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You're part of a small-to-medium enterprise (SME). Your business isn't ecommerce,
and you really don't care if you become the amazon.com of your industry, with
a super-site that places your entire operation online. You do, however, need a
reliable Web site to publish company information, maintain contact with customers,
and keep up with the Jones Inc. The question is, where to host it? Word
of mouth and advertising both tend to fail in answering this. Friends and colleagues
probably haven't tried that many hosting providers, so it's easy to be recommended
a mediocre package. Advertising doesn't help much either, because it often doesn't
provide more than a haze of technical specifications. For the majority
of businesses needing a solid but modest Web presence, any number of Web hosting
companies will do. The basics of Web hosting are the same anywhere. What really
matters is the subjective experience of signing up, setting up and dealing with
customer service. After all, one day your requirements may not be so modest, and
it's good to know that the company handling your account is trustworthy and responsive.
APC's mission was to acquire and test a selection of accounts aimed at
SMEs -- and some of the keener power users -- costing less than $100 per month.
We tested seven of Australia's top-rated Web hosting providers. These were real
tests. We signed on and paid up just like regular customers -- the hosts had no
idea that we represented APC magazine. In this $100 price range, what's
on offer is shared space on a server. The majority of Web sites on the Internet
are hosted on such "virtual servers", where many different sites sit on the same
box and share resources. Various service levels provide for a given amount
of disk space and monthly data transfer. If your Web site outgrows these limits,
you just upgrade to a higher storage and traffic allocation. In cases where your
site outgrows the shared server model, hosting companies usually recommend buying
your own server machine and co-locating it at their facility. The
contenders We signed up with Telstra, WebCentral, OzHosting, Host1, Info-Tech,
WPS and OzNet One. It took about a week to get all the accounts up and running,
and tests ranged from the initial sign up experience through to encounters with
customer service representatives. What we tested A
number of highly recommended services didn't make the cut, either because they
don't offer short-term payment options (such as Ilysys and Secure E Host), or
they didn't offer online sign up (among them are Worldcom/UUNet, Singtel and DataOne
Asia). In general, all hosting experiences have a similar thread running
through them. There's a sign up process that can be completed online. It's here
that aspects such as customer details, domain name and billing options are specified.
In some cases, setup is instant, but more commonly a set up period of around 24
hours is required before the account becomes accessible. Once an account
is setup, configuration changes can be made via the online "control panel". At
a minimum, the control panel allows for setting up email boxes and changing service
level. Some of the better ones however, offer Web-based file management, Web mail,
traffic statistics and detailed account control. Lastly, there's the all-important
support component. All hosting packages come with email-based support, and most
provide telephone support as well. To test the email response capabilities
of each company, a very simple message entitled "Perl question" was sent to all
of them at the same time. A basic question was chosen, one that could be answered
immediately without being specific to either Windows or Linux. The message read
as follows: "I was wondering if you could tell me which version of Perl is available
on my Web hosting account, and also if there is a special directory I need to
place the scripts in for them to work." For the services that offered phone
support, calls were made at various times to measure wait times and the overall
quality of service on offer. Of course, one of the biggest considerations with
any hosting solution is speed and capacity. We ran ping time and download tests
for each account, and the results were roughly equal, with Telstra, OzHosting
and WebCentral edging out the competition. Read the
fine print and avoid Web hosting hassles Hidden Costs Despite
offering a monthly payment option, according to the Terms and Conditions, a two-month
up-front payment is required for OzHosting plus an additional 7.5% each month
on top of the advertised price. WebCentral also charges an additional $3.50 per
month for monthly invoices rather than paying by auto-debit. Transfer
rates Most mid-range hosting accounts include 500MB to 1GB of data transfer
each month. WebCentral and OzHosting impose a flat 13.2 cent levy on additional
megabytes, whereas Telstra differentiates between uploads (20.9 cents per megabyte)
and downloads (8.8 cents per megabyte). If your Web site is suddenly deluged with
traffic, these charges can quickly add up. It's a good idea to make sure the host
provides decent statistics so you can monitor usage over time and upgrade when
necessary. Account cancellation conditions It's time to switch
providers or close down your Web site, but can it be done instantly? In most cases
the answer is yes, but sometimes an obscure 30-day written notice clause, buried
in the Terms and Conditions, can come back to haunt you. WebCentral and
Host1 both required 30 days written notice, citing security concerns. The remaining
providers all fulfilled account closure requests immediately, give or take a day.
Special promises Info-Tech and OzNet One both offered "unlimited"
data transfer, but in the fine print it turned out this was entirely dependent
on the kind of content being published. You'd think data is data, but apparently
not, since sites containing the following are excepted: - Containing
archives or galleries or offering files for download where the file types involved
make up more than 20% of the site's total traffic
- Which contain images,
CGI programs or similar content which are accessed from other sites
- Where
more than one domain name points to your home page
- Using more than 5%
of system resources
- Generating an unusually high amount of traffic from
images or other binary files
Then there was Host1's promise of 99.9%
uptime with a money-back guarantee; this is limited to their Linux installations.
Removal and termination In OzNet One and Info-Tech's case,
they're mostly concerned about shutting off accounts that prove too popular and
start making good on the promise of unlimited traffic. Telstra reserves the right
to cancel service if you discuss anyone's business except your own, breach a copyright
or even publish something that "a reasonable person may find offensive". Always
check the circumstances under which the host can terminate your service or remove
content. Web hosts versus ISP's Technically, Web hosting is
an "Internet service", so the line between an ISP and a Web host is a blurry one.
It's a matter of focus: do you want a company that specifically deals with hosting
sites, or one that shares its energies between hosting and providing dialup access? Often
ISPs will offer hosting to round out their roster of services and earn additional
revenue, even though it isn't their main area of expertise. With smaller ISP/hosts,
connectivity is shared between the incoming download traffic and the outgoing
hosting traffic, which (depending on the size of the link) can result in slowdowns
during peak times. Security can also be an issue. In the past, small businesses
have been hit with huge bills after a denial of service attack on their site.
The ISP hosting the site has charged for upstream traffic. This is frustrating
when it is a simple matter to cut off the flooding. Another security concern arises
in the event of a targeted hacking attempt. When you pay for an entry-level Web
hosting service, your Web site is likely to reside on the same server as other
businesses. If one of those sites somehow becomes the target of a successful hacking
attempt, your site will also be compromised. It's worth asking how quickly your
site can be taken offline during an emergency or what contingency measures are
in place to limit financial damage to your business. If you're serious
about having a Web presence, at the very least make sure that the ISP and hosting
operations of your chosen company are maintained separately, with unique customer
service numbers. When things go wrong, you'll be glad you chose the professionals.
How web hosts rate Although the general ingredients are the
same across all companies, the actual implementation and mix of features ranged
rather wildly. It's extremely difficult to tell from outward appearances exactly
what you're getting, and who's providing it. At least three of the companies in
our tests (WPS, Info-Tech and OzNet One) turned out to be resellers of services.
Info-Tech and OzNet One were even resellers for the same company. Technically
there's nothing wrong with reselling, but it is frustrating to pay money to a
"hosting company" only to discover that very little of the service is actually
provided by that company. So, paying a little extra to go with a reputable
top-shelf provider is best? Although WebCentral was almost flawless in every test,
Telstra -- the most expensive package -- was hardly a star performer. After
tallying the scores across sign-up, control panel and support, WebCentral emerged
as the clear favourite. Telstra came a distant second, but only because of OzHosting's
unfortunate sign-up process. Predictably, the cheaper offerings tended to fare
worse in the control panel and support areas, but they often had strong sign-up
experiences. WebCentral: 13/15
Telstra Hosting: 9.15
OzHosting:
8.5/15
Host 1: 8.5/15
OzNet One: 8/15
Info-Tech: 8/15
WPS: 6/15 The
winner: Web Central Good Its instant-on approach to account set-up
and no up-front billing was a real joy, and Mission Control was by far the most
attractive and functional control panel. Also, WebCentral included 20 POP email
accounts as part of the package. Bad The service is Windows-only
and fairly heavily Microsoft biased (FrontPage support is built right in) so if
you want Linux or UNIX you'll have to try another provider. WebCentral also offers
fewer free hosting features in the tested price range than many of its smaller
competitors. The lemon: WPS Good Cheap, no set-up fees
and plenty of features. Bad Weren't the direct provider of services,
scant control panel, patchy responses to support emails. Author:
David Emberton
Reproduced from APC Mag (http://www.apcmag.com)
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