The Hosting Industry's Secrets

The web hosting industry has a several dirty little secrets that we think you should be aware of. We feel you deserve to be able to make an educated choice among hosting companies. Most often, the average shopper will compare the features of one hosting company against another. And the winner is often the company with the biggest numbers at the lowest price. The loser in this situation is most often the customer.

Mistake: Buying by the numbers
The most common mistake people make when selecting a hosting company is that they don't go any further than to compare the features offered by the prospective hosting services. Bigger is most definitely not always better and neither is cheaper. We're going to show you the right way to compare hosts, the secret gambles hosts make, the mistakes people make when buying hosting services, and some of the marketing tricks hosts use to attract clients.

The Right Way To Shop For A Hosting Company - The first step is to determine your needs not what features are being offered. This way you can avoid overbuying and falling into the marketing hype that we hosting companies put in your path. Next try to determine what your future needs will be just in case you’re short and long-term dreams for your web site come true. This way you will be able to determine if your perspective hosting company will be able satisfy your future needs.

Industry Secret: Overselling The Server
Here's some of the secrets that you probably wouldn't know unless you owned a hosting company. Most clients don't use anywhere close to the amount of disk space and bandwidth allocated to their account. Most of the clients on our servers use less than 100 Megabytes of disk space (sometimes more depending on the amount of active email users). To capitalize on this fact, hosting companies offer packages with 1000, 2000 or 3000 megabytes of disk space in spite of the fact that if they ever sold the amount of space they're offering they'd need so many servers that they'd never make a profit. This seldom happens and is a good gamble.

Additionally the $10 dollar hosting company has to compensate for the expense of running a secure web hosting network. They do this by either cutting corners on their NOC or servers and/or pack 700-800 (or more) domains on a single web server! Wow - talk about server overload. Can you say.....downtime? AJT runs, an average, just 200 domains per server. Our track record shows that we hold true to our 99.98% uptime guarantee. In keeping the client base low "per server" it keeps the loads on the server to a minimum. What causes server lock-up, overload or downtime is when servers get overloaded. We monitor each web server like a hawk - if a load reaches a specified threshold, alarms immediately go off in our office and everyone on staff gets an SMS message to their cell phone in which the server load is immediately investigated by our team and action is taken if required.

When it comes to web hosting, the old saying, "You get what you pay for!" is absolutely true! We can provide you with hundreds of testimonials from happy AJT clients that moved to us, either from local competitors that "try" to run a small rack out of their office using a DSL line or from the "budget" $10 dollar hosting companies. Just take a look at our online portfolio - Click Here - we host almost every website you see listed on this page. Monitor these websites - you will see nothing but uptime and fast loading pages.

Industry Secret: The Bandwidth Lie
Please indulge me as I tell you another metaphorical story. Think of the data lines coming out of a server as a highway of data and the amount of traffic lanes being the bandwidth capacity to carry your data to the Internet. With that in mind, ask yourself if you want to share the highway with a convoy of trucks during rush our. Or worse, what if the highway for all the traffic coming and going from Los Angeles had only two lanes? Bandwidth is the amount of data on the network coming in and going out of a server. Many hosting companies tell you that you can have unlimited bandwidth knowing full well that they have a very limited amount of bandwidth to offer. Frankly, nothing is unlimited.

We have an extremely fast and broad connection to the internet backbone using three large communications providers. Our hosting packages offer generous, yet realistic amount of bandwidth for our clients. For clients who need more than their allotted share of bandwidth we provide it on an as needed basis.

Unlike many hosts who have one contact with the Internet backbone, we have three redundant connections using three different communications providers. Many hosts rely on only one connection (such as a Sprint DSL line or a FDN T1 connection). If that one should fail, you’re down until it’s repaired. It should be pointed out that hosting companies rely on phone companies to provide the backbone connection. How long did it take the last time you wanted your phone company to repair anything? With redundancy to fall back on, we’re up and running all the time even if one or two of connections should go down. Knowing the above information, where do you want your web site?

Industry Secret: Service and Technical Support
There's another gamble played by many hosting companies that if odds weren't in their favor they would be out of business. That gamble is that when people are reviewing their services they never bother to check into and test the support department. All too often it is after they sign up when they send in their first support email or first call to tech support that they realize what they’ve bought into.

How to test the service before you buy - It's really not possible for any company to answer the phone with a live person every time you call, but you should never get a busy signal or no answer. Leave a message and wait. You should expect an answer within a reasonable amount of time. Depending on the time of the call you should get a reply within hours if not minutes. The same applies to email requests for support. How long does it take to get a reply? Even if the answer is that the tech has to do a little research to find the answer. Just so you're not left hanging.

Try playing “Test the tech.” You might ask a question that leaves an open end for them to expound on. Something a little out of the realm of a tech support persons job. The question, "Can you tell me about your least expensive hosting package?" would be fine for a sales person but not a tech, which is exactly why you should ask. If the reply comes with a short reply or a link to a page on their site this might be a red flag. It is indicative of busy techs, not concerned about actually helping, only getting out quick replies. They should take the initiative to take advantage of this request as a marketing opportunity. You've giving them a golden opportunity to try to close a sale. You're a fish nibbling the hook; do they try to reel you in? Do the techs care? If they don't take the initiative now, what will it be like when you call for support? We offer our clients a private phone number, interactive Flash tutorials and 24 hour support via our support portal - www.ajtsupport.com

Additionally, each and every web hosting account, no matter how big or small, is assigned an Account Manager. This is something that NO other web hosting company does for their hosting clients (unless, of course, they are spending hundreds per month). We believe you should have a contact to talk to about anything related to your account. Your Account Manager will oversee your account on a day by day basis, answer any questions you have and assist with upgrades or suggestions. We host Clients on our servers from large multinational Corporate Law Firms to City/County Government Agencies to Real Estate Agents and hundreds of other industries across the board.

Want to switch but don't know how? NO PROBLEM! In most cases our team will handle the migration of your website at no additional cost to you. Just provide us with the necessary information and let our technicians handle the "dirty work". In all cases, downtime is not necessary. A complete "mirror" of your website is made on the AJT network, at which time the DNS is changed ensuring zero downtime for your website and e-mail services. Rest assured, our team has the art of migrating Clients down to a perfect science.

Industry Secret: The NOC
Servers are fancy computers that are left on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They don't often get rebooted (unlike my home computer). They are only part of the infrastructure that serves up data to those who wish to view your web site. Hopefully, they're kept safe in and industrial strength and secure Network Operations Center (NOC).

The environment for the server on which your web site resides plays a key roll in the reliability and security of your data. Many hosts see nothing wrong with renting office space, or worse, their basement, to house their servers. They are getting by on a shoestring and your data is as vulnerable as the next lightning bolt, power outage, burglar, angry competitor, or curious child. You never really know who's manning the server. Housing a server in a "standard office" is something we couldn't even fathom. Being in a multi-million dollar NOC might be more expensive for us - but in the long run, it works in our favor as well as our Clients. Top notch NOC = No Downtime/Fast Connections means our Clients stay happy. When our Clients are happy - they stay with us as well as refer us new business. Pinching pennies is something we save for paperclips and envelopes. We pay top dollar when it comes to our hosting infrastructure and this business model has proven to be successful.

We have two strategic locations that house the AJT servers. Several servers are at our Baltimore Maryland NOC and the others are at our Dallas Texas NOC. Both Network Operation Centers house other clients such as Motorola, Appriver, Delta Airlines, The Miller Company, Nikon, Bluetooth and many other big names. We believe in investing in the BEST for our servers and location. We have three autonomous locations linked together by an encrypted digital connection. One for the office and technical support staff and the other two houses the servers and staff of network experts who man the NOC's. More information about our network: www.ajtdesign.com/services/hostingnetwork.html. The infrastructure of the multi-million dollar NOC includes the building security, uninterruptible power back up and generators, network, communications lines, routers, air conditioning, spare servers and other supporting equipment. The NOC is alive with activity 24 hours a day operating and maintaining the integrity of your web site as well as thousands of other clients. The NOC is not open to the public. Admittance requires an ID or an escort. Other hosting companies would be challenged to boast of such a facility.

Industry Secret: Telling the Truth
AJT makes every effort to be honest and forthright with our clients. We want you to make educated decisions based on your needs, not our marketing. We’re here to help you find the best solution for your needs. We find that honesty and integrity is our best marketing tool.

If you have any questions about AJT's Web Hosting services, please visit us online at www.ajtdesign.com/services/hosting.html. Please be sure to watch our "Hosting Introduction" video. Additionally, if you would like to schedule a live demo with an Account Manager, we invite you to contact our team, toll-free at 1-877-258-3746.