It is 2008. Everyone and their dogs and cats can haz websites. If you are selling something or providing services, and if you do not have an Internet presence, you don’t exist. It is one of the easiest ways to get yourselves known by the world, and if you cannot be linked to at OzBargain, we don’t want to know you :) Not just business websites, people have their personal websites, blogs, family websites, photo galleries, and Internet entrepreneurs have their network of sites. They all face the very same issue — where can I find good deals in web hosting, that are cheap, reliable and scalable when my business grows.

Over the past year and half there has been many domain and hosting deals posted at OzBargain, mostly under the Internet category. Some are well received, but some got heavily criticised and voted negatively. I think “hosting” is probably a controversial topic, as a lot of people actually don’t know what a “bargain” is. Neither do I actually, most of the time, but since I have been running a few websites (include a few webhosting related), I might be a bit more qualified.

So the question is, “I have a few websites that I would love the world to see, what’s the best bang for the bucks out there?” It won’t be a comprehensive guide, but I will try to look at different aspects on finding a bargain for your next website.

Don’t Host It At Home

This is obvious. Or maybe not so obvious. I had my first website 12 years ago, and have been hosting websites on my own “server” since 1999. Except when I say “server” I actually meant my old K6-200 desktop PC running Linux, connected to the Internet via Telstra Direct on a 56k/33.6k PSTN line. Throughout the years I have been upgrading both the hardware and Internet connection — at one stage I was hosting around 30 websites on an old PC on my 512k/512k ADSL line. It was economical (big hard disks, dedicate server performance, and my box was always on anyway) and convenient (very fast uploading 10GB of images — because it was just behind my desk :) However at the end of day it was a very bad idea, and I have been buying web hosting services since 2005.

Why?

There are just too many things that can go wrong, and when it goes wrong, it is usually too much work sorting things out. The hard disks may die, the motherboard may get fried during storms (yes, got that once), your operating system might go FUBAR, your Internet connection might go down due to someone pulled out the wrong cable at your local exchange, you may loose electricity and I believe diesel generator is not something everyone has at home…

I know things can still go wrong if you leave your data with the web hosting companies. At least they (usually) have qualified engineers working around the clock. I hate to look at the fsck screen in the middle of the night because my “server” crashes. Please. Do yourself a favourite — don’t host your websites at home.

Know Your Needs and Budget

This has to be the most difficult but also the most important question to ask someone who is shopping for web hosting packages — what are your needs? There are some “standard metrics” in the web hosting world. For example the storage space in megabytes/gigabytes, monthly data transfer in gigabytes/terabytes (or bandwidth in megabits per second), number of add-on domains, etc. You then need to work out how much space your website will take, how many visitors will you get each month (which correlates to how much data transfer you will need), etc.

Now, determine the “need” is not really a rocket science itself — just take a measurement from your current host for a month. It might be a good idea to work out how much you might need in the next 2-3 months especially if you have a growing website, however I think predicting the next 12 months is probably too excessive. You can always upgrade your hosting plans (and most hosting companies will let you do that) to accomodate the needs. If you are just starting out — unless your website is backed by a brilliant business plan and expects a gazillion of visitors on the launch day — just take a small hosting plan and start monitoring the usage, and hopefully you will be able to work the pattern in a month or two.

As of budget, I think USD$10/month or AUD$15/month makes a good starting point for web hosting packages. I know this is the bargain blog and things are usually cheaper the better. Best if you can get them for free! Again, if you are looking for a reliable host that will still be here in 2 years, I think my figures for a small business hosting package is quite reasonable. Obviously your budget also needs to be adjusted depending on the need — it would be ridiculous to expect USD$10/month can get you hundreds of gigabytes of storage and thousands of gigabytes a month of data transfer.

Except if it is massive overselling. Did I just open another can of worms?

You Cannot Compare Two Hosts with Standard Metrics

We need to get this right — no two hosts are the same, and you cannot simply compare them with those standard metrics (storage, data transfer, etc). We are not doing a price comparison of the same product on staticICE, but we are comparing two services — one might jam 500 customers on an old Celeron server sitting in a cheap data centre in US with single-homed network, providing only email support, and the other might put only 100 customers on the latest quad-core box with tier 1 network and 24/7 phone support.

Therefore it is just wrong to say A is cheapter than B because A’s plans have more storage and data transfer at the same price. There are simply way too many factors to consider.

Australia or the United States?

There are advantages and disadvantages of hosting your sites in Australia or overseas.

In reality, things are more complicated (like most other things in reality).

Low latency — yes you still cannot beat <20ms pings from Sydney ADSL to sites hosted in Sydney. On the other hand, 180ms ping to Los Angeles is really slowing down the web pages, to a point where your customers are all going to flee like scalded dogs, unable to bear the slowness of your website — not! Out of the top 10 websites accessed by the Australians according to Alexa, only 1 is hosted in Australia (NineMSN.com.au in Adelaide). Yes your pages will load slower, but no slower than hosted on a overcrowded server.

Support Australian business — hmm I think it is up to you. It just does not occur in my mind when I buy from Amazon.com and DealExtreme :)

Business hour support is important if both you and your visitors also work in business hours, which is usually not the case when you are operating a website, where visitors from everywhere come to you 24/7. There is still a pattern though — like the majority of OzBargain visitors come between 8am-10pm AEST. Also Australian hosts are less likely to do maintenance work during peak hours in Australia. But if you are just talking about “support” — you really need one that can provide it around the clock.

Now just for the record, OzBargain used to be hosted on a Sydney server, then on a Melbourne server, and now on a California server, thousands of miles across the Pacific. It still loads fast enough to me (if not faster than when it was in Melbourne, which really has performance issue). Except now I am only paying 1/2 the price, 4x the monthly data transfer (which I really need it), plus working with a team who really knows what they are doing.

Australian host or US host? You decide :)

Overselling is the Norm

However one problem with hosting in US is that it can be difficult avoiding those mega oversellers. For USD$10 a month they promise you that you can download the entire Internet — until they cut you off for “over-utilising server resources”, when you are only using 10% of the allocated quota. It is like going to an all you can eat buffet with 10 minute limit. Evil!

Unfortunately this evil seems to be the norms these days. Actually overselling is not all that bad when the economy of scale is your friend (which is why Australian hosting plans are less oversold), but it does put up a warning — you are not likely to use what they have promised in the hosting plan. That’s why “Know your needs” is really important. There is no point shopping for a hosting deal that can give you 10TB/month of data, when your site struggles to send out 10GB/month. You might as well find one that provides only 20GB/month, but also speedy servers + fast support.

That’s It for Today…

Thank you for reading through Part 1. Choosing a web hosting company for your next killer website is not easy — it is a jungle out there so be prepared! In the next part I will be writing about “Where” to look for the ideal hosting company. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, comments are welcomed. However, please do not suggest hosting companies, unless you want to have your comments mysteriously disappeared. I am trying to work out a guide here but not endorsement of any company’s service here — so please do the same as well.