I’ve done a little search but surprisingly I can’t find a specific answer so here goes.

I’m looking to host multiple websites for my businesses. they’re all Speeder something and I want Speeder.co.uk to show links to them all as this’ll ultimately be the be the “Speeder group” page. They’re currently all either hosted by Heart Internet via 123reg or GoDaddy and I’d like to consolidate them into one location for this purpose.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to a host? After the debacle with them taking over my original host I’m thinking of going away from Heart and GoDaddy’s options look good but I’m not an expert and have no experience.

I need catch all emails setup and a good remote access system to it. I’m assuming everything will work ok with Outlook.

I’ll be building the sites myself initially using WordPress no doubt following advice on here. Quite looking forward to the challenge.

I’m not sure there’s any questions in there so I’ll frame it. Is GoDaddy any good as a web host? Any likely problems with swapping site and email hosting across from Heart Internet?

Cheer

Gary

Well a lot of people hate godaddy because it’s a monster corp but it’s cheap and has 24/7 phone support (if you don’t mind speaking to Yanks). http://www.ovh.co.uk is probably seen as a more pro host but will be more expensive and I haven’t had to use support. Maybe worth having a look at.

I’ve got multiple sites on both Daily.co.uk and Tsohost.com both have been very good on price and support.

Chose a host with servers close to your intended audience as this will make your sites download quicker and feel more responsive, so I wouldn’t chose a US based host if most of your visitors are coming from the UK.

Setting up an email redirect is easy and most (all?) host providers will give you this facility.

Actual hosts? Well you haven’t said how much space you need; what bandwidth (host wise this means size of site times number of visits per month), whether you need a database backend; backups, support contract. All make a difference. The web/net magazines have listings of providers that show some or all of this info.

Interesting about GoDaddy – I knew they were a US megacorp but assumed incorrectly they would have local services. The price is obviously attractive but I’ll look into a few other options.

In terms of bandwidth I really don’t need much it’s going to be a pretty static site with a blog or two which will show a few pics and possibly the odd video but I could always put them on Youtube and link in.

Of more immediate concern is an expansion in my email allowance as Heart only gives me 2gb for about £8/month and that’s only hosting a single picture on a single page. I’m not getting the best value but I think that’s a long legacy problem as it’s been with them or the people they took over for about 10 years.

The complacency and not being terribly confident to move things around probably costs me 50-60 quid a year.

I’m just trying to get a better product for a lower price and consolidate things.

Page size can be quite an eye opener, especially with CMSs like WordPress which have a lot of scaffolding. Use an on-line tool to find out just how big are the pages actually being delivered to the browser. If you have analytics or access to your current server stats then you can figure out what your current bandwidth is.

Your comment about email allowance doesn’t make sense unless you mean that you are limited to N email addresses with Heart and the bandwidth of the web package is 2Gb per month. You don’t have to use the same email provider as webspace provider. A GMail account gives you 15Gb storage (not bandwidth) – I’ve had mine five years and I’ve yet to get to 1% usage and that’s with a lot of spreadsheets and documents as attachments.

Never like GoDaddy because of their American focus & infrastructure, Americanised support, heavy sales tactics and spam. If I want a host I just want a host, pay up, set up easy and not really be bothered by them. From past experience with GoDaddy they bombard you with sales trying to get you to buy things you don’t need. They also like to control your domain name with the hosting and have read a lot of horror stories about domain ransoming if you want to transfer out, or restrictive DNS controls. Their web site itself is an utter mess.

I like 123reg for the domain name registration. You register, you can configure your domain however you like with generally no extra charges, you can transfer out without ransoms, and transfer in at little or no cost. Obviously it’s just domain name hosting. I haven’t used them for web site hosting.

For hosting, there are so many options really.

If you’re thinking WordPress then maybe use WordPress.com to host. You can get your domain pointing to it I believe, though there’s an annual fee for it. Might be more restrictive compared to self hosted WordPress sites though, but worth a look.

Also for simplistic web site building and hosting, there’s the likes of Weebly and Wix. Again you can point your domains to them.

Emails are another matter, but personally I don’t like to tie up email hosting with web hosting. Gmail is an option, though using your own domain I’m not sure you can do without using Google Apps and think they’re trying to cut off the free options now. There’s also Office365 which can provide you with a full blown cloud based Exchange service, along with other cloudy things, full office suite online and offline, and even web hosting (though via SharePoint). Not a cheap option though and more for building a business IT system with (handy for small businesses though).

123reg do email hosting, and web hosting, though not sure how they compare, and their email hosting seemed to be costly for multiple mailboxes.

Interesting about GoDaddy – I knew they were a US megacorp but assumed incorrectly they would have local services

They have european data centres as well

Domain ransoming? I nearly always keep the domain name elsewhere to fix that, whoever the host is

Domain ransoming I’ve never heard of before but it sounds a little underhand.

I bought a few of the domains through 123 years ago and a few through GoDaddy more recently as they were the most cost effective at the time.

Speeder.co.uk is held? on 123 and hosted by Heart and that that’s the only one that’s hosted the rest all currently redirect to it.

I’d like to modify speeder.co.uk to have links to 2 separate sites (2 different business functions) with a similar architecture/look. I suspect this can all be done relatively simply with redirects but it would need someone who knew what they were doing to map it all out. I’m going to have to do it in the easiest way possible as I’m currently clueless.

It sounds like I need to do a bit more research on all this as I had no idea that all these elements could be separated.

I quite like 123 reg I’ve been a customer for 15 or so years and their myserverworld access was great but it all turned to carp when Heart took over and everything got complicated as far as I’m concerned. If it makes sense to I’d be happy to transfer all my domains into them from GD and then host at the most competitive provider. I know it doesn’t make much difference but I don’t think i’d like google hosting my email.

My budget for everything is lets say less than £8/month and I guess it makes sense to keep to one provider.

Sorry rambling again.

Have just realised that the best option would be to do one site with a common look and redirect into individual pages from the other domains. They don’t necessarily have to have cross links between them to say they related.

iPage & Just Hosts seem to get a good rep (and are cheap)

Try not to do redirects, they slow things down and can affect your SEO.

You can do things like CNAME which lets you “alias” (for want of a better word) a site or part of a site to another name so you could have an real address like “wonderful.speeder.co.uk/” accessed via “wonderful.co.uk” and “amazing.speeder.co.uk/” accessed via “amazing.co.uk” 123 have a short piece on it – http://www.123-reg.co.uk/support/answers/Domains-Archive/Domains-Explained/what-is-a-cname-263/

I use site5. They are another big american company. I’ve not received any spam from them. They have UK servers, do regular maintenance that they inform me of in advance. The web interface is nice and straightforward. They’re cheap and the technical support has so far been excellent.

Try not to do redirects, they slow things down and can affect your SEO.

I’m not sure I mind that right now as I doubt this will be much of a searched for site for a while. All I’m thinking is that if I tell people my design consultancy is SpeederDesign.co.uk they can type that in and it goes straight to speeder.co.uk/design or something, with a similar deal on the automotive site. The speeder.co.uk/whatever would be the one gaining all the SEO and backlinks (if that’s roughly the right way to define it). I don’t think there’s any reason to mask that though I think it could be done as my wife does it for her business which is hosted with Shopify.

Actually that’s a point there’s always something similar to Shopify – Anyone used Wix?

For cheap hosting I’d 2nd TSO Host. I use them and have set up loads of sites on them. 10% off if you use my discount code 10offmbb

If you want a hosted solution I’d look at Squarespace over Wix or similar.

If you are a looking for a good, UK based company and value good support, then 34sp.com are worth looking at.

I would be cautious of any providers offering ‘free’ services. 9/10 there’s always a catch! To be honest I think the most important feature is service, any good provider will have a UK-based helpline especially when it involves something as valuable as your website’s viability.

http://blog.names.co.uk/2014/09/web-hosting-5-reasons-wary-free-packages/