Can anyone recommend a web hosting company?

[Thinkstoomuch]

Don't need it to do anything special, a little bit of web space (without ads), a few email addresses, a non-techy interface and good customer support.

zen internet
always top of the pops. google them. I've been with them for ummmmm ooooooh 8 years and haven't got a bad thing to say about them

I need a hosting company with family values i.e. they don't host any of this disgusting rubbish that has taken over our society for too long. Are there any hosting sites run by Mum's or women that have morals? As sadly a lot of men don't!

ButterflyLullaby - think that nearly every web hosting firm I've seen restricts what can be put online, and bars racist, terror related, malware and porn, or even links to porn, etc

I recently checked some 100+ UK web hosting companies and though I didn't check the T+C for every one of them (was looking for some specific services, so some were excluded early on) I doubt any of them would find porn acceptable.

Thinkstoomuch - please define non-techy interface... sadly most might fail that criteria... and what sort of budget (per month or per year) were you after?

At the 'budget' end you can find some hosting for around a tenner or so per year on Ebay though you're more likely to find charges of 2 to 3 pounds per month (+VAT, charged annually in advance) from the bulk of UK firms.

www.webhostchat.co.uk/ is probably worth a look

Heart Internet shows a few of the 'biggest names' (though I suspect they chose the others on the basis they were cheaper!). If you look at some of the "top 10" or similar comparison sites, odds are there are entries listed only because of commission payments, so I'd be wary.

You can get hosting for 20 pounds for 2 years from Fast Hosting (until Wednesday)...

I spotted that last deal at Web Host Directory's UK cheap hosting section

Oooh, me too. I really do only need something very basic - one page with perhaps a couple of tabs for more specific information and a hyperlink to email me I suppose. But I'd need somewhere that's idiot-proof in terms of building it all.

I know absolutely nothing about all of this. I did a search here and a couple of people suggested either Wix or GBBO, but the latter seems to have a bit of a bad rep as regards price hikes after year one.

Help! (please!)

GBBO.co.uk - Get British Business Online should certainly not have a 'bad reputation' as there should be no fee to pay until the renewal of the (initally) free .co.uk domain comes up, around 2 years after initially set up.

I did take a look and I don't think BT (which registers the domains) was charging a massive amount for domains. I would appreciate any pointers to reports about 'price hikes' if you have any links or remember where you read this info.

Regarding e-mail, MinnieBar, I would really recommend using a web form (or look for a website giving Javascript code to 'hide' your e-mail address. If an e-mail address is in plain text either on the page or in a link or form, and can be found by a web 'spider' looking at every page on a website then you instantly become a target for spammers.

Using Javascript means a human has to click in a particular place to get the genuine e-mail address displayed. Alternatively using a web form, there are ways for the recipient address not to be shown, so if you use 'view source' and can see your e-mail address displayed, then you are liable to get lots of junk mail too. Many web host services offer an example web form that should protect you against spammers that grab e-mail addresses.

Using a web form, I would recommend avoiding some of the most common mail usernames such as
accounts contact enquiries info sales support

If you really feel you must use a mailto:username@domain type hyperlink, I'd suggest using GMail for the address, or perhaps better, use GMail to view your incoming mail messages but have mail forwarded from the website and use a temporary mail address, so you might have an address like [email protected] and accept mail to that address during June, and in July add "query201107" but, in August, scrap "query201106" and add "query201108" so any spammers trying to send to the old address will have their junk mail rejected. On the website control panel, forward query201106@yourdomain to your GMail address. That way there will be a 'second defence' against spam as Google Mail is fairly good at spotting spam and placing such messages in a spam folder (much better than having the mail deleted without you being able to see it at all, as some messages are wrongly consider spam by mistake).

A human can work out if they have an old address and their e-mail bounces (but one hopes they click to send at the time when they are interested, not 2 months later!)

Wow, thanks for such a comprehensive reply! not entirely sure I understand it all though

Right, I'm not looking to set up a business as such, it would be for me personally as a counsellor so it really would just be a place potential clients could go for more information (what is counselling, what to expect, prices, how to contact me. Barely more than a page I'd think). I'm more than happy to have the box for email contacts (although I do already use gmail). Does the same theory apply for phone numbers, i.e. it would be better not to put my personal number on there?

The place I saw the anti-GBBO comments was from a link here! This is the thread and this is the customer service page that seems to perhaps be suggesting prices might increase without warning and/or that all is not quite what it seems.

I am a bit confused by their FAQs (GGBO) as they say it's free for a year and then £17.95 - is that a year? Is that good?

On another thread someone else suggested using these guys, Wix which then seems to be free free free for ever. Which immediately makes me think 'what's the catch?' Or do they just hope that you'll need to upgrade it when your business takes off and that will bring in money for them??

Thanks for the links. Yes, BT domain renewal price is that low (a few pounds per year, though what isn't clear from the thread at least was that you have to pay for 2 years at a time because that's the way Nominet has defined their service). I suppose someone misunderstood the way things are set up, because a price of 70 pounds was put on the thread (taking a BT web hosting fee, but the actual hosting is with Google Sites).

Also someone else has put down a comment asking about the vague terms from Google - basically as far as I can tell, you would not get charged anything extra unless signing up to more advanced features.

Google Sites is perhaps looking at it in more than two ways for them to make money (long term)...

1. they get to know about a lot more UK based small businesses than anyone else
2. they can add those businesses on their maps (have you seen local firms pop up even when it is simply a home address where the domain is registered, possibly without the 'firm' knowing)
3. they can sell those firms 'AdWords' later on, or the enhanced web site facilities and e-mail handling for businesses which they run on top of the Google Mail platform.

I had not been aware of this 17.95 fee. It looks like it only started after May 12 (so presumably there should be no problem for those who signed up a year ago even though for new users the terms and conditions have changed. I don't think 17.95 is too expensive (if you look at a number of the domain registration firms, they charge 2.95 or so per month, so 17.95 is half that price), and that looks to me to be an annual fee.

The domain name would be registered for 2 years, but given the BT /GBBO representative indicated they had not fixed the price (in response to query from 'pillot21productions'), I suspect they will try to charge more than the 2.95 that had been shown for other BT customers (who are, after all, paying that 70 quid extra!)

I think you hit the nail on the head... There have been a number of sites which offer easy creation and modification of websites but most need you to use their domain name and that 'upgrade' path is sometimes used to allow you to have more pages and your own domain name.

I did take a quick look at Wix and the first thing which struck me (like some of the other similar ones) is that it uses Flash. That could immediately put it at a disadvantage (because the Apple products like iPhone and iPad currently have little support for Flash - a site often needs to have its own App for the full features of the site to still be allowed as the Apps undergo some quality assurance).

I've not got an iPhone so cannot quickly check my local garage website but last time I looked, they used Flash to show photos of the various models of car they sell. Some sites have galleries of photos and won't work without Flash. One of the first suggestions to owners of new web sites asking for a critique, is to add a plain text link if they have a "Flash" "splash page" because users without Flash need a way to get onto the main (hopefully plain HTML) pages.

Have just looked at the front page of GBBO again and see that for those businesses who don't want a website yet, they are indeed promoting inclusion on something they've added called 'Google Places' (I think I saw this was launched in USA first, and this looks like a UK launch relatively quietly).

Aaaarghh so much information and too many choices!

So, am I right in thinking if I went with GBBO then I'd have to pay £17.95 a year (after the first year) and a domain registry name fee as well? Or just the one price?

I did look up iphones and using Wix and apparently they also create a non-flash mobile version. It would be a basic site so I wouldn't have any need for any flashy flash stuff anyway - only pics would be generic images.

Another mum who is trying to do something similar (she's a physio) said she'd found this site which is another free one, but you have to use part of their domain name (e.g. 'yourbusiness.moonfruit.com') which isn't the best name for something so terribly serious as counselling. Sigh. In fact it's almost a bit too close to 'fruitloop' for my liking . You can have your own domain name but then it's £8 a month which is comparatively pricey.

I love Webeden.
www.webeden.co.uk

to get without ads, you have to pay, but depending on the package, yo ucan have a shop, and emails, and your own domain names etc.

I have my own business websire through them, and you can have 5 sites for the package I have, so I used one for my choir, one for my wedding website (and i have spares!)
i also have a free one i use for my chickens
and another free one i use for my WI.

It's really easy to use - like desktop publishing, really, and you can choose from templates (which you're not stuck with, because you can fiddle around with them, too)
I recommend webeden to everyone, because it's just so easy to use!

re: good customer support - I can't fault them
they've got a forum for members (ie customers), and if you email them or report a problem, they are onto it within 24 hours (or thereabouts, i think their aim is 48 hours, but they're always quicker)

and you can use outlook to set up the emails, or go through webeden to access them

Nominet charges every 2 years. BT has handled the registrations so far, so BT would charge the renewal fee. GBBO was originally listed as if there were no web hosting fees, but this has now changed and after the first year, there would be that 17.95 fee to pay.

On the webeden front, someone could have their own domain and then point to the www.theirusername.webeden.co.uk web pages from theirusername.co.uk (for example)

Obviously that only means someone can have their own domain printed on business cards, for example, and the big downside is that search engines will always point to the web pages in the domain

somename.webhostingcompany.co.uk

it means that if you are paying 'webhostingcompany' then for maybe a year or so you would need to continue to pay them even if you developed an alternative website elsewhere and your domain name pointed at that (because search engines take a while to find out about your new website and these old pages stay in the databases for many months).

the free ones are name.webeden.co.uk, but you can buy your own.
i pay £8.99 for mine, for 2 years, but it is included in the price of the standard package.

my shop site has the webeden name of ilovem&&&&&&&er.webeden.co.uk, because I was still using nickelbooks.webeden.co.uk on a free site, and my assistant chose the name (cos she's vain like that) while we were testing it all out. what i didn't know was that your free name stays with your site even when you've transferred/bought your proper name.

MinnieBar - just did some hunting for info on Yola (the hosting firm) and see they went into partnership with Google in the spring and were involved with the "Get Your Business Online" scheme in Canada. Over there, newcomers get $100 coupon for Google AdWords.

Yola normally charges $99.95 a year so the 17.95 is quite cheap by comparison. They are offering a 25% discount to Canadian users after the first year, but don't force people to stay with them. Also I see they have higher than average domain name fees at Yola (many domain firms charge about $10/year but theirs are $18

Read more *> here

Thanks nickelbabe for the info. I assume that 8.99 is +VAT (as so many domain firms seem to not show it). Glad it is included, though I think they could do more to explain multiple sites can be set up, because otherwise one may think 60ish (?) quid is too costly (when some domain firms are charging about 36).

Ah nickelbabe so the message is to be careful when naming a site :)

Oh wow, thanks for all your advice! I'm going to read it again and inwardly digest tomorrow and then come back to you with more questions as I'm still more than a bit confused

Really, really appreciate all the input.

NetworkGuy - they say in the pricing list that you can have 5 sites.
with that package, you get 250mb of space, and as many pages as you want.
I have to say, i didn't understand all that when I started up, but I needed that package for the shop part of it.

i don't know where I got 250mb from.
you get 1GB of storage space and 20GB of bandwidth monthly.

I've got 3 websites running on that account, with laods of photos, and it's only used 94mb!

Right, I'm tempted to go with webeden as I need something pretty idiot-proof BUT if I am cheap (because this really will be just a basic site - it's just more information for my one-woman business, so I'm never going to sell from it/go global or anything remotely complicated) and go for the free package, it says no mailboxes. So does that mean there's no way of contacting me without giving out my email address?? Because its price page lists the package with mailboxes at £8 per month which seems a lot.

Sorry to be so rubbish. I really never have done this before so I'm more than a bit confused.

Positive Internet are good.

They're not run by women, unfortunately, but they are pretty ethical.

Sometimes I think there is a thing as too much choice in life...!

Minnie - you don't have to have a mailbox through webeden, if yo ugo that way.
what you can do is put your own email on (even if it's just a Yahoo one) - and there are widgets for contact forms, where the email address doesn't come up at all - they just sent an email to the address you allocate.

I'll try to take a screen shot of what the set-up looks like.