Is Your Hosting Company a Pretender?
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When is a hosting company not a hosting company? When it’s a VAR.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a VAR (value added reseller) - I’ve been one many times in the past, and surely will be again.
It’s just that people typically don’t understand what a web hosting company is - or does - and when it comes to their online business they make some questionable decisions because of it.
For instance…
Recently I was consulting with a client and they asked my opinion of a hosting package their web design firm had offered them. *STOP RIGHT THERE* There’s your first BIG CLUE…
Your web design firm is in the business of designing web sites. Making your web site look a certain way. Sometimes the web design firm may have coders on staff who can program the site to behave a certain way (and coding a webpage is not the same as coding a database application,) and sometimes the web design firm has writers on staff who can make the site read a certain way (and writing your company profile is not the same as writing your primary sales and landing pages…) And don’t even get me started about SEO, Internet marketing and general strategic online business development advice!
But I seriously doubt they have a multi-million dollar environmentally controlled, fire suppression enabled, multi-point redundancy, 24-hour monitored, data center in their back room.
Now THAT’S a hosting center.
Most pretenders err.. most hosting companies are really VARs, and here’s the rub, these pretenders often charge 100 times the actual cost of hosting and deliver a fraction of the service package.
Now before I get loads of angry letters from quality hosting VARs I should say that they are not all like this. I do however bring up this huge discrepancy and tell you this tale to illuminate a point that drives me nuts.
Just because someone can code up a web page doesn’t mean you should entrust them with your online business presence and hosting. It certainly doesn’t mean you should trust them with your online marketing, and it especially means you shouldn’t automatically trust them with your online brand reputation either.
These are all important points that require special skills - some companies have the mix, some do not. Do you know which questions to ask and how to tell a Pretender?
I know the web is still a brave new world (as of writing, it’s just over 14 years old!) and you’d be forgiven if you still don’t quite ‘get it’ - that’s why you need to take care and ask more questions and work with a proper web strategist/consultant who’s been around the block a few times.
Remember before focusing my efforts as a corporate web strategist and online marketing expert I was a VP of IT and Consulting and managed multi-million dollar software development projects across most major continents for banks, governments and major manufacturers. Managing upwards of 50 people, I’ve personally built and sold software solutions for over 30 years now, and even pioneered online systems that pre-date the Internet (try creating a TV based hyper linked TeleText system in the mid 80’s… now that’s creative)
Anyhoo… I’m a little off-topic.
The conclusion of my tale was this. I recommended a direct hosting source (one of the major players in this field) and provided their price. The client declined telling me that it was “too cheap” and that they would stay with the web design firm *sigh* So I pointed out the firm was a VAR and in this instance was charging them nearly 100 times over cost for less service…
Call me crazy, but spending 100 times more than I need seems unnecessary. But that’s just me…
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so, who do you recommend for hosting?
Hmmm, I know if I say a name or two there will be folks who have horror stories to share. However, I host with GoDaddy. I chose them because they focused on hosting and because they had 24/7 support. Now don’t get me wrong, some days the support is a bit ‘weak’ (and by that I mean the nice person on the phone knows less than a hair brush… but they’re nice about it and that counts for something.) But in truth, they’re responsive, reliable and you just can’t beat the price. Also, GoDaddy is #1 as ranked by independent audit so that’s not too bad. Secondly, any company that can afford to “invest” a couple of million on a questionable super bowl advert has evidently spent some serious moola on hardware and communications infrastructure. At least I hope so… hmmm, maybe I should check my SLA’s
I think I switched from them because they didn’t have cpanel, at some point and I wanted to be able to install wordpress with the click of the mouse, so to speak. I’m pretty happy with A2hosting though I probably would have been frustrated with their support in the earlier days when i didn’t know much about hosting. But not, submitting a ticket and waiting for them to get beck to me seems to be working, and you really can’t beat their prices. I still do buy all my domains from godaddy though…
Understood. GoDaddy doesn’t have cPanel they have something I think is even easier (I used cPanel prior to GoDaddy.) They have a “one button” hosting panel (I think it’s Ajax powered … but don’t quote me) and it’s a breeze to install any of the software. It’s called the Hosting Connection.
“Get the most out of your hosting plan with over 30 free and premium quick-install applications offered within Go Daddy Hosting Connection!”
Bottom line, go with whatever works
I also happen to be capable of doing installs the hard way so it’s no great issue if I have to FTP into a client computer, install and configure a DB and then tweak it manually. I’m just glad I don’t have to. *LOL*
very cool. i should reconsider them then. also, kudos to you on your website. I like reading your posts.