The second component of the term hosting, is the website component.  This is what most people think of when they think of hosting a website.  The basic premise of this function is having your website, which is a series of files for viewing and creating action, available for people to see.  It is important to select a hosting company that provides a reliable service.  Many people will “guarantee” uptime.  Uptime is simply the site being available.  Goodfriend Solutions doesn’t market this uptime percentage for two reasons.  One, what does guarantee mean?  Does it mean 99.9% of every hour, every day, over a month, or over a year?  Also, what happens if the 99.9% is not met?  Are you compensated?  Do you get a refund?  Before you select a provider, ask these questions and have them explain exactly what the guarantee is.  Most providers market a guarantee, but can’t explain what it is or how you will be compensated if it is not met.

Hosting is not JUST having your website available.  There are a plethora of other options that are bundled with a service agreement.  Just as with the marketing strategies of the email service, many providers will boast about all the great features you get with your service.   Technical terms are used so you think you are getting the best of the best.  You might hear of things like FTP, dedicated IP, cPanel, and sub domains.  You will hear of ASP, SSI, Cron, Frontpage, and Perl. 

These “features” fall into one of two categories.  One, it is a tool you will never use.  The second category are things every provider gives you because they are the basis for the website functioning.  These are the equivalent of shopping for a car and hearing that the car will have paint, tires, seats, a steering wheel, mirrors, and an engine.  Don’t make a decision on your hosting provider just because they include a bunch of extras that will never be used or boast about services that are required to host a website, like the tires on a car.

Goodfriend Solutions has an uptime percentage of greater than 99.9% over the life of our service.  If you use our hosting solutions, your website will be located in 3 places.  It is on one primary server.  There is a second server in the same facility that has the exact same website.  If the primary server fails, the second server is used.  We also have your website on a server in another part of the country.  If a natural disaster occurs, it is unlikely that it will occur in two parts of the country.  The probability that something would cause all 3 services to fail at the same time is extremely unlikely. 

Goodfriend Solutions provides all the tools and offerings for you to effectively manage your website, most of which are far better than our competition.  We are dedicated to giving our customer the lowest cost of website ownership in the industry.

Most hosting agreements include email.  Almost without question, every service provider will give you the same thing.  This is where the marketing comes in to play.  Some will boast about the volume of email accounts a client will get.  Some will market the number of aliases.  This is almost irrelevant.  Most people wanting to setup a website with email will never need 100 email accounts.  Service providers understand this, so they market the volume hoping you compare their service to others, and pick them based on the number of available email accounts. For most, there is no difference between 20 emails and 1,000 emails, because you will never need more than 20. 

The basic service offerings related to email are as follows.

• POP3/SMTP Email:  This means you can send and receive email.  If the provider doesn’t offer SMTP, and some don’t, it means you will have to use your internet service provider’s outgoing mail servers.  This is very infrequently an issue. 

• Webmail:  This gives you the ability to check your email from any computer via a web browser.  This is nice if you travel, or frequently check your email from multiple computers.  There is a variety of robustness with different webmail.  If you plan to check your mail via a web browser frequently, you may want to look at this option in more depth.  For most, this is a nice-to-have, but isn’t something that is used frequently. 

There are two things that are becoming very important, if not a requirement to have.  The first is SPAM protection.  With the massive increase in SPAM, it is important to employ a provider that takes aggressive steps to limit junk email.  Goodfriend Solutions uses the same technology that many government agencies, including the FBI, to decrease the amount of spam and employ a high level of security.  Our servers remove over 70% of all emails before our customers see them in their inbox.  We work with a number of agencies to identify and track known attacks, and eliminate them before they become a nuisance.

If multiple stations are used to check the email, whether it be 2 PCs with Outlook, or 1 PC and an cell phone, you may want to use a provider that allows you to setup emails using IMAP.  The advantage of IMAP over POP3 is that it maintains synchronization between all your devices.  If you create folders to organize your email and move emails into those folders on one device, the same changes will exist on every device when they sync.  This can substantially increase your productivity and organization.  Although IMAP requires more hardware Goodfriend Solutions offers IMAP because we feel the importance of productivity and convenience is worth the price.

A lot of people ask me what hosting is.  The simple answer is that hosting is a place to put your website and email.  Most retailers don’t purchase a mall to open a store, they rent one storefront because it is much more cost effective, and they don’t need an entire mall.  The same concept applies websites.  Most people don’t purchase all the equipment and software to have a website.  They “host” it, meaning they rent space and share the costs with other people because they don’t need the power of dedicated equipment. 

This is the first of a number of posts dedicated to hosting.  Hosting is no different than anything else.  It is not black and white.  Hosting charges can range from $10 per year to more than $1,500 per month.  Hosting providers fall into one of three groups. There are organizations that provide extremely cost effective hosting services.  There are those that use technical concepts to try and dazzle your mind and explain why you should spend far more than you need to.  Lastly, there are those that help you choose the best technology for your specific situation so you have the lowest cost of ownership possible.  I fall in to the later of these buckets.  I have created some amazing tools so my clients can manage their own websites without having to get an IT degree to do so.  These tools also completely eliminate the need to purchase code editors and graphic editing packages. 

To get a complete understanding of how much our website content management tools can save you, both in software purchases and in website designer fees, contact us today for a free assessment.