The Good, the Bad and the Lack of Unicorns

Web Hosting – the Good, the Bad and the Lack of Unicorns

Web hosting

– what is it and how do I get it? These are common questions I get everyday and I try to remind myself of the day I first wondered about it myself. With this post I will help remove the mystery and explain some the marketing terms you will see being touted by many web hosting companies out there. I do not intend to bash anyone in the process, yet….

When you finally decide you need a web site for business or personal reasons you will need 3 things:

A Domain Name

Your domain name is a unique address very much like your house address. There can be only one and thank God or otherwise mail delivery people would have a tough time knowing where to drop your letters and packages! You will need to register your domain name with a registrar. I highly recommend GoDaddy or, if this is your first site and new domain, then this process and cost is included with my shared hosting packages when you pay for a year and it is the registrar I use. This registration is necessary so that when a person types http://www.insertCo0lDomainNameHere.com the web knows where to find the server where the site files are stored for public/private viewing. Which brings us to…

Web Hosting

Your web site is a set of documents, pictures (jpg’s, gif’s, bmp’s, png’s) and maybe some video or animation. These files are stored on a server which is just a computer, not unlike your own, that is customized to serve web pages, email ,etc. I hear the next question already; “Why can’t I just use my computer then?” The short answer is you could! However, in order to do that you need to install the right server software, pay for a new ISP account that allows your computer to act as a web server and open Port 80. This is expensive and really not necessary, not to mention you’ve just opened your personal computer to the public. It’s a jungle out there. Now for the third part…

A Web Site

The pages that govern your web site can be written in a variety of languages. Some of them are HTML, PHP and ASP. Then there are additional languages used to control the layout or provide additional features that may not exist in the other languages. Two of those are CSS and Javascript. Also, you may want audio, video or animation of some sort so we might use Flash. All of this is stored on the hard drive of the server provided by the hosting company you choose which brings us to the reason I felt compelled to write this…

Webmasters and Web Developers

The realm we called the internet can be easily compared to the Wild West of early America. There are a lot of black hats and also the I think I cans. The black hats are the ones that intend to rip you off. They gladly promise you the world and take your money and *POOF* they and your money are gone.
The I think I cans are the ones who think they can put web pages together, no problem! Maybe they saw the HTML code for a web page and thought to themselves “Hey! I can do this!” and then set out to find a client. They usually start on your site and then mysteriously disappear. I think this happens because they soon learn that this isn’t something that you can learn overnight and are in over their heads.

What can you do?

Shopping for a new website may seem daunting. It doesn’t have to be. My recommendations are to shop around; get estimates. Ask people you know who they used and how they feel it went. If they have a website and a portfolio then contact the companies directly and ask them if they are happy with the developer/webmaster. Make sure you get the contact info from the companies official website and/or 411. I would not recommend trusting the contact info supplied by the developer as this could easily be set up with a friend! Search for reviews; although you should remember to take anything you read with a bit of salt. We all know that sometimes people can write a bad review simply because they don’t understand the product they are reviewing. Sometimes reviews are written by people that are paid to write reviews; good and bad, and because of this uncertainty I added this step as a last option.
When getting estimates look at them with the knowledge that you get what you pay for. The cheap estimates are usually given by overseas outfits or from the I think I cans.
The overseas folks have a few glaring issues like:

• being overseas and in a time-zone that makes it difficult to communicate in real-time
• English as their 2nd language – this causes miscommunication
• Different country – How would you sue them? How would you start any legal action against them?

- Marc Hall
HallMarc Websites