Webhosting and a bombproof method of page creation

In My Humble Opinion
1

Well, the school server is shutting down, and I need to get my Society webpage off into the wilderness. But I haven’t the foggiest idea of where exactly to get webhosting…

Geocities is telling me they want $9/mo, for 25mb. I assume they’re trying to rip me off. :wink:

So what I need is a webhosting service that will reasonably handle a website that looks like this, and if I get external webhosting I’ll probably want to put in a message board of some sort, to discuss games and problems.

That said, I won’t be around forever, and the person that’ll be taking over me as webmaster probably won’t be too html savvy. So, I’m looking for a way to update the page automatically, kind of like Penny Arcade, so that all they need to do is type in their post and press the handy dandy “submit new news item” button, or something of the sort. Currently, I’m using a VBS Excel hack job, and if it breaks, it’s going to be hell to fix.

So, anyone with experience in these sorts of matters?

2

As it happens, I’ve been doing a lot of reasearch of web hosts, as I’ve been replacing/switching hosts (I have a few domains so I’m using several hosts.)

The ones I like (so far) are Bliksem Hosting (great support, good prices), Emax (have been reliable and stable for me for a while, also good prices), HostGator, I’ve been with them for a while (also seem stable and reliable, at least for me). One I just signed up with that seems to be promising is Site5. I see glowing reviews for Site5, but I haven’t been with it long enough to know for sure how it is for me.

For $9-10 a month, you should get at least a hundred MB of space and at least a few GBs of bandwidth (I get 60 GB with eMax, and they’ve been solid for me). All these hosts use Linux servers, with cPanel, which has the add-on Fantastico. I really like Fantastico—it includes software like blogs and “content management” apps that are easy (I presume) to use. I think one of these hosts are worth checking out. I believe that most of them have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

3

I picked StartLogic to host my site. $7.50 a month for 2 GB space and 60 GB transfer.

4

How’s their service? They’re prices are impressive, for the amount of space and bandwidth you get.

5

Okay, I’ve been checking them out, and it seems I’m more of an old fogey than I though. :stuck_out_tongue:

It seems the way to deal with websites nowadays is to use “PhpWebsite”, “PHP-Nuke”, or stuff like that… What kind of advantages do they offer over plain old banging together html and ftping it over? Can it do stuff like take the 3 top “posts” and stick it on another page?

6

It’s pretty much as advertised. I have used them for 7 months and my site has not been down for even one second. I had to call customer support in the middle of the night once because I accidentally deleted a file and they were professional and helpful.

7

I’ve been using LunarPages for about a year now. I’ve been quite happy with them, and the server space/bandwidth/cost is pretty impressive.

8

I’ve heard good things about LunarPages too.

The “content management” apps that are included in with some of these hosting plans (through Fantastico DeLuxe) include Geeklog and Typo. They seem sort of blog-like, though they might offer too much for a simpler web site. For a straight blog format, WordPress might do the trick for someone who isn’t inclined to be HTML-savvy.

I am more of a plain HTML-and-ftp person myself, but I just set up a friend’s website with WordPress because I couldn’t see them taking the time to learn how to edit HTML or to upload with FTP.

9

For hosting, I use DynaSyn.com, who used to be awesome but has been slacking slightly in customer service.

For a portal-based, easy to update and change website, I recommend using IntegraMod. It’s basically phpBB with a bunch of goodies added in for more functionality. One of my sites, junkmachine.com was a simple phpBB that I hacked to pieces to get the functionality I wanted. My new venture, horrorjunk.com is IntegraMod which gave me better results with far less work. Both can be added to and changed from an admin panel which make them easy to update and change and add, not to mention fully dynamic relying heavily on user participation to make them work.

10

I had Lunarpages and I cannot un-recommend them enough. They are perfectly helpful until your site grows or you start actually USING all that they “give” you in their basic plan.

When I got linked for about 3 days from a really high-traffic site, they arbitrarily made me pay $40 to upgrade the remainder of my contract, or else terminate my account (I don’t know what that entailed.) I had not exceeded the amount of bandwidth allowed with my account, but they decided that I was “using too much server resources” and gave me 7 days to “fix” it. I wasn’t able to change hosts at that time, and had a contract for two more months, so I just had to pay it. I asked customer service repeatedly for a better explanation of why I had to pay the extra money when I hadn’t exceeded my limits, having seen nothing about that in the sign-up info, and just got the same canned responses over and over.

One of my domain names, I had paid a year when I signed up to have as an add-on domain, then decided about a month later it really needed its own account. The add-on domain was about $25/year, and I requested to ask if I could get a credit for the year off add-on domain I already paid for (and wasn’t going to use) towards the $250 or so year of hosting. While they didn’t have to, of course, this is the only host I’ve been with that wouldn’t credit previous payments if you wanted to upgrade your service.

Speaking of the 2nd account, shortly after that, the domain name on my 2nd account suddenly stopped working. I submitted two or three trouble tickets and my site ended up being down for FOUR DAYS. All I got were non-answers to my trouble tickets and emails to tech support. Finally, I posted on their public message board to complain. Magically, my site was working again within two hours. For the downtime, they offered me “compensation” of a year of free add-on domain, which I didn’t even need, and couldn’t use, so it was pretty much a token gesture they knew I’d probably get no use out of.

When I told them I was cancelling back in January, when I got my invoice for the next year of hosting, they asked why. When I reiterated my complaints from the previous year, not only did I not even get an apology, but they wrote back to tell me they would CREDIT my CC for the almost $500 they had billed it. They sent me an invoice to “pay,” then billed my credit card automatically for the next year of service even though I never approved it. I’m just damn glad I was paying with a credit card and not out of my bank account, or I could’ve had serious problems.

I will never, ever sign up with a host that requires you to get a non-refundable contract ever again. That sort of thing should raise red flags to begin with. They get your money then just refuse to work with you at all. I’m with Dreamhost now, and while no host is perfect, they handled a week’s worth of traffic that got me loads of extra charges after only 2 days on the old host, so I can’t complain.

Ugh.

11

Out of curiosity, how much bandwidth do your sites currently consume? Between all my sites I currently use around 20 GB, and so far, no problems. (I’m getting the feeling that your sites use a lot more than that!) Traffic is steadily growing for me (knock on wood—hoping it continues to grow), so I wonder when/if I’ll have to deal with these sorts of issues with bandwidth. Currently I’ve got my biggest bandwidth-using site with emaxhosting.com, which allows me 60 GB traffic. I wanted a lot of extra room, and so far haven’t had any of the problems you’ve had. That is the last thing I want. Sounds terrible.

And I agree about not getting stuck with a pre-paid plan. I am currently doing month-by-month. I might consider doing quarterly payments with a host I really trust.

The way I’ve got things set up right now I’ve got the biggest site on its own plan, and then the medium-sized site and smaller sites are sharing space on a “Reseller” account with Bliksemhosting.com and another smaller host (where each domain has its own control panel, own stats, etc.). Reseller accounts are actually set up for people who want to sell out web space to other customers, but a lot of us use it to manage multiple domains.

I like having the domains spread out over several hosts because if one host is giving me trouble, I can (in an emergency) switch the domain from that host over to one of the other hosts, since they all can take multiple domains. And it seems these days that switching over to a new host space takes much less time to “propigate” (be updated throughout the Internet), which hopefully means that the site won’t be down for too long.

I also avoid set-up fees. Some hosts are just stinkers, and I don’t want them to have any extra money. I recently signed up with a host that boasted “15 minute setup time.” That setup time stretched to 36 HOURS. By that time I’d found another host. I wrote them (after about hour 34 of not being set up) telling them to forget it, I didn’t need them anymore. Voila! They didn’t acknowledge my request to cancel my account, but they did set me up with an account. Too late, buddy. I wrote back, telling them I didn’t need them anymore, please give me my money back. (They had a money-back guarantee.) I hear nothing for 2 days. So I contact the third party service who processed my credit card for me, and explained everything. They said they’d contact the host and see about getting me a refund. Once again, voila! I get contacted about getting a refund, only after (I suspect) the third party credit card processor gave them hell. I am most glad I didn’t pay any setup fee to that useless host. If they can’t be honest about how long it takes to setup your account, imagine how useful they would be in responding to any support request? Forget it.

12

My sites average ~150GB a month lately, and if I get linked off bigger sites (happening more and more) I can get past 200GB easily. Things tend to snowball once you reach a certain point, and I expect to need to move to dedicated hosting probably next year. I disabled hotlinking to my comics a while back, and it stemmed the usage a little but not enough to really choke it down.

I had two accounts with Lunarpages that both had 80GB transfer; this was back last fall, and I hadn’t exceeded my bandwidth allowance but they charged me for more money. I was REALLY pissed about prebilling my card almost $500 for the more expensive accounts (a plan they don’t advertise on their site) and the fact that they were completely unapologetic about the whole thing, and unwilling to work with me at all. Screw that. On their site it says “how can you offer so much for so cheap?” The answer? Most people don’t use up what they DO give you. Two days of my tower ad on Something Positive, and my site was DOWN. And I had to pay $40 or forfeit my contract and find a new host.

I’m with Dreamhost now where I get almost 200GB transfer for $20/month plus an ungodly amount of hard disk space. And extra bandwidth is .50c a GB, so it’s actually cheaper to pay overages a la carte then go with the slightly larger account. Like I said though, by next year I’ll probably need to go dedicated; their cheapest account in non-shared is $99/mo for 500GB transfer. They have a really good referral program though, and I’ve had a few people sign up through my site so far, so I’m hoping by then I will have saved up enough $$ in credit to pay the first few months of hosting and any overage charges. Even if I prepay a year or two years, if I decide to upgrade/downgrade my account, I will get full credit towards the other services any money I already paid. So I’m not “trapped” in any sense with them and can adjust according to my needs.

I was recommended Dreamhost by a friend that had recently done a ton of research and reading up on webhosts, and I also know a couple other webcomicers that use their dedicated services and AFAIK everyone has been happy with them.

13

Sorry, I meant the extra bandwidth is 50 cents/GB, not .5 cents.

14

150-200 GBs? Wow. Yeah, I’d say you needed dedicated hosting!

I doubt I’ll ever get my sites to that level of bandwidth usage, unless I start producing a lot more content! I’ve toyed with the idea of getting dedicated hosting, but seriously, I just don’t have the bandwidth to justify it. Eh. I might do it eventually anyway.

I’ll keep Dreamhost on my list of recommended hosts, if/when I need to switch or expand my hosts. It’s too soon for me to want to switch (yet), but they certainly do sound like they’ve got a good deal there.

15

Yeah… I expect to jump just up to around 250 when I start updating the other comic again. That’s one reason I’ve been putting it off. I’ve added some ads and affiliate stuff to my site to help with expenses; it’s hard enough just breaking even on my regular bills as it is. I want a good system in place by the time this starts getting REALLY expensive.

16

I don’t blame you! Wow, that is a huge amount of traffic!

I notice that you’ve got Adsense ads. Adsense seems to be the way to go for a lot of us. I’m shocked at how well Adsense has done for me, and I have a fraction of the traffic that you have! There are a lot of webmasters living quite well from their Adsense earnings alone. Have you tweaked your Adsense ad settings recently? Have you seen any improvement in earnings? With the amount of traffic you’re getting, I really think you should be doing quite well with Adsense.

There are also banner programs that pay for impressions, compared to Adsense’s paying per click. Have you looked into an impression-driven ad program? With your amount of traffic, it seems to me that there should be a lot of ways for you to earn a comfortable income.

17

I’m making close to $175-200/month off Adsense right now. It pays my hosting, DSL, phone bill. It jumped when I went and added them to my homepage a couple weeks ago; before they were just off the comics. I make anywhere from average ~$75-150+ a month off my CafePress store (sales there are very seasonal). I need about $1000 a month to just stay afloat and not starve after it’s all said and done, that’s not making any progress on my debts or my medical stuff, BUT… the boyfriend helps a little bit, and I take a lot of commissions and custom jobs, so if I do well in a month to sell some prints and original comics I usually get by.

I did recently sign up for Amazon affiliate, because it basically just kicks me about five cents on the dollar for anyone that makes Amazon purchases using my referral, but I’m not really interested in the other banner ad programs. Too many of them use cookies or try to track people, AdSense is respectable and doesn’t annoy the crap out of people so I think it’s a good compromise. When my comics grow more, I’m going to start just selling the tower ad on the side of the site to individuals and remove the Google ads there.

I did some research recently partially based on your other comments and took another look at LuLu; they’ve improved a lot and have more to offer than when I originally looked at them. I reformatted my 1st book for a regular comic size and I’m going to be ordering a proof from them in the next couple weeks… if everything looks good, I’m going to plunk down for an ISBN as soon as I can and get it listed on Amazon. I’ve probably sold close to 300 copies now and I’ll be making $6.50/book instead of $4.50 book, plus the additional exposure.

So, yanno, we’ll see. I do a lot of traffic but when you look at how many images I have all over the place, it isn’t hard to believe. Dreamhost has been a lifesaver though, because I was really starting to eat it at my old hosts with the rate my sites have been growing.

18

You could be making A LOT more than that, IMHO. I won’t give away numbers (technically, you’re not supposed to, according to Google) but I would assume (based on my own earnings, and what I’ve heard from other webmasters using Adsense) that you could (possibly) make up to several thousand from Adsense alone. Perhaps you need to tweak the ad settings (placement, color, etc.) some more.

I realize that each site does better or worse depending on many factors and it’s hard to compare, but with the amount of traffic you’re getting, but I think there might be a lot more earning potential for you with Adsense. I remember when I first signed up I made about 5-10% of what I make now, and it was because I was using smaller ads and was positioning them in really inconspicuous places on the page. When I tweaked things a little, earnings skyrocketed. I could probably make even more if I did more tweaking, but as of now, that’s not in the cards for me.

That sounds like a nice amount. But yes, CafePress is very seasonal, so you never know how much you’re going to get, month-to-month.

Have you thought about signing up to be an affiliate with DickBlick.com? I’ve always mail ordered art supplies through them, so I don’t mind recommending them to others. My commissions don’t always pay super well, but they can really help. A lot of artists (and creative/crafty people) love DickBlick because they’ve got everything. More than a few times I’ve gotten an extra fat commission check because someone went absolutely insane ordering on DickBlick. It has that effect on people! :wink: Your site undoubtedly attracts a fair amount of artistic-minded people, so being an affiliate for DickBlick might be a really good fit for you. (If you are interested, you sign up with DickBlick through CommissionJunction.com.)

I totally understand. Adsense lets you customize the ad so the colors match the site, which I like. It doesn’t “ugly up” your site too much.

How many page views do you get a month? I don’t know much about this, but it seems like you could start selling ad space now.

Good, good plan. I haven’t started selling on Amazon yet (I want to work out a “second edition” of my book and iron out a lot of the rough spots), but being listed there would give you a lot more exposure, and make it very easy for people to order. (Also, you could sign up as an Amazon Marketplace seller, and sell “new and used” copies of the book directly to the customers. Amazon takes far less of a cut through Marketplace and you could take home even more money. A lot of self-publishers do this.)

Dreamhost definitely sounds like a good way to go!

19

I probably could, but if you look at my homepage the way it’s designed, there aren’t a lot of places to put ads to begin with. I’m not going to muck up the design for the sake of that alone. For a long time I was opposed to adding any sort of ads at all, I’m Ok with them on the comic sites but I’m not going to mess up/redesign my homepage.

I don’t like Dick Blick, I won’t shop there myself and I hated the place when I lived somewhere that had brick-and-mortar stores of theirs, so I wouldn’t advertise for them. I’m only testing Amazon, but if I don’t make enough $ to justify the links all over my site, without having to post huge ads or something, I’m going to remove it. In general I don’t like affiliate programs, though the one for my host does really well.

I don’t know… I’d have to look. I don’t muddle around in my stats software all that much. Last time I looked, which was awhile ago, I think it was around 40-50k across all my sites, but don’t quote me on that. Not uniques but just pageviews.

20

Ah, I understand. You’ve got a very nice design there, and yes, it would take a lot of redesigning to acommodate the ads. I don’t blame you for not wanting to do that.

Well then, that settles that! I grew up in an area that didn’t have a Dick Blick nearby (at least not that I knew of) and so I only associate it with mail order. And I’ve always been satisfied with it for that.

Totally understandable. Our sites are different in a way, because book recommendations have always been a big part of my site(s), and I linked to Amazon long before I signed up as an affiliate. I finally realized that I was being a dope in not signing up with them, since I was going to link to them anyway! :wink:

I understand what you’re saying—I like them to be “transparent,” where I sign up with companies and products (like Amazon and Dick Blick) that I was going to link to anyway. I’m not interested in slapping on any old affilliate ad on my site, and obviously you don’t either.

That’s a good amount. It might be more by now, though, because 150-200 GB is really quite a lot of bandwidth!

Well, we’ve hijacked this thread enough, I guess! Sounds like you’ve got a great thing going for you, with all that bandwidth. My best wishes for the success of your site. Sounds like it’s really growing, and will continue to do so! :slight_smile: