Choosing Web Hosting Company for Hosting Blogs ? What features and services to look for ? Any company specialize for Blogs hosting ? THanks for advice
hosting is hosting... blogs are blogs... The better hosting companies are going to be as good as any blog specialty host... What I look for: 1. Reliability... not so much the 99.9% guarenteed uptime, but a realistic aproach to downtime and communication with their clients. Open forums on site where the host doesn't pull down negative posts... that sort of thing... As examples: Host-Nexus does this well, Gazzin does this horriblly. 2. Limited Overselling - bandwidth costs money. Hots which offer "250GB per month for $5" scare me. I have a semi dedicated server on a true 2nd tier provider. I know my host is making some money, but at the same time I know that they're not charging me THAT much more than what they're paying... I'm guessing a 50% markup. I'm paying $1 per 100MB HDD and 1GB xfer. So all that said, I'm not anti overselling, but I am anti-outrageous claims... Most of the super cheap hosts will never let you get close to maxing out your account, but will cut you for "overusing system resources"... It's such a scam. As examples: httpme is much more likely to get my money than hostgator. 3. Longevity... If a host hasn't been around under the same management for at least a couple of years they're a no go for me. This knocks some good hosts out of the selection process, but at the same time knocks out all of the fly by night companies. 4. Multiple means of contact... I resell to local small businesses. My clients have my cell phone number. They're also totally aware of how I work and who I've bought my reseller account from. I expect the same from my host. At a minimum they need to have; a telephone number, ticket system, email support. Now all that said my company is much more focused on customer support and hand holding than trying to sell the cheapest hosting... I can't compete with low cost hosts on an absolute lowest cost. I slaughter them with my customer support. I'm extremlly happy with my host, and while they're not a "blog specialty" host, their support is outstanding and I have several blogs hosted on my reseller account with them. As to server specs... my personal preference is linux with cpanel...
I think no hosting company is perfect no matter how costly you get ! Mt friend has a site5 VPS and the blog still crashes with even a little spike in traffic . Even big players in the industry have dark secrets . I think almost all of them indulge in overselling bandwidth that is the primary reason of dissatisfaction . Look for uptime , look for RAM and CPU speed and not hard disk space .