What Constitutes Quality Web Hosting: A Web Hosting Company's Perspective

As a user of web hosting, I may have a different definition in my mind as to what constitutes a quality web hosting service from what you have. We may slightly differ from one another regarding our perception of quality web hosting. This is the reason why a wide variety of users making use of the same web hosting features offered by a company as well as the same level of service rate a company differently from one another. However, it is also important to know what constitutes quality web hosting from a company's point of view. For this reason, the editor of WHL interviewed WestHost Web hosting to find out what is their perception of a quality web hosting service. We had a long session with them and at the end of the session, we concluded that WestHost believes that the following factors must be given utmost consideration before a company starts a web hosting business.

1) Selection of the Right Location for the Data Center

WestHost strongly believes that a quality web hosting company should not rely on others for storing the data of its customers. It should not use a data center developed and maintained by another company, instead it should build and maintain its own data center. Having said that, selecting the right location for the data center cannot be overemphasized. If a web hosting company, for example, is intending to launch its business in the United States, it should choose a location that can not only help it to link its servers to the major Internet carriers but which is also a disaster free zone. This is exactly what WestHost did in the beginning. They hold that their data centers are located in a place that can be minimally affected by natural disasters. If the company's budget allows, having more than one data centers doesn't hurt either. In fact, it allows the customers a greater level of flexibility in that they can choose a data center that is closer to the geographical location in which they plan to operate their online business.

2) Purchasing (Not Hiring) the Best Breed of Equipment

A company must not invest its money into low-grade hardware. This is because a lower quality hardware will not only pose problems to the company in the long run but it will also continue to hurt its reputation in the eyes of its customers. No matter whether it is shared web hosting, dedicated web hosting, or managed web hosting, the quality of the server (the physical computer that presents the data to a customer's visitors) is something that has to be taken seriously. In the case of shared web hosting for example, if the physical server does not has a high-speed processor or is low in memory, it would result in a much slower response to the end-user. This is because the system has to resolve to the correct partition that holds a particular website as soon is the URL is entered into the browser by the end-user. So if the system is not quick enough to identify the partition holding the website's data, then the end-user will have to wait a lot on his end and this will definitely lead to frustration and annoyance. Similar analogies can be attributed to a dedicated server or a managed server. The quality of the physical equipment should never be compromised, and this is exactly what WestHost has done.

3) Continual Monitoring of the Data Center and Equipment

A quality web hosting company must employ staff that are there in the data center for security and surveillance 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Apart from the on-site security personnel, there must be systems in place to monitor the physical integrity of the data center, i.e. to ensure that there are no fire breaks and no attempts by unauthorized personnel to access the data center. This is extremely important because a data center will not only contain the data of ordinary customers like average webmasters but also gigantic corporations like banks, stock markets etc. In case any unauthorized attempt to access the financial transactions of these institutions is successful, it can be very lethal to their business and consequently the ability of the hosting company to safeguard the data will become questionable. The second thing is the monitoring of the web hosting statistics by the staff working at the customer support department. Their job is to ensure that the uptime does not drop below what is promised to the customers and also that the speed of transmission of the data is such that the customers would be satisfied with it. WestHost has both kind of monitoring in place to ensure that their customers receive the best experience possible.

4) The Right Set of Features for Different Hosting Levels

At each level of web hosting, the customers are looking for a certain fundamental set of features that must be provided by a quality hosting company. Anything below this fundamental set of features will not be adequate to convince the prospective customer that the company will indeed be able to provide a high level of service. However, anything above that will make the customers more happy and not only would they be willing to sign up for the hosting plan but they will also continue to stay loyal to the company if these features are added on a regular basis. For example, in the case of shared web hosting, if a company provides the standard CPanel control panel, a particular customer would be satisfied with it. However, if the standard CPanel is augmented with say at least 10 or 20 more features and a customized control panel is instead offered by the company, the customer would be more inclined to sign up with the company as compared with a competitor that provides the standard CPanel. Likewise, although a dedicated IP address is generally not considered part of a shared hosting plan, a free dedicated IP address offering would make the customer more inclined to buy because there are in fact many users who are looking for this particular feature. A similar analogy can be applied to dedicated or managed web hosting as well. To ensure that their customers are happy with the product they are buying, WestHost offers an unbeatable set of features.

5) Round-The-Clock In-House Customer Support (Not Outsourcing)

WestHost strongly believe that customer support should lead the list of the essential attributes that a quality web hosting company must have. However, a customer support department can only be set up after the right infrastructure has been established by the company. The importance of customer support is that a company cannot stay in business unless they continue to excel in providing prompt and quality support. And the support department should not be outsourced to some cheap overseas company. Although this may seem to be quite tempting to many companies, this is bound to ultimately lead to complete disaster despite the fact that it can save a handsome investment. A company must employ customer support staff in its headquarters that is efficient and professional to deal with the various types of queries that come in. Up time and speed should never be a concern to the customers. However, they may have a broad range of queries related to website development and maintenance. In case a script stops functioning or if a one click installer is not correctly installing the intended content management system, the support staff must be knowledgeable and efficient to deal with that particular problem and resolve it before it's too late. The advantage of having in-house support staff is that they are capable of providing support in the native language and can quickly resolve common customer's problems. This is in contrast with the scenario when the support is outsourced by the company and the customer has to wait a lot in order to get a response. And even if the response is received, it may not be able to satisfy the customer because of poor communication language. WestHost truly understands the importance of strong customer support and this is the reason that they provide 24 x 7 x 365 support by e-mail, live chat, and telephone to their clientele.

About the Article

This is a genuine article custom written for WHL (WebHostLead.com). WHL is a top 10 hosting reviews directory that offers quality articles on a wide variety of subjects related to web hosting.

Note: WHL holds all copyrights to this article. If you would like to publish the article on your website, you must include the "About the Article" section as well.

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