We are restructuring our company, with a corporate headquarters, a fleet of support staffs etc, and considering most of the thinking was done in house, we were wondering what the community wants, in regards to a hosting company in Nigeria. So my question is, what would you expect from a Nigerian Web Hosting company?

I would appreciate if the response goes straight to the point, and stays within the topic. Thanks ahead for your feedbacks.

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Value and reliability.
By value I mean something affordable and ok, I actually host on a foreign company dat gives about 1500GB space, 10 times dat bandwidth and jaw breaking other features for just $100/annum (say 13000k/annum). While Im not saying you should give away such at dat meagre price, giving enough space at cheap prices rocks.
And talking reliability, I mean server uptime closing up to 100% and 24/7 support.

It should be pretty obvious. Among others:

- 24 hour technical support
- friendly customer service, willing to help, no matter how stupid my questions are
- server uptime of 99.999%
- storage/bandwidth that is at least comparable with its competitors
- ability to pay (and also do pretty much everything else) online as opposed to calling, visiting an office, visiting a bank and/or sending an email

Hi kazey,

This is an addition to what others have contributed: Check first to find out the features they offer before signing with any web hosting provider.
As with processing power, a server's memory is critical to the performance of your website. The lower the memory, the less the server can handle.

The server environment is key to having an efficient and smooth running website. Security is also a key issue here, as many operating systems are sluggish and/or allow for insecure operations and hacking attempts. Linux Operating systems/Apache web server have proven to be more reliable, more efficient and more secure than Windows OS/IIS web server.

Dedicated IPs have several benefits. Most notably, many search engines base a large portion of their page ranking on how many websites are on one IP address. Additionally, outbound connections are made possible for such uses as remote databases, payment processing, and many others. Dedicated IPs are also necessary for the installation of a Private SSL certificate for eCommerce use. A site on a shared IP can be banned alongside all others on the same IP address if one site on that same server commits something wrong.

Extras: These are already-made scripts that professional programmers have freely made available, so that you can have a good looking, functional website. At the click of a button from within your web hosting account's control panel, you can automatically install any of those scripts, only if your host offers such extras. Regrettably, not all hosts are well equipped. So if you don't know exactly what you want yet, or how to do programming or you can't just afford expensive software needed to run your site, you'll want a host that can offer these extras. These extras range from Blogs, Content Management, Customer Relationship, Discussion Boards, E-Commerce, F.A.Q., Billing, Image Galleries, Polls and Surveys, Project Management, Site Builders, Wiki, and many other software.

Your control panel is like your car's dashboard. You have control, get feedback, or you get confused. It doesn't have to look disorganized. The control panel you use should be capable of handling whatever you throw at it, and it is important that you take it out for a test drive before you buy.

Addon domains offer the ability to host more than one domain name on your hosting account. They could be family websites, aliases of your main domain, or completely separate business entities. The ability to house these additional domains can maximize the cost effectiveness of your web experience. See to it that your host supports this feature. Being able to host around 999 addon domains and the ability to pack 999 domains on the same hosting account is a standard offer.

Your data is the one thing that's specific to you on the internet. It's value can be incalculable, and losing any portion can be catastrophic. Oddly enough, most web hosts will actually charge you to restore your own lost data, whether or not it was your fault that caused the loss in the first place. This provides an extra income for them to your detriment, but is absolutely unfair from a principled standpoint.

You pay a yearly fee to hold on to your domain name. You should also have the ability to modify and control it as you please. Every web host has a registrar, but not all registrars are equally ethical. Many do not give you the control or the access you need to make such modifications.

Databases are the core of any interactive website. They contain product catalogs, blog entries, customer information, and the list goes on. The more you have available, the more you can do. Permission to have around 50 databases is good. Some web hosts will not even offer you any database if you sign up for their basic account. Beware!

Sub-domains are extensions of your domain. E.g., if your domain name is www.mexabet.com, your sub-domain can take the form of whatever you like, such as sitebuilder.mexabet.com or webdesigning.mexabet.com. Some web hosts do not allow (support) sub-domains. You have to check if you're going to need sub-domains now or later, before choosing a host. Getting the permission to have about 999 sub-domains is a good bargain.

Check how many email addresses a host offers before entering into any contract. Most offer around 2500 email accounts. It all depends on how many your company will be needing. Strangely, some control panels do not give you the ability to create or use email accounts on your additional domains. E.g., if your main hosting account is mexabet.com, and you have an addon domain called mexabet.biz, it would be frustrating for you not to be allowed to create an email account with the addon domain, such as kazey@mexabet.biz. This severely limits use of your domains for any useful purpose, such as business transactions. Be sure to know what you need before you sign up.

A standard host offers around 1000 FTP accounts. Monthly Bandwidth Transfer should be about 3072000 MB. Disk Space allowed has to be around 204800 MB.

Private SSL Certificates are extremely important if you're thinking of running an online store or some type of data exchange. Without one, your customers would not even consider purchasing your goods and services, as all credit card and identifying information they submit will be plainly visible to any intruder who probes deeper. Most certificates are equal in intrinsic value, but most hosts will play on your insecurity to gain a little extra money.

Web hosting is a very competitive business these days, and providers increase the number of features and quota they offer everyday, to stay in the business. So, you have a lot of choice!

@mexabet,
what the hec? geez, did you even read my post.

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