What to know when choosing web host?

willing2learn_3

Hi Everyone

Thanks for any advice you can give.

I've bought my domain names and now need to a website designer and someone to host my site.

I'm wondering if anyone with experience of this has any tips on what to look for in a designer and host? Particularly if they are hosting how do you ensure you keep ownership of your business name?

Just doing my research now, but thought I'd ask to see what you guys have to share.

Thanks!!

earthstorm

willing2learn wrote: »

Hi Everyone

Thanks for any advice you can give.

I've bought my domain names and now need to a website designer and someone to host my site.

I'm wondering if anyone with experience of this has any tips on what to look for in a designer and host? Particularly if they are hosting how do you ensure you keep ownership of your business name?

Just doing my research now, but thought I'd ask to see what you guys have to share.

Thanks!!

As this is my field of business (hosting) for the last 11 years then this is the advise i can give.

Your business is your business and a host will not try and take that from you.

1) how big will your site be and are you planning to resell hosting? this will be a factor in what size hosting plan you require and if you need shared hosting or reseller hosting.
2) Stay away from the everything unlimited hosting for £1 on erbay
3) check hosting forums like webhostingtalk.com and hostingdiscussion.com
4) draw up a shortlist and then check google and the forums reviews
5) when you decide on a couple of companies ask them specific questions via email/tickets and chat if they have them and compare answers.

I do not do web design, but i can recommend a good website designer

RobTang

Hosting doesn't really matter too much on the ownership level, if you don't like one you can just cancel and point the domain to somewhere else. (make sure you keep backups of the site + data, which you should really be doing anyway.)

Its the domain name you really have to keep control of which should be registered to you anyway.

I would not advise you to let the designer host your site, listen to their suggestions sure but make sure you buy the hosting and maintain administrator rights over it.

willing2learn_3

Thanks for that guys

I have a good web host in mind who's come recommended and I don't for a minute think they are unscrupulous or anything - it's just that i'm new to all this.....

they will need my login details for my domain name in order to upload the site.

Technically that gives them control of my domain name - although of course it's all in writing that they would be doing it temporarily and the reasons why. Is that good enough evidence that the domain name remains mine? Along with my credit card payments for it, etc?

Or am I causing problems for myself?

Do I need to learn to how to point the domain name to them?

It's sounds paranoid, especially as I'm pretty sure they're ok.....thoughts? (they are a distance away from me so all being done online - but they are known to another business person I know who's been very happy with them for years)

InsideInsurance

RobTang wrote: »

Hosting doesn't really matter too much on the ownership level, if you don't like one you can just cancel and point the domain to somewhere else. (make sure you keep backups of the site + data, which you should really be doing anyway.)

Obviously this depends on exactly what your site does etc. If you have a busy ecommerce site then all your order details will be stored in your webhosts SQL server. If it goes down and loses its data then you have a load of payments with no way of knowing whats been ordered, contact details etc for all those payments since the last backup.

The first key thing is to ensure they offer the technology that you require. Many sites run on a LAMP stack so you'll probably be safe but if your site runs on .Net or JSP etc then you need to ensure that they support it. All the components are available, the right version, you have the necessary permissions etc.

How things are set up is important, are your little bit of the servers resources protected or if someone else has written rubbish code than snarls up the MySQL server everytime someone does something on their site does that bring down your site too.

What SLAs are there, how frequent are backups, what their limit of indemnity is, what their DR setup is like, what their upgrade path looks like if you start outgrowing your initial package.

I appreciate a lot of this is overkill for the majority of small business/ hobby sites but these are the sorts of things a more significant player would be considering or one with high hopes.

earthstorm

willing2learn wrote: »

they will need my login details for my domain name in order to upload the site.

WHY! a host does not need access to your domain to upload your site.

1) You register a domain at a registrar.
2) You find a host and sign up - in the sign up process they will ask for the domain name.
3) the host will register that domain on their server and you should receive an email with login details for cpanel or whatever control panel they use.
4) you then go into your domain registrar account and under the domain you change the nameservers using listed as ns1 and ns2 in the email. ( this tells the domain to point to the hosts server)
5) you then using the cpanel or FTP login detail in the email upload your site files.

So all a designer would need to upload your site is cPanel and FTP login details to your hosting account.

you should always take you own backups ( many backup services available to allow these to be taken daily) as you should never just rely on your host taking backups

willing2learn_3

earthstorm wrote: »

WHY! a host does not need access to your domain to upload your site.

3) the host will register that domain on their server and you should receive an email with login details for cpanel or whatever control panel they use.

So all a designer would need to upload your site is cPanel and FTP login details to your hosting account.

Thanks Earthstorm....think i was being daft earlier - what they said was that the domain would need to be transferred to their servers OR they would need FTP login details to any hosting account I have.

Since I don't have any other hosting account i'm assuming that they will do the former which is the same as what you've said at 3...I hope

been one of those days where my brain has been rebelling

willing2learn_3

RobTang wrote: »

I would not advise you to let the designer host your site, listen to their suggestions sure but make sure you buy the hosting and maintain administrator rights over it.

:eek: What probs can occur if they do both?

Sorry

earthstorm

willing2learn wrote: »

Thanks Earthstorm....think i was being daft earlier - what they said was that the domain would need to be transferred to their servers OR they would need FTP login details to any hosting account I have.

Since I don't have any other hosting account i'm assuming that they will do the former which is the same as what you've said at 3...I hope

been one of those days where my brain has been rebelling

with your domain you have 2 choices really.

1) Leave it with the registrar and change the nameservers to that of your hosts server

2) transfer the domain to the host own registrar service which if they use a system like WHMCS then this should change the nameservers during the transfer, but depended on TLD (.co.uk/.com etc.) you could be charged for this.

If you are unsure on point 1 then some hosts may be willing to do this for you, which you would need to give them access to your registrar account and your domain, if you trust the host then this should be no issue as they wont be interested in stealing your domain. ( we have done this for some of our clients)

who is your domain with as i may be able to guide you on how to change the nameservers

earthstorm

RobTang wrote: »

I would not advise you to let the designer host your site, listen to their suggestions sure but make sure you buy the hosting and maintain administrator rights over it.

Why! Most designers will include hosting the site in their price, but this is just like normal hosting in that you still control your site through cPanel etc.

you will find major retailers are all hosted by the sites design company as if they need design changes then its easier for these to be made.

RobTang

earthstorm wrote: »

Why! Most designers will include hosting the site in their price, but this is just like normal hosting in that you still control your site through cPanel etc.

Primarily separation of concerns and business control, you need to be able to run your site even if your design company folds or worse your designer gets run over by a bus.

You need to at least have some knowledge in house of how your website operates, so you can control it and move it around which you are not going to get if you leave it to one company.


Web developers and web designers are by and large creative types, people who do no want to do operational running and maintenance, they only reason they do it is because they need the money.
Plus they are expensive bunch a decent contractor web developer (.net java) or designer costs £200-£400 per day, permies probably half that and say half again to offshore. Even if you outsource to a design company they need to hire similar people, how much time, attention and quality do you think you're really getting if you're paying anywhere near that.

earthstorm wrote: »

you will find major retailers are all hosted by the sites design company as if they need design changes then its easier for these to be made.

God no, major retailers are all run in house with their IT support & web development in house, ideally with their servers on company premises as well (although some are moving to cloud offerings these days).
Plus it makes it much easier to integrate with stock control, picking and billing systems.

Plus no big company lets their development staff internal or external touch their production servers.

If you're talking about micro-enterprises and SMEs (not so much the M bit) then I might agree with you but still if their web presence isn't vital to their business.