Hosting Question you should ask. Server Questions. Support Questions.

Hosting Question you should ask. Server Questions. Frequently Asked Questions. Support Questions

Here are some questions people may need to ask a Hosting Company :-

General Notes :-

1. Check that you have a physical address where you are able to contact the supplier and if possible check it.
2. Ask to see a demo Control Panel and use this to check the Server Status. (Any non-Green could indicate problems.)
3. Use the demo Control Panel email system to email a message to both a web based email and a no web based email address, make sure they both arrive.
4. Use demo Control Panel to set up a SQL database and test it with phpMyAdmin (Web Interface for SQL), check for speed as well.
5. Check any on-line support for speed and reaction.
6. Check any on-line Forums to see how problems are dealt with in speed and quality.

Email these questions to any possible Host Technical support.

Some questions may be repeated or written in a different way to see how well they cope with these.

Web Master Law. Legal issues for Web Masters

See how long they take to answer and the type of answer they give you. :-

Do you support?

WAP, CRON Jobs, SSL, PERL, PHP, JSP, SSI, SQL, MySQL, ASP, Active Server Page, FLASH

Are you able to install PERL modules as requested

Python 2.2 or better, XML

Do you have a secure certificate and SSL that I can use?

Minimum of SSL, 128-bit for securing Web content

FrontPage Server Extensions

Which Pre-Installed Unix Apps

Which Pre-Installed CGI Apps

Email: Sendmail server supporting SMTP, IMAP4, POP3

Do you allow Telenet, SSH, etc...

Do yo support allow Mod Rewrite

How many shared users are they.

Bandwidth please do not state unlimited or "As much as you need"

Storage please do not state unlimited or "As much as you need"

FTP, anonymous FTP access

How many sub directories
e.g.
/cgi-bin
/data
/counters

In addition :-

How many top level domains

How many sub domains
e.g.
http://one.domainname.com
http://two.domainname.com
http://three.domainname.com
http://four.domainname.com
http://five.domainname.com

Parked Domains

CURL & GD (w/ JPG) support

Apache Handler Access

Do you allow MP3, Video, Video streaming, audio files, PDF and exe files for download by users.

Do you provide Content Management Systems

Which web statistics do you use?

Do you provide RAW log statistics files.

Which Control Panel do you use? (cPanel, Plesk, Helm)

Do you use RAID and Drive Mirroring support. If so what level type (Mirrored, striped etc...)

Hardware, RAM Disk size, Backbone

Are you Linux or Windows

Is a Domain Name supplied, What extensions (.com, .co.uk etc)

Server Up Time (99%) ?

UPS Generators.

What levels of Security do you use.

Do you support Web Email

Number of emails allowed?

Do you support Email redirection

Do you support ImageMagick™

Do you provide Shopping Cart, Fantastico, Invasion Board, phpBB

CGI Wrapper

Where is your datacenter

Do you carry out Daily Backups.

Do you allow SSH

What type of Technical support do you provide. (Telephone, on-line, Forum, email). (Note not many provide programming or code support)

What is your Transfere to a different host policy.

The BoxTrapper (anti-spam tool)

Password Protect Directories

Is there a minimum time contract/commitment?
How soon will my account be set up and ready for use?
Do I have access to update my site 24 hours a day?
Can you register a domain name for me? Can you set up domains other than .com .org .net .co.nz, .org.nz, and .net.nz?
Do you offer a money back guarantee?
Do you host Adult sites, warez sites or sites containing illegal material?
Is my site backed up and how often?
How fast are your connections?
What are your server specifications?
What types of payment do you accept?
How do I transfer my site to you?
What do Autoresponders do and are they included?

Technical Questions
I changed my Control Panel password and now I can't get in.
How do I get my email?
I want to get started right away, but my domain name hasn't transferred/isn't in the database yet. How do I do it?

What is the path to PERL?
Whats is the path to send mail?
Where should I put CGI scripts for my domain?
I uploaded my files, but I don't see my page?

Can I check the web mail without going through the Control panel?
Can I check my Stats without going through the Control panel?
Where is mogrify ?
Can I set up forwarder with out keeping a copy on the server ?

Account and Billing Questions
Can I upgrade my plan or features later?
How can I check/change my account information?
How do I cancel my account?

Check for rubbish service

Apache Web server, HTTP 1.1 compliant

Messaging support for: mail accounts, aliases, message relaying and blocking
via RBL, file transfer limits, message forwarding and auto reply
Virtual hosting services: Name based & IP based
No software limits
OS Based on Red Hat* Linux as modified by Intel using Linux kernel 2.2.16.3
CGI support
Perl/PHP/ASP scripting
Online Quick Help

How about these :-
Redundant OC12, OC3, and DS3 Internet connectivity
Cisco routers and switches
Redundant power backup
24/7 data center monitoring
Independent Web Server with Root Level access
Complete control over server config files and logs
Multiple domain name virtual hosting capability
Complete control over SMTP, POP/IMAP, HTTP, FTP servers
Domain Name Registration
Unlimited E-mail forwarding, aliases and POP/IMAP mailboxes
Unlimited E-mail autoresponders
Full access to our CGI library
Complete control over your own CGI-BIN
FTP, SSH, telnet, Frontpage, Windows FileShare (Samba) access to your server
Microsoft Frontpage server extensions
Run your own RealServer: True RealAudio and RealVideo streaming
Cybercash, Miva, MySQL, PostgreSQL, mSQL, PHP, SSI,, PGP, SSL and more!

Agora Shopping Cart

The Interchange shopping cart

Other Shopping Carts

Advanced E-commerce Solutions

Web server with support for PHP version 4.0.6 or better.
Your php.ini should match the following requirements:

a. track_vars is enabled.
b. magic_quotes_gpc is enabled.
c. safe_mode is disabled

The web server must have support for MySQL database version 3.23 or better. You will need to have access to MySQL database, i.e. to know the MySQL server name, database name, username and password for MySQL access.

Your existing host will be able to confirm if these features are available.

Can you provide compatible UK based hosting if you require it.

Which web based statistics do you supply.

Which Languages are you able to display the Control panel in, e.g. English, Spanish, French, German, etc...

Do you provide any protection against

A Denial Of Service, (DoS), Distributed Denial Of Service, (DDoS). This is a attempt to send such a large amount of false traffic, (clicks to the website being attacked), that that websites response time is slowed for legitimate visitors or the website under attack keeps crashing because it can not cope with the number of requests for data, or the website goes beyond the bandwidth allowed by the server and the account for that website is suspended. The more common attacks use built-in features of the TCP/IP protocol to create exponential amounts of network traffic.

Hosting Reviews - SCAMS EXPOSED

Hosting Reviews Exposed

Learn how host review & hosting comparison sites work. Hosting ratings are seldom ranked by web hosting features. Hosting reviews rate web hosting companies by the commissions they offer.

Hosts that pay more get the BEST HOST rating.

Discover the absolute worst offenders.

Not only do they have their own "buy-your-way-to-the-top" TOP-10 list, they also accept customer reviews regarding other web hosting companies... NEGATIVE REVIEWS, that is.

See how they systematically deleted POSITIVE reviews of specific web hosting companies and retained the NEGATIVE reviews.

Hosting reviews seldom base their "rating" on quality of service (although many claim to).

Instead, most of them rate a webhost based on the *size* of the affiliate commission. The web hosts paying the highest commissions usually get the top spots.

It's a well-known fact: hosting companies that use Commission Junction to run their affiliate programs offer among the highest affiliate payouts in the hosting industry.

Thus "clever" PPC (pay per click) affiliate marketers decided: Why not create a hosting review site and list the highest paying companies at TOP and "recommend" them? Ka-ching!

What is Reseller Hosting. (basics only), A reseller host is basically a person/company that has a server, (a computer), on which the will host web site space that maybe sold to others, i.e. resold. The reseller should have extremely reliable server for storing web sites with a high level of services for example:security fixes, power pack up systems, etc NOTE: this is not always the case, after all if you sell a hosting package to someone and the server fails then it is you who will get it in the neck. One problem with reseller hosting is that the person selling the reseller hosting may be a reseller of a reseller of a reseller this could lead to the person who purchase any web space may have extremely poor level of support and any problems the have with hosting the server web site difficult to resolve. A reseller of a reseller is likely to cause any seller problems because it could be almost impossible to resolve any issues for anyone purchasing web site hosting form that seller. This will almost defiantly lead to the seller receiving a bad reputation. Some resellers will try to play on hopes and dreams of you making a profit of selling hosting to others, this could actually occur but you would need an excellent service that they sell to you so that you are able to sell it to others. It could even be a case that the reseller only has one old computer with Local hosting that has no power back up and is likely to be disconnected at any time, e.g. just as a customer on your web site is about to make a purchase from you . See cPanel. FTP. File Transfer Protocol. Hosting. Website Hosting. Check for rubbish service. You may hear the term Unlimited Reseller hosting, this is suppose to indicate that you will be able to store any amount of data as web pages and used any amount of traffic, data throughput. Unlimited is not possible, because their has to be some limit to the amount od storage they are able to physically supply. A Reseller Host may also host your web sites or those you provide to other users with web sites that are dreamed to be in a Bad Neighbourhood, this could have a negative impact on your business.

Do you support Cloud Computing. Cloud links, About the Cloud.