Web Hosting - Internet Hosting Advice on Choosing a Reliable Host

Hosts You Should Consider and Why (Yes I use them!)

We run a lot of sites and use different hosts for different purposes. As your business grows you will probably do the same. Here are hosts we actually use for our many online projects.

Host Monster - Don't confuse this with HostGator they are different companies. Host Monster offers you a lot of value for your money.  Based in Utah this is a good place to have a few sites for your MiniNet Strategies.  What I mean is put a few sites here that you "sacrifice" to link out to your other more important sites.  You're sites will be on IP Blocks that are unique from other parts of the country.  Plus it's cheap.

Host Excellence - Dedicated IP Address for each website you host!!! This is an HSphere Host and a good choice if your project requires unique IP addresses.  Use this for smaller sites and for sites which you are building a cross linking strategy. You can get a block of IP's for a much cheaper rate than other Hosts.  IX Hosting below is owned by the same company.

Lunar Pages - A good choice for diversification. You can host several sites on one basic account using their Addon feature. They do accept "Adult" sites as long as your site is in compliance with California Law. So if you want to sell Lingerie, Toys, or Whatever this is a good place to start. If it's legal in the State of California you can host it here.

Host Gator - Offers pretty solid reliability for shared hosting. If you are going to create a lot of sites (5 or more) I'd recommend you look into their Reseller Account. Yes with the standard plan you can have multiple "Add On" domains, but you don't get the same ease of use as with a Reseller Plan. Host Gator offers more disk Space for the money than any other Reseller Hosting plan - a full 24gb compared to other hosts 2-3gb for the same money. Host Gator also accepts Adult sites as long as they comply with Florida and Texas law.  Please read the Terms of Service very carefully

Dotable Professional Webhosting - You can not appreciate the importance of quality, reliable, high speed webhosting until you've experienced the other guys. Downtime promises are bullshit! They don't mean anything. I've been though a dozen hosts with promises they never keep. Dotable offers REAL PROFESSIONAL hosting at affordable prices. Get your own name servers, throw up as many sites as you like, and start making money. Dotable doesn't oversell their servers and their tech support is top notch. Don't believe me... go to their site and read the REAL testimonials form active users.

IX Hosting - This is HSphere hosting; and a good deal for specific types of sites. I am not currently doing much with my sites that take advantage of HSphere, because of the ease of use of Cpanel Hosting for MySQL Sites. For general marketing purposes this can be an excellent deal. Sister company of Host Excellence.

GoDaddy Hosting - cheap, reliable, pretty good support and very convenient.  Certainly not the best choice for a primary host, but if you are looking to put up a few sites fast and diversity your IP Strategy they are worth a look. Once you learn the GoDaddy interface you might like it enough to want to use their Hosting Services as well.  Tech support is fairly responsive and there are good online tutorials. As I do recommend GoDaddy Domain registration (See more below), this can be a great place for the new marketer to put up their first sites.

Don't get too caught up on the price.  Pricing is very competitive.  Pick the Host that offers you the right package for what your business plan really needs.

What Else to Consider When Selecting a Web Host for Your Projects

Selecting a company to host your marketing website is not as easy as it seems. Most beginners look for the "cheapest" price. The old axiom still holds true "You get what you pay for". You don't need to spend a fortune to find quality hosting, but you do need to dig deeper than just price. The cheapest price is not the primary factor you should be using to base your hosting decision. Most quality hosts offer plans in the same price range so don't worry about the price until you find the plans that best fit your needs.

Quality, features, technical support, and reliability are more important than price in choosing your host. And so is your TIME!  Once you commit to a host and upload all your work; it can be a real disaster if you have to move your sites because of hosting problems. So choose wisely. Look for a hosting company that has been in business for a couple of years and has a proven verifiyable track record.

Make sure the Host you choose keeps up to date with technology. You need real up time (not just what the vendor claims - they all claim 99% or better), you'll need a host that keeps the MySQL, PHP, and backend features up to date. Can you install scripts on their servers? Are they using the latest version of CPanel or HSphere? What restrictions are placed on your account access? Can you modify .htaccess files? Much of this may seem foreign to you now but in time it may become extremely important.

Don't Host All Your Sites in the Same Place

Putting your eggs in one basket is a BAD idea. A long time ago the people that made up these sayings must have been really wise!  As you build your network of Internet Marketing sites you need to consider many possibilities. There are many reasons to have IP addresses that are far removed from each other should you decide to link your sites together. To effectively implement this diversification strategy you'll need to register your domains under different names (or Proxy) and addresses to avoid the Search Engines tagging all your sites as being the same owner.

Diversification is always a good strategy as long as the administration does not become overwhelming. Consider Disaster! Yes we had sites hosted in New Orleans.  We have had sites hosted in Canada and there was a blackout in the city. Remember the Hurricanes in Florida?  Yep!  we had sites go down then too.  Diversify!

Don't Use Free Hosts for Anything You Care About

We don't use free hosts - period. Nothing is FREE!  Free hosts are designed to make money for the owner, not you! They are often used by spammers and non marketers. You have zero control over reliability and they use framing techniques to redirect SEO quality to themselves not your site.  There are so many reasons not to use free hosting for anything you care about.  Enough Said.

What About Other Web Hosting Companies?

Over the years we've tried many many hosting services.  Remember your investment in your TIME!  It's a lot of effort to change hosts so choose wisely.  There are 1,000's of hosts.  There are probably 100 great hosts we have never even heard about.  So this list is not the end all of hosting lists, it's just who we use. So do your research and choose what is best for you.

What Pisses Me Off About Web Hosts

First off for any of you who don't know me and are visiting Internet Marketing IQ for the first time - I write from experience. Unlike Al Gore; I didn't invent the Internet. But I go back a hell of a lot further than most of you. Back to the days of "Internet in a Box" and 14.4 Dial up modems. And in that time I've used a lot of different ISP's and a lot of different Web Hosts. And I've experienced a ton of problems with Web Hosts that claim to be good, that are "Positively Reviewed" (Almost always by affiliates looking to make a buck - affiliates that don't even use the hosts they are promoting so aggressively).

• I get pissed off when a Host automatically changes my Password on me then makes me jump through a bunch of hoops to log on. The only reason to automatically change a password is they can't control their own employees.

• I get pissed off when I pay a Host and they charge my credit card weeks before the renewal period is to begin.

• I get pissed off when I log on to one of my Sites and I find out my site is down because the host moved something on the server and completely jacked up my MySQL database files. Then they can't fix their own damn problem.

• I get pissed off when the 99.9% uptime guarantee turns out to be a load of crap and my sites are down when I check on them.

• I get pissed off when a Host oversells the shared server space so my pages load as if they were being looked at from a person on a 28K modem.

• I get pissed off when I read the "$4.95 a month" full featured hosting plan that actually costs $7.95 a month because of the Set Up fees and the unrealistic length of contract you would have to sign to get the low costs.

• I get pissed off when Hosts try to "Trick" me with a low cost ad, then make me fill out a bunch of personal information before they reveal the ACTUAL price. And almost all the Hosts you find advertising are doing this. It's as if they think everyone is a clueless dumbshit. Think about that for a moment. Can you trust a host that tries to trick you right from the start?

These things have all happened to me at different hosts. And thats just a small list. So if you are looking for a glowing review os what host to use I can tell you this: There are no perfect Web Hosting Companies. Fortunately there are a few good ones, but it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

For my really critical sites I own space on a Server that is hosted in a Major West Coast Data Center. The cost of this hosting is significantly higher than all the Hosts you'll see promoted over and over. And no they do not have an affiliate program. This is true Business Class Hosting.

For my other projects I use the Web Hosts I recommend below for the reasons I recommend them.