Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare
Ultimately, the true test of a web host comes from your own experiences with them. With this article, I wanted to compile some of the experiences of a few people to bring to you cautions when choosing a host: clients, friends, and myself. I’ll also then give you a few points you have to consider when choosing a web host.I wanted to start with my own experiences. I chose a web host based upon price, and the ability for this host to charge me monthly, instead of a year or two upfront. I was just starting my company, and had to watch those pennies. Even though I knew that spending the money up front would have been more cost effective, I simply didn’t have it. I thought I did some good research on this host, and asked all the pertinent questions at the time.
I wanted to start out with one of my latest experiences with my old web host. I had been with this host since March, and since that time, I’ve had a plethora of problems. When I started with them, they were great! We set up an e-commerce store, and had a big sale over Memorial Day weekend. The web server went down. The host could not be contacted, as they only handled support via trouble ticket and email or phone. Email went unanswered all weekend, and phone support was nothing more than a dispatch person, who was to contact support, who’d then get back to me. They did on Tuesday.
Further, there were other similar incidents, with the 24/7 support not available on the weekends. It would also take them many hours to get back to a trouble ticket, even during the week. It was very frustrating. The final straw for me was in the month of November; I had 14 trouble tickets in to them for one reason or another, like a hard drive crashing, or not enough RAM. Because there was one excuse after another in each of the trouble tickets, the length of time it took them to respond to one, and the fact that I had to plead for a month’s refund, due to their server issues; I knew it was time to move.
A client of mine for whom I did SEO work had a nightmare web host. The big problem here is that her web host was also her design company, who was only available for support Monday through Friday, from 9 am till 5 pm. When I was contracted by her to perform SEO work, her web host was very reluctant to allow me to do so. At first, I considered this client somewhat of a pain, as I received a phone call at least five times per day. Nine out of ten of her issues were related to her web design or web host. But because I was the only one available, I was the one she called.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – The Webhost Who Deletes Upgrades
Her web host would take it upon themselves to “tweak” her web files. This usually meant overwriting the work I had done. Her site was finished in September, and it worked wonderful up until the very day they got in there and messed with her files, which was exactly November 23rd; they then had the nerve to claim her site wasn’t working because of my “third party scripts,” even though it was working well for almost three months. What was almost funny about the situation was that the “third party scripts” they were referring to were simply upgrades with addons that were designed by her e-commerce software company. The problem with the design in the first place was that they had installed software that was several years old, for which the company who developed the software no longer supported. The “third party scripts” were actually upgrades. The other “third party scripts” they talked about were simply 301 redirects in her .htaccess file. They changed the .htaccess because they claimed that she’d have better design options with FrontPage extensions, which they did without either notifying her or asking her permission. Please take a moment to laugh here. They also told her, “The optimization you paid for has corrupted our work.” Well, if they meant upgrading to the new software, then yes, I guess I corrupted their work.
They then proceeded to add FrontPage extensions to her site, telling her that because they were no longer supporting their off-site WYSIWYG editor, she would have to use FrontPage. For those of you that are familiar with FrontPage extensions and Linux, you can only imagine what the problems were. They then deleted the .htaccess file, and uploaded old, unsupported software files. It became clear to us at that point that a new host was in order. You may laugh again.
When she complained about their “tweaking” efforts, they emailed her that as long as a third party company had her logins and passwords, they wouldn’t provide support. I’ve never heard of a web hosting company telling anyone this. Considering that I had been out of her site for months before their tweaks, honestly, this was probably irrelevant. But she knew that their problems, which they blamed on my work, were hurting her site. Unfortunately, they told her that she couldn’t move the site, because she technically didn’t “own” it, even though she paid them to develop the site, paid for the domain name, and paid for the hosting. I might mention, by the way, that her server was a shared virtual server, and they charged her nearly $60.00 per month for only 600 MB of space and less than 1 GB of bandwidth.
There were other issues with this company that she had, while not directly related to her hosting issues, were just indications of being a bad company all together. These were things like retaliation for complaining, charging her another $400.00 so that she could “own” the site, and then never giving her registrar login information.
She signed up with a new host, who came highly rated on web host review sites. After she paid them, they then told her they wouldn’t help her transfer her website; she had to do it herself. This lady doesn’t know what an FTP program is (she thought I was talking about my car), so that’s not really an option for her. They claimed that because they were so cheap, they didn’t have the resources to transfer her site. She then found another web host who not only helped her move her site, but they were cheaper than this other host. This host she finally found came by word of mouth recommendations.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – The Webhost Who Doesn’t Deliver
Another story I want to give you may be a minor one in comparison to the one above, but it still has pertinent issues that you will want to consider. A friend wanted to move her web host, and feeling that the company she was researching had answered the questions she asked to her satisfaction, such as the ability to get a dedicated IP and SSL for her web store, decided to sign up.
The company was offering a free domain name, so she found one she liked, and they put the hosting account into this domain as the root. In the process of a couple weeks of setting up her older site with the web store as an addon domain, she found out that she could only have a dedicated IP as long as her SSL certificate was on the root site. Unfortunately, her SSL certificate was for the site she was moving and setting up as an addon domain, not for the root domain. After much hard work moving her web site, she had to search again for a web host; one that wasn’t stingy with IP addresses. It’s probably a good thing anyway, because she also found out that several of their script versions, like PHP and SQL were older than her store supported.
These stories now bring me to the important points I wanted to give you when choosing a web host, and avoiding the nightmare.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – Reliability and Support
Reliability
If a web host has great features, price, and support; these things don’t mean much if your server isn’t reliable, and your websites have a great deal of down time. Most web hosts, when you ask them directly, will tell you they have 99.999% uptime. My first thought is: yeah, right. You say to them, “Be honest!” and they respond “No, honestly!” My point here is that it really doesn’t matter what your host says, because they will all have the same answer. So you’ll need another method of finding out how reliable the web hosting company is.
Find out what web host companies others are using, whether in the Web Hosting forums or from people you know, and ask them what problems they have had. Trust me, you’ll get an answer, and probably more reliable information from those who have used the web host you are considering. It also never hurts to ask your web host for references. Good companies will gladly give you information on satisfied customers. If the web host is reluctant to give you this information, whether citing privacy issues or whatever reasons, then it should be a red flag.
Support
For me, web support is probably one of the most important aspects of deciding on a web host. One test I have when choosing a web host either for me or my clients is how soon their support company responds to a trouble ticket, or an email. When researching a host, chances are you are going to have questions. Simply sending them an email with your questions and find out how long it takes them to respond. If they respond within 24 hours; great, but how helpful is that really? If your site goes down in the middle of a customer order, do you really have a whole day for them to respond to the crisis?
Maybe you’re thinking that an initial question email to the company won’t necessarily tell you how they’ll respond in a support situation. But you better believe it does. Think about it this way: when searching for a new host, you have literally thousands of companies out there that you can choose from. If a web host catches your interest, and you send them an email that you are interested, they are probably going to go out of their way to impress you with their prompt response. Once they have you’re business, and your money, there’s not necessarily that need to impress.
Make sure they have multiple forms of communication: phone, email, trouble ticket system, live support, and instant messaging as well as being available 24/7. Having more than one form of communication is important. And again, ask around. People will be more than happy to let you know if a web host’s support is good or not.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – Moving a Site, Dedicated IPs and SSL
Moving an existing site
Moving a new web host is almost like switching bank accounts. You don’t want that lapse in “funds” while you are moving your “money” to another account, especially if there are outstanding payments. This analogy may be a bit off, but there is a point here where it is related. It’s a royal pain in the derrière to move your bank account or your websites. Nobody likes having to do either.
You should find out if your files are first compatible with the new host’s server, operating system, even script versions. You don’t want to find out later that in order for your files to work, your host will have to upgrade their version of whichever script is a problem.
If you’re not especially technical, you may find that a new web host that requires you to move your own files and configure them is really not going to be in your best interest. You will want to ask whether or not the new host will transfer your websites for you. Some will, while others will not. Many times, these questions are not answered until AFTER you’ve paid them, so it’s a good idea to ask them before you shell out the dough.
Dedicated IPs and SSL
One thing that may not occur to you to ask is what the new web host’s requirement on getting a dedicated IP or whether they will configure the SSL to be on your root account only, or for all domains; use your own https domain or a shared SSL account. These issues are important to you especially if you have an e-commerce website. If a web hosting company is stingy with dedicated IPs, then find out why.
The host my friend went with told her in live support beforehand that she could get a dedicated IP for only an extra buck a month. But what they failed to tell her is that they don’t issue dedicated IPs for any reason other than if she had her own SSL certificate, which had to be installed on the root. You might want a dedicated IP for the sheer reason of not being able to know which websites were also associated with my IP. From an SEO standpoint, you could really be paying for someone else’s mess. It shouldn’t make a difference why you want a dedicated IP. It should be available to you if you want it.
Another point here is to ask if they can install SSL certificates on addon domains. Many do not. If you are thinking about moving your website to a new host as an addon domain, and have your own SSL certificate, then stop and ask the question.
My friend could have ended up having to have another hosting account so that she could have the domain that needed the SSL certificate which she owned set as the root domain. She cancelled the account instead.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – Hosting with Your Web Design Company
Hosting with Your Web Design Company
You can disagree with me on this point, and that’s okay; but in my book, hosting with your web design company is a big no-no. To me, that’s like giving your home builder/general contractor the keys to your house long after his work is finished. In my compiled experiences, this only brings nothing but trouble, as I talked about with the client earlier.
The first point I want to bring up here is that it seemed the design company couldn’t seem to keep their hands off her web files. Allowing your web host to have access to your ftp, passwords and whatever information you have store on the server can be dangerous, as a web design company must be able to do. While I’m not arguing here that it isn’t sometimes necessary for your web host to access your files for support reasons, generally what you do with your own files is really not their concern. But if you decide to alter your design on your own, many times a web design company will feel that you are altering their files. You may find this will be a conflict of interest.
Regardless of your reasons for finding a web host in the first place, these are only a few points to consider when selecting one. There are many other ones, such as server hardware, but those can be explored at a later time. My purpose for writing this article is to help you avoid the nightmares of choosing the wrong host. No web host is going to be perfect; but still, if they meet the criteria above, you can be assured that other issues can be worked out.
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Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare
Don’t Pick a Stinky Host
Don’t Pick a Stinky Host
With the dizzying number of options for a web host for your site, how do you know which one to pick? The answer is to follow your nose — and avoid making the common mistakes explained in this article. If you do pick a stinky web host, never fear: you will also find some tips to help you keep the damage to a minimum.Choosing a web host is a big decision for any business or organization. Even someone who is working on their website only as a hobby would like to avoid the kinds of problems we have all heard about: poor customer support, too much downtime, and so on. Short of hosting the site yourself, which has its own issues, how can we make sure that we (and our customers, who shouldn’t even notice) will be satisfied with our web host?
There are plenty of articles that explain what to look for, and what to do, when choosing a web host. In fact, there is an excellent one on our Web Hosters site right here: http://webhosting.devshed.com/c/a/Web-Hosting-Articles/Choosing-a-
Web-Host-Get-What-You-Need/. So you may already know about what to do. I’m going to tell you about what mistakes to avoid, so you won’t feel as if you have to hold your nose while choosing a web host. Some of my suggestions may even help you if you discover after the fact that your web host is a little, um, overripe.
The first thing you want to do is make sure that smell doesn’t have its start in your backyard. A web host can’t be expected to read minds. Know what your website needs as far as resources, and be prepared to keep your web host informed when those needs change. You might find that certain scripts you want to use on your site are not compatible with your host’s servers, for instance. This will also help you when you want to upgrade or move your account.
Once you know your own needs, you are ready to start doing research. While a hobbyist might not consider web hosting to be a major purchase (and many get by with free or budget web hosting), a business that expects to rely on its website should treat their choice of web host with the same seriousness that they would treat choosing any major purchase or supplier. While it is not irrevocable, it can sometimes be difficult to switch web hosts. You can turn to the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for help if a web host truly engages in foot-dragging about a switch, but ideally anyone would want to avoid the need for this.
Don’t Pick a Stinky Host – Sniffing out Clues
Start your research with the web hosting company’s own website. Does it contain all the information you need? Is it well organized? Does it look as if someone put some real care and thought into putting the site together, or does it look like tons of other sites you’ve seen? Do all of the pages on the company’s website work? If the web hosting company’s own website makes you wrinkle your nose, how do you think it will handle yours?
If you are dealing with a reseller, you need to really put your nose to the research grindstone. There is nothing wrong with reseller web hosts, but you need to know how they work. A reseller does not own its own servers; it resells hosting space from another company. In that case, you should do a little research on that other company. You should also be prepared to ask some gently pointed questions of the reseller. You want to make sure the reseller will offer good support and is knowledgeable about the kinds of things likely to affect your website. This will vary with your needs, i.e. if you are using scripts on your pages. And while the reseller does not own its own servers, it should know them as well as if it did.
Be nosy about testimonials. Talk to other webmasters about the host. Ask the web host for a list of customers you can contact about their service. If they refuse to give you such a list, take that as a warning you may not want to deal with them.
This might be a good time to take your nose for bargains out of the equation. We’re all attracted by the lowest price, but remember, just because it’s cheap – or even free – doesn’t mean it’s going to suit your purposes. Yes, there are good deals out there, but there are also nightmares just waiting to happen. You need to consider a web host’s reliability, features, and customer support as well as the price.
Following up on that point, you might want to think twice before purchasing web hosting space in an auction. Often, there are so many terms and conditions attached to web hosting purchased in an auction that you will find you can’t do much with it, beyond small static HTML pages. This isn’t to say that this is always true, but it pays to read all the details before placing a bid. You might be better off paying more for an account directly from the company itself, which will probably carry fewer restrictions. At the very least, you’ll be less likely to get your nose bent out of shape over not being able to do what you’d planned for your site.
Don’t Pick a Stinky Host – Smelling a Rat
Be prepared to smell a rat if a deal sounds too good to be true. It probably is. There are several variations on this, ranging in irritation from soured milk all the way up to a landfill on fire. Fortunately, most of these are also easy to avoid.
If you’re a business, or trying to look polished, turn your nose up at free web space. Why do you suppose it’s free? The company offering it makes money off the ads it places prominently on your page. Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of having your own site? This may or may not matter much to a hobbyist, but if you are making money through your website, you should not, in effect, be giving it away to someone else at the same time. Likewise, very low cost hosting deals may ask for something in return that will eat into your profits.
If you have big plans for your website, don’t lock yourself into a limited hosting package. They may cost less, but again, there’s a reason for that: you get less, probably less than you really need. Every online business should be able to add order forms, statistics, and multiple email accounts to its website. Can the web host do dedicated hosting? Are its servers secure? Can you get as much web space as you need? What about autoresponders? These are just a few of the things you need to think about for your business website.
Another issue with free or low cost web hosting has to do with the way such companies make their money. They often crowd too many websites onto their servers. This means that your customers might not be able to reach your site because of the traffic on the server. When that happens, it is as if your business is closed.
Easier isn’t always better. Take the example of a web hosting company that offers PayPal as a way of paying for your web hosting account. This can be a good thing; after all, PayPal has 78 million member accounts in 56 countries worldwide. But if that’s the only payment method it accepts, then it stinks. A reputable web hosting company will use a secure server with its own billing software, and keep a record of your payment in its own database.
What about those web hosting firms offering a low price for “lifetime” hosting? Wouldn’t it be nice to never have to pay for web hosting again? Sure, but, at best, “lifetime” really means lifetime of the web hosting company. With that kind of revenue model, it won’t be very long. Web hosting companies need a constant stream of money coming in to stay in business, and that’s not going to happen if everyone who signs up makes just one lump payment.
Don’t Pick a Stinky Host – Avoiding the Stench
There are certain things you can do to help you come out of any problems with your web host smelling, if not exactly like a rose, at least not like raw sewage. Others have made these mistakes before. You don’t need to repeat them.
First, and this might seem strange, but make a written record of your web host’s contact information, including the physical street address and phone number. Sure, online contact is great, but what if your web host goes down? Then its website is down…and you’re up a very aromatic creek. Web hosts should provide telephone-based customer support 24/7.
Second, make your own backups. If your site goes down indefinitely, and you want to switch web hosts, it’s better to have that content quickly to hand. There have been far too many cases of web hosts not making backups as required by their contracts. Think about how much time and trouble it would take to rebuild your site from scratch, and compare it to the relatively minor effort of backing up your site yourself. The peace of mind is worth it.
Third, just as you shouldn’t necessarily trust your web host to make back-ups, you also shouldn’t trust them to use the most up-to-date software. With security being a huge concern on the Internet, this is no small matter. Make sure you ask your web host what software they are running and how frequently they update it.
Fourth, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Yes, it can be less expensive to put several sites into one account; a lot of web hosts give you a better deal that way, and it simplifies the billing process. But what happens if all of your sites are on one server at the web host, and that server goes down? They all go down, and you lose precious work time, to say nothing of customers, money, and reputation. If you want to avoid this scenario, but still want the financial and other benefits of using just one web host, ask your host to split your account across two or more physical servers.
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Becoming a Web Hosting Reseller: is it Right for You?
Becoming a Web Hosting Reseller: is it Right for You?
Anyone who owns or handles multiple domain names should consider becoming a reseller of web hosting services. It also makes a good add-on service for certain businesses. Read on to find out whether becoming a reseller web host suits your needs.You probably know someone who has gone through this scenario, or more than likely you have been there yourself. You discover the Internet, and learn how easy it is to set up a website. You set up a personal one for yourself, and then another one for your business, buying different domain names. Impressed, your family and friends ask you to help them set up their own websites, but they want you to handle the messy details (like arranging who will host the site). Before you know it, you have a whole collection of domain names spread across several web hosting companies, each of them charging a monthly fee. You would like to find a way to cut those expenses.
Or maybe you are a graphic designer, and you create websites for your clients. You even maintain some of them. But you want to offer your clients something that will set you apart from all the rest of the HTML jockeys out there. If it could be a service for which you can charge and add to your bottom line, so much the better.
Perhaps you own a business that, for whatever reason, needs more than one domain name. Or, instead of owning the business, you’re the webmaster of the company, and need to handle those domain names. Like the person who has discovered the Internet and found himself more involved with it than he might have originally intended, you would like to cut your expenses –- not to mention the hassle of dealing with more than one web hosting company.
Whether you are an owner of multiple domain names for business purposes, an Internet hobbyist whose domain name collection is now a little out of hand, or the owner of a business with a natural tie-in to the Internet, you might find that becoming a reseller of web hosting services solves many of your problems. You don’t need to be in the business of web hosting to be a web hosting reseller. Many web hosting companies offer reseller accounts for a price that suits the budget of a serious hobbyist, while providing professional service.
Becoming a Web Hosting Reseller: is it Right for You? – Why You Should Consider Becoming a Reseller
There are a lot of reasons to consider becoming a reseller of web hosting services. First of all, if you have more than one website and the total disk space you need is 500 MB or more, many web hosting providers have reseller programs that will offer you a significant discount on that amount of space. Usually, grouping that much space together under one host will cost less than the combined price of keeping several accounts with different hosts, even if those other hosts seem less expensive for single accounts.
For example, Hosting Revolution offers a reseller account for $35. For that price, it offers up to 100 domain names, to each of which you can allocate up to 20 GB of monthly transfer and up to 2.5 GB of storage space. If you own 10 domain names, you may be paying $5 to $10 per name per month to your web host(s), which really adds up. Buy a reseller account, and you can save money. Better, you will have room to expand or even sell hosting space, thus turning a profit.
Because you have purchased so much space, you can be flexible with how you dole it out. You can allocate more space to websites that need it, and less to those that don’t. This can be particularly useful if you have a website that suddenly generates a lot of interest or gains a lot of content –- say, for example, on a seasonal basis.
If you offer Internet-related services, providing web hosting under your own company name can be a great and profitable add-on service. This move is a natural for website designers, but theirs is by no means the only kind of business that can benefit. If you program or sell software related to building websites, your customers are clearly interested in creating websites, which can imply an interest in purchasing web hosting services. You can probably think of many other kinds of businesses that could logically offer this service.
Finally, if you are currently hosting websites on your own equipment, becoming a reseller of web hosting services takes the problems associated with that out of the picture. You no longer need to worry about things like the cost of server maintenance. Likewise, technical support falls under the purview of your web hosting provider. Assuming you have chosen a reliable web hosting provider, this can save you a lot of money, time, and frustration, letting you focus on the parts of your business or hobby that you enjoy the most.
Becoming a Web Hosting Reseller: is it Right for You? – Choosing Your Web Host
If you have decided that you want to become a web hosting reseller, your most important decision is which web hosting company will be your provider. Do not make this decision lightly, or based only on which company offers the most space for the least amount of money. Whether you are doing this as a business or a hobby, the owners of the websites under your care will be depending on you to keep them up and running –- and you, in turn, will be depending on the reliability of your web host. Every time a problem at the web host affects your clients’ sites, rest assured, you will hear about it –- usually from your clients, and in a raised voice.
Pick a web host with a reputation for reliability. There are many websites with forums that cater to the web hosting community. You can hunt down online reviews from past and current clients of web hosts you are thinking about doing business with fairly easily.
While reliability in terms of uptime is an important consideration, it isn’t the only one. Find out how quickly your chosen web host responds to support requests –- especially the kind of time-sensitive ones that make your clients yell. Also, find out how long the web host has been in business; remember that many new businesses fail within their first year, and businesses in the field of web hosting are no exception to this rule.
Consider your own future while shopping for a web host. Your needs as a reseller could easily change and grow in the future. Does the web host offer reseller plans that let you upgrade when your needs increase? Are they willing to customize their plans? How much do they charge for their plans, and what is included in the price?
One other thing worth considering: does the web host provide the option for private nameservers? Usually they do, for a small additional fee. Private nameservers are also called private label, personalized nameservers, or virtual nameservers. They help you brand your business, and simplify things for your clients. If your reseller account is with AlwaysUp Hosting and your company name is EverDependable Services, your clients will enter ns1.everdependable.com and ns2.everdependable.com for the nameservers for their domains.
Becoming a Web Hosting Reseller: is it Right for You? – Nuts and Bolts
Your web host is just one of a number of decisions you will make as you begin to set yourself as a reseller of web hosting services. Most of the topics I will mention here come close to deserving their own articles. This being an introductory piece, I can’t go into great detail here.
You will need to choose the platform you want to use (Linux vs. Microsoft), which will determine what software you can run. You will also need to decide what control panel your clients will use for their websites. These range from pretty basic to full of features. Obviously, as a reseller you will also have a control panel of your own, to set up and control hosting accounts.
After you have chosen your web host, you need to set up your hosting plans and prices. Remember that both bandwidth and disk space are important factors. Divide your bandwidth by your disk space so that you know what ratio of bandwidth to disk space you can offer. Take into consideration what will happen to that ratio if and when you decide to upgrade. Base the packages you offer on the bandwidth/disk space ratio. As to pricing, consider your competitors, but also weigh in any special (additional) services you will provide.
If you’re going to do this seriously, you need to build a website for your reseller web hosting business. You can easily find books and articles devoted to this topic. Approach this with the eyes of a potential customer, and make sure you include everything that they would want to know about your company and its services. It may not need to be fancy, but it does need to be well organized and easily accessible, especially the important stuff (i.e. contact information, how to order, pricing packages, etc.).
You’re not done yet. If you’re going to accept online payments for hosting accounts, your site needs to be ready for it. That means you need to set up an SSL certificate, a merchant account, and a payment gateway. Otherwise, you will not be able to accept secure payments.
Likewise, you will probably want to set up an automated billing system. This will save you a ton of work. Billing and payment processing systems often charge a monthly or yearly fee for a license; a few offer prices for lifetime licenses. Make certain that it is compatible with server program, and find out whether support is included in the fee (and how much).
You will also want to set up a helpdesk. This lets clients communicate with you when they need support, and helps you to respond to those requests. As you have no doubt already figured out, being a reseller doesn’t take you off the hook for customer support – quite the opposite, in fact.
No, you’re still not done. When your clients register with you, they deserve an email that welcomes them to your business; it also helps to make sure they know what they’re getting, in writing. This email should include a confirmation of the package details; a username and temporary password; the nameserver names; a link to the control panel; and links to your FAQ and helpdesk.
Whew, that’s a lot, and we haven’t even talked about marketing your business yet! Still, even for someone doing it as just a hobby, becoming a reseller of web hosting services can be a big decision. I hope I’ve given you some idea of what is involved.
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For Your Customers` Sake, Be an Ethical Web Host
For Your Customers` Sake, Be an Ethical Web Host
What does it mean to be an ethical web host? And why is this an area in which so many web hosts falter? Keep reading to find out why being an ethical web host makes good business sense.Many colleges and universities offer classes on business ethics as part of their degree programs. Medical schools teach ethics as well, as a topic that has become even more important now with the advances in that field. You don’t hear as much about web hosting ethics, but that does not mean it is less important.
After all, web hosting is a business like any other. And while you may not be talking about actual lives riding on your decisions, as doctors do, you are dealing with the lives of your customers’ businesses — and any problems in that area can still be pretty devastating. If you drop the ball here, you lose customers; and it is certainly possible to drop the ball so badly that you cause your customers to go bankrupt, something no reputable host wants to do!
There are some important points to keep in mind as to how you conduct your business, if you want to be known as an ethical web host. Fortunately, many of them involve common sense, as applied to the special situation of being a web host. Not cheating your customers or lying to them about what you can do or are doing for them is pretty basic (though there have been cases of web hosts that failed to manage even that much).
If you think about it from your customer’s perspective, it should be pretty clear what they want, and what you need to do to give them what they want. They are first and foremost concerned with their own businesses, and anything that has a negative impact on that business is to be avoided. Therefore, when they evaluate a web host, the following issues will crop up: performance, customer service, and security/privacy/trust. All three of these points are interconnected, and are made up of several sub-issues. I’ll cover each of them in turn.
For Your Customers` Sake, Be an Ethical Web Host – Deliver the Performance They Need
The first point to consider under performance is uptime. What good is a website if it is not up and running? The lack up uptime is a big reason for businesses to switch web hosts. By this we mean no more than an hour, total, of downtime for a site in a one-month period — and the better you can do with this, the happier your customers will be. To quote one writer who switched web hosts six times in a one-year period, “Almost anything can be forgiven as long as sites are up and running, as close to 100 percent of the time as possible.”
Customers get antsy when their website is down because it can set off a nasty domino effect. If the site is part of a webring (and many sites still are), it might get automatically removed from the ring if it is down for too long. Sites will also get dropped from search engines if they are down for too long. And visitors who come to a site and see that it is down too often will revise their bookmarks accordingly.
The second point to consider under performance is your own servers. Yes, it is understandable that the more websites you can put on one server, the more profit you will make. However, the sites that are on your servers not only need to stay up; they need to perform well. If your clients’ customers have problems accessing the website, whether the site is down or merely slow, you will hear about it.
Along these lines, if your servers are filling up, it makes good business sense to replace them or add more before they are completely full. After all, if you have so many customers that your servers are filling up, it means that your business is booming. If your business is booming, you can certainly afford new equipment!
Another server-related point concerns changes and upgrades you may want to make. You may think the best way to help your customers is to put these changes in place as quickly as possible. While you may be excited about getting these new capabilities up and running, your customers are more concerned about keeping their sites up and running. Therefore, do not test your changes and upgrades on production servers. You need to know all of the possible side effects of any upgrade from having actually tested them out — that way, you can warn and inform your customers in advance. Simply telling your customers that the system is running slowly because you are in the process of making upgrades is not good enough, and customers deserve better.
For Your Customers` Sake, Be an Ethical Web Host – Keeping Customers Informed is Key
This brings us to the second important point that an ethical web host keeps in mind: customer service, or specifically, communication with your customers. Believe it or not, customers do understand that things happen sometimes; servers crash, or they need maintenance. Your customers will be a lot more understanding, however, if you let them know about emergencies as soon as they happen, or about maintenance enough in advance that they can take the appropriate actions if and when it has an impact on them. Do not leave them hanging, wasting precious time trying to figure out what is going on.
Especially when it is something that directly affects a customer’s website, it is important to let them know. For example, if one of your customers is using a script that is eating up resources, and you need to disable the script, the least you should do is send them an email at the same time as you disable the script, explaining why you are doing this. The two of you working together might even be able to come up with something that accomplishes the same thing as the script did, that eats up far fewer resources.
One web host even makes this a point in their own code of ethics: “I will communicate with management, users and colleagues about computer matters of mutual interest. I will strive to listen and understand the needs of all parties.”
One way that web hosts and their customers communicate with each other is via trouble tickets. Many hosts have their system set up to automatically acknowledge trouble tickets. That’s a start, but it’s only a start. People expect automated replies; they know that the problem is not truly being taken care of until a human being sees it and gets to work on it. Train your support personnel to send replies to trouble tickets as they handle them, letting your customers know that the ticket has been handled. And don’t suddenly close the ticket without informing the customer; the ticket isn’t fully taken care of until the customer is satisfied.
Another point relating to trouble tickets should be obvious, but has tripped up web hosts before. It is important to actually read the trouble ticket and understand what the customer’s problem, question, request, or complaint is. Not reading the trouble ticket, or not understanding it fully, can lead to all sorts of problems. One web host customer mentioned sending in a ticket in which he requested something called “bigmailbox” for a certain specific domain. The support person changed the record for an entirely different domain, which caused the customer’s site “to lose email capacity for two days until they eventually figured out what they messed up.”
For Your Customers` Sake, Be an Ethical Web Host – Security, Privacy, and Trust
These three issues are interrelated, and shift in meaning. As a starting point, they mean that you do what you say you’re going to do. Deliver on your promises; if it is avoidable, don’t let timetables slip. Have an easy-to-understand Terms of Service; yes, your customers will read it, and they will certainly expect you to stick by it. In fact, they’ll depend on it. In particular, if you have a signed contract with a customer in which you have made certain promises about how their data will be handled, stick to it.
Recently I read about one case in which a web host had a contract with several of its customers concerning back up tapes. According to the terms of the contract, the tapes were supposed to be rotated and taken out of the server room, off-site, so that, in case there was some kind of disaster at the web host’s site, the customer’s data would be safe. In fact, a consultant discovered that the web host regularly left the tapes in the server room, in the drives; the ones he saw were at least two days old. Worse, the tapes were located directly below a fire sprinkler. The web host’s customers in question were not-for-profits, and, if the web host suffered a bad enough disaster, could easily go out of business from this level of carelessness.
Privacy is another issue that concerns many customers. Some web host customers have databases containing private information from thousands of individuals; computer dating sites are one example of these, but there are others. Other customers have created custom scripts that they believe may be worth large sums of money, and worry about a web host snooping around and selling it to someone else. Customers need to know that their web host is not going to take advantage of their access to their customers’ websites and information.
One thread on a web hosting forum raised these issues. While a number of the replies bemoaned the uncertainty of web hosts playing by ethical rules, one person raised the specter of the law: “Legally speaking, your web host should not pry into the data of your sites unless there is a court order or something to that nature. Your script belongs to you and your data belongs to you too.”
In short, treat your customers as you would wish to be treated yourself. Even in the world of web hosting, the Golden Rule holds true.
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For Your Customers` Sake, Be an Ethical Web Host
Keeping Connected to Your Web Hosting Business
Keeping Connected to Your Web Hosting Business
A web hosting business is a 24/7 concern. How do you stay connected to your business when you’re not at the office? These days, you can go way beyond cell phones and pagers to take a truly proactive approach to being accessible to your customers.When you’re a web host, your clients expect you to be able to keep their websites online 24/7. Their businesses depend on it, as does yours. But, with few exceptions, you can’t actually live at your place of business. How do you stay in touch when you are away from your office and your clients need you? Fortunately, there are many solutions to this problem. Some of these even go beyond merely being available, to the point that, depending on the job you actually do, you might not need to come into the office for days at a time.
Pagers and cell phones were the first steps. Obviously, this technology is hardly new; pagers date to the 1950s, and the first cell phone call was made in 1973. Now pagers are almost obsolete, except for emergency situations in areas where cell phones can’t achieve a good signal (such as deep inside hospitals) or to contact many people all at once (such as relief workers). Many cell phones now feature the classic “beeping” pager function, and can handle text messaging (another function that got its start on pagers).
These devices do allow users to contact people and tap into their expertise, but there is a small drawback. Being away from the office often means being away from the records you might need to look up to answer questions. Also, if you do not have the answer to a question, but you know someone else who does, getting in touch with that person may be tricky using just these devices (unless you have three way calling, which is available for a growing number of cell phones). This is where the home office can come into the picture.
Home offices not only predate the Internet, they predate computers. I can remember my father having a home office set up against a wall of his bedroom when I was growing up. There are plenty of articles that cover how to set up a home office, so I will not discuss it in any great detail here. Basically, if you have copied your computer records over, a home office lets you work at home as efficiently as you would at work, on similar equipment. Broadband Internet connections available for the home help speed things along. Those who keep home offices might be able to take deductions on their federal and/or state income tax for the expenses associated with them; check with an accountant first.
Of course, the home office, like the regular office, is a static location. To really stay in touch, you might prefer to be able to conduct business anywhere: the beach, the coffee shop, the hotel you are staying in for that big conference, and so on. For that, we need slightly more advanced technologies.
Keeping Connected to Your Web Hosting Business – Welcome to Wi-Fi
Like cell phones, Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) depends on radio signals to work. Unlike cell phones, Wi-Fi uses the unlicensed spectrum to allow mobile devices such as laptop computers and personal digital assistants to make connections. Originally, Wi-Fi was intended to allow devices to connect to wireless local area networks. Now, however, it is often used for Internet access. A home or an office can be set up with Wi-Fi, allowing for a lot of portability for laptop users; a Wi-Fi router designed for home use might have a range of 150 feet indoors and 300 feet outdoors.
Some wireless providers are specifically targeting web hosts as a market for their products and services. Andrew Shoffner, a project manager for WPCS/Heinz, spoke recently about setting up a point to multi-point network for a regional host in its office park. The web host has two T-1 connections; the new arrangement allowed the company to cancel one T-1 and keep the other as back up, using the wireless connection as their primary one to the Internet. “As far as mobility is concerned,” Shoffner elaborates, “any Web host can work remotely almost anywhere and remain connected to their own network or directly to their clients’ servers with expanding Wi-Fi hotspot access, residential Wi-Fi availability, reduced cost of PDAs and laptops and remote-access software.”
Yes, as anyone who has ever visited a Starbucks knows, Wi-Fi has made it out of the home and the office and found its niche as a type of free service offered by various businesses. You almost can’t visit a café in a bookstore without seeing people using their laptops, and many (if not most) of those are connected to the Internet via the local Wi-Fi “hotspot.” These hotspots are literally ubiquitous; they can be found all over the world. The original impetus was to support traveling executives, so many hotels, airports, and restaurants feature hotspots.
Michael Simon, CEO of remote access and administration provider 3am Labs, reflected recently on the progress of Wi-Fi as a business tool. “Even five years ago, a broadband connection outside a corporate environment – like in a home or a hotel – was the exception, not the rule,” he said in an interview with Web Host Industry Review. “Public hotspots were barely on the radar screen. Today, a person sitting in a café in Paris could use a tool of ours, such as LogMeIn – our remote-access service – to access and support their corporate network using nothing more than a PDA that is Wi-Fi or 3G enabled.”
Keeping Connected to Your Web Hosting Business – Finding Hotspots, and What You Can Do With Them
Tracking down hotspots is even easier than you might think. A directory of wireless Internet access network nodes is available at http://www.wi-
fihotspotlist.com/. Enter your address information; you can choose to look for a hotspot that is within one, two, five or 10 miles of that location. Using this search, I found two hotspots within two miles of my home – not surprisingly, both are located within Starbucks coffee shops, and both are hosted by T-Mobile Wireless Broadband. Incidentally, T-Mobile also offers a subscription service for its wireless broadband Internet access, with more than 18,000 hotspots worldwide.
JiWire also offers a search for hotspots on its home page, http://www.jiwire.com. CNet mirrors the site on its Hotspot Zone located at http://cnet.jiwire.com/. Their search function offers more fine-grained control over your search than the one mentioned in the previous paragraph. It allows you to search for hotspots located within 0.2, 0.5, 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 miles of any particular address. Additionally, you can search by type of location, provider, and whether the hotspot is paid or free (it defaults to bringing you results for both).
Being able to connect to the Internet makes it easier to connect to people. Imagine being in a Starbucks and getting a phone call from a client. While you’re sipping your latte, you whip open your laptop, connect to the Internet, and fire off an IM to one of your company’s network engineers to get some questions answered. Never mind that the engineer is across the country taking a certification class.
One sales marketing director for a web hosting company spoke with delight about the kinds of things this makes possible: “I can reply to email from technical support because a data center deployment is not going smoothly. I can be at an appointment with a prospect, receive email about the customer problem and make a quick phone call to solve it. When I get back to the office, I’m already caught up and don’t have to take care of the crisis. It’s already been handled.”
Keeping Connected to Your Web Hosting Business – Security Concerns and Tools for the Future
Anyone familiar with wireless Internet access knows that there are certain security issues related to its use. Because it is wireless, other wireless equipment can tap into the signal; hackers can thus steal personal or confidential information, such as passwords, financial details, and so on. Wi-Fi users must employ some kind of protection to prevent this from happening, and make sure it is properly configured. Usually this involves some form of wireless encryption, and sometimes multiple layers of encryption.
Not surprisingly, there are companies that address this issue. “Long-range, secure wireless access points allow you to extend your wireless range…through a store or warehouse…while preventing access or leakage of data to war drivers…” explains Mary Hwang, product line manager for SonicWALL, a wireless security systems provider.
With wireless Internet access becoming ubiquitous, we can expect to see the blossoming of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which allows users to hold conversations over the Internet as if they were talking on a telephone line. As the security for Wi-Fi improves, secure voice over Wi-Fi will attract more users.
In the meantime, you can expect to see many executives making creative use of the tools that are currently available. For example, some instant messaging systems allow multiple users to join in a group chat involving three or more people, a feature known as text conferencing. Executives can use this feature to manage a developing situation, such as a serious power outage or accident at the hosting site, and coordinate what needs to be done. Each person involved can keep everyone else informed of what they have accomplished regardless of whether they’re on the spot or working remotely from an Internet-enabled handheld device. After all, using technology to make the connections to enable people to get their jobs done is, in a sense, an important part of what web hosting itself is all about.
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Keeping Connected to Your Web Hosting Business