Hosting

[amberlamps]

Hi there.

I have about eight html sites to do with providing cheap apartment bookings in London, but want to create a Wordpress+WooCommerce site selling pet products.

My domains are all registered with Namecheap in the US, who I have used for ten years and who have been good, but should I transfer them to a UK-based registrar? If so, any recommendations?

My websites are currently hosted with 1and1 but the load times are often awful, so I am looking to switch to something better. I read that HiHosting seems to be popular here. Any thoughts on that? I'm looking for excellent uptime and load times.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[GraemeL]

I use HI Hosting. Excellent support. I have no technical knowledge so I have no idea if they would suit what you do, but @Dan_HiHosting can give you almost unbiased advice.

G

 

[jacobc]

Hi amberlamps,

Whoever you do decide on, I would try emailing / calling before switching to give them a go

All the best,

Jacob

 

[nahosting]

Hi,

Moving from 1and1 will certainly help with your load times! There are a number of UK based web hosting companies on the forums that can help you. Drop them an email or give them a call to see who suits you best.

If you are happy with your domain registrar then there is no need to move your domain names unless you want to be able to manage everything from one place.

All the best
Chris

 

[boring-friday]

You don't need to transfer the domains, I always use namecheap for the free privacy lol. Not used hihosting but seen they get good reviews here and seem helpful so sure they're fine

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Hi there,

Welcome to the forums.

Regarding registrar's many will recommend 123-Reg. I wouldn't recommend them as I think they're overpriced and aren't particularly ethical. Previously they charged if you had a Nominet domain (.e.g. .co.uk, .uk etc.) and wanted to leave them.

If you want to use a separate registrar to your host, then gandi.net and internet.bs are both more ethical and better priced than the majority of registrars.

Avoid names.co.uk as they also charge if you want to transfer your .co.uk domains away from them, which we're currently contesting and trying to get them to waive on behalf of a client.

The reason people often recommend a separate registrar is because back in the day it was unfortunately fairly common for web designers and so forth to register their clients domains in their own details. Then if there was an issue regarding the work, they could hold control of the domains.

However that's rare these days, and any decent provider and web host will register your domains in your details, and give you full control over your domains to do with as you wish.

I'd say the main reason to move your domains is that some hosts will provide a domain free of charge with their packages. So if you transferred your domains, then some can be kept renewed for you free of charge, so there's a cost saving.

It also means you can manage everything in one place.

I'm not surprised you've had issues with 1&1, they massively overcrowd their servers. Your sites are likely not even hosted from the UK, so if you're mainly targeting UK visitors switching to a proper UK web host will really help.

Some things to look out for if performance and reliability are important to you are pure SSD storage, and a higher performance web server such as LiteSpeed or Nginx. That can really help with modern PHP driven and database intensive platforms such as WordPress.

I hope that helps.

Glad you've seen us recommended, we'd of course be happy to help.

Any decent host will migrate your websites free of charge for you.

Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

All the best,

Dan

 

[ServWise]

There is a small advantage to keeping your domain registration separate from your hosting provider, if the host goes down you can still access your domains to move them to another host, it does not matter if you domain registrar is in the US or UK, but it does matter where your hosting company has servers, if your customers are from the UK then use a host with UK servers, speeds should be much better. There is also the issue of data privacy and law you might want to consider.

I think any host that is active in this list for a while is likely to be pretty good as we are making ourselves open for questions and direct criticism so also attempting to raise the standards because of that..

 

[amberlamps]

Thanks for the info everyone.

 

[GraemeL]

Thanks for the info everyone.

No one can find the Thanks button, which is the upside down speech box at the bottom right of every post. If it simply said 'Thanks' it would be much better.

 

[amberlamps]

Haha. I have just found it now. However, I think it is a "thumbs up" icon rather than an "upside down speech box"

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Yeah, the light blue doesn't help. It does look like a speech bubble!

There you go amberlamps, have an amber lightbulb

 

[Cromulent]

I use Linode for my websites and couldn't be happier. Servers in London, fast response time, install whatever you want, full root access. Can't complain at all and the support is pretty good as well.

 

[techsors]

If you want a local hosting provider, then contact a few and compare the differences. If you are running adsense on the sites then you will probably need maximum speed. You might even want to use a CDN with your hosting, so make sure your hosting allows it. If you are affiliating then most hosting companies ( I mean the large ones) will do the trick. If you know your way around a server then you can go for a clean machine and set it all up. If not then check out the managed accounts on WP-engine or Bluehost, which are pretty reliable

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

We're obviously biased but I'd argue that you'll get much better support and performance from a medium sized web host than one of the very large providers, who typically can't provide the same personal level of support, and often overcrowd their servers.

Bluehost is owned by Endurance International Group, who are a prime example of the heavily marketed, oversold hosting that amberlamps has experienced at 1&1:
https://www.reviewhell.com/blog/endurance-international-group-eig-hosting/

And their servers likely aren't located in the UK either.

As it happens amberlamps signed up with us on Monday.

Thanks for your order @amberlamps. I hope you enjoy hosting with us and we look forward to helping you move your other websites over too .

If you need any help then just get in touch in the usual way.

All the best,

Dan

 

[LuperJones]

Dan just signed up with you very happy with the fees

 

[webhostuk]

Good to see you did not select the EIG hosting companies.

 

[LuperJones]

was with go daddy before was ripping me off

Many thanks

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

@LuperJones Thanks for choosing us, and welcome to the forums!

If you need any help getting started then just let us know.

All the best,

Dan

 

[swlondon]

I use unlimitedwebhosting.co.uk, uk servers, full unlimited, cheap and i can't complain about downtime.
They give you cpanel and you can add as many domains you want to your hosting. Currently I have about 16 domains attached.

 

[MrComputerSaint]

I've been using webhosting.uk.com/ for years. I have several domains and hosting.
I've also used Fast hosts (for some domains)

Web hosting with webhosting.uk.com is great. Can't remember a time it's gone down and if I have an issue their support, even at 2am on a Sunday morning is quick, I think I got a response in 15 minutes one time.
I'd recommend both of the above.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Regarding unlimited web hosting, unfortunately a lot of people still fall for that marketing technique, but there's no such thing as unlimited web hosting.

If you're looking at a web host that offers unlimited resources you'll want to carefully check the terms and conditions. You'll likely find that your usage is then aggressively limited through inodes and low CPU and memory usage limits. Every file, including emails, count toward an inode limit. So if the host imposes these you can quickly find you can't upload new files to your "unlimited" web hosting because you've got a lot of emails.

So you'll often find that in practice you can actually use far greater resources with a host that has honest web space and bandwidth limits than one that claims "unlimited" resources.

Inode limits are definitely something to be avoided. "Unlimited" web hosting is a dishonest practice, and there's no such thing really. Any provider claiming unlimited resources is likely massively overselling their service as well, which can lead to poor and unreliable performance, slow loading times and poor support, as they'll likely be cramming far too many users onto their servers.

Regarding Fast hosts, we've moved a lot of users from their services, which are anything but fast. In fact we've found them perform worse than other well known poor providers such as 1&1 who also market heavily. A member we helped recently was getting up to 20 second load times for a simple WordPress website:
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/are-fasthosts-slowing-down-my-site-loading-time.351336/

Webhostinguk will likely perform better, but in our dealings with them for example to migrate a website to us, they fall well into the category of broken English provided by outsourced support. You can also live chat to the same person at one of their other websites, and they won't even acknowledge that you're typing to the same person, it's bizarre:
http://dansgalaxy.co.uk/2011/04/23/why-webhosting-uk-com-sucks-part-1/

If you send an enquiry to a web host you're interested in that'll quickly give you an indication of what they'll be like to use; for example the speed of the response, and if its given in proper English. The very large hosts will likely respond slowly, and some of the other names given will likely not respond in proper English. If you then wanted to discuss something beyond basic day to day technical queries, you'd likely have difficulty with those that don't have proper UK staff and support.

For a UK business, it can be invaluable having proper UK based support where you discuss the best approach, platforms and tools to use to make the most out of your website and really drive your business forward.

 

[MrComputerSaint]

Regarding unlimited web hosting, unfortunately a lot of people still fall for that marketing technique, but there's no such thing as unlimited web hosting.

Agree massively. I just stay away from unlimited offers now, I've been burned in the early days of hosting when my website would just go offline. But yes, check T&C's for usage limits if it is an unlimited offering.

Yes, I do get the feeling the support for webhostingUK is outsourced, but outsourcing can be good and they've always understood the problem and fixed the problem in a timely manner.
I get why they wouldn't acknowledge that they're the same person. I worked in a white label IT support company and we have cross customers and we'd answer the phone as company A some times, the same customer calls company B and sometimes those company leaders don't want to let on they have outsourced support. We would as most of our customers understood.
I think IT directors and most people in that level, or have been contracting for a bit know that outsourcing happens and are OK with it, as long as the job is done to the agreed standards.