Website hosting question

Commenting in general terms, finding a reliable web host can be a daunting task. I do feel you get what you pay for. And personally, would go with a larger, more well established hosting company with a track record.

It's a cut throat business, and you need to watch out for cheap host providers, who can appear large and adequately staffed on their website. But may just be a single person running their own servers off a broadband connection, or leasing rack space from a third party data center.

The problem is that to cover server, bandwidth, and other expenses, many low cost providers will over sell capacity, degrading website performance. Worse, they have no real tech support or inexplicably shut down with little or no warning, leaving you hanging.

Few things I would be cautious when dealing with any web hosting company without a satisfactory track record. Beware of term contracts such as for 1+ years. The price may be tempting, but not really a good deal if they suddenly close down operations.

Check to see where the servers are located. In the U.S.? Or overseas in a third world country?

Avoid giving your credit card info directly to the web host on sign up? Use a third party intermediary such as PayPal. I can tell you personally why you need to be careful with this one!

IMO, the credit card sign up and long term cheap hosting contracts are used by some web hosts as a scam money making operation. For one, its common that web hosts push long term, but cheap hosting packages. Some with no intention of providing long term hosting services. They just oversell their servers, then shut down pocketing the profits.

Or sell the web host operation to buyers who may not be so concerned about getting an oversold hosting company, but to get the contracts, credit card, and personal info of its clients included with the sale.

May sound outlandish, but small web hosting operators can be hard to trace down if there is a problem. Even for law enforcement where legal issues arise. Virtually impossible if located in another country.

I would do some research, and don't go solely by pricing or by claims made on their website. One good source is WebHostingTalk.com forums, kind of the RV.NET of web hosting community. You'll at least get some feedback from customers, and can see how the host responds to issues. Also, alerts to potential scam operations.

I have two sites hosted with a company called Netfirms. I am a developer so I code my websites from scratch but Netfirms provides pretty much everything you need to be up and running with a fair amount of ease.

I am not affiliated with this company by the way.

Good luck.

Kentucky Traveler wrote:
For those of you who have your own website relating to RVing I have a few questions:
1. Who is your website host provider?
2. Why did you choose that particular provider?
3. What software do you use to develop your website and associated pages.

Any other information or details would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance.

1. Godaddy.com
2. I was able to get a domain name and hosting at a reasonable rate. They also have good reliability.
3. I'm using Word Press for the website.

I use MyHosting for all of the sites that I work on. From your description, I'd suggest just one of the "Personal Website" hosting accounts ($4.95/mo.).
:)
Lynn

Kentucky Traveler wrote:
For those of you who have your own website relating to RVing I have a few questions:
1. Who is your website host provider?
2. Why did you choose that particular provider?
3. What software do you use to develop your website and associated pages.

Any other information or details would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance.

1. IXWebHosting

2. cost. I paid something like $6.5 a month...$78 a year. I also renew our domain thru them. we have the "Expert Plan" (and, no, I'm not) and I see that plan is now "on sale" for $3.95 p/m

3. well, I *was* using a design suite the name of which I cannot recall (major senior moment going on..). the publisher is now out of business so I guess the name is irrelevant. that particular suite would not run under Windows 7 so i'm looking for a replacement. i'll be interested to see what sort of recommendations you get.

Us out West wrote:
Website?

What do you want to do? Post about your trips...or something more?

I am developing the content for a website off-line that will contain, among other things, detailed information about places traveled, our RV and tow vehicle (and why we chose them), projects, hobbies, etc.

There will also be a link to a blog of our travels as well. I plan to use a blog hosting service and provide a link to it from the main website.

I use 1&1 to host my site. They have been very reliable, and when there has been a problem, responsive. Cost and site size ( my site is over 3GB) were also considerations.

I use Adobe's Dreamweaver to maintain the site.

Website?

What do you want to do? Post about your trips...or something more?