Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I use Westhost.com.  They are very inexpensive. Over time when they would begin offering new customers additional features to their packages, they have given the same features to the existing customers at no additional charge (disk, Miva Merchant, bandwidth, applications etc) - an honest business.  They have a real human being answering a telephone or chat in addition to email support, and they know their stuff.  They offer more features than I use for the price.  $3.95 a month for basic website, $6.95 for business/e-commerce, and prices/features up from there.  

Although I`m a Westhost evangelist (based on great service) I`m glad to see so much positive feedback about the other hosting companies!  

Gatorhost, Bluehost , and RevolutionHosting are all good services although I haven`t used them.  Once you grow to a midsize business, however, the best option is to upgrade to a professional business-class host such as Rackspace or Akamai or simply buy the hardware and people to host yourself.

Note: I strongly advise against using 1&1.  Anyone who`s seen their flashy advertising should see a big red flag that they`re overcompensating for something.  The setup is too basic and too rigid for the level of customisation required for a business from their tech support to the database control.


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"Forget inspirational quotes to keep you going. If by doing what you do, you get an hour every day to relax, be with the ones you love in comfort without doing wrong, then it is all worth it." -Anon.

I see this question come up all the time and here is my reply;

Let me save you and everyone else the trouble when it comes to webhosting. Webhosting is a commodity and can be bought for the cheap anywhere. When you buy from a webhosting company, you are not buying for price or storage. You buy for service. If and when you have trouble with your account, you want a company who will service you *immediately.* When I say immediately, I don`t mean 24 hour turn around. I mean less than that.

Save yourself the trouble and just sign up for A Small Orange. Here is there pricing sheet. Here is there forum should you have additional questions. I had a huge issue with something occurring on the backend and I put their tech support through the ringer. They practically know me on a first name basis :) 

Alot of the web designers I know go with A Small Orange because of their remarkable customer service. That is an affiliate link that I gave you but I only get a free month of hosting so it`s not some big revenue generator for me. But a free month hosting is better than nothing :)

Most newbies don`t know alot about webhosting and ASO are great at handling your queries.

If you don`t believe me, check out BizRate`s rating of ASO.

Give yourself peace of mind by spending a few more dollars a month on good customer service.

David- Interesting comments about 1&1. I`ve heard of them a few times and heard nothing but good things. But I`ll stick with ASO :)

Hey Neal, didn`t you graduate from Northwood University and love sports? i know you from somewhere? ;)

From another networking site maybe.

You asked for Best and Cheapest ... however, I don`t know whether I understand .... maybe all the advertising on the net gives people the impression that they can have their cake and eat-it too! An important thing to remember is that you can swing into another vendor if  your find that the current agreement doesn`t work. If you are building a site that requires more than the basics, you might want to take sometime to evaluate all vendors from the start. Could be a little tough swinging your Homepage over to another service down the road.

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I am no longer posting on this forum. A fellow citizen here suggested that I should Think before I add commitary to my postings. I thought he was wrong, but I am mistaked(not everyone digs Mr.Wicks) E

I did some further digging on ASO and various design and hosting forums and here are more discussions on ASO. I tried to find some negative comments but couldn`t find anyone to talk negatively about them. If this is for a personal site, I think you`ll be fine with them;

link 1

link 2

link 3



Interestingly, this last thread first started out as an inquiry about Media Temple as I was also curious about their services but it somehow turned into a discussion about ASO

Thanks I think I will try ASO.

No prob. Make sure you put in my company name as the referrer so I earn a free month of hosting. Gotta eat, you know :)