How
We Choose Website Hosting Services At Free Spirit Gallery
Review of Bluehost
I've
had Free Spirit Gallery online for several successful years now but
throughout those years, the website has experienced major downtimes
because of the poor service of the Montreal-based web hosting service
we used. We depend on the gallery website to promote our
information on Native and Inuit art out there.
Although I'm not a computer techie, I can get around well enough to
create my own websites including the Free Spirit Gallery one.
Therefore, I sometimes get questions about websites. So in the spirit
of sharing information, here are the criteria that I use to choose a
website hosting service for my websites.
Free Services
Yes, there are free website hosting services like Yahoo and Angelcities
out there but if you want good looking websites and are serious about
websites, I strongly suggest that you do not use the free services. You
will be stuck with a long website address since free services do not
allow you to use your own domain name. There is a limit of how much
file space and transfer you are entitled to so expansion is limited.
There is very limited functionality and the worse is the fact that they
stick all sorts of advertising on your websites which really spoil the
look of your sites. There are really affordable paid website hosting
services out there as better alternatives.
Domain Name, Email and Blogs
You want to be able to use your own domain names and have email
addresses associated with your websites. And since blogs are so
popular, you want complete functionality of your blogs with the website
hosting service. Not all services work well with certain blogs.
File Space and Transfer
You don't want to be restricted in file space on their server if you
end up expanding the size of your websites. Adding pages and changing
webpages involve file transfer between your computer and the host
servers. You don't want a limitation in how much file transfer you can
do.
Behind The Scenes
It's nice to have some sort of behind the scenes program like cPanel
where you have access to your website statistics, logs and can make
other modifications to your websites.
Downtime and Service
Most important of all in my mind, are downtime and service. All website
hosting services can have downtime but a good one will catch offline
websites quickly and get them back up and running within say 30
minutes. I was caught with a previous website hosting service in
Montreal where sometimes my websites would be offline for an entire
weekend. This is not acceptable!
I'm not a technie so when I need help, I want support right away. You
should be able to reach sales and especially technical support easily
without being caught to just a voicemail. Even worse with the Montreal
company I used before, they didn't even have tech support open during
weekends.
My Recommendation For Website Hosting Service
I currently use a website hosting service called Bluehost and have my
websites including the Free Spirit Gallery one on them. For a very
affordable price under $10 per month, I get unlimited file space and
domains. This means I can add as many different websites as I want to a
single account without having to pay extra. This is why I have most of
my websites and Wordpress blogs on Bluehost. I also get unlimited file
transfer.
What really sealed the deal for me with Bluehost is that I can get help
from technical support by actually speaking to a live person there 24
hours per day, seven days per week. Now that's great service! So make
sure that you check out Bluehost if you are looking for a great website
hosting service for your websites.
Disclosure: We may receive a small compensation from the companies we
endorse but you can be assured that you will never be paying a higher
price if you go through one of the links here. Also we endorse
only products and services we use ourselves and/or have reviewed.
