Features

“Vanity” or “Virtual” hosting

Different providers call these by different names, but at the end of the day there are two sorts of “virtual” hosting (www.yourcom.com). The first is “true” virtual hosting, where you are assigned a unique IP number for your domain. This works with all browsers,  but is more work for the provider to set up and maintain, so may be more expensive.

The second uses the HTTP/1.1 features of new browsers to put many domains on one IP number, and the server redirects requests to the right subdirectory for the domain. This is usually cheaper for the provider, as they do not have to apply for lots of IP numbers. However, this feature does not work with older browsers, including AOL’s browser, so you may be making your site inaccessible to more than 9 million AOL customers

JCLE only uses true virtual hosting which works with all browsers on all hardware platforms.

Bandwidth Limitations

Most providers measure bandwidth in megabytes per month, allowing a certain amount before charging you a huge amount in excess bandwidth fees.500Mb per month of bandwidth is only 13.3Mb per day. Get more than 600 hits/day to a 25K web page, and you’re over that limit.

JCLE allows up to 200MB/day of bandwidth by default on our US servers, and are flexible if you temporarily need to go over that. We have supported up to 3GB/day of data transfer from one customer for a short period at no extra charge.

Disk Space

Disk space should not be your primary concern - are you really going to fill 45MB with web pages and graphics? The cost of additional disk space is also probably minimal compared with the bandwidth charges for serving up that space on the web. What is the point of having that much space if one person per day viewing your site will take you over your bandwidth quota?

Unlimited Disk Space

We know of one provider offering “unlimited disk space”. This is not a viable business plan - for the same reason that “unlimited hits”  is not valid. There is a sensible reason why Altavista spend millions of dollars on data storage for their web search engine rather than spend $20/month on a hosting provider.

JCLE’s accounts come with 10MB of space by default, which is enough for most people’s needs. If you need more, it is available for only $2.00 per 5MB per month. If you need large amounts of disk space we recommend our Platinum service, where you have full control over a dedicated server.

Web-based site editors

Some cut-price outfits will only allow you access to your space via a web-based HTML editor, or restrict access via FTP or telnet to reduce the functionality of your site. This is usually done in order to offer add-on services at vast expense to you which do include these features which should be standard.

JCLE offers access to all our accounts via FTP, telnet, or FrontPage, at no additional cost. We do not believe in charging extra for features which can be included in an account for no extra charge.

Reseller Assistance

Some companies do not make it easy for companies to resell their services - by putting their name on login banners and server messages so that the “real” hosting provider is revealed. Also, it negates the point of spending more money on a virtual domain if the real server identity is easily revealed.

JCLE does not put it’s name on login, message of the day, web error messages or other messages, which makes it less likely a customer will find our name.

Secure Servers

If you are offered secure server functionality, it’s probably on the same machine as your non-secure account. This is a massive security hole, especially if you are allowed to run CGI scripts on the non-secure part of your site, or they run mail handling software like sendmail on your server. It is not exceptionally difficult for a determined hacker to penetrate this security - the promise of credit card details stored on the server makes this even more attractive.

JCLE has a separate dedicated secure server which is locked down with no public or customer access for maximum security for your credit card transactions.

Secure Server Certificates

If you are going to run a secure server under your own domain name you will need your own certificate from a registration authority such as Verisign- these cost more than $300/year. Although providers may offer access to their secure server, they will almost certainly not include the certificate fee in their costings, which normally means using it under their domain name, revealing the true hosting provider to your visitors, negating the point of having a virtual domain.

JCLE offers secure server access under a neutral domain name on a dedicated server, so you do not need to purchase your own certificate, and yet do not have our name revealed to your customers.

Offers you should not take up!

Companies may offer include registering your site with search engines or registering your domain name for you. Both of these are rather spurious, as you can do both for yourself, for free. submit-it.com will register your site with dozens of search engines for free, and you can register your own domain name using the link from our order page.

Indeed, you should register your domain name yourself, as some unscrupulous providers will register the domain in their name, or with themselves as all the contacts, which makes it very difficult for you to change provider at a later date if you don’t like their service.

You should also register your site with the search engines and indexes yourself, as only you know the best keywords and categories to place your site under.

Company Stability

Many cheap web presence providers have gone bust or sold out to other companies recently, proving that selling on price alone is not the way to have a successful business.  Look for stability and endurance in the Internet market.

JCLE is now in it’s 9th year of trading, and has generated a cash profit in every year since we started. The company as no debt or venture capital to repay.

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