Free or Paid hosting

There free hosting option is available then why we go for paid hosting.

Which hosting will you prefer Free or Paid and Why?

Paid hosting, as is usually more reliable than free hosting.

For the websites that have long-term targets paid hosting is the best option.

I also suggest you paid hosting because the support ,reliabilty and uptime are the important factor which you get under paid hosting.

You get what you pay for so "paid hosting"

Of cource Paid!!!

because Free hosting don't intend for solving serious tasks.

The free hosts put up an advertisement either in the form of text link, banner or pop ups on the websites. Many users find these ads take away from the design of their sites and also these ads sometimes are very annoying to the visitors.

Free hosting can help people test their web sites until they decide to turn their websites into serious businesses, or until they need serious hosting service.

If you go with free, then you might need to exchange a link or a banner, or there are hosting companies that use mod_layout in their apache, and so you will have forced ads put on your website.

There are many other feature too which you are not able to get under free hosting(because of costly software) but get under paid one easily.

talking about my expierence, at begginning free host was good but after 1 week i have to move because server down or another problem.

i say a free host with awesome features without control panel.

Free web host without domain name support and They dont have mysql.

free is good to small sites but is your proyect is important well you have to think twice before put ur site at free host.

The obvious problems with free hosting are the advertisements that are stuck up on your site.

Even if it was ad-free though, free hosts are not as reliable in terms of how long they stick around, or how much control of your own uploaded files you have.

With free hosting, you have the constant worry of the host going offline. I mean what if they run out of money, whereas with a paid host, you feel comfortable that they are funded by you to stay online.

Yep, I have never felt comfortable with free hosting

live chat really help or not?

i was wondering is that live chat really help you get more clients or is that just something live chat providers say to get you to buy from them?

In my experience, live chat support doesnt help a lot, if any. But, having a live sales chat available sometimes, does help. If you do decide to offer a live sales chat, I suggest using one that has the ability to not show the chat icon when you are not online.

i think live chat definitely help. As sometimes when your clients need help urgently, at least support is there to help and it will help you to maintain your customers.

If you have the time and the work force then chats are highly preferred by clients browsing your site. They are far more likely to click the "live chat" link than to go through the effort of opening a sales request and checking their email for responses.

I have been a reseller for a long time and honestly i can say that almost 40% of my customers I got because of live chat.

Live chat doesn't help a lot.

Hosts that i have used have had live chat and i have personally loved it. My problems were fixed in 5-10 mins

Tickets and Chat are both essential for web hosts in specific because of the nature of clients. Live chat can help both in increasing sales and customer retention if done 24/7 and by trained staff.

Yes, it really can help you to get more business. Your clients can directly to ask questions before signup your package, but you have to make sure your live chat is always online, otherwise that's useless.

Live chat works very well for us, our clients like to receive an immediate response to their inquiries.

What do you think about live chat support? Do you prefer your web host to take phone calls or you think that chattting with cutomer support is better

Well both are important as hosting needs to have phone support and live chat.

I prefer using Live Chat Support.

I feel both are very important. While Live Chat is an easy way to assist customers, answering the phone is very important as that will say allot about a company. You may not always have access to a computer when you need to get in touch with your host which is why you should always have the toll-free stored in your cell phone.

Providing both LiveChat & Phone Support is very important. A customer deserves to be able to contact the company as easily as possible in a way that suits them.

Recommendations of chat software would be BoldChat (if on a budget comes equipt with a free version) or LiveChatNow, a more advanced LiveChat solution at a higher price but is very nice to use for a business and clients.

Live Chat is a very good way of helping out your clients, i use it on my site any find it very useful

I've never liked live chat. Usually, the rep (or sometimes two reps) who are working the system are so overburdened with chat windows, that conversing becomes a long, drawn-out process. It's much easier to pickup the phone, ask your question, and be done!

I believe live chat is good for pre-sales support

I find live chat support semi-useless. If it's for a small problem, then I agree, live chat is easy enough if the resolution time is 5 minutes. If it's a major problem, where you need to get other people involved to fix it, reboot the server, etc...then live chat is useless and using a trouble ticket system is the way to go. You can't just waste a tech's time on live chat asking "is it fixed yet?".

Well both are important as hosting needs to have phone support and live chat. Live chat and tickets are good support for webhosting.I prefer both live chat and phone support aswell tickets.

"unlimited" hosting- what do u think ?

Just out of interest does anyone on here buy or sell "unlimited" shared hosting. It is sometimes a scam where companies shut down after a few months or ban users for no reason. Does anyone have any comments on using or selling this supposed "unlimited" hosting?

I dont believe in unlimited anything. They will have some hidden clauses like CPU usage, when you really start to have some good traffic, they will kick you out.

just dont believe in those. just get a host that offers certain amount of space and bandwidth.

Unlimited is not possible in any aspect of life and there is nothing without limits. The term unlimited is only a marketing strategy go through the TOS of companies offering unlimited bandwidth and you will find some restrictions after all nothing in the world is unlimited.

 

'unlimited' is a myth

 

Unlimited hosts do not truley offer such service and will terminate your service if you cause interruptions in other shared hosting client's service.

 

"Unlimited" is impossible. Get some reliable company to be hosted.

 

Unmetered resources are usually scams, we have had many customers come to use our web hosting services due to there services being shut off after using a certain amount of resources. However, there could be companies out there that shell out the cash to get an extra HD and upgrade a line to suite there customers needs. I just haven't seen it yet.

 

Depend on what unlimited you are talking about. Some company provide unlimited hosted domains but limit your disk space.

 

Yes, u r right but If someone provides unlimited hosted domains and unlimited disk space then you has to be careful.

Dedicated Server - why?

One of the downfalls to shared hosting is your website can be affected alot more by other clients actions. If anothe client spams then your emails may be blacklisted because they are from the same IP.

It depends on the reliability & amount of security you're looking for. Shared hosting can be very risky as others have described in this thread. Your site's security and reliability depends on other customers' practices.

Dedicated server is more flexible, but costly....

Go for dedicated only if:
1. You want complete control of the server, and want complete security for your data.
2. You have too much traffic, more than few hundread GB per month.

U can also choose VPS or semi-dedi servers.

Yes, There are also semi-dedi servers that can be used more efficient for a beginners' usage.

In my opinion:-

Up(s):
1: You can control your server better.
2: You are in a better position to provide support.
3: You can limit the number of customers you want on that server.

Down(s):
1: More maintaince.
2: Can be quite complicating, if you do not have enough computer skills to manage it.
3: Definately more expensive.
4: Most dedicated servers renting companies do not provide sufficient software(s) for the best use. And such software needs licenses, so you might need to purchase them.

In shared hosting,If another site is DDOS attacked then your site will go down as well. If another client installs a faulty script that hogs the cpu, your site will lag until that has been corrected. A good host will minize these risks for you, but if the site is mission critical to your business then I would go with a dedicated server.

It really depends on what you are looking for

Major criteria you use to decide upon a host?

Cheap, Good Support, Reliable, Fast Response

For me, I would say:

1. Solution (whether it matches the requirements)
2. Technical infrastructure (financial and technical muscle of the company)
3. Consumer feedback

Services and Support are the two main things and then the rates.

1. Support
Good support is really important. What happens if their servers fail?2. Uptime
No point in having an account, with a site you can't visit is there?
3. Price
Why pay bucket loads for nothing? Make a good price.

Price is most important thing for me.

 

reliability, reliabilty and once again, reliability

 

Well i would suggest
1) Support : No matter Hosting Companies offer very cheap plans , the question is "Do the Hosting Company Provide 24X7 Reliable Support ?"
So support should be the topmost criterion to choose any host
2) Uptime : This is another major Aspect that should taken into consideration.
3) Feedbacks : Does your host get backs to you , to ensure everything is working fine with your site , are you facing any issues.
No matter unless you open a support ticket or get back to them on Live chat for support.
I think Hosting Company should monitor every accounts if they have any problems and contact them monthly if they are having any issues.
So the above 3 aspects should be considered while choosing any host.

 

I would have to go with
1, Reliabilty
2, Human Contact
3, Specifications

 

In my opinion
1. 24/7 support
2. Uptime
3. Price

Checklist to choose a web hosting service

Before you can launch your web site, you'll need to engage the services of a web hosting company.

There are literally hundreds of web hosting companies to choose from. How to choose the right one?

As with trying out any new service, you won't really know how good a web hosting company is until you try it. Therefore, ask around and see whether you can get any recommendations from those who already use a web hosting company. You might also want to consider how long the company has been in business, how reliable it is known to be, and how expensive it would be if you want to upgrade your plan in future.

Other areas to consider include:
Disk space
How much disk space do you need? Does you website have less than 10 pages? You'll need only a small amount of space. Is it a huge site that has thousands of pages? You'll be needing a lot of disk space. Most web hosting plans limit how much space you will have, so make sure the plan you choose meets your needs.
E-mail accounts
How many e-mail accounts do you need? You'll probably need one for each employee and one for each department (sales, accounts, support). Make sure you purchase a hosting plan that has enough e-mail accounts. Also, do you want full POPS access, Web-based e- mail, or both?

Data transfer
How much data do you need to transfer? Most hosting plans limit how much data transfer you are allotted each month. If you expect a lot of people to visit your site, you'll need a plan that allows for plenty of data transfer.
E-commerce
Will you be selling goods or services through your site? If not, there's no need to sign up for an e-commerce web hosting service. If you are, e-commerce web hosting services such as shopping cart software, SSL support and a merchant account will be vital.
Database, script and extension support
Some hosts will try to blind you with all the features they provide: Frontpage, MS Access, MySQL, MS SQL, Peri support, PHP support, ASP support and SSI support. Do you really need all these features? If not, make sure you are not paying for extras you'll never use.

Operating systems
Do you want a UNIX hosting plan or a Windows hosting plan? Unix is the most commonly used operating system among Web servers. It is known for its flexibility, reliability and stability. Windows hosting plans give you the ability to utilize many forms of dynamic content and specialized databases. Windows hosting plans are often used for sites utilizing Frontpage, ASP, MS Access databases, MS SQL Servers and other Microsoft applications.

Support
Is customer and technical support available 24/7? Can you easily get through on the customer support hotline? Or are you on hold for hours?

How to free host get their income

Advertisements and Spamming people.

I know they make their money buy selling their customers e-mail addresses and selling ad space on all the hosted sites.

actually they dont make any profit

I used a free host a long time ago. I think that most of their money comes from advertising - most have a banner at the top of the page, or to the side. Some do pop ups.

free hosts can sell their ad slots on their free users sites. they can make alot of money off that. hence 200+ sites, with 1-2 banners on them, and a host can sell the slots for 5,10, even 30+ $$$ u can make alot of money off it.

I don't think anyone providing free hosting for 100% Free. There's always a catch, For an example, some of the Big hosts i knw provide free hosting for posting on their forums/blogs etc, or for placing a link back to their site, and some use it as a brand promotion strategy.

The hosting for posting model has really taken off in the last year. I think that it's a great idea personally--as long as they have some kind of focus and don't create some huge "general chat" forum that's littered with spam and nonsense.

Free hosting is just waiting for some great idea that will make it profitable and still have some quality to their services.

A good while ago, they were mainly a "free host" deriving money from ads placed on the users' sites. These days, they're a budget host, and their free hosting is there more as a legacy than anything. A side effect of being one of the larger free hosting providers used to be a good search engine ranking for hosting related keyphases.

Some do by sticking huge banner advertisements left, right, center of their website or even popups. You'll find then they profit it by selling it off.