# What Web Hoster Do U Use?



## neversatisfied (Sep 30, 2006)

trying to decide who i want to host my website.. i know a lot of people here to business online.. which host do u use? 

yahoo seems overpriced. Dot 5 seems to be good.. please let me know your opinions its much appreciated!!

I need a host where i can have a good amount of traffic and space for all my designs, shopping cart, guest logins etc...


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

Lunarpages is good. You can also check this thread with some recommendations:

Good Web Hosts:
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/showthread.php?t=705&highlight=webhost


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## PartyClothes (Oct 19, 2006)

make sure you check their tech support response time. 24/7 help should be provided in case you run into problems during a busy time.


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## csquared (Sep 8, 2006)

I use appollo hosting and have been very happy with them


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## 'cia (Aug 18, 2006)

I have HostGator and they are great.

Month to month contract (actually, no contract)

Terrific 24/7 phone support, which I have utilized frequently because I'm technically challenged and very patient techies. 

Almost flawless uptime.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

I've heard other good things about hostgator as well.


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## raptmonk (Nov 13, 2006)

I use CrystalTech and have been very happy with them. Good for multiple site hosting as well...Good luck!


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

I use Namespro.ca. Not the cheapest out there (not the most expensive either), but their customer service is stellar. They always get back to me within 24 hours.


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## csquared (Sep 8, 2006)

I found it hard to find a website that had good reviews of web host, seems like you have to sift through all the self promoting stuff


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> I found it hard to find a website that had good reviews of web host, seems like you have to sift through all the self promoting stuff


That's why it's nice to get recommendations here from people that aren't running the companies or recommending it because of a possible affiliate credit  Mostly just actual customers.


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## VCUSA (Oct 27, 2006)

Hello,

I would stay away from Dot 5 hosting. I used them with another one of my businesses and the reliability was horrible. Always having server crashes and such. I currently use GoDaddy.com and have had good luck. Very well priced and you can host multiple sites as well.


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## bac (Jun 19, 2006)

Rodney said:


> Lunarpages is good.


Yup, I'm using LunarPages with good results. Their pricing is competative, but more importantly, their customer service is very good. That is really the difference you should be looking for in a host - good customer service.


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## Polivester (Nov 3, 2006)

I used itc, but they suck! Then I tried yahoo for a while, but they were too complicated for me … as I’m a “tech dummy”. Finally, just by accident I stumbled across MonsterCommerce http://www.monstercommerce.com/ and I am very happy with them. My website was easy to put together compared to yahoo. They are more expensive then a lot of other hosts, but defiantly worth it. 24/7 tech support, which is extremely essential for me (tech dummy), free marketplace http://www.monstermarketplace.com/merchantInformationPage.html and loads of everything you will need to get an eCommerce business started. My website looks like it was created by a web designer. It’s actually one of their templates and I don’t even know HTML. Folks think I’m a computer wise… hah… if they only knew.


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

Dreamhost has worked fairly well for me. The uptime has been a little worse than it should have been, but the company is very open about what problems their having with their network, admitting it was their fault, etc. which is a nice thing to see. Since they've recently finished upgrading some major sections of their network, the rare uptime glitches should be nearly nonexistant now, but time will tell.


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## DirtyJerseys (Oct 6, 2006)

We are currently using Network Solutions. They are very quick with Tech Support calls we have made.


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## toonsign (Apr 24, 2005)

Hi,

I use Hostnexus and been there for a few years now.

Great service, great user forum and response time is in hours.

Fred


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## Mymil (Nov 23, 2006)

I've been using 1and1. So far, so good!


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## Buechee (Dec 22, 2005)

how does this sound for starts? I don't have more than 50 items to sale.

* 3 domain names
* 200 GB web space
* 2,000 e-mail accounts
* 2,000 GB traffic


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

I would say watch out for unnecessarily inflated high numbers. Nobody will ever need 2000 email accounts 

Other than that, it sounds fine. 200GB of storage is way more than any t-shirt site will probably ever need for just hosting low resolution t-shirt images and a shopping cart.

Also, 2000 GB of monthly transfer is more than enough for most starter and high traffic sites. By the time you need more, you'll have enough profits to upgrade


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

Buechee said:


> how does this sound for starts? I don't have more than 50 items to sale.
> 
> * 3 domain names
> * 200 GB web space
> ...


Do you really need 3 domain names? I mean, if you do, then that's great, but if you don't, why bother?


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Jasonda said:


> Do you really need 3 domain names?


I don't see why not... I'm currently using five and I'd definitely consider myself a light user.

In the past I tended to put off hosting multiple sites because it would be expensive; now that I _can_ I find it's very useful.


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## Polivester (Nov 3, 2006)

Solmu said:


> I don't see why not... I'm currently using five and I'd definitely consider myself a light user.
> 
> In the past I tended to put off hosting multiple sites because it would be expensive; now that I _can_ I find it's very useful.


I have three domain names myself, however I'm working on just having one. Do you mind me asking why you have 5, and do you have different host?


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

Solmu said:


> I don't see why not... I'm currently using five and I'd definitely consider myself a light user.
> 
> In the past I tended to put off hosting multiple sites because it would be expensive; now that I _can_ I find it's very useful.


Obviously you need them and can afford them.  All I meant was that if the poster only needs one domain name now, there is no use in paying for 3, especially if they are just starting out. Same thing with 2,000 email addresses.

If the price was exactly the same as buying 1, I would say go for it, but we don't really have that info.

It's like buying the super jumbo size jar of pickles at the warehouse store. It might not be that much more expensive than the regular size jar, but are you really going to eat that many pickles?


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Polivester said:


> Do you mind me asking why you have 5, and do you have different host?


All hosted with the same host. Each domain is for something completely different: my personal domain (basically just used for e-mail at the moment), my business domain, my partner's domain, my nephew's domain, and a domain for a project of my mother's. In the next year or so I'll have at least another couple for personal projects and business use of my own.

A lot of people run multiple unrelated businesses and have multiple domains accordingly. Even just for personal use (as it mostly is with me) it's useful though.


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Jasonda said:


> All I meant was that if the poster only needs one domain name now, there is no use in paying for 3, especially if they are just starting out. Same thing with 2,000 email addresses.


There's certainly no use _paying_ for three if you don't need three.

And I've always found the whole 2000 email addresses thing a bit ridiculous - I can't think of a legitimate reason you could need that many addresses, that would still allow you to be using your domain lightly enough not to need dedicated hosting.



Jasonda said:


> If the price was exactly the same as buying 1, I would say go for it, but we don't really have that info.


If the price _wasn't_ exactly the same as buying one I would say find a better host


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## Buechee (Dec 22, 2005)

Buechee said:


> how does this sound for starts? I don't have more than 50 items to sale.
> 
> * 3 domain names
> * 200 GB web space
> ...


That came from 1on1 for $10 a month. It's cheap and I heard good things about them. I'm looking at some of the other host you guys have posted also. But for the price they sound good. Can some tell me more about them?


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## Buechee (Dec 22, 2005)

You guys named a few hosting companies. Which one will help you grow. When you out grow the serve, which one will make it easy to up grade?


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## Mymil (Nov 23, 2006)

Buechee said:


> That came from 1on1 for $10 a month. It's cheap and I heard good things about them. I'm looking at some of the other host you guys have posted also. But for the price they sound good. Can some tell me more about them?


Do you mean 1and1? If so, I've had only good experience with them so far. I haven't yet, but I believe upgrading is easy: it's just a matter of paying more money. You can get lower prices if you commit yourself to long periods of time, and even if you want to upgrade within that period of time (if I recall correctly..), you just have to pay however much extra.

They offer a large range of services, and you can expand whil staying on their hosts all the way up to having your own dedicated server. They also offer some useful tools (like search engine submission, Google Sitemap creator, several website statistics, etc.) and have a couple of programs that you can download for free (if you have a PC). Their response to questions that I've had could be better... one time it took them two days to get back (this was over a weekend).


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> You guys named a few hosting companies. Which one will help you grow. When you out grow the serve, which one will make it easy to up grade?


I think most of the ones mentioned will do that. As you outgrow your current package, most make it pretty easy to upgrade to a bigger package. 

I know pair.com does for sure.


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## Buechee (Dec 22, 2005)

yes I did mean 1and1. Thanks. 

Pair is high for the same thing that 1and1 has. What role does price play here? How much better are they? They would have to do a lot to get me to pay $19 more for the same set up. I don't know about the software or hardware, but the space and transfer is the same.


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## wickedtuner (Nov 29, 2006)

We use a dutch provider nitroserve.com. I usually get an answer from support within half an hour, and this is not an automated response 

They offer dotnet hosting and mysql database support almost for free..

Hmm.. I doublechecked the site, but the interface is in dutch only.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> Pair is high for the same thing that 1and1 has. What role does price play here? How much better are they? They would have to do a lot to get me to pay $19 more for the same set up. I don't know about the software or hardware, but the space and transfer is the same.


I have tried 1and1 hosting before. They actually ran a promotion a few years ago where they gave away 3 years of full featured webhosting for free.

I wasn't particularly impressed with their control panel (it seemed sort of slow and unintuitve), but I never had a chance to need their support. Other people have probably had great experience with them. I've also heard bad things about how they handle domain name registrations (not wanting to let them go or let you manage them).

I think what you're paying extra for at pair is the service and speed. They have support techs that seem to actually read the question you ask and take the time to respond and/or fix the problem on the first try. I've also never had any downtime with pair, even when the site got major media coverage.

So it's possible that you may get the same or similar service with another company for less, but I can only speak from years of experience with Pair. I don't mind paying more for the peace of mind that I don't have to ever worry about my website.


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## Buechee (Dec 22, 2005)

Rodney said:


> I have tried 1and1 hosting before. They actually ran a promotion a few years ago where they gave away 3 years of full featured webhosting for free.
> 
> I wasn't particularly impressed with their control panel (it seemed sort of slow and unintuitve), but I never had a chance to need their support. Other people have probably had great experience with them. I've also heard bad things about how they handle domain name registrations (not wanting to let them go or let you manage them).
> 
> ...


Well you can't argue with that. World of mouth is a powerful tool. I'm going to look back at pair. I just know right now I don't need to spend a lot. They might not be bad.


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## Buechee (Dec 22, 2005)

okay Rodney, what plan do you recommend for a starter plan from pair? 

Something for 3 sites. One with video, maybe. But at the least 3 sites. 
1) 2 T-shirts and appearals
2) A forum

not sure if I want to do a video site aimed at my niche.

Thanks.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

The pair advanced or webmaster plan is a good place to start. 

My first plan there was the webmaster plan, but since then I've upgraded it a couple of times.

I had one client that used the basic plan for selling t-shirts and it was perfect for what he needed (with an ecommerce addon).


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

If you're already with 1and1, and you haven't really had any problems, why switch?

Or, if you're just looking for a host, and price is an issue, you might check out Dreamhost. Very feature rich, and the bandwith/size limitations actually grow over time automatically. Uptime is probably not going to be as good as you'll get with Pair, service may not be either (but I haven't needed it myself), but the price is a lot more friendly for a new site and the features will probably be similar.


As far as multiple domains go, I'm in the same boat as Solmu. I've got my t-shirt store, a site for a book I'm making (basically just a wiki right now as I and a few others very slowly work on it), a site for a noprofit org. I'm partially involved with, a site for my mom's business, and a few reserved domains for future projects I may get involved in =) Oh, and that's another nice thing about Dreamhost; I can host multiple domains on a single account


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## Buechee (Dec 22, 2005)

I said by monday I'll be hosted. But you'll make'n it hard. 

Rodney told me, on another post, that my choices I narrowed down to where ok. So I might do pair or lunar. I'm going to look at dream and see what they have to offer.


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## kenfuji (Sep 15, 2006)

i personally use godaddy.com

never really had any issues with them.

we have a dedicated server set up at work and i have several personal websites i run off their economy plan.

its pretty straight fwd. and decent customer service.


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## TaylorTees (Nov 8, 2006)

kenfuji said:


> i personally use godaddy.com
> 
> never really had any issues with them.
> 
> ...


I too use Godaddy.com - I have more than 1 page hosted on the same hosting account also, and anything I have problems uploading or doing anything.. which isnt too often, they are available 24/7 .. and I do use that since I do most of my editing and web page work in the middle of the night =) We have been using them for close to 2 years and are really satisfied.


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## archangelfashion (Sep 4, 2008)

i'm very happy with volusion so far, my site is still under construction but their customer service and interface i feel is outstanding.


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## ajo (Apr 7, 2008)

Hey,

I use CityMax and haven't had a bad experince with them so far. The one thing I don't like about CityMax, is that if U have a problem with your site, U have to contact their Tech Support by way of submitting a ticket and then someone gets back to you within 24 hrs. No toll-free phone number to call.

Hope this helps.

Aaron


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## archangelfashion (Sep 4, 2008)

i've never waited more than 10mins either on the 24-7 phone line, online chat or tickets. anytime i've had a problem volusion either talks me through or rectifies the situation for me but explaining it as they go.


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