Webupon

I have included a biased list of 10 ways to tell if your web provider sucks.  I’m frequently asked “Am I using a good hosting provider?”  This is the best answer I can give.

If you answer “No” to any of the following, there is a good chance your hosting provider sucks

1. Run on Linux Servers – Running your sites on windows is dangerous and cost ineffective.
2. Runs Apache – If your like me you will require one or more of Apache’s many modules.
3. Support for mod_rewrite – Why do hosting providers run Apache and not support it?
4. SSH access – SFTP is secure, FTP is not. (SSH – SFTP)
5. Avaiable MySQL databases – 90% of today’s websites are run with database back ends.
6. SVN or other version control – If your not using SVN or GIT now, you will be.
7. Allow Multiple domains – Your only going to be running 1 website? No alternative domains?
8. Email mailboxes – Even if they do provide email it probably sucks, but at least you have something.
9. Email Alias – This way you can forward your email to a good service.
10. PHP support – My favorite scripting language, but if you script in Perl you really wouldn’t care.

I’ve had really bad experiences with godaddy.com, netfirms.com, siteground.com so stay away from them.

If you are looking for some good provider start here:

• Media Temple
• Slice Host
• Amazon Web Services

VPS hosting is really the only way to go these days, if your not technically skilled enough to setup and maintain these systems, feel free to contact me.