Hosting - Avoid The First Timer Pitfalls

10 Mar 2010

This week I was approached by a company that offered me hosting for an all in price of $10 a year. On the surface, their offer appeared to tick all the boxes. It offered the same bandwidth as my current supplier (which happens to be one of our two chosen client suppliers), twice the storage space and dedicated business hours support. Of course, nothing is ever that simple when it comes to a service. To help both our clients see the benefits of using our hosts, and also allow everything to avoid the potential pitfalls of hosting, that many hosting companies don't want you to know about, we have compiled our very own "Quick Start Guide" to the world of picking a hosting supplier.

You get what you pay for

If a company is offering you a basic hosting package for less than an hours work for an IT professional in Ireland (normally between €25-€75 an hour) you can probably guess the after sales service isn't up to much. The actual cost of powering a server, linking it to the World Wide Web and gradual replacement of redundant systems, might only be €5 a year per account, but administrating that account, adding on features and supporting that account, even if carried out in the far east, will at least cost the average hosting company between 1-10 hours a year in employee time. If that time isn't factored in, you won't get professional support, secure hosting, or good uptime of the server your hosting is based on. When you consider that, €40-€80 a year for hosting is virtually nothing.

 

Read the forums and blogs

If you look around enough online you will find bad press about every company. However if you post a topic on a forum for IT buffs or read around blogs of respected website designers and developers and they are saying "pick company X, don't pick company Y because..." they are generally being sincere. The last thing a website developer wants is to mislead someone who may later become a client. Also you may consider checking with some friends and colleagues to see what company they have used in the past. If worst comes to worst, you can always contact Smith and Wise directly as we are always more than happy to help.

 

Avoid Over the Top Promises

No company can give you everything for near on nothing. This is something many website developers discovered to their peril last year as a large Irish hosting company simply couldn't keep their servers online after severe cost cutting. Soon one of the largest hosting companies in Ireland became a trailing force in the market, all because they promised lots, for a low price, in a manner by which they could not deliver. Play cautious, if it looks to good to be true it probably is. Some examples of phrases to look out for, and ask a company to verify such claims against evidence (which under the Consumer Information Act 1978, they must do) may include: 99.9999% Uptime Guarantee (or similar), Lifetime Server Uptime Guarantee, Unlimited Bandwidth and/or Hosting Space (always read the small print), dedicated 24/7 phone support (try calling at midnight), etc.

 

Professionalsim

We all believe in the importance of supporting start-ups, however, the Hosting and Server solutions market has a very low entry cost. People do give up after short periods of time in the industry, or worse fail to deliver and leave customers out of pocket and without hosting and domains. If a hosting company has managed to achieve an IEDR Reseller badge or is authorised by ICANN it is normally a fairly good sign that that host knows what they are doing and have dealt with a reasonable number of customers previously. Other tell tale signs of professionalism in the hosting industry can be attributed to testimonials on their website from respectable or up and coming enterprises, the company being incorporated (e.g. an Ltd.) are just a few signs of professionalism. There is nothing worse than a customer building up a website, domain and then losing everything online, emails, domains and website content due to picking a budget, unprofessional supplier, it does happen, it has happened to some of our clients before they reached us, and it is very costly to start from scratch.

Irish Support Does Matter

Do you believe that buying Irish really matters with an IT product or service? Hopefully so, keeping in mind that business hours in India or San Francisco are sleeping hours in Ireland for most people. That means if you have a support issue, getting someone on the phone can be really costly. In one case I heard of, an Irish business owner was charged €6 a minute for support which was at 3am local time where his server was based, it took three hours to resolve the issue in full. Also, 24/7 support normally means by email and it is really rare, anywhere in the world, for anyone to answer emails in the morning shower, or before they go to bed - the hours an Irish business would be operating. In contrast, the argument against European solutions is far more a technical, rather than a practical issue.

 

UK, European Hosting

Providing language isn't a barrier and you have a credit card, generally using a UK or European supplier (or even African for that matter) isn't too much hassle. There are just a few points to note:

• You are not covered by Irish consumer / business law.
• Telephone support costs can and do add up over time.
• Cultural issues - few German companies understand why Irish people have below 5mb broadband.
• SEO - Irish servers and hosting packages do tend to perform better in Search Engines for geographical reasons.
• Your work hours may be similar and overlap, but keep in mind that rules and regulations do vary by country.

The Personal Factor

Whenever I pick a supplier for Smith and Wise or one of our clients, I always think of the personal factor. Does the supplier have a good personality, are they interested in a related field or have similar hobbies. Do they like socialising and attending events. When you build up a relationship with a supplier, whether it be legal service, a butchers, car servicing or in this case, website hosting, it is important to factor in how well you get on with your suppliers. A happy supplier, paid on time and wined and dined appropriately can become a valuable tool. In the past several of my suppliers have allowed me access to information which was commercially sensitive, and potentially could allow me to target them for reduced fees, but because there was mutual trust, I chose instead to use that information to judge how poorly their competition really performed, all things consider. The personal factor is paramount with hosting suppliers - they look after your company online, they don't like to disappoint people they know well. If they are the wrong types of people, you will see cracks start to show early within a relationship with their company and staff.

 

Conclusion

When picking a hosting company, you should consider the actual material value of work involved in effectively running a professional website hosting company in Ireland or Europe. You should also think about locating your server where you want to target your market, e.g. for US only customers, get US Based hosting for best results. Support will always be a key factor, even if you think you won't have problems, you certainly will, with emails, passwords, your website, online services, etc, make sure you know how well supported you will be before picking a supplier. Again find out what sort of people your hosting company are, if they are people you like and you feel are friendly, they will be easier to deal with in the long run. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, don't get fooled by gimmicks, underselling suppliers or over the top promises, if you are paying between €35-€160 for a package, depending on what you need, do the maths with labour costs at €25-€75 an hour - you won't get any decent level of service below cost. You wouldn't print your brouchures on crinkled old newspaper, don't host your website on crippled, overloaded or unsupported services.

 

Checklist For Choosing A Hosting Supplier

1. Understand the cost of labour when factoring in yearly hosting fees.
2. Shop around, read reviews, ask for advice from friends, or Smith and Wise.
   
   
3. Gimmicks, over the top promises or underselling means one thing - poor long term service.
   
   
4. Check for professionalism of the company you are choosing, achievements, testimonials.
   
   
5. Irish / European hosting means support during your office hours.
6. Evaluate whether UK / European providers really offer more after costs and cultural differences.
   
   
7. The Personal Factor - how well do you get on with a company's staff and support?
   
   
8. Add everything together, shortlist suppliers. It's not the price that counts, its the quality of service.
   
   

Things we recommend a good host should offer (the minimum standard Smith and Wise would expect):

• Regular, free backups of your hosting, databases and emails (at least once a day).
• At least 1gb storage space a month
• At least 10gb bandwidth per month
• Access to a control panel
• Ability to support: MySQL, PHP 5.0, phpMyAdmin, multiple databases.
• At least two addon domains
• At least ten email address accounts
• Full FTP Access (preferably multi accounts option)
• At least ten subdomains
• Real time logging system(s)

Smith and Wise recommended guide prices:

• Minimum $25 a year for a US based hosting package
• Minimum €45 a year for an Irish based hosting package
• Minimum €45/£30 a year for an European / UK based hosting package

If you are paying (or thinking about paying) over €140 a year for hosting, talk to Smith and Wise, we probably have a better package for you.

 

More Information

This article was written by Byron Smith, Operations Director of Smith and Wise. If you would like to contact him about this article, please do so by email at [email protected] or you can call him on 086 1780 743.

All information and advice in this article (as in all Smith and Wise blog articles) is provided as is, without liability and should be acted upon with caution

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