faq's

Web Hosting Exposed

As of late, the hosting business has gotten to be quite interesting. It resembles the chaos of the commodity traders. Bandwidth costs are coming down and everyone seems to be getting into the fray. Unfortunately for people seeking host providers, what you are confronted with is a mind-numbing array of offers (and spam); many totally unqualified providers with terrible service;, and prices so low they are "too good to be true."

Don't fall for the come-ons. Here are the facts:

Web Hosting prices run anywhere from Free to $5,000 a month. Free hosts make you run THEIR banners on YOUR site. The banners in many cases slow your site down to a crawl. Free hosts are fine for a personal web site but they are definitely NOT acceptable for business sites.

The next step up (if you can call it that) are the Cheap Hosts. Cheap hosts typically charge less than $10 per month. Because of the low price they charge, many use inexpensive third party frame relay Internet connections.

They have been known to pack literally thousands of sites on a single computer. Be sure to ask where this computer resides. Some literally run out of a closet or back bedroom. Usually, there is little or no technical support (because the person has a full-time job). The price may be appealing but this is also NOT acceptable for a business site.

Now the final step up to the Business Hosts. Quality business hosting usually starts around the $25 mark and goes up … way up! The starting point of $25 in most cases gets you virtual hosting (hopefully on decent equipment).

There are usually size and space limitations. The fee may or may not include backups or Web site traffic reports (check with the provider). Basically, as your site grows, so does the fee. For contrast, the high-end mission critical business hosting (with security guards, steel cages around the servers, and retina scanners) run $5,000 a month (you have to supply your own equipment). Who uses them? Companies like CitiBank and other mission critical operations.

There you have it, from low to high, the full spectrum of hosting providers.

If you would like to get a quote for hosting at DWS please call 604 945-9211 or Email us at info@DWS

Let us know you were reading Web Hosts Exposed and you would like a free quote for your business. All we need is your web address and the approximate size of your web site.