Earthling Discovers Intergalactic Web Hosting!

Now, if you all had carte blanche to tell budget web hosting companies what you really thought they should be offering in terms of service, what would you say? I gave the question considerable thought over breakfast (cornflakes with cold milk) and this is what I came up with:

(1) infinite storage space that could host an intergalactic file sharing application, because we all secretly know that aliens are out there and they’ve already downloaded the pirate version of Half Life 3.

(2) Bandwidth x 10¹º - in fact no, the term ‘bandwidth’ wouldn’t even apply, because traffic would flow so freely that the only way we’d be able to describe it is by chanting ‘OM’ … go ahead and try it … can you feel the potential?

(3) A 24 hour support team that has been trained in the art of telepathy so that you no longer need to submit one of those bloody tickets but instead the support team has already fixed your issue before you can lift your index finger to left click on the ’support’ icon.

(4) A server with more class than the Spanish MareNostrum and with more strategic intelligence than Deep Blue which, just to set the record straight once and for all, did actually beat Gary Kasparov…yeah I know Gary it hurts, but hey at least Deep Blue won’t be running for president!

(5) A price tag so embarrassingly frivolous that it would put the notion of money to shame. This ideal hosting company would not only accept Paypal and credit card, it would also support payment in the following currencies: sea shells, pencil shavings and rice grains.

(6) Last but not least, the ideal hosting company would boast the following list of accolades: ended world political corruption in January 2008, ousted Mugabe, Bush, Kim Jong Il, Amhadinejad and Musharraf and all other known tyrants, restored meaning to the term ‘democracy’, refroze the ice caps, brought back the duck billed platypus, restored Michael Jackson to his 1970’s glory, bought Google and donated it to Yahoo, synchronised the flow of toilet water in northern and southern hemispheres, resuscitated Diana…(POW), and of course provided an answer to the question of the meaning of life (and we’d cast a blind eye if they were to stick a google ad next to the answer - come on, they’ve gotta make a living some how).

A serious compromise…

All silliness aside, I think we can safely say that the perfect budget hosting company doesn’t exist. In a recent post I outlined my experience of 6 years of budget shared hosting. Like many web users operating on a shoestring, I had to jump from host to host before landing in all satisfaction at my current solution. I’m confident enough to say that I have found a company that addresses the majority of my hosting needs and does it with professionalism. If you’d like to find out more about my current choice of hosting then you can read about them here.

When you search for a new hosting solution, you’ll no doubt come across the barrage of forum posts and hosting review sites that suffocate you with endless accounts of scandalous hosting experiences. Everyone seems to have been robbed, hoodwinked or scammed by their host at some point or another. This negative approach to hosting is far from helpful, what you really need to keep in mind is that it’s going to be a case of trial and error. Fortunately most companies offer a minimum 30 day money back guarantee. In many cases it’s 60-90 days. This allows you to test services, and I’d strongly advise people to do so.

Finding the right solution is like finding the right pair of shoes, it’s going to be a different experience for everyone. There are those who are quite happy to go with the cheapest pair but consequently they must endure the discomfort and short product life that comes with this choice, and there are those with shoe fetishes who will not settle until every possible detail has been accounted for; the majority fits somewhere in between: they want the shoe to look good, without any of the hassle. I belong to the majority.

For me the bottom line in any hosting solution is this: Given the price I pay ($7/month) I know I cannot expect infallible hosting but what I can expect is a company that actually cares about its clients, that is transparent in its operations, that offers only what is within its means, that goes out of its way to listen to customer requests and takes heed of customer feedback. I can expect a company that offers a contingency plan should the unthinkable happen and perhaps more importantly I can expect the company to be professional enough to be thinking ahead to make sure that the unthinkable never happens. This is what I’ve come to expect, and if the company doesn’t deliver, I move on to the next one. So almost a year now, that hasn’t been necessary.

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