Reputable Website Hosting

Hi,

I am currently hosting my site with IX webhosting and am not too fond of the system - email sluggish and many functions not available as well as dragging teeth to make changes. Wanted to get a few suggestions about reliable hosting sites that some of you may use. Any info appreciate. Thanks - Have a good day!

Susan

Hi Susan,

I host 90% of my websites with www.TheDesignShoppe.com because they are high-tech/high touch. The fees are low, they throw in alot of "bells and whistles" for free, and the customer service is great. They own and maintain their own servers and have 99% up time. In the 7 years I've worked with them, they only had a server crash once and they had all their sites back up and running within 24 hours.

I want to throw in my two cents about GoDaddy and Network Solutions. Both have been reputed to have done disreputable things, some of which I've experienced directly. I've had great problems with both. For example, if you register a domain with GoDaddy, such as yourcompany.com, they will buy up all other versions of it, like yourcompany.net or .biz, and then try to sell it back to you at a higher rate. I've also had them "lock" accounts after I've made a purchase and give no reason other than "security" and not allow access to them again. Network Solutions is not a U.S. based company, so they are not subject to some of the laws affecting the internet. I've had a client get stung by one of their $99 promotions, then get billed $499 for it. I've tried to transfer domains from Network Solutions to another provider and they've been slow to release them.

I've also been told that if a hosting company hosts "adult" sites, that this can affect your websites' ability to get onto search engines, because the search engines may ban all sites coming from those servers. So, buyer beware!

More on this and other issues you need to know when building a website will be in my upcoming ebook. Watch for it.

Thank you for asking!


Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Web Design and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
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