How to find paid web hosting

Junior WebHelper Joined: 10 Oct 2002 Posts: 49

I think it would be nice if there were a special help section devoted to how to find good, reliable, paid web hosting. From all my browsing what I've come away with is that this is way more complicated than I ever realized. Confused

WebHelper Joined: 14 Jan 2002 Posts: 95 Location: Canada

They're all in the Good Ones Forum Exclamation

Junior WebHelper Joined: 10 Oct 2002 Posts: 49

I was suggesting that we should have some criteria to determine what is a good, reliable host. Just b/c you read about a hosting service in the "Good Ones" doesn't necessarily mean that it's good.

What are the things to watch out for, ie red flags that it's prob. a bad hosting service, and what are positive indicators of a good host?

From what I've seen it looks like getting paid hosting is a fairly risky proposition and the question is where is the least risk. Apparently, some providers offer a trial period with a money back guarantee and then don't honor that guarantee. Other services, promise you a certain amount of disk space and then when you move in, you find that you're actually getting much less b/c of the pre-installed scripts that the host put in. Then there are hosts who take your money and then afterwards change the hardware and interface. And, is there really any reliable place in cyberspace that evaluates hosts?

This is a serious issue that begs for consumer protection. Mad

-- php4ever

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2002 5:12 pm (22 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

This is a serious issue that begs for consumer protection.

I totally aggree !. People all over the world must spend fortunes on their web sites. Some type of consumer protection is a really good idea but is it that easy to enforce ?

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2002 12:50 am (22 years, 2 months ago)

php4ever wrote:

I was suggesting that we should have some criteria to determine what is a good, reliable host. Just b/c you read about a hosting service in the "Good Ones" doesn't necessarily mean that it's good.

What are the things to watch out for, ie red flags that it's prob. a bad hosting service, and what are positive indicators of a good host?

From what I've seen it looks like getting paid hosting is a fairly risky proposition and the question is where is the least risk. Apparently, some providers offer a trial period with a money back guarantee and then don't honor that guarantee. Other services, promise you a certain amount of disk space and then when you move in, you find that you're actually getting much less b/c of the pre-installed scripts that the host put in. Then there are hosts who take your money and then afterwards change the hardware and interface. And, is there really any reliable place in cyberspace that evaluates hosts?

This is a serious issue that begs for consumer protection. Mad

-- php4ever

now... thats a good question! I have always felt that to (and why I had been with free webhosts for long time)...

what you should do, find any web forums (such as this one) and see if people have made comments about a webhost you are interested in etc...and if you like what you hear, signup.

Sometimes those 'red flags' dont appear, look @ HIH Insurance (large insurance company in Australia, went flop few months back),

It's a risk you take... just need a bit of faith. You might go get your car serviced, but find out three months later they didnt fix a thing on it and they have closed up shop and gone...

I also believe, no matter what size the webhost is (1 person or 100 person ran shop), it can go bust at anytime (many and varied reasons)

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consumer protection? be good for the internet, however you the issue of the internet being ia world wide service, and some countries may not want help get the 'bad' people..... etc