Compare Web Hosting Services

One question most new web owners tackle is the hosting problem. Trust me, I've been on every level. From buying into a great marketing campaign, only to find that the company is a reseller and doesn't know what they are doing, to owning virtual server space and hiring a programmer to run things (expensive!).

I've been through several hosting companies. Now I use siteground. I can host all of my sites from one dashboard. The service is great. In fact, in a year I only heard of them failing to fix a problem once, and that was a programming problem.

They install scripts free, from wordpress to moodle. And they have alwasy fixed my small problems - like when a script stops working. In fact, they are so good at fixing problems, I've only paid programmers $100 this year! And that was for improving, not fixing.

All of this for a cost of $70 a year for my first site, and about $50 a year for the rest of the sites.

I haven't moved to a dedicated server yet, because my bandwidth allotment is more than it was on the dedicated server, and I have less 404 messages - meaning that the system isn't clogging with traffic. In fact, at one site that claimed to be one of the top 10 in the country, I had 20% 404 messages!!!

They use Cpanel, with excelent stat information, more than 30 scripts for blogs and websites, chats, newsletters, forums, etc - everything you need.

There is a good reason why this site is the #1 hosting site for many of the top ecommerce scripts.



Most important, I have never been hacked, but at the same time, there is no probelm with search engines. I found out - the hard way - that many resllers or 'amateur' hosting services work through Internet companies which make it difficult for search engines.

In fact, our response from Google changed from 2 - 3 months, to days, after switching from the other 'big host' to siteground.

However, to be fair. Godaddy is a better place for newbies. You can phone about everything, you can get 'instant' websites, and they will help you with problems - but they are more expensive. While siteground does offer a domain service - I still manage my domains through godaddy. One thing I did learn, is that many resellers work for godaddy-which gives them the right to say they are the biggest.