Hello connie,
What I think you are looking for is dedicated web hosting for your
company which is basically means that only your website is on the
server(s).
Dedicated Web Hosting as defined by lightwavegroup.com: “Dedicated Web
hosting in its simplest form consists of hosting one Web site on one
computer system. The dedicated environment offers complete flexibility
and security to both the Web hosting provider and the customer.”
Source: Dedicated Hosting
http://www.lightwavegroup.com/products/web_services/dedicated_hosting.htm
Dedicated Hosting is usually what companies use if they do not want to
buy the equipment and bandwidth themselves creating a new department
within the company, or if they do not want to buy hardware (and have
the isp provide connection). This is the type of web hosting I set out
to find reviews for. If this is not what you were looking for, please
let me know.
What I have done in my research is filter out all dedicated hosting
reviewers who appear to have a conflict of interest. Some examples of
reviewers I did not include in the list below:
-Websites with reviews that link to the hosting provider but the link
is paid for without them specifically saying “sponsored link”. (I
included the ones where advertising was clearly separate from the
reviews).
-All websites with reviews that hyperlink to the hosting provider but
the link gives them a commission (without saying “sponsored link”).
These websites in general tend to review few hosting providers not
using a commission.
-Websites with reviews that have not been updated in the last 90-120
days.
Basically that didn’t leave all that many websites left over.
Completely independent reviews are not easy to do, and completely
non-partial reviews are probably impossible to find. It is highly
unlikely that some organization will purchase dedicated servers from
all the big companies to do an independent review (consumerreports.com
style), and even if there was an organization that managed to get
trial accounts at many hosting providers, the customer service and
experience would just not be the same. What we really have to go by
people who post their good and bad experiences with certain companies.
I found that data including statistics on customer satisfaction for
dedicated hosting providers was also hard to find. In dedicated
hosting businesses will probably generally be satisfied as there
usually is a business contract specifying clearly what each party is
responsible for and there is often an uptime guarantee included in the
contract. (Dedicated Hosting should only require a monthly commitment
especially the first year or so). You should realize however that 99%
uptime is still 3.6 days offline in a year and request 99.9% or more
uptime (if that is what you need). The hosting providers for
businesses are usually very high in uptime compared to hosting
packages on shared servers and customer satisfaction is like it
usually is when one company is dealing directly with another. The
contract (and terms of service) will say what is expected of the
provider and the business using their service. You will be able to get
opinions on user satisfaction on various places on the internet, and I
have listed some of these places towards the end.
Here is the list that I was able to come up with. I would however not
base your final decision on it as these reviews are probably
subjective (even with good intentions). You can get a good idea of
some of the major companies offering dedicated hosting services.
REVIEWERS OF DEDICATED HOSTING
Dedicated Hosting Reviewer #1: Webhost Magazine & Buyers Guide
http://www.webhostmagazine.com/bg/review_ws.asp
About Them: They have been around since 1997 and provide “Fair &
Objective Web Hosting Reviews, Ratings & Information”. Basically they
have 16 reviews of Dedicated Hosting providers, most with 5 or 4 stars
out of five. This is probably because companies with poor service and
poor reputation do not stay in business for a long time (or they were
unable to review such companies).
They take into account many factors and have preliminary reviews for
hosting providers that they have not fully completed reviews for. You
can read more about their rating system here:
http://www.webhostmagazine.com/bg/Story.asp?StoryID=43&Show=208&Page=1
You can see who is in their review panel here:
http://www.webhostmagazine.com/bg/our_panel.asp
Dedicated Hosting Reviewer #2: FindMyHosting.com
http://www.findmyhosting.com/index.asp
You will probably find this website to be the most useful. About them:
“At FindMyHosting.com we focus on one simple thing: provide clear,
objective information to help you find the right web hosting provider
to support your personal or business needs.” They have dedicated
hosting reviews of 49 companies which can be ordered by rating or
price. What is GREAT about this website is you can actually check
uptime of various hosting services by clicking on “Click here to Check
Host Reliability” It shows the server uptime, the amount outages and
even the current average response time for the server. Click here to
go directly to the Dedicated Server reviews:
http://www.findmyhosting.com/dedicated-web-hosting.asp
They have no advertising or paid links to service providers.
Dedicated Hosting Reviewer #3: CNET Internet Services
http://webservices.cnet.com/cgi/scompare.asp?stable=Dedicated_Servers
About them: Respected Company, call themselves “the world’s leading
source of information and services for buyers, sellers and supplies of
technology…” Basically what they do is rate each company one a three
star system, each star representing one of Site Functionality (secure
server for transactions etc.), Provider Standards (complete customer
service policy on the provider’s web site etc.), Order fulfillment
(Honors prices displayed on CNET Web site without hassles or excuses
etc.) While most of the companies listed have a three star rating, if
you click on “more info” and then “all users opinions” the average
user ratings (people taking the time to review providers) in value,
quality and features are displayed (by users of the CNET website).
While their review is not as clear as they perhaps should be and the
advertised companies are listed at the top, it might still prove to be
useful in making your decision. I personally wouldn’t take their
ratings seriously in making a decision.
Sadly these reviews are the only ones that I have found that meet the
criteria above (and CNET barely made it). I will continue searching
for more organizations and post them as I find them. From what I have
seen most “review websites” are really advertisements for certain
hosting providers (in some cases owned by the provider in spot #1) and
the providers with top spots are the companies who pay for the spot.
The following are more “user opinion” review websites with customers
explaining their good and bad experiences with certain host providers
and this is the route I recommend that you take to help make your
decision after reviewing the above websites:
WebHostingTalk.com
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/index.php
Definitely run your short list through the dedicated server forum on
this website, the people who are regulars on this forum clearly know
their stuff and are kind enough to post their opinions and experiences
to people who need information or help deciding which company to go
with. You can do a search on certain companies and come up with
good/bad experiences that customers have had. There are even
representatives from many of the companies available to answer any
questions and concerns you have. Also there is a board where you can
list your specific needs and you will receive quotes and responses
from various organizations.
SMESource: Dedicated Server Directory
http://www.smesource.com/Servers/ratings.cfm
Run your short list through this website to get opinions from
customers. They have a rating system that customers of providers can
use to submit their review and the averages are calculated.
HostChart.com Web Hosting Resource Center
What might be useful to you on this website are the user opinions (on
their experiences with specific web hosts). They are recommended by
HostCompare.com. You could use this once you have a short list of
companies to help you narrow down your selection further:
http://hostingreviews.hostchart.com/show_reviews.asp
HostSearch.com
http://www.hostsearch.com/reviews.asp
If you have a list of providers you are considering, you should put
them through this website to get a rating and possibly a review. You
need to already know which company you want the review for.
(recommended by HostCompare.com)
Other websites that might be useful:
Host Spot – Guide to Dedicated Servers
http://www.hostspot.com/dedicated.shtml
A list of some large companies providing dedicated hosting. I checked
some of these companies on the websites above and they received good
ratings. Only the first recommended company appears to be a paid link.
Choosing a Web Site Management Provider
http://slis-two.lis.fsu.edu/~planning/kwiley/provider.html
This is a comprehensive article that can help you make your decision.
Worth reading and using to ensure you make the right decision.
I hope that I have adequately answered your question. I have tried
listing the best resources available for someone in your situation but
unfortunately there are few independent or unbiased reviewers of
dedicated hosting providers. I would use the first two reviewers
listed above to help make a short list and then use the resources to
check out their track record. You should also post your short list on
the WebHostingTalk.com forums if you want opinions from people who
might have used these companies in the past. If you want me to do more
research in a specific area, let me know in a clarification and I will
do my best to further assist you.
tisme-ga
Search Strategy:
Some of the searches used which yielded results:
dedicated web hosting
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=dedicated+web+hosting
"what is dedicated web hosting"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22what+is+dedicated+web+hosting%22&spell=1
dedicated web hosting reviews
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=dedicated+web+hosting+reviews
dedicated web hosting "independent reviews"
://www.google.com/search?q=dedicated+web+hosting+%22independent+reviews%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
"dedicated server" reviews
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22dedicated+server%22+reviews |
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