Hi all,
We're actually looking for a hosting solution that can handle several different sites with different purposes. Site5 and Hostgator seem to come to the forefront in most forums that I've visited, this one included. Interestingly enough, when I put my parameters into findmyhosting.com, neither of these appeared on the list. Granted, it only allowed me to put in parameters for one site, not multiples.
So anyway, I'm looking for a site that can support the following. Should I present these requirments to the likes of Hostgator and Site5 by calling them or does anyone have any additional recommendations as to how to proceed?
Site 1 - a business site for my consulting business. I estimate less than 25 pages, not too heavy on the graphics. I intend to have relevant articles that people can download, as well as a section that is a collection of links to articles in on-line technical journals (relevant to my clients) that they can read if there is interest. This section will probably change weekly.
Site 2 - A discussion forum for independent consultants. Interestingly enough, a web search didn't turn up much in my field so there may be an opportunity there. I intent to link between the forum and my consulting site.
Site 3 - My wife is doing an eBay store and wants to branch out into on-line storefronts in several niches. These (one to start) would offer niche products for sale, probably a newsletter, maybe a blog, and probably links to related sites. This one will also have graphics. Don't know yet whether we want a site that offers shopping carts or whether we'll go elsewhere. We've already done some research into cart abandonment and such so we think we know what attributes will work best for us. We're already set up with a Paypal business account and are in the process of establishing a non-Paypal credit card processing account.
Site 4 - I'm looking into various affiliate programs. While I'm still gelling the ideas, system requirements probably will be typical of most affiliates sites out there. I'm also exploring subdomains and minisites in this context.
Some additional background information... We're fairly technical, but not in the webhosting space. We already own the domain names for our future sites, including common name variations. We already have a rack of servers in our house where we maintain our own exchange servers, web page development server, and application servers with UPS and RAID5 array. Therefore we probably won't need email on the hosting site. We're already set up with a PIX firewall and have taken all steps we can internally to prevent such things as DNS recursion and DOS attacks. But I'd rather host our sites with a hosting service where more bandwidth would be available than we can get at our home (at least that is affordable).
We're fairly proficient at the telecommunications level and OS level (Windows server 2000 and 2003 and Linux). Problem is that we don't know enough about the world of webhosting to make an informed decision.
Any thoughts and ideas would help.
Thanks,
Bob