How Well Does Your Hosting Provider Represent You?
One of the most commonly asked questions by both new and experienced webmasters alike is “what is the best web hosting company?”, I here it everywhere I go. Its been the topic of thousands of forum threads and blog posts. So what are the most important factors to you in a great web host? For me, its can they stand up to increased traffic, can I grow with them, and can they answer my questions and provide me with satisfactory support.
I am pretty tech savvy and often prefer to handle issues on my own as they arise, so tech support is of course important, but I do not probably concern myself with it as much as others, as I rarely use it. The ability to grow with a hosting provider is huge, I don’t want to grow a substantial reader base and have to transfer my files to another server. So one of the first things I look at when seeking a host, is their top tier plans, what can they give me in the future. And as for handling traffic, well I just found out that is crucial to my business.
The idea behind this article stems from last week. I had a great week! In the course of two days, I had two articles hit the Digg homepage, one article go popular on del.icio.us and another article go popular on StumbleUpon. In the midst of all this I was linked to from the MSNBC blog and several other large, popular sites. Needless to say over the course of 48 hours I brought in around 200,000 people.
With all of this happening, my emails were off the charts, there was a constant stream of people coming out of the woodwork. I had people send me emails to congratulate me, some people had apparently done their homework on me and wrote to ask if I had any advice for them, and how I was able to build everything I have in a two month old blog. But one person wrote to ask if I wouldn’t mind sharing with them who I am hosted through. They said in the email that they had recently hit the Digg homepage and within a matter of minutes, their site was not only down but their account was temporarily suspended . What! Suspended for doing well?
That question got me thinking, a website, or blog is only as good as the company hosting it. Your web host, at the end of the day holds your fate in their hands, they have the power to take you offline in the heat of the moment, or insufficient equipment will leave you wanting more. So my big question for you is who are you hosted by and how happy are you?
I use and am very happy with MediaTemple.net. They are used by many large clients, including Mashable.com and Nike, which says a lot about the company. I always look at who else uses the business, and you may even consider shooting them an email and asking how they like the service. Anyways at the start of those two days when the first Digg hits started flooding in I received an email from MediaTemple which I have pasted below. This is what kept me alive through those two days, and I couldn’t be happier with their service.
Dear Patric,(mt) Media Temple’s automated MySQL monitoring systems have detected an increase in database activity for your Grid-Service (topsecretblogger.com). To help your web applications scale during this surge in activity, your databases are now served from a MySQL BurstContainer. MySQL BurstContainers, are an innovative new component of our MySQL SmartPool v.2, that allows your websites to instantly handle intense, temporary bursts of database activity.
Your databases will remain in the BurstContainer for up to 3 days (until 10/20/2007 03:04 PM). At the end of this 3 day window if your database activities have decreased, your databases will automatically be transitioned back into the MySQL SmartPool v.2. If your database activity continues to exceed the resources of the MySQL SmartPool v.2, you will receive an email with additional options.
During the next few days we highly recommended accessing the MySQL GridContainer controls that are temporarily available inside your AccountCenter (GridControls -> (gs) GridContainers). Tools like our Slow Query Log Analyzer and MySQL Statistics Report provide valuable insight into your database usage patterns. This information is essential if you want to optimize or troubleshoot your web application’s MySQL usage.
Please note, although the Burst Container does help your web applications scale, the isolated MySQL resources temporarily available to your applications are equivalent to our $20 a month 128MB MySQL Lite GridContainer. If your applications require additional sustained resources, please consider upgrading to a permanent MySQL GridContainer. Visit our MySQL GridContainer product page for more details on available options.
Mini FAQ
Q: Do Burst Containers cost extra?
A: No. Burst Containers are an automatic no-cost part of our MySQL SmartPool v.2.Q: How long will I have access to a Burst Container?
A: You will have access to your Burst Container for up to 3 full days.Q: What happens after 3 days?
A: You will receive an email with additional MySQL options.Q: How can I purchase a permanent MySQL GridContainer?
A: Permanent MySQL GridContainers can be purchased and instantly activated 24/7 from inside your AccountCenter. Please visit our MySQL GridContainer product page for more details and available options.Q: During peak usage, will (mt) shut down my instance of MySQL for my website?
A: No. Please note it is possible for your resource usage to exceed the limitations of your BurstContainer. The limits of this container far exceed traditional shared hosting and are comparable to hosting products costing 3 times the price of your (gs) Grid-Service.Q: Where can I find more MySQL Container FAQs?
A: http://www.mediatemple.net/webhosting/gs/faq.htm#65Best Regards,
(mt) Media Temple
Hosting Operations
Not once during this time did my blog so much as slow down let alone crash. I should also mention that I do not use the WP-Cache plugin, so this is all the servers doing. So how happy are you with your hosting provider, and what do you look for in a good host.
Baz L | October 21st, 2007 at 8:21 pm #
Currently, I host three (3) blogs on my host, and I’m sad to say that they are still not close enough to paying for themselves.
That’s usually the bottom line when looking for hosting. Usually it’s less of an argument that Dreamhost/Hostgator/Hostmonster/1and1/(insert random shared host here)/ suck, but rather “Shared Hosting” (by definition) sucks.
There’s no telling what the next guy is doing on the server. True, some hosts do a better job at managing how many customers are on servers and monitoring abusive use. And bottom line is, shared hosts were not meant for Digg traffic. There’s not much more to it than that.
Bottom line, you get what you pay for. I do promise that when my sites are of a maturity where they can sufficiently pull their own wait, they will be treated to a better host. I’m a recreational blogger, so it doesn’t make sense for me.
If you constantly pull in double digits from your blog every month, do yourself a favor, get them off that five buck host.
Green hosting | October 22nd, 2007 at 6:23 am #
take a look at this green hosting site - all the hosting providers on there are nice to mother earth
Franki | October 29th, 2007 at 11:07 pm #
Give Web Hosting Buzz a whirl. They’re a carbon neutral and also have 24/7 phone and helpdesk support.
sam staffen | February 15th, 2008 at 5:36 pm #
sam staffen | February 19th, 2008 at 2:13 am #
I bought a Yahoo! We Hosting site on February 1, 2008. I am a complete novice web site builder at that time. Because of the complete deliquency of Yahoo Samll Business Web Site Hosting I am somewhat less of a complete novice.
Their technical support is a complete mess. Your responses to questions asked via email seemingly never get answered. If they do get answered its in ten days or more. I started calling tech support after waiting for two days and not recieving a response to any of my questions via email.
I have had to try to contact Yahoo Web Hosting Technical Support via phone on seven occasions. Here is how that has gone.
1st call) waited 0 hour 26 minutes……after the directions went bad installing a dropdown menu I recieved help installing it. After getting off the phone I realized that the second item never worked.
2nd call)waited 0 hour 37 minutes……was somehow disconnected
3rd call)waited 0 hour 48 minutes…….got a good tech who totally explained the difference in the java script from the first page loaded to the second. I was then able to load the next 46 items with no further problems
4th call)waited 0 hour 41 minutes……tried to install 2nd drop down menu. both 1st and 2nd drop down menus failed to work. the techy tells me yes its working and I hang up. I get off the phone and realize that it wasn’t working.
5th call)waited 1 hour 36 minutes…..calling about 2nd that caused 1st to fail. this tech tells me that she is sending the problem to engineering.
6th call)waited 1 hour 31 minutes…..calling after two day wait to see what verdict is on drop down menu. tech tells me that she doesnt know whats up after checking it. then says that she can see it has went to engineering.
7th call)waited 0 hour 17 minutes…..asking about a cursor gone sideways and tell the techy what I know I can do to get around prob, but still want to know the real technical solution. i wait for a few and comes back and wants me to wait some more while he trys to fix prob. after another wait he comes back and i ask him to call me back because i do know how to get around prob. he says he cant call back and asks me to wait a few more minutes. in the end he tells me my exact solution i tell him at the beginning of the call. i was on the phone with him for over 50 minutes to get me solution.
8th call)waited 0 hour 53 minutes…..asking again about the same secondary drop down menu that had went to engineering. its been 5 days now. the guy says that it shows that i have already been contacted. he tells me that support isn’t required to know java script and gives me four sites to go figure my own prob at.
9th call)waited 0 hour 47 minutes…..asking agian about this secong drop down menu after going to all four sites and deciding that i dont have to know that much to create a web site. this techy tells me exactly what to do and my issue is resolved 6 days later.
10th call)waited 1 hour 37 minutes….was in the middle of telling guy my prob with my sitemap that is for Site Solution and that I am using Site Builder and my phone dies. my bad! but hey if they would have answered in say 37 minutes i would have had the situation resolved.
11th call)waiting 35 minutes and no answer.
If anyone doesnt believe all these wait times then, when your minutes are free, call 1-800-318-0783. This number is for Yahoo Web Hosting Technical Support. See for yourself.
The writers that had write up their Help Support are just as bad. If you dont beleiev me go to apply their drop down menu EXACTLY as it is written. Go try to figure out how to get your sitemap implimented. Go look at the help and follow the instuctions in Site Builder and Site Solutions
Yahoo web hosting is a complete farse. You wouldn’t believe it seeing as how they are a respected internet based company. I WILL NOT TELL ANY OF MY FRIENDS TO BUY A YAHOO SMALL BUSINESS WEB HOSTING WEB SITE. I will tell some yodlehead to pay them back, however.
They stink and the call i am still waiting to be answered is at 45 minutes…………….anytime now…………………………..
i finall get answered at 1 hour and 8 minutes. the guy directs me to a site…..help.yahoo.com….says to type in “sitemap” and hit search…tells me there are 5 things that will appear which there was. then the guy says in a complete negative talking down to me manner “is there anything else i can help you with?”.
i havent read any of it yet but if their technical writers dont let me down i will be waiting for their delinquent phone suppport once again. i figure i will have to wait 56 1/2 minutes by virtue of their 11 call average wait time. do understand that all of my wait times are after connecting and before tapping 1 on my touch tone for the corrct department.