Website Hosting
The good, the bad and the nasty
I get lots of requests for information on good website hosting companies. I have tried many companies over the years and can confidently say that 1&1 are the best of the bunch. I use 1&1 servers to run all my websites and in the last two years I have experienced only around two hours of downtime. I might get in trouble if I were to list the 'nasty' companies I have used, so I'll just say - be very careful, if you pick a poor web hosting provider then your internet life will be very unpleasant.
Many web hosting providers are just resellers for companies like FastHosts. Most of the cheaper companies do not provide any support and some may make it very difficult to switch hosts.
Registrars & DNS addresses
When you 'buy' an internet domain name like www.mycompany.co.uk, you don't actually own the domain, you need to re-register it yearly or two yearly, depending on the domain. If you don't re-register your domain name it eventually goes back into the pool and can be registered to someone else.
Your Registrar is the company that holds the domain name registration. This company will normally be the company that hosts your site, but could be another company.
The governing body for UK domain names is Nominet, they license companies to become Registrars (used to be called Tag Holders or Registration Agents). The Registrar will usually give you DNS address (Domain Name Server) this is the location on the web that stores where your website actually is.
It can become very complicated when you have a DNS address on one server pointing to a different company's server that actually hosts the website, so I do all my domain registration through 1&1 when I purchase domain names, I can then just create a folder on my 1&1 account and point the website to it through the 1&1 control panel - easy!
Transferring Domains
This can range from extremely easy through to incredibly difficult! I have transferred domains from other registrars to 1&1 without problems. BUT, I have to warn people that there MAY be problems with websites being inaccessible for a day or two and delays in email processing if you are transferring your email servers.
The process of transferring domains with 1&1 is basically:
- Order the domain though your control panel
- Confirm ownership of the Domain
- 1&1 write to the owner (you!) requesting confirmation
- Domain is transferred to 1&1
Sounds easy huh? Normally it is, but disruption to email services MAY occur, your site MIGHT disappear for a day or two - you have been warned.
If you are happy with your current provider, then don't change, however for us to be able to provide a full analysis service to our Internet Marketing clients - we need access to full detail web logs, many cheaper hosting companies only provide high level logs. Also, to be able to provide facilities like online enquiry forms your web host must allow scripts to be executed - many don't!
Which Package?
There are currently three business packages available from 1&1 (October 2007):
1&1 Business
- £8.99 per month
- 3 Domain name registrations included
- 4 gb Webspace
- 40 gb Traffic
- 1,00 Standard email accounts
- 10 virus scanned email accounts
1&1 Business Pro
- £14.99 per month
- 5 Domain name registrations included
- 8 gb Webspace
- 100 gb Traffic
- 1,500 standard email accounts
- 20 virus scanned email accounts
1&1 Professional
- £24.99 per month
- 10 Domain name registrations included
- 20 gb Webspace
- 200 gb Traffic
- 3,000 standard email accounts
- 100 virus scanned email accounts
All the packages have a number of included domain registrations, but you can add to these at an extra cost (we currently have 34 domains in a Professional package). All the packages allow 2gb of email and all the traffic allowances are pretty good. Even at the lowest level of 40 gb per month, this entire site could be uploaded around 20,000 times per month!
I would suggest that the 1&1 business package is good value for most small to medium size businesses. If you plan to have many domain names and hope for high traffic then the Business Pro or Professional packages may be better. The Professional package provides free 24/7 phone support.
Windows or Linux
I can't personally think of a reason to host your website on a Windows server. The Internet basically runs on Linux/Unix servers. Unless you want to use proprietary MS stuff like ASP (we don't do that nasty stuff!) then pick the Linux option.
If you click on the button below you can order your new 1&1 package.
I do receive a small commission from 1&1 for referrals through this link.