Some web-hosting advice, please…
Last month when I opened up our credit card statement, I looked with horror at the amount I was being charged for webhosting. It said that MediaTemple, my current web hosts for this blog, learning.mrbelshaw.co.uk, edte.ch and historyshareforum.com were charging me almost £20 per month for the privilege. This, apparently, is due to the ‘amount of MySQL activity’ on my account. 😮
Last summer, I transferred from Bluehost – with whom I’d been very happy – due to MediaTemple’s well-publicised ‘Grid Hosting’ and their ability to host domain names such as .ch (needed for edte.ch). Now, however, I find that my websites take longer to load, their customer service is below average, and they’re over-charging me.
I’d love to simply go back to Bluehost. That’s not really an option, however, due to their inability to host .ch domains. I had a look at going with HP-backed and much-advertised One.com, but they don’t allow ‘download-related’ sites – historyshareforum.com is for the sharing and downloading of resources.
So I’d like your recommendations please. My criteria are:
- Good value (i.e. reasonably cheap!)
- Good customer support (quick response time)
- Support for a wide range of domain extensions
Ideally, I’d also like the servers to be based in the UK. It makes fast loading times of the websites for the majority of my visitors more likely, you see… 😀
Image credit: The Web that is Us by ecstaticist @ Flickr
Hi Doug,
I’m not convinced about the UK-based servers argument. I use http://www.hostdime.com in the States for all my hosting, and have found it pretty good. If there ever are any problems their support response has been excellent.
It’s half the price of any UK-based webhost (but that’s a general rule – UK based hosting is way overpriced).
I use their reseller account, which lets me add as many domains as I wish. It’s $19.99 a month.
I moved to CSNewmedia a while back after my previous webhosts couldn’t / wouldn’t accomodate moodle, and they’re now hosting five domains for me, plus the school website. Good value and excellent customer service. Don’t know about the .ch, but try emailing Carl and I’m sure if he can help you he will.
Dave took the words out of my mouth!
I have a reseller account with Heart Internet, I host too many domains to remember 🙂 and they’ve been fine so far. I moved across from Fasthosts earlier this year after some appalling service (and hidden extra charges) from them
Don’t go with streamline.net – it’s cheap and looks good, but the server uptime and sql uptime is awful.
Thanks for the quick and useful comments, people! It looks like I’ll probably go with CSNewMedia as I’ve had dealings with Carl before, it’s UK based, he responded quickly to my questions this evening, and he’s promised to help with the transfer! 😀
Go to Carl – very good choice. Also, if you have a host who cannot handle .ch domains, you can always set it up as a DNS redirect. Thus you have an additional domain that your host does support and auto-redirect people from .ch. This isn’t just a basic top level transfer either – you can do it with direct links too.
MediaTemple are very good hosts, but you do pay for it.
I think what you do find with hosting, especially once you build up extensive traffic, is that you do very much get what you pay for. I use UnitedHosting.co.uk as their support is excellent (for example I posted a support ticket at 10:30 this evening, have had four replies and solutions within 20 minutes).
I think Carl can add value to UH’s hosting with his educational knowledge and experience too.
Cheques in the post for you all ;)
Thanks!
Doug,
I'm glad you posted this. I've been having loads of issues with Bluehost lately, I suspect it's growing pains.
I was looking into MediaTemple based on your earlier reccomendation but now I'll look elsewhere. Sorry, Carl, in the US I think the load times might be sketchy. Plus, I don't know how to convert your money to dollars to figure out how much it costs. ;)
Chris
I’m absolutely delighted with the fantastic customer service I’ve experienced in the last 24 hours. Carl managed to transfer all of my websites – Moodle, WordPress (incl. MU), SMF forum – with multiple registrars and web hosts, effortlessly. 😀
He’s an absolute legend and it’s the reason why – without being asked to and without referral incentives – I’ve put a badge on my site linking to the wonderful service CS New Media hosting provides.
(see bottom of sidebar for link)
20 £ per month for hosting is insane. I have like 40-50 websites most of them not having lots of traffic (a couple 1000 uniques a day being my tops) and i have a web hosting account which I pay like 20 £ a year. I don’t have unique IP’s and it’s a VPS but it gets me going. I wouldn’t pay that much money unless I really need to hold considerable amounts of traffic.