Help on deciding how to go about chosing low cost hosting

freshmeat · 23rd May 2008

Hi all.
I am having trouble grasping what to do about choosing a hosting service. I am not technical. I am looking and the low cost end of the market I guess as this is a hobby/non-commercial venture and will be paying for it myself. I've been searching the net and found a few that seem fantastic but have no way of knowing which is a bad idea or which is good - if any. They all seem to have great uptime figures and boast good support.

1)
I think the website will be between 100MB and 500Mb in size. There will be some pictures and some movies but I was thinking it might be a good idea to have any movies put on youtube rather than actually on the website?

2)
I was also thinking about having the same sort of website targeted at specific countries - like having a .com, .co.uk, .fr, .de, .fi, .au, .nz -about 5 or 10. Then I had an idea of just buying one .com/ .net and then just adding sub domains like uk.mydomain.com, au.mydomain.com to save money - is this the right way to go?

3)
Bandwidth-wise I think I will need between 2 and 5GB a month. One question with this is, if I get it wrong and need to request for more - would I be penalised/stung, or are bandwitch upgrades during contract reasonably priced normally?

4)
Something I've picked up from here before posting - buying from amercian hosting services could be favourable with that market and paying dollar rates. Is this correct?

5)
The last thing I wanted to enquire about is the possibility of having a blog or forum side of the site. I am not technical and the way I read some of the hosting websites is like its very easy to set up with them - they do it for you or there is some buttons you can access in your control pannel that will set it up.
a)
Can I really have a small forum set up without any prior knowledge?

b)
The other thing I am worries about after searching, is security and forums. If I have a forum set up - does this mean someone can interfere with the forum or hack my website?

C)
Are there any recommended ones for novices that are secure/less targeted by hackers?

6)
A friend of mine has offered to improve my website with the use of a database and is willing to do this free so he can learn too. I guess I need to look out for deal that support the database formats. I dont know which database I will need so do I choose one that gives me the option should I need it for all database types?

7)
Lastly, these are the sites I have seen on the internet which I found after searching. They then lead me to here after trying to find more help information. Any comments about the products on sale here - or companies to avoid? Apreciate anyone taking the time looking - if you are a host provider I promise to take your comments at face value!
https://www.one.com/en_GB/
http://www.bluehost.com/index.html
http://www.tsohost.co.uk/linuxhosting.php
http://www.hostmonster.com/
http://www.hostican.com/hosting/index.php
http://no-wires.co.uk/uk_shared_web_hosting.php
http://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml

All contributions welcome. I will try t provide more information if where requested if I can.

othellotech · 24th May 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

There will be some pictures and some movies but I was thinking it might be a good idea to have any movies put on youtube rather than actually on the website?

Depends on which fits your business model - on your site they're under your control but come out of your bandwidth, on yt it might get more exposure/be randomly foud, but some ISPs and many corporates block access to yt ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

I was also thinking about having the same sort of website targeted at specific countries - like having a .com, .co.uk, .fr, .de, .fi, .au, .nz -about 5 or 10. Then I had an idea of just buying one .com/ .net and then just adding sub domains like uk.mydomain.com, au.mydomain.com to save money - is this the right way to go?

If you want to appear in google.de you need to be hosted on a .de domain or on a German host.
SE's tend to prefer www.domain to something.domain, and users will largely try www. first (and browsers often default to it).
Mapping the subdomain uk.domain to domain/uk is generally better, having the domain point to that better still
Owning the domains will also act as brand protection etc. For some you need to be resident in the appropraite country to obtain the domain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

Bandwidth-wise I think I will need between 2 and 5GB a month. One question with this is, if I get it wrong and need to request for more - would I be penalised/stung, or are bandwitch upgrades during contract reasonably priced normally?

Any decent host would be happy to upgrade you and should warn you in advance of you approaching your limits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

Something I've picked up from here before posting - buying from amercian hosting services could be favourable with that market and paying dollar rates. Is this correct?

Its a big debate

IME US hosts tend to be massive oversellers throughout all levels transit/datacentre/server/pacakage , and the performance partiularly to Europe and Far East site viewers suffers accordingly - are you looking for reliability and performance or cheap ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

The last thing I wanted to enquire about is the possibility of having a blog or forum side of the site. I am not technical and the way I read some of the hosting websites is like its very easy to set up with them - they do it for you or there is some buttons you can access in your control pannel that will set it up.

Installation of scripts like forums, blogs etc for most of us that supply hosting is a simple 2/3 click process now...

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

The other thing I am worries about after searching, is security and forums. If I have a forum set up - does this mean someone can interfere with the forum or hack my website?

If you dont lock down the functions, set string passwords and keep the software upto date then yes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

Are there any recommended ones for novices that are secure/less targeted by hackers?

l33t H4)(0rZ target the application more frequently than the service provider but scanning for known exploitable applications.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

A friend of mine has offered to improve my website with the use of a database

I'd suggest *you* decide what you need for your website, magically adding a adatabse is not going to "improve" anything ...

LeaUK · 24th May 2008

Freshmeat

I have been on this forum for 1.5 years now and would recommend any host here. As to which, well make a post in the 'requests' section and I'm sure you will receive some offers.

Lea

CrystalVPS · 24th May 2008

Hi,

Web hosts are usually flexible, we, for instance, provide something called fantastico which allows you to install forums, blogs, etc very easily without any knowledge of how they work. These are secure, so long as you keep them up to date (again via the easy to use interface) and you use good, strong passwords.

That said, most hosts will be willing to help you with some more of the advanced stuff, so long as you don't take advantage and expect them to do everything.

It's not worth playing the currency markets to get your hosting a bit cheaper. If you're from the UK, I'd recommend UK web hosting. FTP will be more responsive, the site will load quicker, and you're dealing with support in your time zone, as opposed to the however many hours difference we're looking at with American hosting.

If it's only a small hobby website, and you're doing it for fun, then search engine rankings will probably not bring you nearly as much traffic as interacting with others in the same hobby. I think stuff like web rings, link exchanges, etc work really well for smaller hobby sites (or did last time I used them, but that was 3-4 years ago). Targeting specific sub domains for specific countries I feel has no real advantage, and just makes the site harder to maintain.

I'd use something like the brilliant http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player FLV Player, and some software to convert the videos to flv, than use youtube. I feel it just looks nicer, and if you choose a decent host, the videos will download faster than they would off of youtube.

If you look at Linux hosting, you'll get MySQL support, usually, for free - this is a good database package and most web applications are driven by it (well, most open source web applications that require a database).

I think a good UK host will do what you need and will be willing to help you as you grow and if you need any help, after all we've all been in the position of looking at web hosting for the first time and have probably been overwhelmed by the number of hosts out there, and all the various brand names, acronyms and similar.

LeaUK · 24th May 2008

I've just realised, I've been here for nearly two years... blimey, time flys....

freshmeat · 24th May 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeaUK2

Freshmeat

I have been on this forum for 1.5 years now and would recommend any host here. As to which, well make a post in the 'requests' section and I'm sure you will receive some offers.

Lea

Thanks for the hearty recomendation of the hosters here. Once i think I know what my requirement are and look at the host providers here I just go for the cheapest that meets those requirements?

freshmeat · 24th May 2008

Othellotech, Thanks for replying.

Regarding movies on site and bandwidth or youtube, it sounds like good advice. I guess I could always start with video on site and then review as I go along.

Re the domains. I had difficulty with understanding

Quote:

Originally Posted by othellotech

Mapping the subdomain uk.domain to domain/uk is generally better, having the domain point to that better still

I'm probably being really thick,

but I would appreciate if this could be explained (or by anyone who is willing).

Looking at domain registering and prices I noted today the added cost of registering many country specific domains (and some are relatively expensive too). Perhaps I will stick to the brand protection note suggested but stick to .co.uk, com, net, org something like that but not go mad with going country specific.

Regarding the search for reliability, performance or cheap. Food for thought - thanks very much. I guess it depends partly on what level of performance at the given low price. Reviews would help I'm sure but I would appreciate some links and suggestions for the best places on the net that review hosts. For me reliable would be important too but I'm not running a a critical business. The uptime figures seem to be good - and some are guaranteed (in the form of money back). But again I guess it pays to check or look are reviews (online resources I have found hard to find so far).

About the database, agreed and understood. Because of the way I wanted the information and options on the website to work as a way of improving it, it was suggested to me that it would need a database. I need to go back to my brother in law (he is a web designer) to find out what sort of database support I would need to look out for from the hosting service.

EDIT: crystalvps, I cant seem to post a 3rd time (perhaps in too quick succession) but can edit this one. Wanted to also say thanks for your tips and advice which is appreciated.

freshmeat · 24th May 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by CrystalVPS

Hi,

Web hosts are usually flexible, we, for instance, provide something called fantastico which allows you to install forums, blogs, etc very easily without any knowledge of how they work. These are secure, so long as you keep them up to date (again via the easy to use interface) and you use good, strong passwords.

That said, most hosts will be willing to help you with some more of the advanced stuff, so long as you don't take advantage and expect them to do everything.

It's not worth playing the currency markets to get your hosting a bit cheaper. If you're from the UK, I'd recommend UK web hosting. FTP will be more responsive, the site will load quicker, and you're dealing with support in your time zone, as opposed to the however many hours difference we're looking at with American hosting.

If it's only a small hobby website, and you're doing it for fun, then search engine rankings will probably not bring you nearly as much traffic as interacting with others in the same hobby. I think stuff like web rings, link exchanges, etc work really well for smaller hobby sites (or did last time I used them, but that was 3-4 years ago). Targeting specific sub domains for specific countries I feel has no real advantage, and just makes the site harder to maintain.

I'd use something like the brilliant http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player FLV Player, and some software to convert the videos to flv, than use youtube. I feel it just looks nicer, and if you choose a decent host, the videos will download faster than they would off of youtube.

If you look at Linux hosting, you'll get MySQL support, usually, for free - this is a good database package and most web applications are driven by it (well, most open source web applications that require a database).

I think a good UK host will do what you need and will be willing to help you as you grow and if you need any help, after all we've all been in the position of looking at web hosting for the first time and have probably been overwhelmed by the number of hosts out there, and all the various brand names, acronyms and similar.

The advice and tips are much appreciated.

[inx]Olly · 24th May 2008

I would thoroughly recommend it'll save you lots less bother to stick with a .com and concentrate all your efforts on ONE site.

You won't appear in country specific searches (where they for example say .de only), but you'll still be the default search option.

Stick with the .com

burble · 24th May 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

Thanks for the hearty recomendation of the hosters here. Once i think I know what my requirement are and look at the host providers here I just go for the cheapest that meets those requirements?

I'd personally be cautious of really cheap deals, as they're often resellers who are overselling their services. In hosting, you definitely get what you pay for; if it looks too good to be true, it usually is.

Like Lea said though, most of the hosts who are regulars here are excellent. I'd suggest looking at their sites to get a feel for the company, maybe even check their profiles and post histories here to get a feel for the people behind it. Then once you've whittled it down to two or three, you can come back and ask if anyone has experience of them.

Interestingly there's a thread on slashdot today that sums up the problem:

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/24/0341245

Lots of people get into hosting because they think it's an easy way to make money - only they have no idea what's involved, no plan for how to manage it past the end of the month or offer any real kind of customer support, and no plan for what to do when they get bored. Those are the kind of "companies" you want to avoid, but thankfully not too many of them show up on here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeaUK2

I've just realised, I've been here for nearly two years... blimey, time flys....

Same here, 1 year 11 months and 5 days! Depressingly, the only thing changed with my todo list is that it's longer

amdcomms · 26th May 2008

Please let us know how you get on with finding your new host.

M8INTERNET · 26th May 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by freshmeat

2)
I was also thinking about having the same sort of website targeted at specific countries - like having a .com, .co.uk, .fr, .de, .fi, .au, .nz -about 5 or 10. Then I had an idea of just buying one .com/ .net and then just adding sub domains like uk.mydomain.com, au.mydomain.com to save money - is this the right way to go?

As has been mentioned above, the cheaper option is to have one Domain Name and to then have sub-folders for each countries content

Having a .co.uk will be more reflective of your website being a UK operation
It is also slightly cheaper as you pay about £4.00 per year, paid every second year
However, this may be restrictive and not look right when you apply the country specific sub-folders
If you have a global Domain Name, like a .com or .net, then the country specific sub-folders will look much better, although the Domain Name will cost you about double, if paid for via GBP

I have a small number of Chinese customers that use .com
They then either :
set the language by browser detection and redirect to the appropriate sub-folder, such as .com/sc .com/en .com/fr .com/de
or
takes the customer to an opening page and sets a language cookie
The customer then decides the language from a dropdown menu or map, and again are sent to the appropriate sub-folder

freshmeat · 26th May 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by amdcomms

Please let us know how you get on with finding your new host.

Hi. I will do. I am still looking, when I get time that is! I thought someone had bought a .org.uk of my domain name yesterday and it concerned me a little. So you know what I did - I bought up the domain name for .com, .net, .org and .info - already had the .co.uk. Turns out that the .org.uk wasn't taken though as I found this morning. I feel a bit silly really because I felt a bit para - but in the end I'm glad I bougtht these domains.

The .net, org and .info are where bought with one company, the .com with another and existing .co.uk is with a different company also. They are not all with the same domain company because certain ones were cheaper than others. I know I can do web forwarding on all of them to my existing .co.uk but I have some questions...

1) I found the provider/company for the .com doesnt have an option to protect/hide my private details on who is. Now I feel the foolishness with the rashness of yesterday. I asked them about it through teir help line and they said they can not provide the facility, they are currently taking this option away. Could find this in their termsand conditions though. Do I have some sort of right to be able to hide my details and ask the company i registered the domain to do it or can I go to whois or whoever hold the database directly to hide this information?

The .net, .org and .info gave me the option on ordering to hide the provate telephone and address info which was good. My existing .co.uk already has my private details hidden.

My other question is can I move all the domain names over to my new host when I've chosen the host? What sort of charges am I likely to incure for each move and how long does it usually take?

JamieBeeston · 26th May 2008

The issue you have now is you can't transfer you domains away either (domains can not be transferred in the first 60 days)

Alot of Registrars offer WHOIS Privacy (some even for free!

)

If the domain is for business anyway, then really you should have your details present anyway.

GL

J

freshmeat · 26th May 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamieBeeston

The issue you have now is you can't transfer you domains away either (domains can not be transferred in the first 60 days)

Alot of Registrars offer WHOIS Privacy (some even for free!

)

If the domain is for business anyway, then really you should have your details present anyway.

GL

J

Oh, is that right. Looks like my .com will have to stay 'as is' then with the web forwarding to the .co.uk - at least for 60 days. Its not a business, so I dont feel a strong need to keep our private details published.