Things To Look For In a Web Hosting Company?

v1x writes "I have had an account with my current web hosting company for a few years, with 3 domains being hosted there (using Linux/PHP/MySQL). Recently, all three of these websites stopped functioning, and upon checking the site, all my directory structures were intact, whereas all of the files were gone. Upon contacting their technical support, I was given the run-around, and later informed by one of their administrators that none of the files could be restored. Needless to say that I am looking for a different web hosting company at this point, but I would like to make a more informed choice than I did with the current company. I have read a similar Slashdot article (from 2005) on the topic, but the questions posed there were slightly different." Reader mrstrano has a similar question: "I am developing a web application and, after registering the domain, I am now looking for a suitable web hosting provider. It should be cheap enough so I can start small, but should allow me to scale up if the web site is successful (as I hope). The idea is simple enough so I do not need other investors to implement it. This also means that I don't have a lot of money to put on it at the moment. Users of the website will post their pictures (no, it's not going to be a porn website), so scalability might be an issue even with a moderately high number of users. I would like to find a good web hosting provider from day one, so I don't have to go through the pain of a data migration. Which web host would you choose?"

Comments

Things I look for

[symbolset]

Do they use Linux only? I only want Linux hosting, and mixed providers are always trying to push you over into Windows hosting because they're being incentivized to do so. I've been around and don't need to hear that pitch again.

Effectively unlimited domains, bandwidth, storage and MySql databases, email accounts, FTP accounts - multiple user accounts I can lock down to one domain or folder for these because I might want to job out management for a domain or subdomain. Because I never know today what I'm going to be using it for, and this is a long term relationship that's challenging to get out of.

Cheap domains - under $15 a year. As many as you want on one hosting account, because I collect them as a hobby.

PHP, Perl and Python of course.

Ease of migration away. I figure if there's a button on their interface to release my domains to another registrar they'll try and keep me with good service rather than difficult migration.

Reasonable policies about certificates and dedicated IP addresses. Because I might want to open a store.

Reasonably easy and flexible setup of web apps, because I might want to run a package. Self-help configuration because I'm always fiddling with things after business hours.

I like BlueHost. No, I don't work for them but they've been making me happy for quite a while.

Re:Things I look for

[samkass]

For $15 a year you're not going to get a world-class hosting service. If you look at the hosting providers that mon.itor.us show above 99% uptime, you tend to see similar names every year. Pair.com is my favorite-- they always have great performance and near-perfect uptime. I've been using them for 12 years or so and I've never seen my site down for one minute. They're not the cheapest, but the poster didn't sound like he was looking for the cheapest-- he wants the ones that's reliable and that he won't have to worry about, ever.

(I don't work for them, just a happy customer.)