Selecting The Right Web Hosting Package Is Tough!

27 June 2006

I had read on the web that selecting the right web hosting package is tough. I agree.

I had already registered a domain with a leading Indian Internet Broadband provider (email me on info@sketharaman.com and I’ll tell you the name of this provider). I had also bought a web hosting package from this provider since I had a prepaid broadband account with this provider and there was money lying in my credit which I wanted to exhaust before it expired at the end of the one month period. My troubles started there!

Despite showing the web hosting charge on my usage statement, I never could get a control panel to manage my website. I didn’t even get the IP address and the ftp username / password details. Telephone calls to their call center resulted in standard “we have informed the concerned department, they will call you back”, which they never did. Nor did I get any replies to my emails.

After 10 days or so, I decided to write-off my investment with this provider and start afresh, but do some thorough research this time.

There is wealth of information at the websites of the various (US-based) web hosting providers. Some of them even offer live chat, not only for their customers but even if you are only a prospective customer … that is, “just lookin’ around”. I could get a lot of clarifications from the live chat, which I couldn’t get from replies to email-tickets.

I strongly recommend that you should select a provider who provides live chat e.g. HostGator (www.hostgator.com). Telephone support is very costly (calling a US number from India can be very expensive), and email support takes time. Apart from live chat, I selected HostGator for the following two features:

  1. Hosting for virtually unlimited domains on a single hosting plan
  2. Free unlimited number of mail boxes, each with virtually unlimited storage (subject only to the overage storage limit under the selected hosting plan)

The first feature was totally unique to HostGator and the second one wasn’t too widely available, either.

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3 Comments

  1. Ketharaman Swaminathan
    18 June 2010,

    I’d selected HostGator soon after I’d written this post. Now, four years later, I’m more than satisfied with HostGator. One great feature it offers is unlimited domains on a single hosting account. I had just one website to host at the time and never gave much weightage to this feature when I’d selected HostGator but have since then found it very useful to be able to host scores of my websites without having to pay separately for each. Four years later, I haven’t come across too many other hosting providers offering this facility. Who said hosting service has become a commodity?!

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