Web Site Hosting Reviews

   A customer focused web site hosting company is a company that puts the customer first and caters to the customer. There are some companies out there that put themselves first and do not realize that the customer is the boss. You do not want to host with these companies.

   Everyone needs a customer focused web site hosting company but to different lengths. You might be a person who never needs technical support but you still need presales support or the ability to upgrade your hosting package. On the other hand you might be someone that will never upgrade your hosting package but you might constantly have questions you needed answered. Figure out what kind of attention you will require from your hosting company before you start looking for a hosting company. This will make finding a hosting company a much simpler process

   You ask questions! Contact the web site hosting company with your preferred method of contact. This means if you are going to want to interact with them on the phone then call them on the phone. If you are going to want to interact with them via e-mail then e-mail them. You want to make sure the way you want to interact with them is available to you and that they give you timely responses.

   You should ask them questions you have had in the past or you might have in the future. If you want to be able to ask your hosting company web development questions then come straight out and ask them if you will be able to. "Can I call up and ask questions about 3rd party CGI programs?" "Can I call up and ask why my page does not look correct?" These are questions you might want to ask but there are a lot more of them as well. They want your money just as much as you want their service so make sure you feel comfortable with them and their responses.

   Some good questions to ask the perspective web site hosting are:

• What are your support hours?
  
• In what ways can I contact technical support?
  
• If I have issues getting CGI scripts to run on the server can I get support?
  
• Does my hosting account come with CGI scripts you will support?
  
• Can I get the names of a few people you host for so I can contact them?
  
• Do you have data backup?
  
• How often do you backup the system?
  
• Do you have a money back guarantee?
  
• Do you have redundant connections to the Internet?
  

   Some people only have time to work on their sites late at night when most hosting companies do not have tech support. There are, however, hosting companies that do have 24-hour technical support so you should look for one of them.

   Many hosting companies say they have 24-hour support but then you find out that they only have live phone support from 9am until 5pm and the rest of the time the support is via e-mail. (see also Picking the right Web Site Host )Is this a problem? Well it depends on if you want to talk to a human or if you want to send e-mails back and forth. Some people like e-mail support better than phone support so for those people who like e-mail support this is not an issue. If you like telephone technical support then you need to find another host that offers telephone technical support during the hours you are most likely going to need it

   If the web site hosting company you are currently looking at only offers 2 plans to pick from with no way of adding on additional services that you might need then they are not customer focused. Being customer focused is all about giving the customer what they want when they want it. Make sure the host you go with offers ways for you to add services to the hosting package you are looking at because over time you will want to upgrade.

   If a web site hosting company is customer focused then they should back up your data on a regular basis just in case their systems have issues. You should always keep a copy of your own stuff on your own machine as well! If there is a problem with their system they can restore everything from a backup and have you up and running a lot faster than if you have to upload your entire site. So make sure you have a copy of your site and make sure the hosting company you select does data backups on a regular basis

   A redundant connection is when you have multiple ways of getting to a host. Most hosts have connections to multiple spots on the internet and this is good because it lets traffic coming from different areas enter from different points lowering the amount of time it takes to load a page. The more important reason for having redundant connections is because if one of the connections goes down you want to make sure that people can still get to your web site.

   Hopefully you asked the question "Do you have a money back guarantee?" Customer focused web site hosting companies have a 30 day money back guarantee where they will give you your money back if you are not satisfied in the first 30 days of doing business with them. This allows you to get your site up on their server and test out their technical support for a month and if things are not as you expected you can get your money back.(see also Web Site Hosting: uptime, downtime)

   Author: Matthew Drouin