Web Hosting Research Tools
To establish the trustworthiness of a web hosting service, the most important thing to do is find out what the hosting company’s customers have to say about their service. You can find credible customer opinions and reviews at web hosting forums as well as a few hosting directories. Customer reviews are probably the most important information source regarding the trustworthiness of a web hosting service. However, there are some other things that can help provide you with a more complete picture of the hosting company.
For companies that are based in the U.S. and Canada, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) can provide you with information. Customers can register complaints with the BBS regarding any unpleasant experiences that they have with BBB acting as the mediator. Of course companies will defend themselves to try to keep their record clean. The BBB will conclude whether the record for a company is satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
The BBB also provides a short explanation of the more common issues that have been brought to attention. Some company characterizations do seem somewhat canned, but for preserving objectivity these descriptions still can be very helpful. The BBB basically gives a yes/no or good/bad type of opinion and rating. The BBB records do seem to often be consistent with reviews expressed by customers on forums.
If you happen to receive mistreatment from a host, the BBB can also be quite handy. If you feel you have been mistreated or blatantly deceived by a hosting company you may want to consider reporting the company to the BBB so that when others are looking for a good host they will have that information.
Another way to find out information on a web hosting company is to use Whois. The Whois tool lets you know who the company or individual is behind a website or domain. However there is other information as well.
Although it might not always be fair to new companies, as potential clients we do need to concern ourselves with whether or not a company has experience or is new. All companies do need to start somewhere, and that does include good ones. However it is normal and understandable that we tend to look for businesses that have at least a few years worth of experience.
Although in some ways the Internet is still fairly new, it isn’t that hard to find companies that have history that is fairly old for backing up their claims.
The Whois record will show when a domain was registered initially. Some old companies may start a new website for addressing certain needs of customers. However, usually a new domain means a new company.
New is relative. New in Internet terms can mean something completely different than in real life. There aren’t too many things on the Internet older than 10 to 15 years. Many of the Internet “big boys” have less than 10 years worth of internet experience and not just hosting companies.
Although new is a relative term, a hosting company started less than one year ago could be considered to be a new company. It doesn’t mean that company doesn’t deserve your business. It would depend on who is behind the company and what you expect.
The Whois check can also provide you with a telephone number and physical address. Another potentially interesting piece of information is the domain’s expiration date or the period of time it was registered for. Domains that are registered for thee years or more can be a sign that the business really is serious. It can indicate that the hosting company plans to be in business for more than a year.
Two other helpful websites for finding out information regarding hosting companies include www.webhosting.info and www.whois.sc. You just have to type whois.webhosting.info/domainname.com or whois.sc/domainname.com into your browser. These tools can provide some other potentially useful information in addition to what is normally provided with a Whois check.
Reverse IP information provides the approximate number of websites sharing the same hostname/specific IP. In order to effectively use this, you need to not only verify the hosting company domain name but also other websites using the hosting service.
Just knowing the number of domains pointing to a specific IP doesn’t necessarily tell us the number of websites being hosted by a server because more than one IP can be associated with a server. Even knowing how many websites were on a server still wouldn’t let us know how crowed the particular server is.
Every website is different. There are websites that are popular, big forums and others that are just simple, static two page HTML websites that only get a couple hundred visitors each month. Just a few forums could equal the amount of strain to the server as thousands of smaller sites. There could also be domains that are just parked and don’t drive much traffic.
Servers are also not the same. They can differ in terms of software and more importantly, hardware. Powerful servers can host two to three times more websites easily than a low end server can and still maintain similar levels of performance.
There isn’t really a clear conclusion that can be drawn based on numbers that Reverse IP tool provides. In order to get an accurate estimate of how crowded the server is, more information would be needed such as memory usage, CPU usage and server load.
In general, the cheaper the hosting service, the more domains there are pointing to one IP.
Another fun and useful tool is the Internet Wayback Machine. This will show you how websites looked at different moments in time. It terms of hosting companies you can get an approximation of how long the company has been in business as well as how they have evolved. You will also be able to note their price changes, how their different hosting packages have over time been modified, and what might be the most important thing, if they have ever any questionable things such as unlimited bandwidth or space. This wouldn’t be a good sign. It could mean though that they have learned a few things or another company bought them.
If you are determined and want to be very thorough in finding the best hosting service, these tools definitely can help you to make a good decision.
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