I’ve had my own domain and website for some time now and my hosting agreement was recently up for its yearly renewal. I have used the same hosting company since 2003, I have been very happy with them the entire time and have no plans to leave.  So just what is it that makes a good web hosting company?

My hosting company offers a long feature list, simple-to-use control panel and offers good value for money but most importantly, their support desk really is second-to-none. Whether you are a novice or an advanced user, you need to know that you can depend on your hosting co’s support when you need them most.

Here’s what separates the best helpdesks from the rest (in general):

• Fast response. Nobody wants to be waiting hours (or even days) for an acknowledgement email, especially when their income may be affected due to downtime.
• Knowledgeable, helpful staff. Train them well.
• Taking ownership of your issue until resolution. There’s nothing worse than being passed between support representatives and having to explain your problem many times over.
• Follow up - checking you are satisfied with the service. If not, they must put things right until you are.

I have raised  17 support tickets since I have been a customer and every single one of them has been resolved to my satisfaction, quickly. On one occasion, I had a reply within 7 minutes and they had actually fixed my problem for me by creating a php.ini file with some custom settings in and uploading it to my site. That’s what I call going the extra mile and giving good customer service – many helpdesks would have pointed me at a Google search or FAQ and told me they were closing the call. It’s that kind of thing that makes a customer feel their business is important and they are not just another support ticket number.

A couple of years ago, I came across an offer where another hosting company were offering 12 months of hosting for $7USD and decided to take it up on a whim (what’s $7, right?). They were even offering more storage and bandwidth than ICDSoft and SSH access too, so I thought I was on to a winner. Well as it turned out I was sorely disappointed with pretty much every aspect of their hosting product – the control panel was disorganised and confusing, certain account changes took up to 24hrs to take affect (eg FTP account permissions!) and I even had problems with their ‘one click’ install scripts. Overall it was a terrible user experience and I didn’t renew when the 12 months was up.

There may be some better-featured hosting companies out there, but for me ICDSoft have proven their worth in both reliability and support and the price they ask is a fair one.  That’s why I renewed my hosting agreement with them for the sixth year running and wrote this article. Thanks guys, you do a great job and get my vote every time.

Incidentally, if you spend a lot of time on the internet and you still don’t have your own domain name you really should think about buying one. They’re dirt cheap these days and at the very least you can have a permanent email address – no more mass emailing everyone when you move house/ISPs!