Choosing a host: the most important part of running a website
There comes a time in every person’s blogging career when they must shed the Blogspot.com or the Wordpress.com site and buy their own domain. I went through it myself back in 2002 when I had a site on the now-defunct Envy.nu. It was called “Wasted Cyberspace” and contained a Buzz Lightyear tribute page (I kid not), a few rant pages, and a rarely updated weblog. Created in 1999, I had that site for two years until one day it was just kaput. Gone. Nothing. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time - the day the Patriots were preparing to play in Super Bowl 36. I was so frustrated because all I wanted to do was write about the Patriots and share it with my four regular readers.
Envy.nu never came back and I figured I had enough knowledge to start a site so I made the leap, and on a whim, registered bostonbrat.net. Since the process of hosting a website was completely new to me, I had no idea were to take my newly purchased domain name. I frantically checked every site I could to find out where their domains were hosted when I noticed a few girls were using E-Starr Hosting. I’ll be completely frank here, the top reason I chose E-Starr was because I thought the name was pretty. So sue me, I was only 21 years-old with very little technical knowledge. Please trust me when I say it was the best decision I have ever made regarding this website.
Bostonbrat.net has now been hosted with E-Starr for six and a half years, or in internet time, a billion zillion years. In that time, I can’t say my site has been down for more than an hour. Ever. They have proven to be extremely responsive every time I’ve had a problem, which isn’t often and their hosting plans are cheap. The server also handled the load when the Patriots returned to the Super Bowl in 2003 and my site was bombarded with thousands of hits immediately following the game when everyone was searching for “Tom Brady.”
I currently use one of E-Starr’s reseller plans (2500 MB plan) to host not only this site but also my dad’s (Patriotsblitz), a site I developed for work, my personal .com, and another blog though I choose not to resell any space because I am too lazy and dumb to help others with their techie problems. 
I’ve been more than satisfied with E-Starr hosting in my six and a half years with them. My website isn’t about making money or selling anything, I’m not some webdesigner or professional writer, but this website is my baby. It’s my top hobby and it’s helped me meet some really awesome people who I would not have met otherwise. I think that the aggravation-free experience I’ve had with E-Starr has helped me grow to love maintaining a website and I highly recommend them to anyone planning to make the jump into domain ownership.
until the Patriots play the Bills!
You might not resell, but after writing a promotional piece like that you should at least be linking to E Star with an affiliate link and making yourself a few dollars when people sign up for it.
http://www.e-starr.com/affiliate.php
I agree. You should definitely put up an affiliate link so that if this caught anyones attention, you’d make a buck or two. It doesn’t hurt to cash in on your efforts from time to time.
On another topic… what do you think about the Celtics acquisitions of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen? Being a Bostonbrat and all I figured you might have an opinion!
I agree Angela, a good host is worth it’s weigh in gold, and just think of the time you save. I am looking for some recommendations for when I change my setup later this year and I will keep them in mind,
Becks
I seem to find one rubbish host after another. Most of my sites are on a dedicated server now, it’s not cheap though.
I was thinking of the affiliate links but got lazy.
FANtastic post Angela! And I think you got lucky to get the hosting game right the second time around. I’ve been pretty fortunate in always having money ones, just some cost more than others. (#);)
It is hard to find a good host, I have been through many over the last 10
years. Most just don’t know what customer service is, others are fly by night take your money and run. Thanks for giving another option should I need one. And for goodness sake join their affiliate program and get your affiliate link up. If you are going to advertise for them at least get something in return.
I did get lucky. When I find something I like, I become extremely loyal.
Bill, I was really scared about that kind of thing when I first started out. I noticed a lot of people don’t talk about who hosts their sites. I think that’s valuable information because it really is the most important part of having a website.
I couldn’t agree more Angela. I’m on my second web host in less than a year of blogging. I loved the first one (Host Monster) until my site got onto Reddit for the first time and crashed three times in about an hour back in June. After that I switched to Media Temple — after reading tons of reviews about how they can handle high traffic spurts — and I couldn’t be happier. No downtime that I’m aware of and since switching I’ve made Reddit three more times without a single crash.
P.S. Go Yankees!
Ha ha brat.
The only problem I had after Super Bowl 38 was I had to buy a lot more bandwidth because, up until that point, I didn’t need that much. It was the freakiest thing - we’ll call it the Tom Brady Effect. I think that a lot of people weren’t familiar with Brady at that point. It lasted for weeks.