I need a good host can anyone recommend 1

EKRIUQ

Can someone here recommend a good Irish hosting service I have an American host which works perfectly but I would prefer an Irish host. Now for the past couple of months I've being trying to work with an Irish host but its just more hassle than its worth.

its mainly the permissions on the server. Its nearly impossible to work with I have a number of Joomla / CMS websites and was thinking of transferring all of them to this Irish host but its a nightmare when trying to install any modules or components.

And today I'm told "because I uploaded the files to the server, the server owns the files for 24 hours and I can't use them until tomorrow":mad:

Is there anyway of overcoming this or do I have to switch hosts?

Today I tested both hosts with the same files everything went perfect with the American host but with the Irish host problem after problem every time I had to go to shell access and chmod file after file to get them working and there customer support just ignores you hoping you'll go away.

I don't think hosting should be such a hassle and if anyone else has experience of hosting CMS sites mainly joomla can they recommend a good Irish host for me.

AARRRGH

The issue you're having sounds bizarre. I don't fully understand what you're saying tbh.

There are loads of hosts in Ireland. It's hard to choose one in particular.

Spiral Hosting (spiralhosting.com) are Irish and seem to be nice people.

EKRIUQ

Your right it is bizarre, But I don't want to make the same mistake again of getting cheap hosting but not the service. If anyone has similar CMS sites but no hosting propblems can they please list below

AARRRGH

Can I ask: why don't you just stay with the US host? In my experience (13 years making websites) they are better in every department (price, service, support, etc.)

EKRIUQ

The websites are getting too busy and my current american host would work out a lot more expensive in the next year, and I wanted the servers to be based in Ireland for SEO

steve-hosting36

Ask the Irish hosts directly - most frequent this forum, or better yet, live chat, email or phone them to chat about your requirements.

Irish hosts are on the same level these days as all but the huge global players (and even then) and can compete on price, service and support.

Sully

BingoBongo wrote: »

The websites are getting too busy and my current american host would work out a lot more expensive in the next year, and I wanted the servers to be based in Ireland for SEO

Do you find the location of the server makes a difference in SEO? I personally have yet to come across this, most of my sites have been doing pretty well on Google Ireland and the main one..

Your not the first one to say that tho.

Id say Google for reviews, and maybe ask her for comments on the host before picking.

Sully

Iv checked up on the whole server location thing..

Google will consider your domain name, and may look at your server IP on locating.

If you have a .net/.com address and you want to get listed hight on Google.co.uk - you should register a .co.uk address. Likewise for Ireland - get a .ie.

mick.fr

Sully wrote: »

Iv checked up on the whole server location thing..

Google will consider your domain name, and may look at your server IP on locating.

If you have a .net/.com address and you want to get listed hight on Google.co.uk - you should register a .co.uk address. Likewise for Ireland - get a .ie.

This is not exactly the way it works.
A while ago we had a discussion about this here.

If you want to be listed on "pages from Ireland" from google.ie for example, then you need one of the following: your website hosted in Ireland or to have a .IE

So basically you could be hosted in the US and still appear on the "local google.ie" pages if you have a .IE

AARRRGH

steve-hosting36 wrote: »

Irish hosts are on the same level these days as all but the huge global players (and even then) and can compete on price, service and support.

While Irish hosts might have live chat and phone support, they cannot compete with US hosts who actually PROVIDE good support. Just having a live chat and phone line does not mean good service. There is a huge difference.

US hosts are much cheaper when it comes to dedicated servers. They are roughly the same price for shared hosting.

AARRRGH

mick.fr wrote: »

This is not exactly the way it works.
A while ago we had a discussion about this here.

If you want to be listed on "pages from Ireland" from google.ie for example, then you need one of the following: your website hosted in Ireland or to have a .IE

So basically you could be hosted in the US and still appear on the "local google.ie" pages if you have a .IE

I think that's what he was trying to say

steve-hosting36

dublindude wrote: »

While Irish hosts might have live chat and phone support, they cannot compete with US hosts who actually PROVIDE good support. Just having a live chat and phone line does not mean good service. There is a huge difference.

US hosts are much cheaper when it comes to dedicated servers. They are roughly the same price for shared hosting.

There are about 27,000 US web hosts (v's around 125 in Ireland) - does being in the US immediately infer excellent support? Sites like webhostingtalk.com are littered with complaints of poor support from pretty much every large shared and dedicated hosting provider in the US.

As for pricing, shared hosting is pretty much a commodity these days, and pricing is universally competitive (at least between the larger providers).

On dedicated, Ireland is also extremely competitive. If you spec like-for-like with any of the main US providers, any of the main IE providers are highly competitive.

AARRRGH

I don't want to ruin this thread by getting into a debate but...

The US is known for having good customer service. Employees understand the customer pays their wages. I don't think employees in Ireland, in general, have that attitude.

I can give an example of this if you want

For dedicated, US hosts are a lot cheaper. Forgetting about basic things like getting better spec for your money, you also have things like the US dollar being worthless at the moment and not having to pay VAT on US servers. In my experience US hosts are about 2/3 the price of Irish hosts. That's the difference between €300 and €200...

Sully

dublindude wrote: »

I think that's what he was trying to say

Yup... I wasn't fully aware of this before, as my sites have done pretty well on Google when I wanted them in the ".ie" search despite them being hosted in the US. So, I heard a few people around boards saying if your hosted in the US its bad for SEO so I checked it - and its not (well, depends on the situation).

From what I gather, it looks at your domain (.ie will get you localised, .com wont get you localised) and may check the location by looking at the IP.

Here is a good example:
Google my client "Big Slick Events". Comes up #1 on Google.com. Its got a .net domain.

Search it again on Google.ie - the site isnt listed on any of the top 3 pages. Why? Google spots the .net, checks its server location and its in the states - so you wont get localised.

Saying that, with Google Webmaster Central I believe your able to specify the location of your site.

It is known that Google considers the top level domain when rendering search results. For instance, if a search query originates from the UK, Google is more likely to rank .co.uk domains higher than other top level domains.

However, the top level domain isn't always useful in determining a website's location. .net, .org and other top level domains don't correspond to a geographic location as .co.uk does. In these cases, Google may consider the IP address of the web server to improve search results.

Source: http://www.universalwebservices.net/web-programming-resources/seo/seo-and-server-location

CoNfOuNd

dublindude wrote: »

The US is known for having good customer service. Employees understand the customer pays their wages. I don't think employees in Ireland, in general, have that attitude.

That's a huge generalisation. I don't think it's a US vs Ireland argument, or even a hosting industry debate. I think the issue you are referring to is that super-size businesses don't have to worry about losing one customer, whereas small businesses do, so small businesses pay more attention to good customer service (they know who pays their wages).

steve-hosting36

v's the argument that small hosts are more likely to fail and leave you in the lurch - the hosting market is consolidating more and more these days...

AARRRGH

CoNfOuNd wrote: »

That's a huge generalisation. I don't think it's a US vs Ireland argument, or even a hosting industry debate. I think the issue you are referring to is that super-size businesses don't have to worry about losing one customer, whereas small businesses do, so small businesses pay more attention to good customer service (they know who pays their wages).

I would agree with you that smaller businesses will always make the extra effort to keep their customers, but I think US companies generally have better support whether the company be small or large.

Simple non-hosting example: when you're at the checkout in Dunnes Stores, there's no way in hell the girl is going to pack your bag, and you're lucky if you get a hello or a thank you. This would be totally unacceptable in the US, but it's totally acceptable in Ireland.

CoNfOuNd

I think that's another debate!

All I'd say is that when deciding a webhost, you should take any recommendations and go have a look, give them a call, use their live chat, etc. and then decide.

nickides

I'm wondering why you guys always throw in USA. We are living in Ireland here and Ireland is part of Europe. And the best hosters are still in UK, France and Germany. They are cheap, very competent, straight forward in every department

The BEST thing is: they are bound to European Law and that is easy to claim for from Ireland. I will see you to have a lawsuite with an US company. Might be funny.

steve-hosting36

EU legislative protection is always a positive (as is data protection and privacy) - but when you stack an irish provider against an equivalent UK, German, USA provider, there is very little in the difference.

nickides

no I don't want to agree. no Irish hosting company could realy competet with the good hosting companies in Europe.

From the service site of view they are in lower third. The hosting itself, form the technical site of view is good, perhaps not as good from the available packages they offer as in other countries for example I have much more options to choose from. Packages from shared hosting to root servers.. I can scale down and up whatever I want... and so on...

When I registered my first domain here in Ireland I was really annoyed of how they are doing business. I mean I was expecting much more than what I got.

steve-hosting36

Care to give us an example?

I think you'll find that - bar the 'super-hosts' of Germany and the UK, Irish hosts are just as large, offer just as good plans at similar prices and with 24/7 support, etc.

Care to give us a like-for-like comparison?

CoNfOuNd

There are definitely hosts in Ireland with the ability to compete with hosts on the continent. Like any country there are some good and some not so good hosts - you can't put the whole industry in one country under one banner.

As a webhost, if a customer comes to me looking a customized package, then we'll provide a customized package. The packages we advertise are all scalable packages and available to all our customers, so they have plenty of option to upgrade or downgrade when they need to.

Can you expand on why you weren't happy with the way your domain register did business? When was it you bought the domain?

aidan_walsh

steve-hosting36 wrote:

Care to give us a like-for-like comparison?

He won't be able to do that without going into specifics on hosts, and I'd much, much prefer he didn't do that.

mneylon

This thread is going way of topic.

To the OP - shop around and contact the companies you are interested in dealing with and see what they say.

aidan_walsh

blacknight wrote:

This thread is going way of topic.

Agreed.