Intelligent Retail Use Rackspace
Protecting Against Downtime
Choosing the right web hosting can be a big headache for retailers and businesses worldwide. The trade-off between price and service is something that needs careful thought. If your priority is to have the very best web hosting quality where someone is always on hand 24/7, this kind of service is never going to be cheap.
I’m going to assume that you don’t want free hosting where advertising is put on your website. This never looks professional, you can’t control the content, and you’re asking for trouble since no real support will be provided to you. So the next thing to consider is the amount of bandwidth you will require. If your website is going to be constantly growing, you should opt for a web hosting package that allows for that. Also think about how video or image-heavy your website will be, as this will have
a big influence on your bandwidth limit. Most reputable large companies will never offer ‘unlimited bandwidth’, so avoid anyone that claims this.
The uptime of your web host should be at least 99.5% and they should provide a refund if the uptime falls below that figure. There is no point hosting a website somewhere that doesn’t have exceptional uptime, otherwise that is money lost for every minute your website is not accessible. Certainly don’t accept anything under 99%.
The technical support available to you should be round-the-clock. Rackspace are a company well-known for providing excellent service whatever the time of day, and even if it’s Christmas Day. You can always check up on a hosting company by emailing them at midnight or on a Sunday evening, requesting information. If the reponse only comes back the next morning, you can probably assume that the treatment will be the same if you’re a customer of theirs.
There are lots of other factors that are important when looking for web hosting, depending on your needs. For example, you will probably want email addresses on the same domain, and SSL facilities if it’s an ecommerce website. Check that your hosting company will provide these.
In terms of pricing, you do generally get what you pay for. As the old addage goes, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. If you want the great service and support, you will need to budget for that.
Intelligent Retail use Rackspace as the hosting
company for the hundreds of retail websites they have created for customers. This give Intelligent Retail clients the very best uptime for their businesses, and ensures any problems in uptime can be dealt with immediately.