http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?p=4428227 There are too many people out there who think web hosting is easy, don't know much about it, start a host, fail, and then lose all their clients' data. I think the guy in the thread I linked to has a lot to learn before he becomes a host. I'm glad he's not my host.
haa haa.. Well, there are actually a quite a handful of people out there who doesn't know anything and want to plunge into the web hosting business. I did study the prospect several years ago and abandoned the idea after I see what the business involved. It is really sad to see how the business has become. I mean little does this people realized that they might hold the fate of people in their lives. Most of us here rely on hosting our sites as a form of income, either main or pocket change, but nevertheless income. It scary when it is handled by these noobs. That's probably why you hear horror stories of livelihood lost, marriages broken and so on when they rely on such web hosts.
marriages LOL. you cant be serious. most people keep a backup of their site right? even if it is a month old everyone has a backup? or is it just me?
Well, if you read the horror stories at Webhostingtalk.com , you see that a number of people don't keep backups. Some especially noobs would assume that everything last forever but you are I know that the most reliable system will still fail, it just depends on how they handle it. Well, the marriages issue goes like this. I remember reading that someone who was supposedly earning thousands of dollars each day but their $10/month web host suddenly disappeared and they are crying blooding murder and that their livelihood is ruin and they have got to bankruptcy because of their lost. Because of that, his wife left him. Probably it is over-exaggerated but then again if it is too good to be true, it would usually be. I do use the small web hosts for my hosting solution but I wouldn't trust it to be a noob. I run relative static sites and yet I ensure I have at least two monthly backups a month.
Well, also there are those who do backup but they do it onsite at the same space where their site is at Here is one Bankruptcy story from someone who paid $5/mth hosting his site http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=591812
oh that just went on and on I was starting to fall asleep while reading that. going bankrupt over $60 :? in my opinion they were both at fault. the user never kept a backup and the server was unable to resolve issues (normally I believe a host should have adequate (my spelling is shocking is it right?) knowledge of all server scripts ect. or is able to pin point why the error occured)
I guess if you go for a budget host, don't expect more than what you paid for. You pay peanuts, you get peanuts or was that a monkey ?
in my experience the host with which we go should be atleast an year old one in hosting biz. btw, Usually i take my backups every week.
These days, everyone bought a reseller plan for as low as 25$ per month and start selling (or I must say overselling) hosting. All he knows is a bit of WHM and CPanel. No idea about server configuration, load balancing and blah blah. After a month or two, when server get overloaded with website, it got crashed and clients lost data. I always recommend everyone to buy hosting from companies which are atleast three years old in the market and hosting more than 25000 websites. Best Sites to choose as hosting are ExaByte Blue Host Host Gator
Even when you know alot about web hosting, you still need a other peaple to do other things for you, i.e install software when your busy and respond to customers support tickets. I really wouldn't suggest to any one who doest have alot of money to get into the hosting industry. Youll could end up really annoying your customers by not being able to offer them good support and stuff. Also what if your just some guy with a VPS or something and you host a business's website, there a limited company your just some geezer with 20 posts on webmaster-talk.com , you by mistake format the HD on the VPS and forget there files are on it, (just a made up story, that might not happen but im trying to think of a mistake for the scenario), anyway.... You could end up being sued for alot of cash which you wouldn't have, what will you do then? Shut the host down and sell your 1960 Chevvi nova? which cost you 400bucks... It wouldn't supplement the $40,000 law suit your facing. Theres alot of things peaple dont think about when thinking "if i open a hosting company ill be LMAO, lol! ASL plz u 14year old girl on a chat room" W3bmasters post "Well the market of Hosting is i think the most competitive ...." Is true, but at the end of the day, it makes good hosts stronger, company's with well thought out business plans and lots of recourses look stronger and im not talking about the likes of Godaddy,Dreamhost,1And1 and Hostgator ect.. The likes of eukhost, bodhost, Hostaga and not to forget my own company Greenlush. Company's like this are made stronger by the lack of professionalism from resellers and n00bs alike. Sorry if this sounds like im ranting on about of a load of rubbish Also another thing about owning a host, if you are thinking about owning a hosting company expect peaple to not be nice to you, expect them to think your trying to grab a piece of $150billion+ a year market. See customers if they get annoyed, theyll tear you down, say you own a small hosting company, a reseller or something, no problem with it your having fun and chilling out, if you can make more than your $20 a month reseller then your in profit, the only thing is..... As i said, about the law suits and stuff, apart from that being something to look out for (Even as small as customers not getting there emails, what if you host a company who get work via there emails, if they dont receive them and they can prove the host is to blame, bang! if you dont own a limited company your bumbed for life, by to moms basement and into the jail cell) It can happen and has happend and could happen again As i was saying, if you own a small host, and a customer gets annoyed, you can say hello to a million threads on webmaster forums saying "hostname is rubbish" ect... and youll see random peaple, who arnt even customers saying "yep they are, very bad i hate them blah blah" just to look cool and try talk about the topic at hand, ever seen Jay and Silent Bob strike back??? Im not one to bad word other hosts as i see it happen daily youll only hear me praise company's, all im going to say on this topic is if your asking "i know you need a good internet connection, for a server but... i dont know any thing else about them" then its time to either get a fully managed server from a high quality data center or just go work at a store stacking the shelves with tins. Its not worth it, lots of complications peaple dont think about when opening web hosting companys and it could really skrew you up if your not prepaird . **Please dont red rep me for these comments***
I started web hosting a while back... the server was going to be for me only but then some people I personally knew asked for space. In the end I turned it off because it was too much work keeping it secure, not to mention I had a job, school, Advanced Placement homework, and other things... and the only one doing the web server work. I don't think it's too hard to run a server and maintain it. Host people you don't know is the problem... they like testing and hacking. My Server got hacked too by the way... luckily I was running Linux and they couldn't do anything once they go in (that was due to problems and lead me to open all the ports... oops) I'll start my server back up once I get more free time... but that's hard to come by.
Selling it to your friends or even giving them space is cool, basically not to go into any details too much but a guy's purchased a dedicated server with a company i will not name but i know the owner very well, anyway he resold the server as he was just a 15year old kid it turned out, and the server was used for sending viruses to a company in Canada. Now... That company got the cops in or something and the kid is now in very deep water, because after warnings about it he ignored it, when the main host pulled the plug the kid went crazy sending lame comments to them via email and anyway... My point is, what if a kid opend a hosting company, he purchased a dedicated server for around $180 and started selling space over the net, then one the accounts he sold was used to either..... store illegal stuff, send viruses out ect.. and you know all that crazy stuff, warez and the likes. High school kids dont care, they think its all fun and games, they get a copy of dream weaver and they think they can take on godaddy iv been in the industry 5years, 2 years being CEO of quite a smallish company, but employing staff and having registered offices ect.. I mean my point to argue with my self (Which is lame) but... I suppose, if i was going to give critique on my comments it would be that, kids who host stuff arnt really going to be that good at SEO and marketing generally, so there not really going to be #1 on google to quick so there not mass marketed to get the types of customers that will skrew you over big time if there stuff messed up but still, i woudnt suggest kids to host stuff, iv seen 2 guys i know get into this, there 18 and 20 i think, they have had nothing but problems, they just think because they have a 80GB server with cpanel and whm they can sell hosting over the internet, A) TAX B) Illigal activity on servers C) not having the time do deal with all the customers D) Not really having any idea about the server in general so support for customers is pretty bad E) Not being LTD or LLC, at one point they might think :O I better just get registered i could really need some help right now, . These are things that arnt thought of much or maybe not at all
I agree with jason B. This business is just too easy to resell. We give away free websites but only to a very select few of our customers, and sell hosting just to a few whom we control. Risky business hosting, and most of us if we are really honest know just a little about it.
Hey Jason, I notice your hosting is US based. How do you manage in G with that? Is it a disadvantage? As see u are in bradford.
We have servers based in the UK and the US. I have my server for my company's website based in Florida as i aim for the national market and not just the (local) UK market, all though one of my servers is based in London and thats what hosts 40% of my customers. Customers can choose to have a UK based IP or a US, either one. As far as G listings go: G UK "Cheap web hosting" G .com "Cheap web hosting" Not much difference in the position of many of our main keywords on UK and .com
webhosting is not a hard business to run. It is a hard business to make profitable and competitive. Without large capital investment. Good luck.