web hosting y'all

[gasmaster]

I know a lot of you guys are involved in internet hosting. This stuff changes all the time and it's been a few years since i needed it. so my question is...Where's the best places to buy web hosting from, and why do you like it? Thanks!

[Franklin]

from what i understand- a lot of the smaller web hosting companies have been bought out by a single company
and since then- a lot of them with good reputation
well, now they are all the same shitty service with different names


the big name economy hosts (that most people have heard of) are
godaddy
and
hostgator

they offer basic shared hosting
these are fine for some basic websites
with moderate visitors

and they have been in business a long time



if you expect- a ton of visitors a day
then you need to upgrade to a better hosting solution
and get a dedicated server or a virtual private server
then again there is also virtual dedicated cloud servers you could go with


but really for basic website hosting
the basic shared hosting solution will usually do
then when you need to expand you can always switch your hosting..

[Bao]

if you expect- a ton of visitors a day
then you need to upgrade to a better hosting solution
and get a dedicated server or a virtual private server
then again there is also virtual dedicated cloud servers you could go with

You mean - if you allready have tons of visitors, like 10,000/day. If you don't, you can start off cheap and go pro when you can afford it and starts to get heavy traffic.

[canard]

A lot depends on what are hosting?
If it's simple html, static pages, javascript (i.e. everything dynamic happens cilent side), you can host everything on github pages (and it's free) - the best part is it kind of forces you to use git so your site will at least have some source control built in.

If you need something a little more dynamic on the server side (php/rails/django etc):
Webfaction or Nearlyfreespeech are both pretty reliable. Webfaction has some built in backups, not sure about nearlyfreespeech.

If you want something cloud based then you've got tons to choose from - I found Openshift pretty good - they have a free plan which should be big enough for about 50k visitors a month.

If your site relies on microsoft (asp.net, c#, sql server), then really you might as well stick to their Azure hosting. Personally I found the interface to it annoying last time I played with it.

[chud]

If it's simple html, static pages, javascript (i.e. everything dynamic happens cilent side), you can host everything on github pages (and it's free) - the best part is it kind of forces you to use git so your site will at least have some source control built in.

Great suggestion. Also you can put the static pages up on a CDN and not even worry about having a server (again, has to be static pages, not scripts).

[Franklin]

yeah- but you guys are forgetting
that when you do stuff like that then you still have to deal with pointing your name servers and setting up your email and what not

usually with the shared hosting companies
you can register your domain with them and set up your site on the hosting
and they will offer help as well
so for a lot of people this is a lot easier and less work...

just something to think about...

of course it depends on your level of technical skill
and the amount of time you want to spend on different things

[gasmaster]

Cool, thanks guys. I love that I can always ask here and get an answer from people that are in the know.
I admit I don't have a lot of knowledge on this stuff. The last place I had hosting, I paid a price and got unlimited space and loaded my pages. Clearly things have changed. Is there a source that explains the different things that you guys are talking about... I guess i'm a beginner with all the hosting again, as some of what you're talking about went over my head. at the moment I'm planning on hosting multiple websites on the one account, but I think none of the sights will be getting 10,000 hits a day even though three of the websites will be my fathers online gift stores.

[Peacedog]

xxxxxxxxxxx

[fuga]

I bought domain names through godaddy and then pointed all the domains to my account at LivingDot where I host 5 or 6 domains. They have been reliable and when one or two problems occurred, they were responsive. You can set up emails with the domains as well.

All of them use various WordPress themes and one has an ecommerce/store function by integrating it with Paypal.

There are a number of predesigned Wordpress themes that you can buy that help present a clean looking site, and then there are mostly free plug ins that can add extra functionality (for example, if you wanted to add a live twitter stream).

You can see my most recent website at http://peterfugazzotto.com/ to get an idea of WordPress functionality.

[canard]

Cool, thanks guys. I love that I can always ask here and get an answer from people that are in the know.
I admit I don't have a lot of knowledge on this stuff. The last place I had hosting, I paid a price and got unlimited space and loaded my pages.

Yes - dreamhost, for example, offers this kind of thing. In fact it isn't unlimited, it's just that for the average website, you aren't going to stress their servers, so they can oversell, safe in the knowledge that most people will get 5 hits a day and the occasional high load site just evens out the averages.

Is there a source that explains the different things that you guys are talking about

probably, or, you could just ask here - seems to be a fair number of us who do this sort of thing and can help you....here's some basics to get you started:

at the moment I'm planning on hosting multiple websites on the one account, but I think none of the sights will be getting 10,000 hits a day even though three of the websites will be my fathers online gift stores.

Do you have your domain names purchased? If not, you need somewhere to do that - some hosting providers will let you buy domain names as well, some domain name registrars will let you buy hosting as well. Neither of those options is the cheapest, but it's often the easiest as Franklin suggests.

I use Namecheap for my domain names. I've got a thing against godaddy because they tend to aggressively up-sell you which annoys me and their previous CEO went elephant hunting ....so now I'm holding an irrational grudge . Don't be like me - make a collected business decision based on who offers you the best combination of value/support/features.

If you opt for your domain name registrar and your hosting to be separate, you need to "point" your domain name to your hosting, as Franklin says. This is pretty simple - you find the "nameservers" (there should be 3 or 4, usually something like nameserver1.superhost.com) of your host and in your domain name registrar control panel, you'll be able to enter those. At the hosting end, you normally have an option to add a domain name to host - if you're using something like dreamhost/webfaction, you just use their clicky web interface and hey presto.

Running multiple sites - you'll need what some hosts call a "re-seller" account - don't be put off by the name, it just means that you can host multiple domains on the account.

Most hosts will include the ability to run php & mysql databases out of the box. Anything more specialised (like running sites based on ruby on rails/django/other web framework of your choice and other databases) and you're looking at something more specialised and thus more expensive. So, the question is, what are your sites going to be running on, are they already built or are you going to build them?

If they aren't built yet, wordpress offers good functionality out of the box, as everyone else has mentioned. There are some good theme frameworks you can plug in on top to enable shopping basket and checkout functionality as well (something like woocommerce). If you are really just running web stores, you might want to look at something like bigcartel or shopify or maybe even etsy if your stuff is handmade.

How will you access your sites when doing maintenance/setup? Basic choices:
Some combination of sftp/git to get your files up there and ssh to log in and do any config - if your site is custom built for you then this is your option - make sure your host supports it. Git is just a source control solution that lets you keep revisions of your software easily. It also handily supports pushing and pulling files from computer to computer over https and ssh.
Some sort of custom installer - lots of hosts have installers for popular software like wordpress built in - click a button on a webpage and go....