leave Yahoo's service again.

Jeff

Thanks so much for all the advice guys! I went with Yahoo Small Business because of the monthly fees, without being locked in for several years. Now all I gotta do is design a site and export some video for the web! I'll post the site up when I'm done (might be a while, I'll be busy for the next couple weeks) for you all to comment on it and hopefully help me improve it! Thanks again!

That is because they are trying to host more than their connection can handle. Or their connection may not be fast to begin with. Ask them if you can see a member's site next time. Then you can have some idea of what speeds to expect.

I understood it from your original post that you were not interested in "selling" on your site. If you are, which would be a plus for you, then I would suggest going with a non-shared hosting plan (i.e., a VPS or Dedicated) for security piece of mind.

As for someone stealing your videos, it's done a lot out there...YouTube is proof of that. But if it's just clips for showing, you may not mind that people are hijacking your videos...kind of a viral marketing scenario!!

Also, if you want "true" streaming capabilities, you'll be paying extra for that.

If it's too good to be true, then...well you know now.
You're more than likely on a "shared" plan for that price. That means you are sharing space and BANDWITH on the same server as, well, who knows how many other customers they bundled with you.
Again, check out www.webhostingtalk.com for more info. on web hosting stuff.

CHEAPEST/best value?
 

Has anyone had a good experience with a really cheap host? Like $6/month or less type of a deal?

...A host that has:

1) reasonable access time when you surf the site
2) reasonable customer service
3) bonus: a good control panel

>?

Wow, am I glad I happened into this thread! I was literally just about to join lunarpages - now I'll check out yahoo small businees. I also have an e-mail account with ipower, happy with it so far, so it'll either be one of these two.

Whew! Thanks Jeff