Internet Marketing Tutorial : Finding a Good Web Hosting Company


I often get asked the question, “Which web hosting company do I recommend or use?” The abrupt, somewhat smug answer that I normally give is that it depends on what my goals for the website are. However, I figured it would be good to jot down a few thoughts on web hosting and hopefully it'll help to point you in the right direction.

Firstly, your choice of web hosting company absolutely does affect your ranking on the search engines. For example, within the past three years I have observed that Google has became increasing sensitive to the location of your web host's servers. For instance, here in the UK, my web development website at www.parkerandhobbes.co.uk has been on page one for the keyphrase “web development” for over five years. Upon a recent trip to Canada however, I took a trip to an internet cafe to see how Google's results varied when I carried out the same searches from Canada (I live in Scotland, by the way!). The results were staggering.

For the keyphrase “web development” my site was nowhere. Not only that but I looked up a few keyphrases for my clients. The same pattern emerged. In the UK all of my clients were enjoying top three positions for their keyphrases. However, in Canada my clients were appearing on page two and sometimes on page three.

In most cases this is not a problem because neither I nor most of my clients are attempting to target an audience in Canada. However, I do have a few clients who are attempting to target US or Canadian visitors. I also have one client to is attempting to target people in Africa. In those types of cases my strategy today would be to set up web hosting with hosts whose servers are based in the regions which are being targeted. Again, I've ran tests on this and the results are dramatic. So, that brings us nicely onto our first top tip:

Web hosting top tip 1: Use a hosting company whose servers are based in the country where you are hoping to attract visitors.

The next thing that I would ask you to be mindful of is reliability. Clearly you do not want your website to go down at all because it's an inconvenience to you and your visitors. However, did you know that the reliability and speed of your website server has a direct impact on your search engine ranking?

All of the major search engines are attempting to produce quality results. It is entirely in their interests to do so because dodgy results will make us more inclined to go elsewhere for our search engine needs - that in turn would lead to a loss in revenue for the search engines. If the search engine results are plagued with websites which are either down or taking unreasonable amounts of time to load then that's going to damage the credibility of the search engine.

My own observations suggest that Google is rather forgiving if your site goes down once in a blue moon. So, if the Google spider visits your website and it's down then you won't immediately plummet to the bottom of the rankings. The spider will simply try again, usually a few days later. However, if your site is still offline upon subsequent spider visitations then you have a big problem and you expect a significant drop in your search engine ranking.

There can be no doubt that Google favours websites which are on reliable servers. So, the obvious question from that is, “How can you tell if your particular web hosting company is reliable?”

Well, I can confirm that declarations of reliability from your webhosting company aren't worth much. All of the web hosting companies appear to be bragging about being extremely reliable! So, the two key things which I suggest you should consider are; (1) “How well does the hosting company do on the search engines?” and (2) “Who is on their client list?”

If your web hosting company is on page one on Google, Yahoo or Bing for a phrase like “web hosting” then clearly the hosts are doing something right. Indeed this is, I would say, your absolute guarantee that your webhosts are reliable. If they weren't then they wouldn't be enjoying that kind of high ranking.

Also, I would recommend that you ask your hosting company to give you a run down of who some of their best clients are. If your hosting company has a client list which is packed with heavy hitters (extremely successful and well known companies who depend on the net) then you can take that as your confirmation that the hosting company is reliable. Having worked with a handful of companies who earn over a million pounds per year from the web I can confirm that the big boys absolutely do not waste a minute in switching web hosts if they suspect for a minute that their web host's servers are not reliable.

So, here in conclusion is the second top tip:

Web hosting top tip 2: Make sure your web host is reliable.

If your website is going to be on a shared server then it's also a good idea to be mindful of who else you're sharing your server with. If you are sharing a server with a person who is sending out a million spam emails per day then you have a big problem. Not only will your search engine ranking be damaged (at least, that's my speculation) but your own server will be blacklisted from lots of other servers. This could have a devastating effect on any potential email marketing campaigns that you might want to run in the future.

About eight years ago I was hired to fix a website had a major technical problem – when the owners of the website sent out emails, hardly any of them arrived! I ran some tests and discovered that the emails addresses which were rejecting emails all had hotmail addresses (something@hotmail.com), aol addresses (something@aol.com) or yahoo addresses (something@yahoo.co.uk). This set off alarm bells straight away and I soon realised that the website was being blacklisted.

I had a look at the site's code and discovered a security flaw on their contact form which was leaving the website open to PHP spam attacks. Had the website been hosted with reputable, security conscious web hosts then the servers would have had procedures in place which would have prevented that type of attack from happening.

So, what I'm saying in short is that you should avoid using hosts who appear to be overly-cheap, sleazy and laid back with their own security procedures. So, how can you identify sleazy, dodgy web hosts? Well, there's no easy answer but if they are charging prices which appear to be too good to be true (5 dollars a month or less) then this should be a warning for you. Also, if your web hosting company appears to be somewhat faceless (no telephone based technical support and no bricks and mortar address) then I would avoid them like the plague. Finally, you could ask your (potential?) web host how many emails you are allowed to send per day from their server. If the answer is “There's no limit” then you've just caught them out. If, on the other hand, they say something like “you will be restricted to fifty emails per day” then you can relax and know that you're probably dealing with one of the good guys. So, here is my summary of this third glorious tip:

Web hosting top tip 3: Avoid, cheap sleazy web hosting companies.

Everything I've spoken about so far is related in some way or another to your own search engine ranking. However, there are a few other key points to look out for and I'd like to very quickly bring those to your attention as I wrap this tutorial up.

Most web hosting companies are run by people who grand masters are at piling in tonnes of hidden costs with their web hosting packages. I have been caught out with this too many times to mention. So, before you sign up with a hosting company I would urge you to investigate if there are any hidden costs with their web hosting packages. Here is a couple of concrete examples of the types of hidden costs that I'd like to warn you about:

Hidden Cost Example 1: Banner advert removal
Offending Webhost: Easyspace.
Description: Back in the mid 90s I launched a website with the hosting company Easyspace. They were (and are!) a very large and reputable hosting company and their prices were fantastic. However, upon launching the website I observed that the top of the page was filled with Easyspace banners ads. It turns out that to have those banner ads removed I had to pay an additional fee to Easyspace. That was a long time ago and for all I know they are no longer doing this kind of unethical practice. But the damage has been done and here I am many years later passing that information on to you!

Hidden Cost Example 2: XL Drive
Offending Webhost: Daily.
Description: I have a reseller package with Daily. Overall I think they're a good company to do business with and their reseller package allows me to build and launch lots of websites for one monthly fee. However, they have a nasty habit of throwing hidden costs in with their reseller packages. Examples of hidden costs which they have are; email upgrades (you pay more to have large email in-boxes), mysql upgrades (I have had to pay an additional fee in the past for each website I launched which had mysql- that basically means all of them). The worst example of a hidden cost which I have encountered from Daily is their XL Drive.

So, what is an XL Drive? The answer is I don't know. I don't know what it does and I don't know what it looks like. All I know is that I was automatically given one free of charge when I signed up to be a reseller. I never asked for it- they just threw it in. In spite of having never used this facility in my life my credit card was recently billed (automatically of course) for an additional year of XL drive usage. That's not good at all and if anyone from Daily should ever read this then I would urge you to really make an effort to ditch your hidden fees. In my opinion, those hidden fees are spoiling an otherwise good company.

Let me also quickly say that asking a salesperson “Are there any hidden costs?” is bound to get one answer - “Of course not!” Furthermore, reading the small print is not necessarily going to do the trick either. My advice is to talk to your potential web hosts and run through a list of all the things you want from your web host and ask for confirmation of whether on not it comes with the package or whether you will have to pay extra. So you should be asking questions like; “How many email addresses can I have?”, “How much webspace do I get?”', “Do I have to pay an additional fee for a database?” and so on.

So, to sum it all up, my forth tip is simply this:

Web hosting top tip 4: Watch out for hidden costs.


I only have a couple more tips that I'd like to offer you and then I'll reveal who my top three favourite web hosts are. So, let's plod onwards...

I'd like to discuss an issue which concerns me deeply and is in many ways related to the problem of hidden costs. I have observed that web hosts are increasingly storing our credit card details and using those details (perhaps a year later) to purchase additional products or renew services without our permission. This worries me.

An example of a company who have an atrocious reputation in this regard are Fasthosts who store card details and renew their services automatically in spite of having no declaration whatsoever that they are going to do so on their terms and conditions, which I have studied in detail.

For what it's worth, when a hosting company insists on storing my credit card details I do NOT regard that as being as a service of convenience. Nor do I consider it as being forward thinking or some kind of technological feat of excellence. Instead I regard it as a serious security risk and an opportunity for my hosts to charge my account for services which I do not wish to have (I've already given one example above).

Unfortunately more and more web hosts insist on storing credit card details and automatically renewing products and services- often without you even being made aware of those renewals. If at all possible I would highly recommend that you find a web host who does not store your credit card details and automatically renew your products and services. Before you purchase webspace I would advise you to clarify over the telephone or via email what is going to be done with your credit card details. If they are going to store your credit card details and automatically renew your services then it's time to get nervous!

Web hosting top tip 5: If possible, avoid web hosting companies who store credit card details and use those details to automatically renew products and services.

And so we're almost at the end of the road and I have one web hosting more tip for you. I've saved the best until last because this one is really really important.

Web hosting top tip 6: Make sure your web hosting company has EXCELLENT telephone based technical support.

I cannot begin to stress how important this is. If you are in the business of building and launching websites then there will be times when you absolutely need a need a word of advice or a helping hand from your web host. If your web host does not offer outstanding telephone based technical support then you should change your web hosting company – today. This is non negotiable.

Let's be clear about what we DO NOT mean when we say “excellent telephone based technical support”.

What we are looking for is the ability to lift the phone and talk to someone who is an expert in the field of web hosting, whenever we encounter a problem. We'd like to be able to have those conversations without paying premium rates. Is that too much to ask? Apparently for some web hosting companies, it is!

It is extremely important for your web hosting company to have good telephone based technical support. The hosting companies are aware that telephone based technical support is a major selling point and a few of the major players (e.g., 1and1) have set up call centres in 2nd and 3rd world countries, where the cost of labour is cheap. I would advice you to be on guard against this kind of practice and I wouldn't hesitate in asking my web host to clarify where their call centres are based. Clearly we do not want to rule out the possibility of doing business with second or third world countries but at the same time we have the right to expect expert technical support when we need it – not cheap, poorly qualified call centre staff who can barely speak the same language as us.

MY FAVOURITE WEB HOSTING COMPANIES

Thank you for reading my tutorial and I'm sorry if it became something of a rant towards the end. I am not a web host. I do not work for a web hosting company and I do not receive any commission for recommending people to web hosting companies. However, I'm happy to give credit where it's due and I'd like to finish with a list of my three favourite web hosting companies. This is based on twelve years of living and breathing the web and working with some of the best seo people in the business. I'm sure there are other fantastic web hosting companies out there but these ones are the best that I've encountered so far:

1ST PLACE
Company: Namehog
Website Address: www.namehog.net
Information: I have been using Namehog since the mid 90s. They are the only web hosting company who succeed in every area that I've discussed above. They're based in the UK. They offer fantastic telephone based technical support. They don't store my credit card details (which I like!) and their servers have not went down for more than two years, which is incredible. Their prices are also very reasonable and they don't have any hidden charges. I'm so happy with those folks that I've even given them a few free links on this page. Congrats Namehog!

Pros: reliable servers, excellent technical support, no hidden costs, low fees, ethical credit card conduct.
Cons: a relatively small company with potential scalability challenges in the future.

2ND PLACE
Company: Rackspace
Website Address: www.rackspace.co.uk
Information: Sure, they're not cheap and with the cost of their dedicated servers running at around £450 per month Rackspace are probably out of reach for most small/medium sized businesses. Never the less, their technical support levels are outstanding and their servers are extremely reliable. I can confirm that I have not heard of a single instance of a Rackspace server going down ever. Rackspace promise to answer your calls within four rings or less. The people on the end of the phone know what they're talking about. You can call them on Christmas day and still receive an outstanding level of support.

If multiple mortgages depend your web hosting company being reliable and you can afford them then you should use Rackspace.

Pros: very reliable servers, outstanding technical support.
Cons: expensive

3RD PLACE
Company: Hosting4less
Website Address: www.hosting4less.com
Information: This company is based in California in the US of A. Because of their location, they may not be the best hosting company in the world is you are going after a UK or European audience (as explained above) but if you are attempting to target US surfers then you won't do better than these guys. Their telephone based technical support is excellent. Their prices are great and they also offer tonnes and tonnes of webspace and bandwidth for absurdly low prices. A perfect choice for websites with lots of video content.

Pros: Tonnes of bandwidth and webspace for a very low price.
Cons: US based which means technical support might not be ready when you are. The non UK location of their servers may also have implications for seo.


Thank you for reading. Rock on!

-David Connelly

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