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Host Depot's Mark Erskine on Choosing a Hosting Company
CWH: "Thousands of people visit our site everyday looking
for the perfect hosting company. What's the key to choosing the right host for your
site?"
Mark: "Whether you are building a personal web site with family pictures,
or adding a global web presence to your bricks and mortar business, choosing the right
company to host your web site is an important decision. There are as many web site
hosting companies to choose from today, as there is technical jargon to describe the
services they offer. While price is always a consideration, it is important to know
that you can count on your host to provide reliable service, the features you need
and responsive support services to answer your questions. At Host Depot, we make
customer service and satisfaction our number one priority. "
CWH: "Are there any guarantees about service?"
Mark: "Reputable companies will offer at least a 30-day money-back
guarantee if you are not satisfied with their services. They should also offer
a guarantee of your monthly up time. For example, at Host Depot, we offer a 99.9%
up-time guarantee, which means that you receive a refund if your web site is not
accessible on the Internet 99.9% of the time each month."
CWH: "What do you need to know about a host's data center
and Internet connections?"
Mark: "Companies that co-locate with, or resell the services of a third
party often do not have complete control over the performance of their network and
computers. Companies who own and control their own operations can better ensure
the reliability of their services. It is also a good idea to ask what types of
lines connect them to the Internet. Anything less than T3 could mean problems with
response times on your web site if they are over-utilizing their connectivity.
At Host Depot, we own and operate our own data center and network, which includes
redundant OC3 connectivity."
CWH: "What should you know upfront about domain registration
and e-mail accounts?"
Mark: "Domain names, such as mywebsite.com, are provided by registration
authorities not affiliated with the hosting company. Find out what the company
charges for the first year of registration. Some hosting companies offer specials
and will register your domain at no additional cost for the first year. Most
hosting companies include e-mail accounts that you can use with your new domain
name, such as sales@mywebsite.com. Find out if the number of e-mail accounts is
unlimited, or if there is a limit, what the additional cost per account will be
should you require additional addresses in the future. At Host Depot, we cover
the expense of the domain registration for the first year and offer additional
domain registrations for $19.95 per year. We also offer an unlimited number of
e-mail accounts on our hosting plans."
CWH: "What can a host offer for building and maintaining
your own Web site?"
Mark: "Mark: Some companies offer web-based, step-by-step web site
creation tools that let you build your web site, complete with graphics and your
custom text. This is a very useful feature if you are new to the web and do not
have time to learn to use a web site editor such as FrontPage to create your web
site. At Host Depot, we offer all of our web-hosting customers free use of our
web-based web site creation tool, SiteBuilder. We even allow you to take a live
demo of the tool.
A control panel is a web site that lets you make changes to your account, e-mail
addresses and other features of your web site online. The goal is to have the
ability to make changes yourself, without having to call a support representative
and wait for them to make urgent changes for you. At Host Depot, we provide our
SiteUtil control panel, which empowers the customer to make real-time changes to
their account.
Most of us use Microsoft Office for our word processing and spreadsheet needs.
Some versions of Office include FrontPage, the most popular and easy-to-use web
page editor. FrontPage lets you create web pages without knowing HTML or computer
code. If you are planning on using FrontPage, be sure to ask if your web site will
support it. At Host Depot, all accounts support FrontPage 2002 and all older versions."
CWH: "You hear a lot these days about E-commerce. What's
involved in selling products on your Web site?"
Mark: "Mark: If you are planning to sell products or services with your
web site, you will need several key e-commerce features from your host provider
including:
Shopping cart software that is easy to use to help you create your online store.
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) guarantees that personal information your customers send to your web site are encrypted while traveling through the Internet.
Support for the major online credit card processing systems so that you can accept credit card payments.
At Host Depot, we offer our new Merchant Wizard, which configures and builds your
shopping cart for you, supports real-time credit card processing, and allows you to
manage your online storefront from our SiteUtil control panel.
Host Depot can be found on the web at http://www.HostDepot.com
or you can call us toll free at 888.340.3527.
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