Someone recently was wondering if getting someone to host their website locally as opposed to one of the hosting giants was the best option.

I can definitively say that local hosting firms can be the absolute worst – if they are physically hosting their own servers.  It takes a fair amount of money and personnel to do it completely and it just doesn’t pay well enough to provide great hosting, great prices and great support.

However, if one were to lease a server from one of those big folks with the money and the personnel to tend the physical parts, then that hosting can be not only a bargain but a great experience.

I say this because, yes, I have my own dedicated server that I lease from a large company but I don’t market it. (Yes, I’m saying I’m not using my blog to sell hosting.)  I provide full featured hosting at pretty good prices on a cPanel server to only my clients – ones that I either do the work on or that I know what they are doing on their website. Since I take care of most of the websites on my hosting, most don’t need much support at all and I try to respond immediately to questions and concerns.

It’s ideal for my customers – and  it gives me super hosting for my own sites.

I had reseller hosting from a relatively large company in Atlanta on a shared server some years back. I was actually talking to them about me providing some support when they got hacked (surprise), I told them that the databases were fine and to be sure to save them.  They didn’t listen to me and my customers lost a month. So large hosting company – bad results due to 2 things, shared hosting and panicked techs.

The point is to choose carefully – know what is most important to you. Ask yourself:

1. Does the hosting provide a satisfactory environment? Do you need anything beside static html?  Is your static site large enough to benefit from includes?  Does the hosting allow either shtml or a dynamic language such as php, asp, .net?  What might be in your future in addition to what you have now – might you need a blog, a cart or other database driven application?  How many databases do they allow? ( minimum of 2 is best always – in case of upgrades, a second can come in very handy and save you money in the long run)
2. What’s the best deal? $2 a month?  Stop!  Do you value your website? Think higher.  You do get what you pay for. What do the fees include? Do they nickel and dime you with little add-ons? Think into the future. What can it cost you? Paying over $20 a month – there are better deals out there most likely.
3. What kind of support do you need? 24 hour and you don’t mind it all being by email? Do you want to talk to someone? Have you researched to see if there are any complaints about their hosting? Google it. The larger the provider, sometimes the worse the support. I consider Godaddy to be the bottom feeders of the hosting world but have good experiences with BlueHost.com.
4. Are they bragging about serving many thousands of customers?Be wary – that can mean reduced bandwidth, slower servers speeds and a higher possibility of hacking.
5. Do you want FrontPage?  A server with FrontPage has just opened a door to everyone’s website – less secure servers.  Look for an alternative – where they might have a sitebuilder of some sort.
6. Do you want to pay by the month or year?  Monthly hosting can cost more or, if it doesn’t, can also mean a transient server – too easy to move websites around nowadays especially if someone is trying to hack the server from within his website hosting account. Yearly paid options may cost more out of pocket but you might get better hosting … or not.

As usual, there are no absolutes on the Wild Wooly World of the Internet.