After a decade in the web design business, we’ve encountered more hosts than most. Forward Multimedia’s policy is to work with the existing web host and not try to steer the client to our preferred hosting. There are a number of reasons for this, the main one being if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. If the client is happy with the host, then no reason to change. Another is the email implications. If emails are managed via a third party like G Suite or Microsoft 365, there is no problem, but if the emails come with the hosting plan, then backing up, migrating emails etc., are a potential headache.

Most of the mainstream host we’ve dealt with are pretty decent and have their strengths and weaknesses: Go Daddy, Bluehost, Dreamhost, Network Solutions, Siteground, Just Host, Hostgator. GoDaddy tries to sell and upsell with absolutely no shame at every turn. Every plan is designed to have to upgrade, especially their email plans.

In dealing with so many hosts over the years, from the mainstream above, to the obscure (how people find them I’ll never know), I’ve used one key indicator to evaluate, and that is support. Yes support, I gauge by my interactions for especially technical queries. And for such, I evaluate two more elements:

1. Speed of response
2. Willingness to resolve issue

For many mainstream hosts, support was superficial, I got the impression that they were not too keen on resolving issues. Again, Go Daddy is the biggest offender. Network Solutions would be the runner up, I would also avoid them like the plague.

After that, then price shouldn’t be much of an issue. Sure you want the cheapest, but for me, support is the lynchpin, everything else comes after.

We’ve dealt with only a couple and only in the early days of the business. There aren’t many anyway, and if they are, then it appears that they don’t want to be known as they’re doing a really good job of keeping a low profile.