Website Design.. Value for Money?

Actually, this is what I have also found for the web developers that I have worked with so I simply get whatever web theme designed by a graphic design artist detailing what I require..... it doesn't always have to be india, it can be anywhere in the world where costs are much lower than here. It's a well known fact that it's nearly impossible for Irish SME's to compete (Indo's article yesterday: Soaring costs 'hitting our ability to compete') in the international scene, especially in this area.
 
ivorystraws said:
I definitely wouldn't base a decision on choosing a domain name/hosting vendor due to them not having a locall tech support number... surely in this day and age, if you did have a problem, you needed to contact their 24 x 7 tech support urgently, their online technical support center and knowledge base articles didn't answer your question, email wasn't sufficient, you don't have access VOIP products such as skype/blueface etc. (where call costs are minimal anyway) and your current landline provider is Eircom (!).... then yes, you may have to bite the bullet and make an international call but because of all the money that you'd save on Godaddy's products in comparison to others, it would more than cover a call to them ....and that's if you do encounter a problem. :)
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You obviously don't have much experience dealing with the average Irish SME.
 
Thanks for that comment Blacknight, you obviously don't have much experience dealing with international clients... wonder why?

Also Cantona7, Digiweb is selling .IE domains for €29.99... seems to be one of the cheapest currently available but maybe shop around on the iedr.ie website if you want.
 
ivorystraws said:
Thanks for that comment Blacknight, you obviously don't have much experience dealing with international clients... wonder why?

Also Cantona7, Digiweb is selling .IE domains for €29.99... seems to be one of the cheapest currently available but maybe shop around on the iedr.ie website if you want.
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Do they offer domain registration on its own, or do you have to buy a hosting package also?
 
Yes, they offer domain registration on their own.... it's not part of any package deal as far as I am aware ([broken link removed])
 
ivorystraws said:
Yes, they offer domain registration on their own.... it's not part of any package deal as far as I am aware ([broken link removed])
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Thanks for that. I misread their site. They have a three step guide thing, which I assumed meant you had to go through the three step thing to register a domain.

I wonder if the other domain registration companies will match this price? €29.99 (excluding VAT) is a good price.
 
ivorystraws said:
Unlimited updates within reason
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Which is exactly what I said.

I agree that price should never be the deciding factor when choosing hosting which is why the hosting provider I mentioned, , the world's largest domain name registrar and has been ranked #8 on the 2004 Inc. 500 list of the nation's fastest-growing privately held companies, #20 on the 2005 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 (growing 8,274 percent!)...etc etc.. so I'm sure you'll agree, it's not exactly a midrange provider.
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I do agree: they're a budget provider, and they suck. Google for "nectartech" if you'd like to know why.

Any domain name company that sells below €6 is selling below cost maybe correct and are obviously pitching for business but stating that they "inevitably will care very little about the customer" is wholly untrue and unfounded! I have bought a number of domains for $1.99 (during promotion periods or through other incentivised periods) and a after the settling period, transferred them back to GoDaddy with no problems
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So you never used their customer support? Do you think the average joe will do what you did?

If you register your domain name with an accredited registrar (GoDaddy or Netfirms), you'll own the domain name outright and this can be verified by using www.whois.com.
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Domain Registry of America is an accredited registrar, trying googling them.

I'll leave it at that. You're right about some points, however I think you'd be better off stating your opinions as opinions, and not facts. I've been in the hosting business as both a customer and a provider for more than a decade, and I've seen very few facts.

adam
 
My opinions are based on my experience on using a vendors product or service so are they are not facts?

GoDaddy don't suck for me or for a multitude of other people so I guess that's your opinion, not really a fact and that's why they are the world's largest domain name registrar. Of course, they're are hosting providers dotted all over the world providing different levels of service and quality but in this instance, for Cantona7's needs, they are quite sufficient. If he chooses to go with someone else, that's grand... it's just another option.

I don't expect the average Joe to do what I did, I just provided an example of how to obtain better value domain names (so the average Joe might be able to do it if he's reading this thread).

I have used both GoDaddy's, iPower's, Yahoo's customer support and a number of Irish Hosting provider's customer support with no problems, have you personal experience of support problems with any of these? What are they?

My whole point is that Cantona7, *could*, if he so wished, register the domain name, buy the hosting and that's two things that won't have to be included in his web development quote. Then he should make a set of requirements for what he needs or wants for his website and then shop around for the best deal! Once he's decided on who will develop his site, they will develop the site using the domain name and hosting provider he has purchased (as previously agreed by him and the developer). If he wants better hosting eventually, then upgrade... hosting can be purchased on a monthly basis anyway.

His chosen developer should be able to provide advice on his hosting needs and in addittion, there's more than enough help on the web to support him such as this forum!

I agree with some of your points and not others and I'm just providing my experience to Cantona7 so he has as wide a range of options to choose from as possible.
 
ivorystraws - you might be comfortable with technology and computers, however a lot of people aren't. For a lot of our clients - regardless of their location - email support isn't enough. They are much happier being able to pick up the phone and speak to someone.
 
Yea, I agree Blacknight, some people need a turnkey solution including support and maintenance but this should be included in the customer's requirements initially, before they go shopping around for the best deal.
I'm just providing options, they only have to be taken on board if someone feels comfortable enough addressing them. I would think someone using an online forum would be fairly comfortable to at least do some background research (on registering domains, types of hosting etc) if they took the time out to ask a question on a forum.
 
ivorystraws said:
I would think someone using an online forum would be fairly comfortable to at least do some background research (on registering domains, types of hosting etc) if they took the time out to ask a question on a forum.
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In a lot of cases we find that there is one person in a company who is a bit more IT savvy than the rest. That person may get lumbered with the task of researching the options, but isn't ideally placed to support the rest of the staff after the fact.

A lot of the smaller US (and Irish) providers don't do hosting fulltime or have much in the way of support staff. While that may not be an issue for people who can deal with email only support and the time lags etc., it's not really an option for most small Irish businesses.

I'd urge anyone looking into hosting for a business to check out the options that are available.

The cost of hosting and domain registration, be it in Ireland or overseas, is relatively low. You can get a .com and a hosting plan with proper telephone and email support etc., for under €40 per annum ex-vat.

There are several Irish companies that have their own servers either in Dublin data centres these days and who are not simply reselling someone else's, so why not look closer to home?
Have a look at - it's a wee bit ugly at the moment, but it may serve as a starting point
 
Well, if nothin else, non-IT savvy people reading this thread can go away with comparitive prices, quotes and a wide range of options, decide what they need... i.e. a catalogue website promoting their product, decide what they want, support maintenance etc and go shopping around.

Keeping it close to home, is an Internet services company based in Bath, England which is funded through retained profit and derives its revenue in the following ways:

* Providing network security services, including fraud detection, application testing, code reviews, and automated penetration testing.
* Providing research data and analysis on many aspects of the Internet. Netcraft has explored the Internet since 1995 and is a respected authority on the market share of web servers, operating systems, hosting providers, ISPs, encrypted transactions, electronic commerce, scripting languages and content technologies on the Internet.

...where it lists Rackspace the most reliable hoster in September!
 
http://www.datapipe.com, the managed hosting company, have the second most reliable hosting company for September 2006 (according to Netcraft) plus have multiple UK numbers and addresses and provide proper telephone support (i.e. live Support 24 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week)... it's just another alternative option.
 
No, you definitely won't find any Irish companies listed but why would that matter? I thought it answers most of your qeueries re: full-time professional companies with proper support and the most reliable on the internet with no time lags for customer support etc... so what's missing?
 
If I perform a search in google for pages from Ireland, will it find an Irish Company with a .com address hosted in the UK, Holland or America?

Just did a quick test and did a search for EUInternet, an Irish Hosting company. I have no links to EUInternet, but I remember hearing before that they hosted their servers outside of Ireland. According to Netcraft, their own website is hosted in the UK at Rackspace.

When I did a search on google.ie for them they were the first site listed (.

However, when I did a search for pages from Ireland ()
they were nowhere to be seen.

I often search for "pages from Ireland" when I am looking for local services. For this reason alone I would recommend hosting sites in an Irish Data Centre.
 
Hosting location of website hosting is *not* soley responsible for search engine performance.

Be aware that even though you're at google.com you still get localized results. You do need to go through a non-transparent proxy with an IP from the country you want to see the results for. You might have to use a proxy: www.proxify.com, as Google redirects you to the Google-site of your own country.

If google used the IP based system to determine relevant search results, I could have a site hosted on a Irish IP address, but my site could be written entirely in Arabic and then, it would incorrectly show my site to those looking for Irish specific content!

Website search engine performance is based on a combination of factors such as;
  • Website site content language
  • Where the websites links come from. i.e. having only links from sites which are determined to be US to a local Top Level Domain website would make the site rank higher for US searches than the local searches. So you could also just have a .ie hosted in the US but with most links from Irish websites and that help with obtaining good rankings for Irish searches (along with other SEO tactics).
Also, you shouldn't base the search engine performance soley on Google, other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN should be tested for your respective website. Refer to the following for further details on Search Engines ([broken link removed].
 
According to this blog, [broken link removed],
"Google checks first to see if it is a “.ie” site. If it isn’t then it checks the IP address of the server on which the site is hosted. If the IP address belongs to a recognised Irish network then it will determine that the site is Irish".
 
ivorystraws said:
Also, you shouldn't base the search engine performance soley on Google, other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN should be tested for your respective website.
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Personally I would use google 99% of the time. If I am having problems finding something then I would probably go to Yahoo. I was surprised at the percentage that Yahoo had though. There was an extra ) on the end of that link. This one works: [broken link removed]
 
I don't think there's any definitive answer (not from Google anyway) on this topic. There's a lot of varying discussion and opinions surrounding the way Google ranks and localises various websites and what factors it considers and in which specific order. If someone is specifically interested in Search Engine Optimisation (for both Google and Yahoo), then http://www.seobook.com/ is a good start.
 
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