Web Hosting and Email?

[Inland Air Balance]

Ive been with Network Solutions for way to long now. These jackasses want me to pay an additional $20 per month or $60 per call for tech support. Who are the small business owners using for Web hosting and email stuff?
Go Daddy? Google? There has to be a company out there thats not these monsters with no face. So who are you using?
Thanks

 

[Racey]

For email, 110% Google apps. $5 per user, per month... Huge amounts of storage, and they have the best Apps for your phone, because it's literally their Gmail app.

For domains i switched to Namecheap a while back, they offer hosting at a more reasonable price than Network Solutions.

 

[ka0tyk]

sign up for a rackspace or AWS instance and host your own. get off crappy shared hosting plans where you're stuck on a server with 900 other customers and their crappy code.

 

[RiverDave]

sign up for a rackspace or AWS instance and host your own. get off crappy shared hosting plans where you're stuck on a server with 900 other customers and their crappy code.

I don't think I'd do that unless you need a ton of bandwidth and storage?

RD

 

[ka0tyk]

I don't think I'd do that unless you need a ton of bandwidth and storage?

RD

stick to boat advice.

 

[Racey]

I don't think I'd do that unless you need a ton of bandwidth and storage?

RD

stick to boat advice.

Lol that got serious quickly

 

[RiverDave]

stick to boat advice.

LOL.. Probably right!

RD

 

[ka0tyk]

the only thing you "lose" by going from shared hosting to dedicated is some crappy cpanel or plesk control panel that lets someone who doesn't have to a clue what they're doing click on things until they break everything and then make a ticket to the noc on why their email doesn't work. but if you NEED one, theres plenty of open source alternatives out there.

other than that its nothing but benefits. a whole server to do your bidding, running whatever you want, for whatever you want to do, and not riddled by someone else's crappy blog code they learned in high school or a site thats getting DDoS'ed because they're running a trump support page. and at this point "cloud" based servers are not terribly expensive. (hey you get to tell everyone you're in the cloud!) ~$40 starting gets you a 2gb server which is more than enough for a basic site. if you need more space or memory, just drag the slider up and in about 10 minutes you'll have a larger server and pay a little more. done deal. and lets get real, its for your BUSINESS and you probably have a higher budget for your toilet paper a month than your hosting costs. keep the domain names with godaddy because, well its about the only thing they do good. Under $15 a year gets you a .com renewal.

as far as email, leave it with google. $5 a month per user gets you a rock solid email account that will never be offline and deals with spam great. set a spf record to your server so it can send emails out on your behalf and its a done deal.

so for under $100 you're golden for a regular site with a 5 user email account and google drive/apps plan. done deal.

i always enjoy helping a small business user get setup, if its something you're interested in just shoot me a pm. BTW since you're in AC I've worked at Air Mechnical, Cal-Air, and later aquired by Johnson Controls. Familiar with the industry.

 

[C-2]

Stick with shared hosting, you're never gonna hit your bandwidth limits and cpanel is a great admin interface that costs tons in licensing.

I still use GoDaddy, but have tried Hostgator, 1 & 1 and a few others, but for the ump[teen times I've contacted GD, I only had one bad experience. To me, being able to call somebody at 1:00 a.m. and speaking with a live person, that's what does it.

True, you can rent a dedicated server, but once you're fawked...who you gonna call? I rent several VPS and use them as SSH tunnels to act as my own "private" VPN's; I also have them set on my phones so I am in control of my own encrypted connections. Places like lowendbox sell VPS servers for cheap, and PUTTY is free.

If you want to protect your site, then use CloudFlare business, it's $20 month and will mitigate any DDoS attacks and prevent your public facing IP addy from being displayed. You can also filter unwanted countries, it offers DNSSec to protect your DNS name servers and you can also enforce https/encrytped connections (HSTS), and is easy to set up.

Keep ypur site simple, if you use any SQL databases or submission forms, consider using a 3rd party, let their servers deal with the security holes.

 

[ka0tyk]

Stick with shared hosting, you're never gonna hit your bandwidth limits and cpanel is a great admin interface that costs tons in licensing.

I still use GoDaddy, but have tried Hostgator, 1 & 1 and a few others, but for the ump[teen times I've contacted GD, I only had one bad experience. To me, being able to call somebody at 1:00 a.m. and speaking with a live person, that's what does it.

True, you can rent a dedicated server, but once you're fawked...who you gonna call? I rent several VPS and use them as SSH tunnels to act as my own "private" VPN's; I also have them set on my phones so I am in control of my own encrypted connections. Places like lowendbox sell VPS servers for cheap, and PUTTY is free.

If you want to protect your site, then use CloudFlare business, it's $20 month and will mitigate any DDoS attacks and prevent your public facing IP addy from being displayed. You can also filter unwanted countries, it offers DNSSec to protect your DNS name servers and you can also enforce https/encrytped connections (HSTS), and is easy to set up.

Keep ypur site simple, if you use any SQL databases or submission forms, consider using a 3rd party, let their servers deal with the security holes.

it has nothing to do with hitting bandwidth limits. dedicated hosting is like riding the bus versus having your own car. sure they both get you to work, the bus is cheaper but you'll have to sit next to the guy that crapped his pants for 2 hours each way. your own car, your own rules, its roomy and comfy and its secure versus being lopped in with a bunch of other people.

rackspace has tech support and even without their managed level plans they still give basic up/down monitoring. server offline? theres a guy in the noc that shoots a ticket to you, reboots your server and gets it back online for you.

back when i worked in webhosting... one rack of ~80 or so. not so clean, was about getting as many customers on servers as quickly and as cheap as possible. THATS what you're getting with shared hosting.

 

[rivermobster]

Or you could just shoot me a PM...

http://rivermobster.com/

I've taken quite a few customers off of Network Solutions. They are a total pain in the azz! GoDaddy is about the same. All the big companies suck azz for customer support, and the nickle and dime you to death for any extras.

I can come by your shop after work if you want, I have to swing by CTS one day this week anyway.

 

[C-2]

it has nothing to do with hitting bandwidth limits. dedicated hosting is like riding the bus versus having your own car. sure they both get you to work, the bus is cheaper but you'll have to sit next to the guy that crapped his pants for 2 hours each way. your own car, your own rules, its roomy and comfy and its secure versus being lopped in with a bunch of other people.

I've never heard anybody suggesting hosting a dedicated server to an average consumer-based and built website.

Shared hosting is fine outside of an enterprise environment.

What maanagement software are you suggesting the OP use to manage his site?

 

[ka0tyk]

I've never heard anybody suggesting hosting a dedicated server to an average consumer-based and built website.

Shared hosting is fine outside of an enterprise environment.

What maanagement software are you suggesting the OP use to manage his site?

he has a 5 page html site, what is there to manage? email would be with google. hell he could get away with a 1gb instance running nginx and be done with it. you're overcomplicating this. talking about https (which would require additional cost for the cert) and dns cloudfare accounts, vpn tunnels for phones, etc... none of that is necessary. want to upload some new page or a change to existing content? SCP via filezilla with a password or SSH key that you already have. PLENTY secure, plenty easy with drag and drop GUI. you dont need a fancy wizbang cpanel for simple file upload.

 

[ka0tyk]

Or you could just shoot me a PM...

http://rivermobster.com/

I've taken quite a few customers off of Network Solutions. They are a total pain in the azz! GoDaddy is about the same. All the big companies suck azz for customer support, and the nickle and dime you to death for any extras.

I can come by your shop after work if you want, I have to swing by CTS one day this week anyway.

there ya go. :thumbsup

 

[C-2]

he has a 5 page html site, what is there to manage? email would be with google. hell he could get away with a 1gb instance running nginx and be done with it. you're overcomplicating this. talking about https (which would require additional cost for the cert) and dns cloudfare accounts, vpn tunnels for phones, etc... none of that is necessary. want to upload some new page or a change to existing content? SCP via filezilla with a password or SSH key that you already have. PLENTY secure, plenty easy with drag and drop GUI. you dont need a fancy wizbang cpanel for simple file upload.

Cpanel is keeping it simple. An average user is going to use FileZilla? Yeah, good luck with that.

SSL certs are no longer a hassle and CF offers a limited cert. Google is also giving rank preference to SSL sites. Small business websites are growing as a target for ransomware - if the user has business website, then protecting it should be party of any advice.

The VPS info was just a side note; has nothingt o do with hosting except for the fact it's a cool way around paid VPN's since you can rent a VPS server for $6 per year.

I think I pay $99 for an unlimited hosting plan with GD per year including the SSL. Plenty fast, easy to use and secure.

 

[Inland Air Balance]

I really appreciate the help guys, but I have no idea what your talking about Cpanel, DDoS, SQL, VPN. Now I know what my wife feels like when I start talking about my work , boats, or Jeeps. It sounds like two doctors arguing the best medical treatment. I didnt know it was such a heated debate issue.
All this because Network Solutions wanted $60 to help me get my email on my new phone.

 

[C-2]

I really appreciate the help guys, but I have no idea what your talking about Cpanel, DDoS, SQL, VPN. Now I know what my wife feels like when I start talking about my work , boats, or Jeeps. It sounds like two doctors arguing the best medical treatment. I didnt know it was such a heated debate issue.
All this because Network Solutions wanted $60 to help me get my email on my new phone.

Don't mind us, just friendly nerd banter.

NS used to be the "official" registrar; they were actually subsidized by the government.

But now they suck ass, I bought a domain name from them and the next thing I knew they tried billing me $30 per month...ah, no. Web.com is their new owner, they are scandalous.

How was your site built? Via a website builder?

 

[Inland Air Balance]

I used the one that was furnished by them on their web site.

 

[ka0tyk]

I used the one that was furnished by them on their web site.

Want a new one? I'm bored.

 

[Inland Air Balance]

Sure! Have at it!

 

[traquer]

Like others have mentioned, your website is a very visible part of your business- don't skimp on it! I would write off a few bucks and pay a local company to handle the whole thing and make it look good and kick ass.

Also, people are spoiled these days and even small business websites need to be fast and mobile-phone friendly. It's not big deal at all though- myself or any of the other IT guys on RDP can have a basic but nice re-design of your website ready to go and live for you probably by tomorrow

Last year I launched a simple but good looking website and an SEO campaign for a struggling print shop in NY, and while it took 6-12 months to see results (legit SEO doesn't happen overnight), they are now doing very well and getting those expensive rush printing and B2B orders: http://www.influenceprint.com/

I'm of course biased, but the ROI on internet marketing is excellent if done right.

 

[rivermobster]

Like others have mentioned, your website is a very visible part of your business- don't skimp on it! I would write off a few bucks and pay a local company to handle the whole thing and make it look good and kick ass.

Also, people are spoiled these days and even small business websites need to be fast and mobile-phone friendly. It's not big deal at all though- myself or any of the other IT guys on RDP can have a basic but nice re-design of your website ready to go and live for you probably by tomorrow

Last year I launched a simple but good looking website and an SEO campaign for a struggling print shop in NY, and while it took 6-12 months to see results (legit SEO doesn't happen overnight), they are now doing very well and getting those expensive rush printing and B2B orders: http://www.influenceprint.com/

I'm of course biased, but the ROI on internet marketing is excellent if done right.

View attachment 477248

All of this. ^^^

 

[C-2]

The crap a business has to go thru these days just to be found, let alone, run the damn thing lol :yikes

 

[C-2]

Like others have mentioned, your website is a very visible part of your business- don't skimp on it! I would write off a few bucks and pay a local company to handle the whole thing and make it look good and kick ass.

Also, people are spoiled these days and even small business websites need to be fast and mobile-phone friendly. It's not big deal at all though- myself or any of the other IT guys on RDP can have a basic but nice re-design of your website ready to go and live for you probably by tomorrow

Last year I launched a simple but good looking website and an SEO campaign for a struggling print shop in NY, and while it took 6-12 months to see results (legit SEO doesn't happen overnight), they are now doing very well and getting those expensive rush printing and B2B orders: http://www.influenceprint.com/

I'm of course biased, but the ROI on internet marketing is excellent if done right.

That's a great looking site, tons of relevant content, job well done :thumbsup

 

[traquer]

That's a great looking site, tons of relevant content, job well done :thumbsup

Thanks, means a lot! It's getting there. I worked with them to put up some decent marketing copy, however they need to take some more photos of their processes and the final products so I can put on the website. I think prospective customers love seeing that- a technician holding a piece of finished work similar to what they're going to get, versus a "studio" shot of the same product that might as well have been stolen from a competitor's website.

Anyone on here selling high-dollar products/services, I think these Solar guys in SD (not my client) have a freakin great example of how a website should look to convey trust, experience and value: https://www.sullivansolarpower.com/ Another good example: https://servicechampions.com/

 

[rivermobster]

That's a great looking site, tons of relevant content, job well done :thumbsup

Yep, x2...

I REALLY liked the way the overlay text changed on the main page, so I just spent all night figuring out how do to that!

Nice job on that site. Well done. :thumbup:

P.S. I like your site Way better than the other two examples.

 

[traquer]

Yep, x2...
I REALLY liked the way the overlay text changed on the main page, so I just spent all night figuring out how do to that!

Thank you! The original plan for the homepage background was to use a looping timelapse video of the NYC skyline going from day-night-day (with the text appearing the same way) , but it made things slow. I hate slow sites lol

 

[rivermobster]

Thank you! The original plan for the homepage background was to use a looping timelapse video of the NYC skyline going from day-night-day (with the text appearing the same way) , but it made things slow. I hate slow sites lol

That would be cool too.

I did the text effect with three different transparent slides over a background pic (not sure how you did yours).

How about instead of a vid, you used a few different pics that fade into each other?

I made up a whole test domain last night. We can experiment on it if you want. This stuff can be major time consuming, but the egghead in me thinks it's fun. [emoji13]

 

[C-2]

I made up a whole test domain last night. We can experiment on it if you want. This stuff can be major time consuming, but the egghead in me thinks it's fun. [emoji13]

Yup, same here.

I can build a purpose-built website and get it online in hours. Specific websites just to capture the IP of visitors.

Adobe Muse rocks, takes all the html and css coding out of it. True, it's great to know html/css, but rarely do I ever use Dreamweaver anymore. It's just Muse and FileZilla.

And then I have to work my real job.... :swear