Our Search For The Perfect Web Host
OK, let me start by acknowledging there’s no such thing as the perfect web hosting. Everyone’s needs are different, and there are web hosts to suit everyone’s needs.
Why We’re Moving Host
Around the time of the Google Panda update, we lost over half our Google traffic, and one of the things we tried was speeding up the delivery of our web pages.
We had been on shared hosting, provided by one of our clients in the New York area, and had been very happy with the service, but wondered if we could improve rankings with extra speed.
Following a recommendation by a WordPress expert we really respect, a few months ago we moved to a cloud-based system. Unfortunately, it has been a terrible experience for us.
Update: Said WordPress expert, Joost de Valk, has since interviewed the MD of the hosting company in question, to address the issue that many of their customers seem to be having.
Web Server Outages
You can see from these snaphots from Google Analytics, the downtime for a busy website is not acceptable (hey, it’s pretty unacceptable for any website). Our web server went down for half a day on June 11th, another 6 hours the following weekend (19th), and suffered several more outages over a 2-day period earlier this month.
Downtime like this can harm a business. In our case, it could result in fewer newsletter subscriptions, fewer products sold, and – worst of all – damage our image in the eyes of readers.
Now, the purpose of this post is not to criticise our last host, but to take you through the process we’ve followed to try and find one that better suits our needs.
Different Kinds of Web Hosting Explained
The vast array of options out there can be baffling, even when you’ve been in the industry for nearly 20 years!
Shared servers, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, CDNs, dedicated servers… what do all these mean? And – more importantly – which one’s right for you?
Before I get back to the story, I’ll give you a few notes, to help clarify.
Shared hosting (Cheap & Cheerful?)
Still probably the most popular way. With shared hosting, one server hosts may websites. You’ll get a limited amount of disk space, and usually a bandwidth limit.
The main benefit is cost. It can be very quick and cheap to set up shared hosting.
There are many downsides, if any of the websites on the server goes wrong, gets too popular, is hacked or compromised, all the other websites can be affected.
Go for shared hosting if your site is not mission-critical, likely to have low traffic, or if you just need to get a website up quickly and cheaply.
This is the type of hosting we’ve always used before. In fact, all our sites apart from webdesignfromscratch.com are still on shared hosting accounts.
Dedicated Server Hosting (the Secure Option)
A dedicated server is pretty straightforward. You pay for your own server (whether it’s a server you bought and configured, or one you rent off the host) to be set up and run in a host’s datacenter.
Like many other types of hosting, a dedicated box can be managed (where the host manages the server’s hardware, software, and security) or unmanaged (where it’s your responsibility to look after the server).
There can be many advantages to having your own physical server. You get more control (full control if you have root access) over the software and server management.
It is also much easier to control the security of a dedicated machine, as it is not shared with anyone else’s sites. (This is the reason why we chose a dedicated server for our new hosting.)
On the downside, it’s always more expensive to have a whole box to yourself. While you get guaranteed resources (disk space, CPU etc.), you’re paying for that amount of power every day.
While most of the time you shouldn’t need it all, sometimes, you may get a spike of demand, in which case shared hosting – or even a dedicated server – may not be enough. But usually you’ll have plenty of resource to spare.
Virtual Server / VPS Hosting
Virtual Server hosting is pretty common today. A virtual server describes a situation where a physical server set-up runs more than one instance of an operating system (“virtual machine”). You could have many virtual machines on a single physical server, or distributed among several.
VPS means “Virtual Private Server”, which means you get a whole virtual machine to yourself.
Virtual hosting has some of the benefits of the dedicated server approach (you get more control over your own system, even down to choice of operating system), but also suffers from some of the downsides of shared hosting (such as shared CPU and hard disks).
Everyone’s web server is – to a degree – separated from other servers on the same box. The separation is only in software, though, and if the box is compromised at the root level, it is still possible for all the virtual machines on the same system to be compromised.
In principle, virtual machine/VPS can give you more resource for your money, compared to a dedicated server, as there’s less physical hardware to buy and to maintain. But take into account that there are compromises.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting can be similar to VPS hosting, where each server is actually a virtual machine. However, the websites aren’t hosted on one particular physical server, but can be shared or distributed across many CPUs. (There are lots of different types of hosted cloud solutions (e.g.).. but we’re just concerned with web hosting here.)
Usually, in fact, your server instance will only run on one particular machine at a time, but in theory it could be running on one of many. This means that the host has a lot of flexibility, and can move virtual servers onto CPUs that have more resource available.
The idea with cloud hosting is that you only pay for the resource you need. With shared (or regular virtual) hosting, you’re limited to your share of the resources of the physical server. With a dedicated server, you get all its resources to yourself full-time. With cloud, in theory, you can get more bandwidth and memory when you need it.
This should let hosts run more servers on less hardware, because they can give each site exactly the resources it needs at any time.
On the negative side, I’d say most hosts use cloud hosting as a way to keep old hardware going longer. So, while it may look like you’re getting a good deal, your website could be running on a server that the host couldn’t get away with selling for shared or dedicated hosting.
Experts are also very concerned about the security vulnerabilities of cloud computing in general. It’s a new technology, and there have been some very high profile breaches.
Shocking Security Breaches on our Shared Hosting
Purely by chance, I was introduced by one of my Alliance members to an information security consultant who operates in the Netherlands.
They’re called Haystack & Needle, and they specialise in Information Security Awareness and Penetration Testing, and monitoring and fixing any security issues they find. I have now engaged these guys to help advise on our security, and I can certainly recommend them for any business-critical website. (They speak English, French and Dutch.)
When their consultant (Arona) looked at our current hosting, here’s just some of what he found:
- Cross-Site Scripting vulnerabilities
- Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerabilities
- Active Malware, Backdoors & Trojans
- Traces of past intruders
- Information Disclosure through original incomplete configurations
- Directory Traversal issues…
And concluding…
It’s as if whoever is administering that machine decided to try every wrong thing in the book!
Needless to say, I was shocked! I’ve used shared hosting for years, and I had no idea that we would be in this bad a state.
The most significant change that our security testers told us was that we really should be on a dedicated server. This way, we (or H&N, or our hosts) have ultimate control on
Check out this advice from Arona:
Shared Hosting has its own risks. If a service provider is not careful, their machine can become afflicated with a whole bag of nasty things.
I’m referring to multiple Cross-Site Scripting vulnerabilities, Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerabilities, Trojans, blind SQL injection issues, and not forgetting a few backdoors sprinkled around, so that the attackers can come back on the system at will.
In basic terms a server can literally become someone else playfield for whatever activities, with all the legal consequences.
In the past, attackers were more obvious during their activities, there were telltale signs. Believe you me, those times are over. The playing field has considerably changed in the last decade.
Attackers are way more discreet nowadays, and quite understandably so. Cybercrime has appeared on the scene, and it’s playing by different rules.
Attackers of all calibers and sizes know how to beat/go around/bypass whatever defenses and tricks we use to protect our assets. Does that mean that we should give up? No it simply means that we should assume that our assets and infrastructures are already compromised and work from there.
It does not matter whether one is big, small, rich, famous or a nobody, if we interact with technology, we need to educate ourselves on the realities of today’s technological landscape, its risks and pitfalls.
The Search for a Better Host
One of the things that makes it particularly difficult to find really good recommendations for web hosts is affiliate marketing. Most hosting companies have affiliate schemes, and some of these can be very lucrative.
Affiliate marketing is where vendors pay a fee to web publishers for every lead they refer who buys something. It’s basically selling other people’s stuff, without having to handle payments, stock, etc.
Search for anything relating to finding the right web host, and it will be very difficult indeed to distinguish the affiliate links from real personal recommendations. There are lots and lots of sites set up ONLY for the purpose of tricking visitors into thinking that one particular host is the best, which is very unethical in my book.
So I decided to ask my mailing list. I emailed over 8,800 subscribers and asked for their recommendations on web hosts.
Here’s what I specified (at the time – this is before we’d been advised to get a dedicated machine):
- US location (as half our visitors are from the US)
- Outstanding support
- Great speed, as we’ll be serving more and more video over time
- Managed service (we’re not web server experts ourselves)
- Cloud or shared, probably not dedicated
If you PERSONALLY have DIRECT PERSONAL experience of the PERFECT hosting solution, then please do let me know.
An Incredible Response
I got well over 50 different recommendations for different web hosts. Here are just the ones that got two or more recommendations:
- Hostgator (6)
- Rackspace (5)
- Bluehost (4)
- LiquidWeb (4)
- MediaTemple (3)
- GoDaddy (2)
- Dreamhost (2)
- SoftLayer (2)
(We also got recommendations for Dathorn, Hostdime, ICDSoft, Web4Duniya, Site5, UnitedHosting.co.uk, Westhost, Firehost, Eleven2, BusinessCatalyst, Total Choice Hosting, Pair.com, HostExcellence.com, IXWebHosting, Dewahost, Nexcess, 5QuidHost, Korax.com, WPEngine, Ace-Host.net, and 34sp)
I expected to see Rackspace in there, being a premium web host. But no one’s perfect – even they had some serious outages a few months ago when the power went down at one of their datacenters. MediaTemple is another premium name I recognise.
Others, such as Bluehost, HostGator and GoDaddy, I saw as at the lower end of the market. I guessed they got votes simply by virtue of being popular.
Choosing Our Host
I was tempted to skip over the recommendations for HostGator, although they won the popular vote, but when I looked at some of the details, I was quite surprised.
As for web hosting, I have been using a managed, dedicated server from Hostgator (hostgator.com) (in U.S.) for 2.5 years now and have been very pleased with both the performance and the support. They provide a variety of packages including shared. I’ve thrown many different questions at their support team and have always received courteous and timely help. We host 24 clients on our dedicated server and have had approx. 10 min. unscheduled downtime in the past 2 years.
Jeff
Hostgator offered minimal telephone support, our reseller sites often went down. Godaddy was not good. The others crashed frequently.
Ellie
Hostgator has been great and they offer 24/7/365 support.
Rob
Hostgator is the best Ben. I have used them for about 5 years for at least 20 web projects. I have tried quite a few others and they did not compare.
Clint
I use hostgator shared. I purchased a reseller account for myself and host my sites there. about $25/month. Great service, quick service, they answer even my small trivial questions with patience. Can call or chat. They’re big enough so I don’t worry.
Ariana
I’m a HostGator client myself since 2004. I have a managed dedicated server over there that I use for shared hosting accounts. Over the years I’ve had two major downtimes (+2h) because of network problems in their datacenter (The Planet), and one because of a problem on my server itself.
Support is normally quite fast. First line support for sure. Most of those problems I can solve myself, so I mostly need third line support, which can take a bit longer. But all problems are usually solved within a few hours or within a day.The offer shared, dedicated and VPS services. The packages offer all you need and more.
The last years they’ve grown very big. I hope they can keep up with it. There’s also an active forum.
Stefan
So, in the end, we finally decided to move this site onto a dedicated machine with HostGator. It was very reasonably priced, compared to a lot of other options, and we’ll just have to see how good the service is.
So far, I can report that HostGator have been extremely helpful with managing our migration. I hope the level of support stays this good, and I’ll certainly report back.
Final Tips on Security
Arona from Haystack & Needle gives the following advice:
When it comes to Information Security Awareness, there is no solution that does not involve educating the users, and yes, that means ALL of us.
The French scientist Louis Pasteur was laughed at and ridiculed for his theory of germs. His peers and the public at large could simply not wrap their mind around the concept of germs.
Information Security Researchers are now finding themselves in a similar situation. They must help users to learn to pay attention to something they cannot even detect.
Information Security Awareness is about awareness. That is the keyword here.
- How can we become more aware of what is going on around us?
- Are we responsible for our interactions with computers and data?
- Are we responsible for how someone else abuses something we believe is in our control?
- Can we collectively start caring?
We can but it will take effort, great individual effort. We cannot delegate to experts and consultants.
We must somehow get our hands dirty, whether we want to or not, we must make time for it, because ultimately it’s our lives, our data, our responsibility. We owe it to ourselves – and that is okay.
Have Your Say
Do you have a preferred web host? Let us know who gets your vote. If you choose ‘Other’, please specify in the comments below. Thanks!
Loading ...9 Comments Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Doh! I would’ve gave you my affiliate link!! Host Gator is really good, and ridiculously popular.
Def stay away from RackSpace, there support is horrible and I’ve had terrible experiences with them. GoDaddy is also horrible.
Good choice never the less.
I’m using WP Engine – a host dedicated to hosting WordPress sites. They have done great work in getting my sites to load quickly and reliably, they have fantastic customer support and really know their stuff.
I’ve also heard good things about Page.ly, another dedicated WordPress host.
I too am a hostgator groupie – was with them for several years with misc sites, and now have ALL my sites with them for the last three years now – great support and LOTS of goodies for your money.
Ben, I’m not sure which I would recommend; however, I would recommend you stay well away from GoDaddy. The poor usability of their control panel for all functionality leaves me dumbfounded. It is amongst the worst with which I have ever had to do battle.
Been using Dreamhost for a while and not had a problem…. They were recommended to me but I’ve not ever heard a bad word about hostgator to be honest either.
I’ve used DewaHost for a few years, and they are pretty good too.
They did have outages through the years, but I only remember a couple of serious ones in 9 years, and they e-mailed everyone affected and offered them their money back for the month, which shows to me that they take things seriously.
Been with GoDaddy for 3 years and have all my sites hosted with them, 38 sites to be exact! Funny this came out last week because I am currently looking to move all my sites from GoDaddy… I warn you all, stay as FAR, FAR, FAR away as possible for I have learned my lesson the hard way! Horrible support, horrible downtime and the bandwith for low-end hosting packages suck, which forces you to spend more money on bandwith upgrade or higher-end packages.
Thanks for letting me rant (legitimate one though);)
Not in the US but we use TSO host. Who were brilliantly helpful when we moved to WordPress – they did all the technical stuff for us and got back to emails in an average of 15 mins!! Help also available by phone. I asked some pretty easy questions but they answered with great respect!
We’ve used tsohost before too, and found their customer service to be second to none!