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Dec 29, 2007 10:53 AM sliqua

I agree that you should get these questions answered by your web host prior to signing up. However, I'd like to comment from a web host's perspective.

As an enterprise web host there are a lot of different factors we take into consideration in terms of service offerings and pricing on a per-customer basis. If a customer called me and was asking all of those questions, I would need them to e-mail me the list of questions, so that I could break down each one in detail. Unlike the majority of hosting companies out there, we don't offer customers pre-determined "Plans". This allows us to provide custom offerings for each and every customer based on what is important for their business. This also allows us to get to know the customer and figure out exactly what they are looking for in a web host.

For some, their website might be the most important thing for their business to operate, particularly for internet-based businesses. For others, their website might not be utterly important, however, the reliability of their e-mail is critical to their business operations. Most of the time, both of these are critical factors for the company they decide to go with. If we feel that our offerings won't suit the customer perfectly, we will refer them to another company that would be a better fit for them.

Needless to say, there are plenty of hosting companies out there that will promise you the world. They might even offer you a "99%" uptime guarantee. They might even promise you terrabytes of space and bandwidth, but have plenty of restrictions hidden in their Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy. If a hosting company doesn't give you a chance to discuss with them exactly what you needs are and answer all of your questions to the best of their ability, go elsewhere.

In terms of looking for hosts with great uptime guarantees.. the majority of web hosts out there offer a "99%" uptime guarantee. Most hosts don't offer their server/network uptime stats to the public, so the only way to get credit would be to monitor your website on your own. And even when you monitor your website on your own, they might not accept the results because the stats aren't what they are showing internally. Therefore they won't credit your account for downtime.

I would look for a hosting company that doesn't necessarily offer a stated uptime guarantee, but has a proven track record of uptime and credits customers for downtime even without a guarantee.

According to Pingdom, a website monitoring service:

"Even a 99% uptime guarantee is really far from stellar. That would allow for 7 hours and 26 minutes of downtime per month, and more than 3 days and 15 hours per year. Yet there are lots of hosting companies that only offer a 99% uptime guarantee."

In terms of anti-spam offerings, just about any hosting company you go to will offer "protection" from Spam. However, the great majority of companies simply run SpamAssassin, a free anti-spam service, on their mail servers. This software doesn't catch spam accurately unless it is well trained. Look for a hosting company that offers alternative anti-spam services such as Postini or Mailfoundry. These are managed services which have been proven to catch spam accurately. In fact, the Postini service processes over 1 billion messages for 35,000 businesses every day.

Just my two cents.

Best Regards,
Alexander McMillen
Sliqua Enterprise Hosting, Inc.
amcmillen@sliqua.com
1-877-4SLIQUA x201
http://www.sliqua.com/

Mar 7, 2008 3:45 AM spizyhost.com

These ten checklists are great for ANYONE starting to shop for web hosting!

Aug 20, 2008 7:08 AM webmasters

Very good questions for anyone in need of web hosting.
There could have been more about domain names such as
Make sure when purchasing your domain name it is actually being purchased in your name and that you have full administrative control such as user name and password to the control panel that locks, unlock, transfer, re-register or point your domain name to another name server. At Siteprohosting.com we provide all the above domain tools.

-Webmaster
www.siteprohosting.com 1-858-605-0942 | 24/7 Telephone sales and support
http://www.siteprohosting.com

Apr 20, 2009 9:03 AM andysteadgate

I have an emergency situation where i need to get $1000 fast for my car to
be repaired. I need the money fast but I still want to not get screwed over.
My friend suggested an online site that he used before called
www.instantbailout.com I looked it over and it looks ok, but I am not sure
what is a reasonable rate for a payday loan. Is there a standard for this
type of loan? Also does a payday loan effect your credit?