From Justin:
Knowing little about the functioning of the Internet when I entered the online game back at the turn of the millennium, for my first Web host, I went with a company associated with a popular computer brand. The world was less trusting of online correspondence, then, so the availability of phone support was the other key factor in my choice.
I soon learned that a brand name has little to do with reliable uptime, and telephone support typically means long, stressful conversations with lower-tier “specialists” who know how to solve basic problems that you’re not having. Sometimes it would take several late-night hours to finally come across somebody who actually had the knowledge to advise on a critical problem.
Soon thereafter, I took the recommendation of another blogger and switched to Hosting Matters. The company offers reasonable, easily expandable packages offering more features than I’ve yet found reason to explore. When we at Anchor Rising do find something new that we’d like to try, I’ve always found that the function is already supported. More importantly, the service is very rarely down, and problems with the Web site almost always originated somewhere else in the chain.
Most importantly, the email-based technical support has always produced rapid responses, no matter the urgency level that I claim, and the people who respond — usually the same two women with whom I’ve been dealing for years — quickly find the problem and know how to fix it. If the “problem” is actually my own lack of knowledge about how to accomplish something, the host’s forums and knowledge base often have the answer, and if they don’t, the technical support help desk does.
The options for Web hosting are virtually unlimited. The nature of the medium is such that one can go with a company from pretty much anywhere, and there are few obvious reasons to choose one over the other. But there are many reasons that Anchor Rising has remained on the servers at Hosting Matters and is happy to recommend the provider to others.