I'm spoilt for choice :roll: I've heard bad stories about the hosting side of UK Reg (FastHosts) so I'm swaying towards 1-2-3 Reg..

Before I commit anyone had problems or praise with either :confused:

I use both for domain registrations, although I only have about 5 domains with UK Reg and about 30 with 123 reg, so I suppose that must say something.

More control with 123reg.co.uk

I wouldn't have hosting from either company myself, not with all the availability around these days.

:thumbsup:

Originally posted by DaBouncer
I wouldn't have hosting from either company myself, not with all the availability around these days

Name a good host mate as I'm really struggling to find one I can be confident with...

Cheers DaB :)

I register my domains with 123-reg and host with Web Fusion.

I've heard a few bad stories about WF, but I've got about a dozen sites with them and have had no real problems. Been with them for a few years now.

Joe

For basic sites I would recommend www.supanames.co.uk got a few sites with them and had no reason to complain. £13.99+vat a year can't go wrong! Includes domain too

Originally posted by Deejay
Name a good host mate as I'm really struggling to find one I can be confident with...

Cheers DaB :)
What sort of site are you looking to host?
Has the site been built? Are you building it?

Is a dynmic site (such as ASP or PHP) or just plain HTML.

I can recommend some good hosting accounts yes, but it depends on what you're after. Cheapest isn't always best.

I use registerfly.com for .com's, 123-reg when I have to for .co.uk's

I use UKReg, have done for about 4 years now, never had any problems (unlike their hosting arm, Fasthosts, who I've had awful experiences with; ditto Host Europe, who I think are/used to be the hosting side of 123-reg).

Originally posted by DaBouncer
What sort of site are you looking to host?

Pictures, Soundclips, Database etc...

Originally posted by DaBouncer
Has the site been built? Are you building it?

The site is being built as we speak, and yes I'm the one building it...

Originally posted by DaBouncer
Is a dynmic site (such as ASP or PHP) or just plain HTML.

So far is has HTML, Java Script, DHTML, XML..

Think I will be going with 123 Reg for the Domains, Web Fusion looks good Joe... Shall investigate hosting :)

Originally posted by Deejay
Pictures, Soundclips, Database etc...



The site is being built as we speak, and yes I'm the one building it...



So far is has HTML, Java Script, DHTML, XML..

Think I will be going with 123 Reg for the Domains, Web Fusion looks good Joe... Shall investigate hosting :)
What database? mySQL | Access | MSSQL?

Basically for a Windows (i.e. MS Access database support) I used to use www.asp-host.co.uk - they may not be the cheapest but they have excellent customer support via MSN all day long and sometimes into the night.

They have a linux based hosting package too which is www.php-host.co.uk and offers the same pricing structure but will support mySQL database and PHP active pages.

Same company so same support.
Thoroughly recommended mate :thumbsup:

Dan,

Fasthosts have given me occasional bouts of pain....

Host Europe supply the reseller market quite extensively - they also own Web Fusion, I think, and are in turn owned by Pipex. Their performance has certainly picked up since Pipex took over, but they occasionally forget to charge me for hosting services....:)

I do remind them.

:D

Joe

Originally posted by JoeP
Fasthosts have given me occasional bouts of pain....

I've never used them directly (other than UKReg which, as I said, I've had no problems with) but I used to do a lot of development work for a company who hosted with them and we used to quite frequently go for half a day without access to our sites.

Originally posted by JoeP
Host Europe supply the reseller market quite extensively - they also own Web Fusion, I think, and are in turn owned by Pipex. Their performance has certainly picked up since Pipex took over, but they occasionally forget to charge me for hosting services....:)

I bought a reseller account off Host Europe about 3 years ago, after doing a lot of research and finding that they got most recommendations. The service was certainly better than Fasthosts, but the web interface wasn't quite what I'd been led to expect, and the service which started out excellent deteriorated to the point where I was waiting up to 48 hours for a reply to a support question, meanwhile my clients weren't getting emails. To be fair on them, though, they were going through a period of integrating their setup with their various other acquisitions at the time, as well as moving sites onto new servers, and I think this caused quite a lot of pain.

After that experience I decided that I was never going to be happy with a plain reseller account, I had to own my own server. I went to the USA, as they seem to be cheaper, bought a decent-spec box running Redhat 9 & Plesk 7 from Rackshack (now EV1Servers (http://www.ev1servers.net/english/index.asp)) for $99 setup plus $99 per month (works out about £60). For the amount of flexibility it gives me, it's well worth it (although it also means a certain amount of pain for me when I have to do some OS-level hacking), and EV1's support team are generally available within 2 minutes for live support chat, or if not they tend to answer any queries within a couple of hours. Their forums are also very good for dealing with stuff not covered by support, like bolting on your own extensions to Plesk.

Of course, you have to be able to wring at least £60 per month out of your clients to make it worthwhile.

I also love the fact that I can sling as many personal sites as I want up there - I probably host as many personal sites for myself and friends as I do pay sites, e.g.
www.sumption.org
www.guyd2.com
www.sweetcucumber.com
www.nextbestthingproductions.com
www.wavepeople.com
......

Dan, a man after my own heart.
I have my own EV1 server now and can host as many as I like.

Well in actual fact I share the server with a web design company and it's got a 50/50 partition.
I pay well less that £60 a month but can host as many of my own sites on my side.

Saves me paying out say a minimum of £35 a year for hosting EACH of my sites (which will work out a lot - currently on about 20).

With fast broadband now so cheap has anyone setup websites at home? Can you manage pretty good reliability? I have a site running from home but only using "no-ip" which is not the best way.

have a look at us at www.glasstop.net we host with php & MySql databases.

www.glasstop.net

Originally posted by march
With fast broadband now so cheap has anyone setup websites at home? Can you manage pretty good reliability? I have a site running from home but only using "no-ip" which is not the best way.

You can set up a site from home, but you ought to get an ISP who gives fixed IP addresses (I used Demon), and availability will never be 100% as all ISPs seem to have the odd routing problem. So if you're serious about doing it properly, you should go to a professional hosting company.

Originally posted by DanSumption
You can set up a site from home, but you ought to get an ISP who gives fixed IP addresses (I used Demon), and availability will never be 100% as all ISPs seem to have the odd routing problem. So if you're serious about doing it properly, you should go to a professional hosting company.
Thoroughly agree - not to mention the hacking risk element of hosting your own site.

I'd much prefer to use a hosting company or like I do, use a dedicated server :D

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?postid=279498#post279498

Originally posted by t020
http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?postid=279498#post279498
t020 that question was answered.
For your sanity though I will advise again.

1and1 might be cheaper than 123reg.co.uk but the back end services are not even a patch.
My UKreg domains are cheaper than 123reg.co.uk but their back end services aren't anywhere near as good as 123.
So for an extra say £3 over 2 years (£0.13p a month) I would rather have all the benefits of 123reg than 1and1 (who I have used in the past).

Having used all 3 companies mentioned in DaB's post, he's spot on. 1&1 are hopeless - I had an business account and wanted to register a domain for a client, they only allowed me to do it in my name, i.e. I had no choice over whose name I was registering the domain under! They were also bad at replying to the e-mails. UKReg, can't remember anything specific with them, apart from that 123-Reg was a big improvement. Their site can be a little slow at times, but it's got an easy to use interface and is by far the best, cheap, .co.uk registrar I've found.

I've used 123reg a few times and we now host with them. They seem to be ok if you are happy using the interface, though I keep losing the link to go to the control panel - it isn't obvious(to me :))

They are incredibly cheap but the downside is that you can't speak to a human if there is a problem - I assume it's 99% automated.

Originally posted by DaBouncer
t020 that question was answered.
For your sanity though I will advise again.

1and1 might be cheaper than 123reg.co.uk but the back end services are not even a patch.
My UKreg domains are cheaper than 123reg.co.uk but their back end services aren't anywhere near as good as 123.
So for an extra say £3 over 2 years (£0.13p a month) I would rather have all the benefits of 123reg than 1and1 (who I have used in the past).

I'm not a webmaster, although I do have general IT knowledge. What I don't understand is what "backend" services are involved in what is basically URL redirection. I can understand paying more for a good server, but if it's purely a URL that's needed, I really don't understand how it could differ between companies, other than maybe a couple of milliseconds slower redirection??

Originally posted by t020
What I don't understand is what "backend" services are involved in what is basically URL redirection.

URL redirection is the most basic form of domain hosting, and one you should avoid if possible as it tends to look unprofessionalto those in the know.

The better domain hosts will allow you to choose between various options including URL forwarding, hosting DNS for you, or pointing to another company's DNS servers (which is what I use with UKReg). They will also have the backend in place to let you update these settings quickly and easily, without the need for human intervention and without having to pay a fee every time you change something (ISTR that when I used 123-Reg they charged me £20 a time to move a domain from or to them, not sure whether they still do but UKReg certainly don't).

Originally posted by t020
I'm not a webmaster, although I do have general IT knowledge. What I don't understand is what "backend" services are involved in what is basically URL redirection. I can understand paying more for a good server, but if it's purely a URL that's needed, I really don't understand how it could differ between companies, other than maybe a couple of milliseconds slower redirection??
Buy a .co.uk domain with 123reg and you'll see what we mean!

Originally posted by DaBouncer
Buy a .co.uk domain with 123reg and you'll see what we mean!

Just bought 3 domains :clap:

Cheers everyone, just need to fathem out the control panel now ;)

Originally posted by DaBouncer
t020 that question was answered.
For your sanity though I will advise again.

1and1 might be cheaper than 123reg.co.uk but the back end services are not even a patch.

We have a 1&1 server - rack jobbie with Plesk 7.5 - and ssh secure ftp ssl etc - reasonable price, 24/7 tech support (VOIP to the states at night) no probs

Web Fusion looks ok but I need FP Extensions..

(I use both Dreamweaver and Front Page ya see)

we host both front page and dreamwaver sites

have a look at www.glasstop.net

brand new site soon as well.

Looks good glasstop but Webfusion offer 1.5gb webspace and 10gb bandwidth, 300 mailboxes etc..

Sorry mate :(

Originally posted by Deejay
Looks good glasstop but Webfusion offer 1.5gb webspace and 10gb bandwidth, 300 mailboxes etc..

Sorry mate :(
How much for?

Originally posted by DaBouncer
How much for?

£10 a month... Is that bad :confused: Im never good with this side of things... I just design, tis about all I know..

1.5gb is a huge amount of web space if your hosting just a website. If you host mp3 files to download then you would need that much space.

All depends how much service you get. As you do get what you pay for.

For a sneaky peek have a look at www.strongglass.co.uk

I am sure there are loads of errors and may even go down a few times (if I delete it) but that is what is coming. Any comments I would be great full.

Originally posted by Deejay
£10 a month... Is that bad :confused: Im never good with this side of things... I just design, tis about all I know.. £120 for the year - it all depends on what you'll use the space for.

If you think it's good value then that's all that matters.

Uh-oh! I just got an email from 123-Reg (I'm obviously still in their database somewhere) to say that they're completely redeveloping their infrastructure. I hope this "exciting redevelopment" goes more smoothly than the last one!