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Questions to ask hosts?
| Posted by dakotamiva, 03-21-2006, 12:38 AM |
| Hello all.
I find myself looking into a new web host, after my current web host, HelloHost, seems like it has gone under.
I was wondering to those who run web hosts that offer reseller packages, or for those who currently has reseller accounts with a web host, what questions are good to ask a web host? Also, what signs one must look for in a web host, not only looking at their web site, but in the web host's reply.
Thanks for your help.
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| Posted by FH-Donald, 03-21-2006, 12:58 AM |
| the main thing i used to do when i was a reseller would be to submit a trouble ticket and see if the response times were good.
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| Posted by Yash-JH, 03-21-2006, 01:18 AM |
| I'd first ensure the host meets your requirements by emailing their sales department and getting a feel of their responses.. If they have a phone number and you can talk to a sales rep, that is a good sign... If they offer 24x7 chat support, try contacting them at random times to check if someone responds.. I'd then go through their site, read about the company, the people involved, their profiles, etc. If the host has an active, open customer forum, that would be a strong positive sign to me.
After that, I'd do a background check of the host and their owners via google and through this forum. Dig up at least 1 year of their history and customer comments... If I find a disturbing trend of bad reviews or little/no reviews about the company, I wouldn't go for them...
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| Posted by cartika-andrew, 03-21-2006, 02:32 AM |
| Hi Raderick,
All of Yash's suggestions above are good ones. I dont think every company has personelle profiles, etc listed - maybe its a good thing, maybe its not - really up to you to decide.
However, a good, significant history - is a definite must -
Key questions to ask - how long have you been in business? What sort of redundancy do you have in place? What is your backup policy? What are your hours of operation? (both phone and helpdesk - remember, some hosts dont offer 24 hour phone support, some do - its really up to you to determine how important that is), etc...
Hope this helps...
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| Posted by Energizer Bunny, 03-21-2006, 02:38 AM |
| Well reviews do help, but if company is new than support team response matters. Uptime and public uptime feature also matters, most hosts i seen have only SLA uptime guarantees and have no public reports to show their actual uptime. So asking about a public uptime link would be good idea if you dont see it on site.
If i remember correctly hellohost started having problems like 5 months back cause i remember my first client said that his host (i think it was hellohost could be my mistake here) were having issues, so i think it has finally dissappeared. So how long had you being with them and what are the things that you didnt like (i ask this cause you can just ask your new potential host about the same things that you didnt like or had issues with on your old host).
Also ask for why are your plans so low in price if you stumble upon some host offering too much for way too low a price.
Please dont ask host do you compete for costs. I had one client asking for the same and i said no we do not compete for costs. Cause every host has different levels of services and quality they provide and if you start competing you are bound to get lesser level of support and services than you should have otherwise.
cheers and good luck in your search (its really hard job ).
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| Posted by boombaraj, 03-21-2006, 03:05 AM |
| Though many of them here has put up some nice and common queries... I would like to add some more about asking..
Where is your support located..
Upgrade/Downgrade procedures..
You can prepare a list and have them posted here
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| Posted by cartika-andrew, 03-21-2006, 03:15 AM |
| This may matter to some, but not all - good question though
Have you had issues with this in the past? I know this isnt automated with every solution, but, does it actually get to a point where it causes problems/concerns?
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| Posted by boombaraj, 03-21-2006, 03:28 AM |
| Yeah... it hardly matters if the support response is good but atleast you would expect a truthful reply from the reseller provider about there support location...
The reason I mentioned about Upgrades/Downgrades procedures because the resellers should know and understand from the start about the procedures....as in later case... there might occur any sort of problem...
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| Posted by dakotamiva, 03-21-2006, 03:47 AM |
| I was with HelloHost for over two years, and I had very little problems about them. I found the support very kind, fast, and responsive with what I needed to fix the problems. I did run into a few of things with them.
First there was a copyright issue regarding a vBulletin forum that I had up. I had purchased it from a 3rd party. A security company e-mailed Richard and he had to shut down the account for a day, while I had to get things straight with the security company. Keep in mind that the result was that I was at 0% fault and my account was restored within a day (I have documents with the company, if anyone needs them in case). I made the mistake of buying it from a 3rd party instead of buying it straight from vB. The serial number was discontinued, and the guy that I bought the serial from is in pretty big trouble.
Second, I was on the Pius server that went kaput for several weeks. I was extremely pissed off over the situation, as I had lost all of my data. I had to kick myself in the head, because I didn't have any back-ups. I didn't and don't plan on selling web space anytime soon, so all I really lost was my own data (I just used it to host my web sites and then a couple of friend's sites).
Third, me, along with several of my users, kept on getting 500 errors, out of nowhere, when they attempted to visit on the pointatrad.com, or wcblbaseball.net. I talked to Tommy on several occasions on the situation, but we couldn't find a solution. I sent a 2nd ticket to Tommy, which didn't get answered. Then last night, for some reason, when I attempted to open a folder in the FTP server, it would disconnect me from the FTP account. I sent a support ticket to them, and never got a reply back. I got curious onto why my tickets were not responding. I did a search here, found out that Tommy was in the hospital and the company was on very shaky grounds, and, well, here I am right now.
Last edited by dakotamiva; 03-21-2006 at 03:52 AM.
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| Posted by Energizer Bunny, 03-21-2006, 03:56 AM |
| Ah i wonder how you manged to do the kicking part .
And again aah sad that tommy in hospital cause i seen another company go down due to health related problems, you cannot really blame tommy for this at all. If i could i would have helped him in anyway possible at this time.
Well accidents do happen in life and one has to live with them.
And oh yaa i forgot to mention that one question you can also ask is " If you dont see the plan/specs you want you should ask if they offer custom plans(well most hosts post this on their sites though)."
again good luck in your adventure and hoping you ask the right questions and get a good deal in the end.
Cheers
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| Posted by ldcdc, 03-21-2006, 01:04 PM |
| Some say that among the most important things in a business such as hosting, where service must be provided in a continuous way, is to have a true solution for the time when the owner won't be able to perform his/her duties.
Accidents should at least serve as a warning to others, and hopefully they will.
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| Posted by IHSL, 03-21-2006, 01:19 PM |
| I am not sure how that would help. If you are not yet a customer of a provider but still send them a trouble ticket, you're likely to be ignored, and rightly so.
Sales question response is likely to be much slower than technical support requests, such is the nature of the 24/7 industry, tech. support wise.
Good questions, in my opinion, would be:
1) What is your company's biggest weakness?
Every company has one.
2) In the next two to three years, what changes do you see your company going through?
Most companies have a business plan that they will stick to religiously. Many companies will now be planning for things they are doing next year, the year after, etc. Find out what those plans are, and see if they fit in to your specific needs. It may also be advantageous for you to ask about growth limitations.
3) In the inevitable event of downtime, what are the steps you take to keep customers informed?
Simon
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| Posted by jpetersen, 03-21-2006, 03:27 PM |
| Here's a few things amongst other things that have already been covered above:
1. Do you charge for per x amount of domains?
2. To expand on the backup question -
- How often are backups made?
- Are they stored on the same server as the content being backed up, or on a separate backup server?
- Do you charge to restore backups?
3. What type of hardware is used for the servers? (CPU and RAM will differ from host to host, and hardware can make a big difference in how well things are run).
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| Posted by RackFleet, 03-21-2006, 04:10 PM |
| Simon,
I must agree that these are some of the best questions to ask a host.
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| Posted by Swelly, 03-21-2006, 10:28 PM |
| Mainly you want to find out about bandwidth, any cost for overage? Another point would be resource usage, what do they charge for excessive resource usage, if any. Backups, do they provide free backup solutions, if not what is the cost. What kind of security protection is currently implemented. What are the server specs your specific account will reside on. What connection. What guarantees, is an SLA in place? Basic questions you might want to ask
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| Posted by pilsentico, 03-21-2006, 10:29 PM |
| Ask for Curl enable if you are going to use any account creation program. I'm having problems whit this.
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| Posted by Energizer Bunny, 03-21-2006, 10:36 PM |
| Instead ask for phpinfo file link and rest you can look at yourself.
And RackFleet its not a job interview that someone will tell their weeknesses.
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| Posted by pilsentico, 03-21-2006, 11:19 PM |
| that's even better paidhosting
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| Posted by dakotamiva, 03-21-2006, 11:20 PM |
| Thank you all for your help. I think I have found a very solid web host.
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