1. How would you research and locate an Internet Service Provider? Webhostingtalk.com is the place to go on finding deals on web hosts, do some research and I promise you it’ll help in the long run. You can find sweet deals, and you’ll also find who is overselling, and who goes ‘above and beyond’. When I’m looking for servers I contact a few associates and ask them how their servers are, they’ll let me know, and give me their rep’s phone number and contact info. You know you’ve got a good company when you have your own rep, whom has given you his AIM s/n, ICQ, Email, and phone number. I usually check what kind of mbit line I’ll be on, it’s the bandwidth I can use per second. There are 10mbit lines, which is great for a growing business, there are also 100mbit lines as well as 1gb lines, you could even combine lines, but that gets a bit more crazy. Most websites won’t need more than a 10mbit line. If you max out a 10mbit line for a month, you’ll be using around 1500-2000 gb a month. You can usually get a 10mbit line for around 150-250. It gets a bit more complicated, which I won’t get into, but you can also get different types of bandwidth, for example, tier 1 bandwidth costs at least $50 per mbit. I check what types of deals the rep can work out for me, server specs, etc. It’s a long process in most cases. I haven’t had to switch in a while, and I’m not looking forward to doing so. I know I got a little too much into it, but I feel like I missed a lot, but that should explain the basic idea of what I do for research.
2. How would you get a domain name for your site? I’d go with Godaddy, however the last month or so they stole a domain, photoalbum.com from a man/company. They are suppose to email the person before a domain expires, and basically, no email was sent, or something of that sort, and the domain was purchased from another person. I usually stay away from GoDaddy’s whole package deal, I just use them to purchase domains with domain privacy. I’d then get a web host to handle template systems, etc.
3. What is the most important thing you learned from Mr. Brendemer? A lot of the tips were good. If you’re looking to get web hosting, always do research on good deals, but never go for the cheapest thing out there, it’ll only cause more headaches. I have a few cheap accounts, as well as managed servers. My cheap accounts are accounts with tons of space and bandwidth, but little cpu power. I use those for storing data. When you’re going to design your site, always get it on paper, if you’re barely starting out, write a list of things you NEED and a list of things you’d like. Sketch it out on paper, it helps. I have two large dry erase boards hanging on walls, as well as sketch pads I use to write on. I’ll start a project on the dry erase board, first with features, then start a basic layout of where content will be, advertisements will be placed, and then I’ll eventually get to the backend coding, which the first part (features listing) helps me do that. I think it would have been nice if the article went more into Backordering domains, or even the domain industry, which is a huge industry in itself. I’d suggest reading on domain real estate. I can’t say I learned anything from reading this article, but it was reassuring that most of the tips were very informative for someone new to the industry. I wish I would have found all that info when I was barely starting out.
4. What types of providers highlighted this week do you feel best fits your business? Why? In my case, earthlink business web hosting is junk, as is ATT’s packages, among many other shared hosting packages. As a starting out company, I’d say to find a company with a good rep, and excellent support. If you’re going for dedicated servers, look into managed hosting, so you can yell at them when things aren’t working and they’ll handle it. A couple good companies that I like are rackspace.com and choopa.com. Both have excellent support. As for shared hosting, do some research on webhostingtalk.com. I have around 10 dreamhost.com accounts, mainly because they’re cheap and I can spread out the load among the accounts. Dreamhost doesn’t have good support, well, not the best, but they do give you tons of bandwidth and space. I’d day to stay away from ATT and Earthlink services, I do tech work on the side, and I’ve had two clients in the past week with issues with their business web hosting/email packages through them.
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