Web hosting - should I move?

[CelticStarlight]

Just wondered if anyone could give me advice on this. My website was built a few years ago now. At the time the developer suggested we host the site with him and we have done that ever since. However, it has now risen to over £70 per year and it made me wonder if I should think of moving.

Is this a reasonable amount for webhosting? I have a fairly basic, four-page website. No ecommerce or anything like that, it is mainly to advertise who I am and how to find me.

How difficult would it be to change webhosting? Presumably the developer needs to provide me with information so that I can move.

Any help gratefully received.

 

[ryedale]

Depends how much you value stablity and support. You can get hosting for next to nothing but generally it comes with a trade off in service levels and support

Do you have emails with the site - are they stored on the server?, if so then that takes up space. Is there a back up strategy in place for site /emails?

 

[CelticStarlight]

No I don't have emails with the site. My email address is entirely separate as we had a webform on the website that never worked if people did not put their name in the name box. I tried to get the developer to sort this out but he never seemed to be able to. In the end I just started to use a generic Yahoo email address instead as the business email instead. Most of my work comes from local recommendation so I suppose I've been a bit lax about this. As far as I know, there's no strategy in place for anything, there have been a couple of times when I noticed the website wasn't displaying properly and I contacted the developer who said it was something to do with him changing servers and he's then sorted it out. Apart from that it's been pretty uneventful.

 

[ryedale]

Yes, it's worth doing really - it does give a much more professional appearance and you can always forward it onto your Yahoo address.

Do you know if it's a static html site or a CMS based system like Wordpress ?

 

[CelticStarlight]

I'm not sure exactly, I have a feeling it's static html, it's definitely not through Wordpress. I'll see if I can find out. We use another domain for another business and we use the system you suggest, a business email address that's linked to our Yahoo email, it does look much more professional.

 

[webhostuk]

I feel if its basic website then you can surely think to migrate in your case. Regarding emails yes as suggest by VTS thats best options to go for.

 

[alex360]

Is your domain registered in your name and do have access to the control panel of of domain registrar if so you can change the dns to your web hosting I use siteground and they are very good. Good luck

 

[Nathan Hill-Haimes]

If you are using Wordpress WP Engine is fast and reliable.

 

[arnydnxluk]

£70 is not unreasonable, web designers often charge £100-300 (and more) for basic hosting plans; it's not their primary business and they usually want to make a profit from it.

You can find cheaper options out there from reputable hosting providers and there are plenty to choose from, I would expect to pay around £25-35 plus VAT per year for a basic website. The problem is separating the good providers from the bad providers. I would be inclined to stick with your designer if the only issue is price.

However, a couple of points worth raising:

1. Is your domain name registered in your name and do you have control over it? If not, you may want to arrange with the designer to have the domain transferred into your name with another domain registration provider, so you have full control over it.
2. Do you have full access to the hosting account currently, so that you can download backups from time to time? If not, I would request access or proceed with moving elsewhere. It's important that you can generate and download a backup periodically incase anything happens with your website / designer / hosting provider, then you can simply give the backup to a new hosting provider to restore your website.

 

[Alan]

Really as KloudHost says, £70 is not a lot for a developer provided host. Personally as a developer I have hosted as 'hosted only' sites as LOW as £90 per year, but now I only take on sites on a custom managed basis and as you may appreciate that costs a lot more as it involves time. The profit on a £90 site just isn't worth the agro.

A lot depends on your website technology, if it really is a static HTML site then there are ways of getting it hosted very well for pennies, the problem is it would cost you more than a years hosting just to be told how to get that

If you are on WordPress or a similar CMS then that is a whole different situation.

If you could give us a clue to your website domain, we could find out more about the technology fairly easily.