What you really need to know is more than the "bottom line"...
Maybe you could care less about web hosting. The fact you are here, suggests otherwise. Good thing too. You might get some "pleasant" surprises for a change.
Web hosting provided by HirMon & Associates is $215 / year or about $18 / month.
That statement will usually get either a "pretty good joke" or a "you gotta be kidding!" reaction. Just remember this:
What you get for whatever-price-you-pay a month for web hosting through someone else -- is web hosting. Period.
Tech support phone services are fine when you get stuck, but the bottom line remains. You are the person that is going to get to do all the work associated with maintaining a web hosting account.
A web hosting service can only provide services. They cannot tell you how to apply those services to suit a specific website, without what can be additional and substantial consulatation charges. Add those into a $6.95 a month web hosting account and what kind of "bargain" is that?
The "top four" reasons HirMon hosting is superior...
- No disk space limit - need a lot of large videos? No problem!
- No bandwidth restrictions - have a lot of large videos that people look at? No problem. Tip: A lot of hosting services limit the bandwidth to a fixed amount. Go over that amount and you will get charged for it.
- We do the mainteance -- see below
- Multiple websites - want to set up a website as a "trial balloon?" Knock yourself out! You can have up to 6 websites with their own individual domain names and each is separate from all the others. More about this appears below.
When we say We do the maintenance - we mean it! The amount of work it takes to keep a web hosting account up to date even for a simple website is surprising. That’s why HirMon web hosting also includes:
- Email account setup and forwarding.
- Database creation and maintenance, including periodic backups (timing depends on site activity; typically once per month, minimum).
- Bi-annual review of the site to insure it hasn’t been compromised for phishing or spamming purposes.
- Obsolete file cleanups (such as those files created by online processes that are no longer needed).
- 30-day notice of renewal to avoid surprises.
- If we are holding your domain name for you, domain name association with the website is included. Otherwise, we will assist you in doing a domain name transfer.
- "Parking" additional domain names (unlimited) on the site, including those used to support separate websites under one hosting account
- Creation of "subdomains," as necessary (e.g. you see these as something like gadgets.hirmon.com, where "gadgets" is a subdomain of Hirmon.com (non-existant at the moment).
- Changes to HirMon supplied programming to account for any updates on the web host.
- All liaison work between the client and the web hosting provider.
- Setting up Secure Services Layer (SSL - for banking-type transactions. You see these any time you access a website that begins with https://...) Requires separate SSL certificate and dedicated IP address purchase (total: $125.00)
The concept of Multiple websites running from one web hosting account is something that catches a lot of people off guard. Think about it this way: If you wanted to have more than one website without having to pony up for a new web hosting account for each one -- you can.
In fairness, a few other hosting companies provide this option, but when they impose either disk space or bandwidth restrictions -- the effectiveness of "secondary sites" is going to suffer. They would prefer you pony up for a different web hosting account for each of your websites. (What else would you expect?)
Other hosting features:
Specifically we provide state-of-the-art web hosting on Linux machines running Apache web hosting software that includes MySQL database facilities and full support for PHP programming (a buzz word you might hear is: "A LAMP system", which stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). During the subscription year, we take care of such things as:
- As noted above, hosting is a LAMP system. Sorry, IIS hosting is not available.
- No ’bandwidth’ charges (this is a gotcha for a lot of other hosting services)
- Online site management, including email management
- Multiple site related email accounts (such addresses as: me@domain.com and myself@domain.com)
- Multiple separate email accounts, including email forwarding (unlimited) and filtering (additional charges may apply for filtering)
- Discrete FTP accounts (e.g. set up accounts to limit access - unlimited)
- Unlimited parked, sub and add-on domains.
- No disk space limitations (another gotcha point for some hosting services)
- Daily Domain Stats / Referrer Logs
- CGI-BIN and library - included
- Static IP address (optional)
- Real Audio/Video support
- Flash support
- Courtesy site backups
- SSL (Secure Server Layer, also called Secure Server Transaction Encryption, the https:// thing)
- Multiple website support (see above)
- Functionality support for:
- FrontPage - all versions
- Ruby on Rails
- PHP
- MySQL (the most widely used database system)
- PostgreSQL (another database system)
- Server Side Includes (SSI)
- Perl
- C
- Python
- And the buzz words you expect to see, like:
- Fast, Reliable, Internet Connections Managed at a 24 Hour Network Operation Center.
- Uninterruptible power with UPS and backup generator
Exceptions, exclusions and so forth:
We provide at least the minimum web hosting service and the maintenance/support noted on this page for the full year a subscription is active. No monthly or month-to-month subscriptions are available.
Web hosting is generally not included with our website packages, however, since some clients may prefer to provide their own hosting. In the event a client’s personally acquired web host cannot support the requirements of their website, they may elect to subscribe to HirMon’s hosting at the specified rate.
Websites not hosted by HirMon & Associates are subject to a flat-rate charge of $100/hr for all tailoring and support work. After the first hour, billing is in 15 minute increments.
For existing websites, the annual web hosting fee does not include migration of a website from its existing host to one supplied by HirMon & Associates. Typically, we prefer to provide clients a formal quote for services to move the website, which invariably works out to a lot less than the $100/hr spot rate charge.
As noted previously, we guarantee that all software products developed by HirMon & Associates for our clients will run, and continue to run, on our web hosts with full support for two years after installation. We have to use a time-limit for the simple reason that future versions of web hosting software may render a product unworkable or completely obsolete. It doesn’t happen very often, but we cannot support any product forever. (We have one client who is still running our original software after 10 years and it still works just fine for his purposes.) This support applies only to completed software after 30 days of installtion and excludes client-based enhancements, changes or expansions. After two years, additional support is either by quotation or spot rate charge, depending on circumstances.
If problems occur due to a change in web hosting services occur during that time period - we will fix any programs that fail - at no charge to the client (excludes client-requested changes and/or enhancements). Third-party software not supplied by HirMon & Associates, in any form, is subject to the same $100/hr spot rate charge.
Final note:
You can get web hosting for just about any price you are will to pay and some hosts offer this-or-that "bonus feature" as an enticement to use their systems.
Do your homework. What you are likely to find is that: someone still has to set up that hosting service so that a website will run correctly. That level of support is never included.
Will our hosting support your needs? Probably. To make sure, use the quick email form below to ask and make sure...
