Hosting

[Burningcotton]

Hi All,

We have a domain with godaddy uk and now looking for hosting for Opencart. I've read a lot of people that do not recommend godaddy uk as a good hosting service.

From experience any others that are worth checking out?

Thanks

 

[Tier1Logistics]

Hi,

I used a hosting account from godaddy and moved away it was okay at first but then had problems from them so I moved.

I would take a look www.vtsdesign.co.uk they are also members on here. I have never had a problem and they are always on hand to help and support you.

Hope this helps.

 

[ryedale]

Thanks Phil.

We're among several UKBF members on this site providing hosting services to UK businesses and trying to repair the poor reputation some of the larger firms have given the industry

A lot depends on how important good support vs cost is to you really.

We're not as cheap as a host like Go-Daddy, 123-Reg, 1+1 etc, but the difference is the one to one personal support that you get from a specialist team who know your software and your site rather than a mass market host where the support is just generic and often unsatisfactory.

 

[Deleted member 252819]

Take a look at WhoIsHostingThis.com - reviews for most major hosts, and some smaller ones.
[Disclaimer: I wrote some of the reviews, but they are all completely unbiased]

 

[LowPrices.uk]

Clook
Vidahost

 

[webhostuk]

Go for specialized Ecommerce Hosting, I would suggest SSD Web Hosting. Incase you are interested you can take a look at our packages at : https://www.webhost.uk.net/e-commerce_hosting.html . Feel free to contact our livechat support incase you have any question.

 

[Ian J]

Clook
Vidahost

I've just moved my blog away from Vidahost as they are as slow as slow can be and the servers that I was hosted on apparently used outdated technology.

I moved it to forum member Hi Hosting last month and all of my problems went away

 

[sb65]

I have several Opencart installations on Clook for clients, a couple moved from other hosting companies, and they're all fine. Clook support is excellent as well.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

I've just moved my blog away from Vidahost as they are as slow as slow can be and the servers that I was hosted on apparently used outdated technology.

I moved it to forum member Hi Hosting last month and all of my problems went away

Thanks Ian. It's very difficult to maintain service beyond a certain size, so this is common with large web hosts, which with all their mergers and acquisitions they've become.

Glad you're pleased with our service.

 

[antropy]

We have a domain with godaddy uk and now looking for hosting for Opencart. I've read a lot of people that do not recommend godaddy uk as a good hosting service.

It's definitely worth going with a company who are also OpenCart experts

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Certainly,

There are a number of web hosts that specialise in OpenCart.

Typically when choosing web hosting, and especially for a business and eCommerce website reliability, performance, security and support are very important.

These are things you won't get from GoDaddy or many of the other oversold large providers, that simply cram too many users on poor servers, and don't provide the personal level of service a business can really benefit from.

So we're obviously biased but we'd recommend looking for a medium sized web host, that has the infrastructure and support in place to provide a reliable around the clock service, but isn't too large so they can provide that personal level of support, and help with extensions and give advice.

The advantages of choosing a web host over a developer is a developer is often simply reselling a hosting service. That typically makes them more expensive, and the way they work can be quite different. So while you can contact most hosts in the evenings and weekends, if you need support from a developer at 1am on a Friday for example, you simply may not get it.

It all depends on what you need.

Some hosts also provide a management service, which means what you get is akin to that provided by a developer that developed your website and then manages and hosts it for a yearly fee.

Other things to look out for are whether the host provides a higher performance web server, such as Nginx or LiteSpeed, over standard Apache. This can make a real difference.

While some providers use slow hard drives, others provide pure SSD storage, which can significantly improve the speed and responsiveness of your website as well, especially for database intensive websites such as an OpenCart store.

If your budget allows I'd recommend specialised eCommerce hosting. That will provide increased performance over normal web hosting, and some providers also include an SSL certificate to secure your online shop.

If you're still looking and have any questions then feel free to get in touch, we'd be happy to help.

All the best,

Dan

 

[caroline hannah]

Hosting along with management service. Will they manage the sites activity on what aspects?

Thanks,

Some hosts also provide a management service, which means what you get is akin to that provided by a developer that developed your website and then manages and hosts it for a yearly fee.

 

[Leo-InstallingIT]

It will vary by web hosts, but usually it's things like managing the updates of your applications, making sure permissions are configured correctly, making small amendments etc.

Generally just being that big more helpful than "its a problem with your website" if it's not a true hosting issue.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Hosting along with management service. Will they manage the sites activity on what aspects?

Thanks,

Hi Caroline, welcome to the forums.

It depends on the provider, but generally the idea is that management is used to help keep a website up to date and running smoothly. So that can mean keeping OpenCart up to date, updating plugins, regularly running anti virus and malware scans, proactive monitoring - so a managed rather than a reactive service - and so forth.

Any decent host should be helpful and the medium sized and smaller providers should be happy to get stuck in and assist with things that aren't technically hosting related. However adding management would take that to another level and provide a proactive service, with all technical aspects taken care of so the business owner can focus on their business.

That's what we provide management for anyway, and makes it a popular choice with our clients and UKBF members, as they often don't have dedicated technical staff, and may not be that technical themselves, instead being great at what they do - such as selling and running a business.

 

[GraemeL]

I use Opencart.

I use @Dan_HiHosting because of the excellent service. No idea if Dan is cheap or expensive, for me that is secondary to having good support.

Graeme

 

[quikshop]

It's definitely worth going with a company who are also OpenCart experts

Lol if only we knew of something like that

So, could I direct you to this question (and any other OC experts), http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/opencart-on-windows-2008-os.360093/#post-2667296.

 

[kgg.becks]

I was one of the godaddy uk users but moved away as the phone only support doesn't suits me. I like to submit a ticket or send email to someone even if I have to wait couple of hours instead waiting 15-20 mins on the phone. I was looking for UK only based host and found TSO Host. Happy with the prices they offer and the support is amazing.

 

[webhostuk]

I was one of the godaddy uk users but moved away as the phone only support doesn't suits me. I like to submit a ticket or send email to someone even if I have to wait couple of hours instead waiting 15-20 mins on the phone. I was looking for UK only based host and found TSO Host. Happy with the prices they offer and the support is amazing.

yes Email or chat support adds more comfort to many of our customers too.. in one thread I read Vidahost is sold and support has gone down, as far as I know Vida host and TSO are same company brands in that case TSO is also sold ?

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

You might be disappointed to learn that GoDaddy have now acquired Host Europe Group (HEG), who had previously acquired Paragon Internet Group (TSO Host and Vidahost).
So you've fallen into a classic trap that Endurance International Group (EIG) customers have had for some time - leaving one brand to only switch to another brand owned by the same company:

https://www.reviewhell.com/blog/endurance-international-group-eig-hosting/

Currently the back office etc. is still separate, and only time will tell, but it's likely it'll all get rationalised and it'll be no different to using GoDaddy in the future. It'd be expensive to run the backend separately, and in the case of EIG, their entire strategy appears to be to buy brands, absorb the backend to cut costs, and make more money.

However I'm surprised you're pleased with the support now, as since the HEG acquisition and for the past year, many UKBF members have been citing poor support and performance from Vidahost and TSO Host.

If they hadn't been acquired by GoDaddy it certainly would have been an improvement however! It may be short lived now I'm afraid.

We find live chat very popular with our clients. It has the immediacy of the phone, but the advantage of email in terms of sharing links and technical detail, and it's more secure - as you can have a fully encrypted connection.

You shouldn't have to wait hours for an email response though. Top end hosts aim to respond within around 30 minutes, with 15 minute or less being common from the top providers, depending on the query.

Anyway, I hope that background helps. There's not much awareness of it outside of the industry.

All the best,

Dan

 

[kgg.becks]

Thanks for the info Dan. My reply was based on my current experience with the hosting company. If in future things change I will move to another hosting company as this is task that I have done many times before. I'm not aware if TSO Host is the same as Vidahost as I have never heard them before.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

No problem.

Yeah, TSO Host and Vidahost merged in 2011 to form Paragon Internet Group.
https://www.paragon.net.uk/

So the same team and operation run both.
They also acquired some other brands, and it appears some customers were still on legacy servers that were run by those companies they acquired, such as Compila.

HEG then acquired Paragon Internet Group in 2015:
https://www.heg.com/
https://www.heg.com/item/paragon-internet-group/

GoDaddy then acquired HEG last year:
https://aboutus.godaddy.net/newsroo...or-Small-Business-Cloud-Services/default.aspx

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

You might be disappointed to learn that GoDaddy have now acquired Host Europe Group (HEG), who had previously acquired Paragon Internet Group (TSO Host and Vidahost).
So you've fallen into a classic trap that Endurance International Group (EIG) customers have had for some time - leaving one brand to only switch to another brand owned by the same company:

https://www.reviewhell.com/blog/endurance-international-group-eig-hosting/

Currently the back office etc. is still separate, and only time will tell, but it's likely it'll all get rationalised and it'll be no different to using GoDaddy in the future. It'd be expensive to run the backend separately, and in the case of EIG, their entire strategy appears to be to buy brands, absorb the backend to cut costs, and make more money.

However I'm surprised you're pleased with the support now, as since the HEG acquisition and for the past year, many UKBF members have been citing poor support and performance from Vidahost and TSO Host.

If they hadn't been acquired by GoDaddy it certainly would have been an improvement however! It may be short lived now I'm afraid.

We find live chat very popular with our clients. It has the immediacy of the phone, but the advantage of email in terms of sharing links and technical detail, and it's more secure - as you can have a fully encrypted connection.

You shouldn't have to wait hours for an email response though. Top end hosts aim to respond within around 30 minutes, with 15 minute or less being common from the top providers, depending on the query.

Anyway, I hope that background helps. There's not much awareness of it outside of the industry.

All the best,

Dan

Speculation at its best.... GoDaddy left MediaTemple 100% intact with its own operation. They'll do the same with HEG on the front-end while looking for some back-end synergies.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

That's basically what I wrote.
I don't expect the front end to change, but I'd be very surprised if they don't try to gain notable back end efficiency savings through synergies/consolidation.

PIG is still run independently from HEG from what I can tell, but many customers have reported a fall in performance and support.

Even if no infrastructure or operations are changed, I think it's safe to expect greater business/shareholder pressure to sweat assets and increase revenue to costs by increasing the number of users on the same servers and so forth.
That's exactly what we've seen with Vidahost and TSO (PIG).

A corporate buy out of this scale is purely numbers driven.

GoDaddy have no history of trying to improve quality of service. On the other hand a large corporate buying a respected operation/brand to increase profitability is commonplace.

And you only have to look at EIG in the US.

HEGs hosting brands were all poor (123-Reg, Heart Internet etc.)
Heart Internet declined rapidly.
And PIG has declined under its new ownership (quite possibly from cost/profitability pressures).

GoDaddy has an even worse reputation.

So you can call it speculation, but many UKBF members have already mentioned how service has declined in the past couple of years. We've migrated quite a number of them. And GoDaddy have a terrible reputation.

I certainly don't see it as positive.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

That's basically what I wrote.
I don't expect the front end to change, but I'd be very surprised if they don't try to gain notable back end efficiency savings through synergies/consolidation.

PIG is still run independently from HEG from what I can tell, but many customers have reported a fall in performance and support.

Even if no infrastructure or operations are changed, I think it's safe to expect greater business/shareholder pressure to sweat assets and increase revenue to costs by increasing the number of users on the same servers and so forth.
That's exactly what we've seen with Vidahost and TSO (PIG).

A corporate buy out of this scale is purely numbers driven.

GoDaddy have no history of trying to improve quality of service. On the other hand a large corporate buying a respected operation/brand to increase profitability is commonplace.

And you only have to look at EIG in the US.

HEGs hosting brands were all poor (123-Reg, Heart Internet etc.)
Heart Internet declined rapidly.
And PIG has declined under its new ownership (quite possibly from cost/profitability pressures).

GoDaddy has an even worse reputation.

So you can call it speculation, but many UKBF members have already mentioned how service has declined in the past couple of years. We've migrated quite a number of them. And GoDaddy have a terrible reputation.

I certainly don't see it as positive.

GoDaddy's rep is better than EIG, just fwiw

 

[kgg.becks]

Even if no infrastructure or operations are changed, I think it's safe to expect greater business/shareholder pressure to sweat assets and increase revenue to costs by increasing the number of users on the same servers and so forth.
That's exactly what we've seen with Vidahost and TSO (PIG).

I wonder how many websites hosted per server are good and when the numbers get things wrong?
For example at my current server are hosted 1592 websites (according to whois information).

 

[webhostuk]

Thanks for the info Dan. My reply was based on my current experience with the hosting company. If in future things change I will move to another hosting company as this is task that I have done many times before. I'm not aware if TSO Host is the same as Vidahost as I have never heard them before.

And now both this company are owned by Godaddy ..so you are back to them.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

I wonder how many websites hosted per server are good and when the numbers get things wrong?
For example at my current server are hosted 1592 websites (according to whois information).

There is not a hard and fast rule as it depends on server spec.

If you have a 24 CPU Xeon, 128/256GB RAM and a RAID10 SSD array, that number is certainly reasonable and the server, if well managed and optimised, should be performant.

If however its a desktop class machine posing as a server (sadly, many hosts 'cheap out' on server hardware) with a desktop CPU, less RAM, non-ECC, slower disks then I'd consider it a high number.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

I wonder how many websites hosted per server are good and when the numbers get things wrong?
For example at my current server are hosted 1592 websites (according to whois information).

It depends on the server specification, so the number of CPU cores, amount of RAM and so forth.

The higher the specification the more users you can have on the server and still have decent performance.

It also depends on the types of websites on the server, and the amount of traffic they get.

Regularly visited Magento websites will use up a lot more server resources than a normal WordPress website, or even OpenCart for example.

The key thing to look for is the server load, if you can see that.
If you know the number of CPU cores and the server load, you can generally tell whether the server is overcrowded.

Or simply use a tool such as Pingdom:
https://tools.pingdom.com

You can do a speed test from Stockholm, Sweden (there's no UK test location)
If you get poor speeds, then obviously switching to a better provider will help.

I'm surprised you haven't switched as your hosting looks very slow:
https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/jml4q/https://ka-store.co.uk/

Page load times can make a real difference to sales.
It also has some affect on SEO performance (as Google takes loading speed into consideration).

That's why many online businesses choose to use eCommerce hosting or other solutions that specialise in providing higher performance for online retail.

 

[arnydnxluk]

That's why many online businesses choose to use eCommerce hosting or other solutions that specialise in providing higher performance for online retail.

To be honest, I think you have to be wary of this sometimes. There's nothing inherently different about an e-commerce website which requires a special hosting environment, any optimisations should be the same tasks being applied to other dynamic websites.

The problem I find is that most "e-commerce hosting" is just marketing fluff. It's often the same exact service as a provider's standard shared hosting (even the same servers) but with plans beginning at higher price points and unnecessary extras thrown in.

Perhaps the more interesting product for people running busier or heavier e-commerce websites is "semi-dedicated" hosting (sometimes named "Business Hosting") where the amount customers per server is much less, leaving more resources per website and hopefully a longer runway before having to make the upgrade to your own servers!

 

[ryedale]

Agree with Mike on this. We don't make any distinction between E-Commerce hosting or standard hosting because all sites hosted with us should be getting the best performance possible. and the fastest load times.

Just because someone isn't selling a product that requires a checkout, doesn't mean they're not selling a service or something equally important to their business.

Would be interesting to know from someone who sells specific E-Commerce hosting, what enhancements they've made to place it above their non E-Commerce packages?

I've just looked around now and found three well-known hosts such as Sitegroun all offering specific enhanced E-Commerce packages but none of them actually elaborate on what the gains are.

 

[Nico Albrecht]

Go with siteground uk. Moved from Go Daddy years ago. Only problems to siteground , prices are competitive and speed is 3 times fast than Godaddy

 

[BREAKLINE UK]

I think the most important thing when it comes to hosting is support.

 

[webhostuk]

I think the most important thing when it comes to hosting is support.

Yes that's right every web hosting company does have downtime ,so the difference is how well they handle, what precaution they take and most important how the support responds to such situation.

 

[tukhnet]

I will also recommend you to search for a specialised ecommerce hosting and to speak with their support before you start. Keep also in mind that you can test it for at least 30 days and get your money back if you are not happy.