Hi- I'm a newbie here.

 

I'm a web site designer and I've been running a small company for the last year making small sites for small businesses.

 

To date, I've been arranging hosting for my clients through Amenworld for a simple domain with free hosting space- and whilst this has been OK till now I am considering changing the process.

 

Firstly, I've been advised that using a hosting company outside of the UK is detrimental to my SEO efforts- is this true?

 

Secondly- I have used one.com in a couple of cases where clients needed database and php capabilities. They are cheap, but I am nervous that they have bad reviews wherever I look.

 

If you're a web designer- who do you use? Or do you have your own hosting platform? How does this work? All advice, very welcome. My website is at http://rubyfruitdesigns.com

 

By the way- I'm talking CHEAP- Amenworld charge £10 for the year and One.com charge £20, so please bear this in mind!

 

Thanks, Claire

Firstly, I've been advised that using a hosting company outside of the UK is detrimental to my SEO efforts- is this true?

 

sort of yes... your server ip is a factor used by search engines to calculate where you place in SERP's. check out this webmaster video by Matt Cutts (

)

 

 

If you're a web designer- who do you use? Or do you have your own hosting platform? How does this work? All advice, very welcome.

 

I have my own VPS for hosting client websites, it gives me greater control over the hosting and I can tailor a package specifically for their website (I sell hosting to my clients as well as the website), this is a lot more than £10-£20 per year tho but is worth the expense if you have a lot of clients.

 

I host with a company called 34SP, their data-centre is in the UK and support team are top notch. They have a few different packages, granted they aren't in the £20 a year bracket your looking for but there is a reason why the low-cost hosting providers have bad reviews, you do get what you pay for...

 

Good luck in your search..

Hi atagirl,

 

I use Justhost.com, they offer unlimited space, unlimited mysql databases, they offer a world of resources like fantasico, and allows you to host unlimited accounts under your main account.

 

other good hosting providers:

 

Godaddy,

Gator hosting

 

Good luck and happy hunting

Hi atagirl,

 

I use Justhost.com, they offer unlimited space, unlimited mysql databases, they offer a world of resources like fantasico, and allows you to host unlimited accounts under your main account.

 

other good hosting providers:

 

Godaddy,

Gator hosting

 

Good luck and happy hunting

 

To be honest, if I were you, I'd avoid any company offering unlimited resources, as it's simply not true and evidently oversold. As far as SEO goes, I'm not entirely sure on that I'm afraid. Although, if your company is based in the UK, and your clients are based in the UK, it's often best to get a UK based server, as that's what a lot of your clients would expect. You'll notice a big speed difference too.

By the way- I'm talking CHEAP- Amenworld charge £10 for the year and One.com charge £20, so please bear this in mind!

Question for you...

 

If you were my customer, and I provided you hosting from a "cheap" provider, how would you feel?

I use Dreamhost for my web business and so far it's been fine.

Think it costs about £80 per year for pretty much unlimited bandwidth, webspace, sites etc.

 

When I started off I was mainly building static sites and never had a problem with Dreamhost, but recently I've noticed that it isn't performing well for database driven sites such as Wordpress, Cubecart etc, it's just too slow.

 

I'm now looking to upgrade my hosting as I've outgrown Dreamhost and cost isn't as much of an issue as it was when I first started out.

 

I'm looking for a UK based host and someone that is going to be around for a while.

I use Dreamhost for my web business and so far it's been fine.

Think it costs about £80 per year for pretty much unlimited bandwidth, webspace, sites etc.

 

When I started off I was mainly building static sites and never had a problem with Dreamhost, but recently I've noticed that it isn't performing well for database driven sites such as Wordpress, Cubecart etc, it's just too slow.

 

I'm now looking to upgrade my hosting as I've outgrown Dreamhost and cost isn't as much of an issue as it was when I first started out.

 

I'm looking for a UK based host and someone that is going to be around for a while.

 

Avoid any provider that offers anything unlimited, it will be the reason why you are now experiencing slowness with your websites. The servers will be overloaded with thousands of domains, databases, mailboxes etc.

 

What are your hosting requirements?

Interestingly Dreamhost's entire network was down (including their own site) for an hour this morning because their *one* router dropped their *one* BGP session to their upstream provider.