[OT] - Web Hosting Question

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Big Matt and Shell
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[OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by Big Matt and Shell » 11 September 09 10:31 pm

Hi Guys,

Please excuse the what may be a very simple question but we're looking for some assistance.

Shell and I run a small website for a small business we run. Recently I have become a little bit more interested in how it runs and have discovered that our original design and hosting business may not be doing us any favours.

I have done a bit of a search on hosting discussions in the past on the forum and we are looking at changing our host (we are currently being charged $15 per month for 100MB disk space, 500MB Data per month) ](*,) . Looking into it there are some much better options out there.

Can anyone tell me how difficult it should be to change over a host? What I should expect to pay to have it done? After finding out that our provider wanted to charge me a substantial amount to add Meta tags and keywords to the site, I'm a bit nervous about what I will get stung.

Also I was wondering how difficult it would be to learn how to manage my own site, make changes etc. Would a basic web design course cover all I need? I can understand basic HTML but feel a bit upset at having to pay someone an exorbitant sum each time I want a photo added or a price changed.

Thanks for your help, I'm just not sure on this topic.

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setsujoku
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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by setsujoku » 11 September 09 11:26 pm

You can get hosting pretty cheap these days. The cheapest and easiest way is to get hosting in America, as bandwidth is cheap and so is storage. There are a few other threads on GCA about hosting. In the case of a business I guess you just have to decide how much downtime you can tolerate and from that you will quickly find how much it will cost you.

Even though the cheap end of the market is aimed at home users, etc, they still have great uptime, and very few issues most of the time. I have recently changed over to Godaddy for my home use hosting, and was previously with hostmonster. So far I've found hostmonster to be much easier to manage, but at 2/3 price of host monster Godaddy wins out on the pricing side of things.

From memory I paid about $150 or so for 24 months hosting, and a couple of extra domain names. So far I can't fault the hosting, it's up all the tiime, it delivers my e-mails, and I have more space than I need for storing files. My traffic volume is low, so there is no chance of them complaining about that (you might need to look at how much traffic is currently generated from your site and go from there, but given that you only have a small business I'm guessing that it's not much anyway).
Of course there are more expensive options, but for a small business that isn't going to try and take over the world then a basic hosting plan will do the job, just as long as you are aware that you are on a shared server, things can go wrong, and that if you want more of something (such as uptime, bandwidth, or traffic allowances), then you might have to pay a couple of $ more a month. At the end of it though you will be able to walk away with a much better deal than what you are getting now by the sounds of it

As far as changing things over goes, I would suggest that you set up your new hosting provider first, and create or shift over your current site before closing down your old one. Once you are happy that the new site is working, then you should just be able to change the name servers (DNS servers) for your domain over to the ones that your new host provides, and then within the next couple of days everyone will start being directed to your new home.
Once you are happy that everything is running fine on your new hosting, you can cancel your old one, and forget that it ever happened.

Of course there are catches! (at this stage I should clarify that your hosting, and your domain name are 2 seperate things)
1. You need to find out who your current domain is registered through. This may or may not be the same as your hosting company. If in doubt post here with your domain name, and we can quickly tell you where things are at.
2. If you have a .com.au site remember that you wont be able to register or manage your domain through your american web hosting company. You will need to do this through and Australian one. I use Cove, but there are plenty out there, and each one has slightly different prices for each type of domain. That is of course if your current domain provider can't continue to register and host this for you.

Now as far as changing up the content of your site, I would say that if you are happy to learn and spend a bit of time, then running a site based on Joomla, Drupal, or Mambo is the way to go. It's open source, there are plenty of books, online materials, and forums out there to learn from, and you can build some very robust and professional looking web sites from them. If you haven't got the time, or are daunted by learning something like this, then I know of a cacher on here who may be able to build a site for you for a small fee.

I guess it comes down to what you want to spend, what time you have to learn, and how much of a PITA your current provider will be to move away from them. Apart from that it shouldn't be something that you will lose a lot of sleep over.

Hopefully I haven't confused you too much, and if I have ask more questions, and I'm happy to explain further!

covert
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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by covert » 25 September 09 3:37 pm

Big Matt and Shell wrote:have discovered that our original design and hosting business may not be doing us any favours.
Reminds me of the story about the plumber who got questioned about a invoice for a 1 minute job. The majority of the invoice was for "knowing what pipe to hit"

I assume with your current host if things stop working you make a phone call and it all works again ?

If you do your own hosting and it breaks you fix it, or pay $120 / hour for someone else to do it.


I have 2 web hosts in Australia. One cost me $25 / year (90% discount). The other one I got for free (250MB disk / 1GB transfer)

If you hunt around you can find some great deals. Check out http://www.webhostingtalk.com.au/ for some great info.

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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by Bronze » 27 September 09 7:10 am

Matt,

Check you inbox for my details.

B.

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gmj3191
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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by gmj3191 » 09 February 11 5:19 pm

I have an email hosting package with an Aussie hosting company and I'm thinking about upgrading it to a web hosting package.
The cost would be about $180 PA for 1 Gb and 10 email addresses.

In looking at options such as Godaddy, I notice they have a feature on all accounts which is "ad credits from MySpace and Google".
Does this mean your web users would get hassled by ads from these companies?

An account with the same (much more actually) space and email accounts would cost about $50 pa at Godaddy.

I'm willing to pay more to a local company. I've used the local company for email hosting for about 4 years and they've never let me down.

covert
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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by covert » 09 February 11 5:38 pm

gmj3191 I recommend you ask over at webhostingtalk.

Expect to get some PM's with decent offers after you post there.

Oh and don't forget a local company does not = local web hosting. Take that into account.

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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by caughtatwork » 09 February 11 5:40 pm

Personally I use http://www.flexihostings.net.au
While we have occasional glitches I have been with them for about 7 years and all issues are resolved promptly.

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gmj3191
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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by gmj3191 » 09 February 11 6:04 pm

caughtatwork wrote:Personally I use http://www.flexihostings.net.au
While we have occasional glitches I have been with them for about 7 years and all issues are resolved promptly.
Thanks Peter, that's certainly a lot cheaper than my current hosting.

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gmj3191
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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by gmj3191 » 09 February 11 6:09 pm

covert wrote:gmj3191 I recommend you ask over at webhostingtalk.

Expect to get some PM's with decent offers after you post there.

Oh and don't forget a local company does not = local web hosting. Take that into account.
Thanks Covert. Interesting site.

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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by caughtatwork » 09 February 11 6:10 pm

gmj3191 wrote:
covert wrote:gmj3191 I recommend you ask over at webhostingtalk.

Expect to get some PM's with decent offers after you post there.

Oh and don't forget a local company does not = local web hosting. Take that into account.
Thanks Covert. Interesting site.
That's where we found the colo hosting for Geocaching Australia.

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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by setsujoku » 12 February 11 5:46 pm

I've shifted my e-mails over to Google Apps.
Was having hassles with godaddy mail hosting, so with Google Apps being free, highly available, better spam filtering, and a lot more flexible.
When the current hosting contract is up with Godaddy I'll find somewhere else to host my www side of the domain, which by then could be google too, but that's a while off yet.

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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by JABs » 12 February 11 8:54 pm

Big Matt and Shell wrote: Also I was wondering how difficult it would be to learn how to manage my own site, make changes etc. Would a basic web design course cover all I need? I can understand basic HTML but feel a bit upset at having to pay someone an exorbitant sum each time I want a photo added or a price changed.

Thanks for your help, I'm just not sure on this topic.
Hi ya Matt, Just to let you know that once my work's website was set up it is really up to me on what is on there how it is and what changes can be made to it. Have been slack removing a file over Christmas. But if a fool like me can do it anyone can.
If interested in what we use let me know and will send as much as I can. But it should not be that hard to change.

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Big Matt and Shell
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Re: [OT] - Web Hosting Question

Post by Big Matt and Shell » 15 February 11 9:11 pm

Thanks Jon

I've got most of it under control now. The only thing I haven't fully worked out is the banner at the top and bottom of the screen I should just find what editor the original creator used.

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