There are a number of web hosting companies out there that focuses solely on business web hosting. Companies include Interland, Concentric, SBC, Verizon, etc. They aim to be different than other web hosting companies by having the perception that they are better quality. They do so by having a much higher price for web hosting and leveraging their brand name recognition in selling web hosting. Most companies that sell premium or business class web hosting are well known companies. If you are a small company trying to start a business class web hosting company at premium prices, you will find it difficult to get customers. Many customers would rather purchase from a company with a stronger brand name than your unknown company.
But just because you have a brand name doesn’t mean you are exactly better. There are many cheap web hosting companies out there that provide better service than SBC or Interland. Take Ipowerweb for instance, they have one of the most feature packed control panel out there and their uptime is on par with these business web host. But alas, majority of the users out there that are new are unaware of it. It isn’t until after several years down the line when they realize that their friends and family members are buying web hosting at a much more discounted price and it is almost the same thing and sometimes it is even better.
I am not saying it is wrong to purchase business web hosting, but don’t buy it just because of price. For some companies like Verio, it is true that they do offer higher quality hosting because they have more money to deploy higher end technology to their clients. But most clients do not even realize the speed difference. The only thing they realize is that they think they are getting better web hosting because of the perception that they are paying more for it.
A lot of these higher end companies also lack the experience in running the hosting business. They make it difficult for clients to create MySQL databases for instance. With Verio web hosting, you actually had to telnet into their system to create a MySQL data base. Most customers don’t even know what telnet is. Their control panel is very stripped down and they want you to call them to solve most of their problems. Majority of these problems can be fixed if they just provide the necessary tools for the clients to use. Unfortunately, it is not in their model to be efficient since their profit margins in web hosting is large as is.
