Is it time to upgrade your hosting account?
Have you seen your website slow in growth? Are you wondering what the reasons are? Perhaps you see some sign such as a high percentage of new users or a very high drop rate from visiting customers? Maybe it’s time to look at some new or upgraded hosting accounts.
I have learned from personal experience not having enough resources for your web business can be devastating to the growth of your website. When people visit your website there’s nothing worse than experiencing slow load times or page cannot display issues.
Last night I was on twitter asking people what they thought about a social networking website I own named Blog Engage and a few members were saying the website was slow, had issues loading at times. This isn’t the first time I had complaints regarding the speed of my website but I must say it’s the first time I listened. For these reasons I had to take into consideration the possibility of upgrading my hosting account to a Virtual Dedicated Web Server.
After doing research and looking at competitive pricing plans I quickly came to a conclusion. I have decided to purchase a Virtual Dedicated server offered from my current host Godaddy. This is a huge change from a shred hosting server. First I have to install all the server side software, add IP addresses, setup the DNS settings and forward domains.
I should let you know I never once managed a server so I’m seriously in way over my head! I don’t know anything regarding security, server software or where to even start. I was reading a guide from the Godaddy support website and the process is long but it appears it’s actually pretty easy.
So if you visit my blog or any other website I own over the next week or so and it’s down you should know I’m sitting at home pulling my hair out.
What are my server specs?
• 10 GB disk space
• 500 GB bandwidth
• 256 MB RAM Guaranteed (1 GB RAM Bursted)
• Linux: CentOS or Red Hat F7
Overall I know this might not be so great but it’s extremely better than my shared hosting account which doesn’t have access to this information. The total cost for the year is 290 USD and that’s with a 20% discount
What’s the benefit of upgrading?
I think the best thing I get from upgrading is the opportunity to make more customers and visitors happy. I don’t want people visiting my website to find out the server load it to high, or the website can’t be displayed. To me this is unacceptable and is an example on how not to run a business.
I’m not beating around the bush here guys I knew this was a problem I just didn’t have the funds to invest in this server. The idea now is to dedicate my next three Google checks to my credit card.
Do you have any suggestion on how I can set up my website with the least downtime? Remember I’m a Server Administrator noob so anything you know that can help me would be appreciated! Wish me luck because this weekend I’m setting it up and the transfer of my many sites will begin.
Top reasons to upgrade your hosting account
1. Poor customer experience
2. Slow load times
3. Customer complaints
4. Website timeouts
5. Improved customer experience
Thanks and I hope this helps improve your experience visiting my websites.
Brian b
Oh yeah, it’s a timely reminder. My shared hosting is on the verge of bursting due to my increased traffic. I’m thinking of moving into a VPS account. Any good suggestion, buddy?
Yan
Blog for Beginnerss last blog post..8 Google Lessons I’ve Learned from Garry Conn
Hey Yan! I’m currently with godaddy! They offer many things other companies don’t! First the price was amazingly cheap! 300 usd a year for the server and you have full access to the root, server Apache and more!
The server comes with firewall software which is a nice relief!
I’m not too sure what your needs are but if you can be happy with what I outlined in this article than maybe godaddy is a good place to start!
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I’ve got a shared hosting account and I honestly can’t say that I’ve found my load times slow. I’ve been more than pleased so far with their service (especially for only $80/year). The biggest issue I’ve had with them, is that they tend to go out for an hour here and there throughout the month. When they do maintenance, the whole server just goes down… But it just goes to show that you get what you pay for.
SoLinkables last blog post..Dilbert – I’m addicted to the internet…
@SoLinkable I think the issue with me was I’m trying to run over 10 websites some in the top 40,000k in Alexa and it was too much! The upgrade was needed!
I was paying 70usd a year for the shared and 300 usd now for the VD
bbrian017s last blog post..A Cruise Ship Date That Went Awry
Did you try shopping around first? You might have been able to partner with a local ISP and co-host a dedicated server. Back in the day I used to run my own MUD/HTTP server at out of a local ISP’s office for less than $100/mo.
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I got a really cheap deal I only pay 361 usd per year
bbrian017s last blog post..A Cruise Ship Date That Went Awry
Hey Brian..
First time commenting..
I actually ran into a similar problem on GoDaddy running a blog powered by Joomla. One of our breaking stories was picked up and ranked high on most search engines which resulted in a huge traffic spike. My site overloaded the server to the point of bringing it down along with everyone else on the same shared server.
This happened a few more times til I finally moved my site to a dedicated server. I skipped the VPS and went straight to a dedicated server because I didn’t want to run into the same problem again. VPS’s are good but you’re going to eventually need a dedicated server.. IMO.
You should check out iweb.com. You can find some pretty good deals in their clearance section. http://iweb.com/dedicated/clearance/ You’re going to need someone to help administer it though. Unless you want to pay extra to have the host do it. Spry.com is another good one but more expensive.
I’m personally an SEO professional and not a server administrator by trade. However I can tell you it’s quite simple to move from one server to the other without any downtime. Simply make sure that all your news files databases etc are properly in place on the new server before you point your DNS. As long as this is done ones you point your domain name to the new server it will bounce back and forth until propogation is complete but since files are on both servers you won’t see any actual website down time. I hope that helps.
Gerald Webers last blog post..It May Almost Be 2009, But Duplicate Content Still Isn’t a Good Thing
@Gerald
That’s true for blogs, however when we are dealing with a user generated dynamic site (like a social bookmarking site), any time spent bouncing back and forth can be compared to down-time. You don’t want people posting to an old database. Although, with that being said, there isn’t much you can do about propagation time…
SoLinkables last blog post..New Technology Transforms Cheap Wine into ‘Vintage’ Quality in Minutes
Wow, $290 a year?? I have two dedicated servers on PEER1 and one on Limestone Networks and I’m paying more than that per server per month!! Of course it gives me 5Tb of bandwidth per month and I’m usually close to chewing that up every month even using http caches and Amazon for image hosting.
Google Adsense pretty much foots my server bills and I do have 160+ websites, numerous forums and a few social media sites but ne thing I would never recommend is GoDaddy for anything but domain registrations. Simply put, they’re not large scale bandwidth provider and they have no scalability. Not to mention, PEER1 has the best 24/7/365 phone support.
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You should check out my site for some good hosting deals. It allows for growth and it doesnt break the bank.
roguedeals.com
- Great site! Following you now on mybloglog and blogcatalog!
Cheers,
Eric
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@Johnny Nice I’m glad you went with the dedicated! I wish I could but financially I couldn’t spend the money.
My income has been really limited ever since I went live with the Adsense Revenue Sharing at Blog Engage. 50%-100% of my PPC profit is gone
@Gerald Weber – You’re absolutely right! Once you have both databases up and running all you need to do is point the DNS and it will transfer. Release and Drop the old database with the old hosting and you should be good! It worked out well for me!
@SoLinkable I didn’t seem to have any downtime issues but I see your point and will take it into consideration when I eventually move to a dedicated server
@Dave (The Other One) I’ve been with Godaddy for a long time but I can tell you when I move to a dedicated server I’m leaving Godaddy and I will be checking out a few of my options
@Eric – Great site man! Lots of detailed information to read regarding servers
Thanks for visiting and commenting everyone
Brian
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