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About Kenny

Kenny is owner of webhostpark and has been working in hosting industry since 2006. We provide unbiased hosting reviews and release the latest promo news. Follow me on Google plus

Best Hong Kong Web Hosting

hongkong hosting

Being one of the top economy centers, Hong Kong is well known for its prosperous business market. Web hosting is the hottest because of the leading geographic location. This article provides detailed guidance what makes up the best hong kong web hosting service and how to choose the best hosting plan.

Brief introduction of Hong kong hosting service

Hong Kong, the hot pot of asia economy, it's also the transition center of asia internet for multple countries. No business barrier, no language barrier on this pearl land. Because of this, lots of global hosting leaders put their asia hosting and support centers in Hong Kong. Till today, almost all mainland China hosting providers have Hong Kong servers to support their oversea business.

What Makes Up a Good Hong Kong Hosting?

Leading data center choice

Must be served by reputable IDC service. There're lots of providers and many of them are doing good for the leading geographic location. Those reputable names such as HKNET, NNT, HKCOLO, HKCIX and PCNT are highly recommended for primary consideration because they have long history experience in supporting IT industry. Actually, these IDC providers are sharing over half business market in HK.

Leading server configuration

Dell is still the main choice by most providers in HK, but they have wide selections on multiple leading providers including IBM, ASUS and LENOVO etc. Make sure to contact pre-sales for server information if you prefer to some specific server production. A little different from other areas, windows server is popularly supported for huge needs. In general, Hong Kong servers are setup by following top standards like US service.

Scalable payment solutions

Hong Kong is a crossing point of multiple currencies including Hong Kong dollar, RMB & USD etc. A good hosting provider should support all leading payment solutions in this area and have prepared multiple different gateways to deal with different clients. Alipay, Paypal and Credit card should be standard support. Lots of providers also support check and direct bank transfer.

24*7 support is a must

Not every hosting company provides 24*7 support based their business size and company policy. However, it's crucial to ensure our global business is always online. So before applying any service plan, make sure their support service is always available. Those popular supports like chat, phone, ticket and email channels must be running all the time.

Reliable policies

This does not only refer to good company plicies but also the local legal provisions and the general society trust level. Being one of the most developed area, Hong Kong has complete law system and trustable business environment. There's no difference comparing to any other top business center.

Best Hong Kong Web Hosting Provider

Actually, lots of hosting providers offer Hong Kong web hosting plans(either outside or inside this area). Especially for lots of China hosting providers, they have wide co-operation with Hong Kong data center service for the good business environment. If you need a high performance Hong Kong hosting plan, we highly suggest check out following two:

Webweb. 100% setup via Hong Kong data center service with support office in both Hong Kong and mainland China. Their name is generated from the old webhost4life which was a very popular and successful brand. Their old team is still working hard on under new brand. Currently they have both servers in Hong Kong and the old USA data center in Los Angeles. The only weakness is their English site is not published yet if you can not read Chinese.

Zhuji91. Also a new brand but with robust growth. They're highly rated by lots of users and communities. Their people contacted us several times for evaluation. Just search for zhuji91 review or Hong Kong hosting plan, they're rated very well on lots of sites. They provide competitive price plans and hosting features. Both Chinese and English plans are provided with easy navigation.

Of course, there're multiple or simply lots of good providers for Hong Kong hosting plans, just don't be limited by above choice, you should always evaluate the best and do your personal research. Don't hesitate to contact us if you need assistance!

Arvixe vs Hostgator vs Winhost

arvixe vs hostgator vs winhost

Comaprison among arvixe and winhost and hostgator for windows hosting plan features, price, server performance and support service. The purpose is to select the best hosting plan for different requirements. It's probably hard to find another company who can provide such advanced windows hosting solutions, especially when you need support for both windows & linux technologies. This article provides side by side comparison and guidance in choosing the right plan.

Brief introduction of 3 hosts

Arvixe: A leading hosting provider since 2003. Arvixe provides support for both windows and linux with all up to date technologies on advanced server platform. Arvixe provides multiple class hosting solutions to meet your different needs from small to large size business websites. Being one of fortune 500 companies, arvixe is serving more than half million clients.

Hostgator: Absolutely the leader of hosting industry for their technology and huge business. Unlike most other companies, they're rule maker and be able to have everything under control. Hostgator is mostly leading in linux hosting service, their standard cpanel plans are followed by lots of coming competitors. In 2011, their people started to offer windows hosting solutions with standard plesk configuration.

Winhost: A solid hosting company focus on windows server solutions. They provide advanced and affordable enterprise class hosting plans. They also programmed their own asp.net hosting control panel to keep everything under management. Till present, the winhost server plans are fully compatible with .net and php technologies

Price comparison

All the three hosts provide competitive price for hosting plans. To have a quick view about their price details, the following table list is specially designed with up to date rates.

Provider Plans Price Notes
Arivxe Personal class $2.8/mo(linux) $3.5/mo(windows) Need to apply the most promotional coupon "Clue30"
Business class $15.4/mo(linux) $18.9/mo(windows)
Hostgator Personal plan 2.97/mo(linux) $3.57/mo(windows) Using coupon code "review25off"
Enterprise plan $7.77/mo(linux) $10.77/mo(windows)
Winhost Winhost basic $3.95/mo  
Winhost Max $7.95/mo

Please be noted you need to sign up 2 years service in order to claim the most promotional offer, the price may vary based your selected contract periods.

Hosting features

All the three hosts offer rich feature plans, but please keep in mind you get what you pay. Their lowest price has some kind restrictions on crucial features such as the number of sql server database, supported websites etc. Here's table view of main hosting features

Provider Arvixe Hostgator Winhost
Support domains 6~unlimited 1~5 1~unlimited
SQL/Mysql Unlimited Unlimited 1~unlimited
Space/Bandwidth Unlimited Unlimited 3GB~Unlimited
Free domain Yes No No
Latest .NET/PHP Yes Partial Yes
Sitebuilder Rvsitebuilder(linux) Plesk sitebuilder No
Control panel cPanel/Websitepanel cPanel/Plesk Inhouse panel

All the he three companies have their own advantages based their price and offer. For example hostgator is still reputable for their linux service but windows has been no updates since 2012, their platform is still on windows server 2008. Winhost is dedicated for windows server and Arvixe has been balanced well between both platforms.

Server Specs & Network uptime

Arivxe:

  • DELL brand new server production
  • 15k RPM SCSI drives in raid 10
  • SSD raid arrays
  • Minimum of 92 gigabytes of ram, up to 256 gigabytes
  • Latest Intel Xeon E5620 processors

Above is standard configuration for all arvixe servers(shared/VPS), all servers are supported by softlayer data centers in Chicago, New Jersey and Dallas. They also have Amsterdam datacenter service configured for Europe clients, Singapore data center is being prepared and will be officially launched in 2014 Q2.

Hostgator:

  • 32 Core AMD Opteron™ Processor 6376
  • 64GB / 32GB RAM
  • 4 Raid 1s
  • SSD MySQL

This is hostgator shared server configuration, all servers run on CentOS 6.4 Enterprise Linux x86 or Windows Server 2008 R2. Server connection speed is constant 100 mbps. Hostgator provides various server setups for different hosting service. endurance is now migrating all them to Utah datacenters for central management. Endurance group manages multiple world class DCs and multiple reputable hosting brands being served there.

Winhost:

  • DELL Dual Quad Core Servers
  • 32 GB RAM
  • RAID 10 Disk Array
  • Windows server 2008 & 2012

Winhost colo at a Teir 1 datacenter near office for easy and efficient management. They does not specify the datacenter name but this implies they rely on single data center service, no serious problem till present though.

Customer support

They all announced 24*7*365 support but there's some difference. Arvixe and hostgator provide support via Live chat, Toll free calls, ticket and email system. There're also multiple channels for different support requests. However, that doesn't mean arvixe and hostgator are the same, hostgator support is now mainly powered by endurance and endurance purchased outsourced support(mainly from India). We're not sure what's the percentage for their outsourced rate but that's absolutely not professionl for such reputable company. Arvixe support is completely managed by their own and their staff is all over the country.

Winhost is mainly supported by email/ticket and almost no live channel available. It's not good for sales and urgent problem fix. Regardless such concern, they're actually doing good service and no serious complaint on the web. That's how they can get such rapid growth. Probably they will add more support in near future.

Conclusion

All the three are good web hosts for either price value or support. But based their difference and advantages you should select wisely. For example, winhost is your best choice if you want to make full use of windows programming skills. Hostgator is primary choice if you need leading linux solutions. Arvixe stands between the two but comes with more features like free domain, better price and support. Especially when you're looking for affordable and reliable hosting service, there's no better choice than arvixe.

10 mistakes in choosing hosting service

Web hosting is handy service today and widely offered by lots of providers. However, almost each company is unique on every side. Because of this, users have to learn a bit for needed service plan. We have concluded top 10 mistakes in choosing the right hosting in this article so our readers can avoid in case there's such need.

Mistake 1: Take free domain as serious offer

Lots of hosting companies provide free domain service if we choose to host with their service. It does help reduce our first investment, however it's not good for ownership management. Many hosting companies are domain resellers but not the actual provider. Hence there'll be some delay in using the website, especialy when they programmed the system by themselves. Sometimes they have to register our prefered domain manually after we submitted personal details.

As we see, it's absolutely not good in order to have everything managed by ourselves. That's why we always suggest to have domain and hosting separated from different providers. We have bad experience in getting the domain after hosting expiration because the hosting company refuse to provide support in transferring out.

So the correct way is to ignore such offer if you're going to configure your business site on it. You need to have everything under control to avoid any potential problem.

Mistake 2: Looking for unlimited support feature

We know unlimited stuff doesn't exist but we always like such advertisement. Seriously, there's clear restriction for every hosting account on server end because the hardware resource is limited. Those serious business hosting providers will tell you the exact limits on website, even if they advertised something unlimited there will be good explanation for how much you can take.

The right start is to evaluate your website usage carefully then choose the right deal.

Mistake 3: Looking for super low cost service

Nobody wants to spend too much in the begining for various reasons. However everything comes with reasonable price. If something is provided for inormal price rate then either quality is bad or you're going to deal with lots of problems. Same as hosting, it's big investment for service providers thus they must be profitable in offering hosting plans. Just take a look at some leading providers like Inmotion, their price is always at healthy rate no matter how hard the competetion is.

Basically, we need to know the general business logic and evaluate between price and service. You get what you pay, it's always golden rule in any industry.

Mistake 4: Do not check existing user comments

Lots of hosting companies are doing well in website design and advertisement. People can be easily guided to their service. We might can't wait more to claim their best offer. But learning about how existing user say is always valuable to determine if we can get good support. No matter how good it's being advertised, we should always evaluate their service in multi sides because we're paying.

Mistake 5: Do not contact pre-sales support

Not sure why some people refuse to contact pre-sales support before sending out payment. Everybody should have some questions in mind and service providers have provided different communication tunnels. Just a single click to get online support. Just tell your question/doubt and see how support replies. This does not only help us clear out doubts in mind but also help us understand how their support work. So make sure check with pre-sales support for any hosting service as it will tell us directly if it's worth to go.

Mistake 6: Do not read the company AUP and TOS

This might be ignored by most users. Most of the time we won't get problems if we have been doing things good, however it doesn't mean everything is safe. Based our experience, lots of providers hide their limitations in AUP & TOS terms such as CPU and disk usage limits. So it's safe to read those terms before get involved. Many user accounts get suspended because of over using system resources.

Mistake 7: Do not sign up yearly deal

Want to save money? Then why should you sign up monthly instead yearly? As we know, the monthly cost is pretty high comparing to yearly pre-pay. All hosts provide at least 30 day money back guarantee, means if we don't like the service, we can close account to get full refund. So whenever we want to save money for hosting service, try to sign up yearly deal, especially for those super promotional coupon codes, they can only be applied for one or more years registration.

Mistake 8: Sign up incorrect hosting plan

We served lots of people inquiring for account migration because they have registered the wrong plan. For example, we have 3 class hosting plans with different support features. However, some clients just focus on price and ignored the technical features. After they understand the difference they request us to move accounts from one server to another. So make sure to read plan details carefully then choose the correct plan.

Mistake 9: Do not apply any coupon code

Coupon code is provided by almost all hosting companies. Some times the discount rate is up to 50% so its great opportunity to save. Especially when we order a business class hosting, promo code is crucial to reduce our first investment. Those codes are easily to search out like this website, make sure to get it and apply during check out. Some hosting providers offer promotional link instead coupon so please do your research.

Mistake 10: Enter incorrect contact email address

Probably the most frequent problem with our experience. Clients contact support to complain not receiving account confirmation emails. However the system did send and we even tried manually send but they still can't receive. Finally we verified they entered wrong contact email address for sign up. As we see how important it is to be careful in entering profile details.

Above is the list of common mistakes in signing up hosting service based our years serving experience. Make sure to read it and avoid those mistakes in choosing your prefered hosting plan.

IX Web Hosting 71% OFF Special Promo

ixwebhosting 71% off

IX Web Hosting is now promoting their hosting service for only $1.95/mo (71% discount comparing to their original price at $6.95). How to claim? Just click on above hyper link for the promotional offer. Time limited, promo only valid till May 31th, so hurry up to save with this company!

Brief introduction of the promo

The special offer is based ixwebhosting "expert plan" which is configured at $3.95/mo for base promotional offer. This plan provides unlimited disk space and monthly data transfer plus a free domain and dedicated IP address. They have compared this plan to hostgator and godaddy plans with similar features and showed it's great price. Here's quick view list of the plan offers

  • H-sphere hosting control panel
  • Free sitebuilder
  • Free domain and dedicated IP
  • Full linux hosting compatible

Notes about the promo

Please note you have to sign up 36 months in order to claim this best price. Shorter registration periods will generate higher prices. However please be noted the default order form has domain privacy and sitelock service added, this will increase the final costs which is not good for budget choice, just untick the service at the end and good price will be applied accordingly.

We haven't checked this company for some time and now they suddenly throw out this great promo. We currently host 5 websites under "unlimited pro" plan and no problem yet. It's highly suggested if you have requirement of multiple free dedicated ip addresses and free domain names. Especially when you would like to host shopping cart store with SSL installation.

Refer to ixwebhosting promo page for details http://www.ixwebhosting.com

Why Choose USA Web Hosting

usa hosting service

Most of the time when we evaluate a hosting service, US location is an important factor for final decision. Although web hosting is available anywhere in the world, why we still prefer to US service? This article provides in-depth investigation on this topic and guidance on how to choose from the leading providers.

Price value

You get what you pay, this is gold rule for all industries. However, you get much more from US for web hosting service. Even those budget hosting plans provide unlimited space, bandwidth and database etc. But such features are limited from many outside US providers. At the meanwhile, server performance and overall uptime guarantee is not even compatible.

US hosting server plans always provide free email service and a free domain registration while it's add-on service from lots of other providers. Because of this, you don't have to pay more to get the same service from US companies.

Fast connectivity

US is the origin of internet and manages 10 root DNS servers. Lots of US hosting companies have setup their own data centers with leading technologies. Because of the matured market and technologies, they can easy get strong support from upstream providers and be able to co-operate with various data center services. Another point is all continents are connected to US via fiber networks. That means we won't see clear latence in browsing a US or local hosted website. Especially when you want to open international business, US server has big advantage either for speed or user friendly or search engine friendly.

Stability

With regarding to stability, US server provides unbeatable advantages especially when the server is under some kind attacking like dDos, there's no better place than US for guaranteed performance and security. Being the internet origin, there're lots of reputable ISP with leading hardware and technology base. They have sufficient bandwidth and IP resource to filter spam traffic so your website server can be always in safe hand. Because of this, 99%+ server uptime is simple guarantee by lots of US hosting providers.

Customer service

US hosting servers are supported 24*7*365 by multi level professionals in different contact channels. They're available via web chat, hotline tel phones, email and helpdesk ticket. Most of the time, customer request can be forwarded to higher level support directly for quick problem fixing. However, such support feature only available from big providers outside US. And the fact is many small hosting companies are doing reseller of US hosting, they have to check with actual support frequently for customer concerns. Just imagine there's urgent fix to be applied at midnight for your website, how can you go without a reputable support service?

Usability

After many years' development, the US hosting is now a matured industry with lots of standards to follow up. For linux hosting plans, over 90% are cpanel based for easy and user friendly purpose. In this way, customers do not need to learn a bit for new environment. cPanel provides you full access for hosting service management.

Things are different from other providers, in order to reduce investment or for any other reasons, they use custom control panel with their own styles. Because of this, we have to learn a lot to be familiar with it. Also, for such control panel system, many functions are removed to ensure the server security. Thus if we want to make some sensitive changes, we have to contact support.

From above comparison, we know US hosting service provides unbeatable advantages from any side review. Actually, not only for hosting, US is also leading on many other internet related products because of its advanced hardware/software structures. The most important is about their long history in offering the service, they got sufficient experience in configurition and how to deal with various problems. They provide different hosting solutions to support your various requirements like budget hosting and managed hosting. You can always get the proper plan with quanlity support.

Hostgator China Reviews

hostgator china

Finally, Hostgator launched their Chinese version support. If your business is located in China and looking for leading web hosting support to business, now you have more choice from a leadership provider. This article provides in-depth guidance of hostgator China hosting like plan features, price and comparison to US site. We also provide a basic FAQ for quick understanding.

Hostgator China Hosting Quick view

On May 15, 2014, the hostgator news center announced their new business expansion in China – a completely new design with Chinese language and style. Like any other language specified sub site, hostgator China is dedicated for Chinese speaking clients with local support. In general, it comes with all server plans and features on original site but with different support features.

Hosting plans

Hostgator China provides shared, VPS, Dedicated and reseller hosting plans which is the same as mother site. Further more, they added HK server option to follow local market needs. Based the difference between US & HK, plan technical features and price are adjusted accordingly.

Shared Hosting – Available for both linux and windows solutions. However, some technical features downgraded comparing to its mother site like number of supported domains, sitebuilder service etc. The Chinese version is simplified a lot or maybe more features being developped but not yet published. At the meanwhile, their standard 45 days money back guarantee reduced to 30.

VPS Hosting – Similar but also simplified for some features like supported IPs, it is 2 on mother site plans but only a single IP supported on Chinese version. Also, the vertualization technology is not specified here and no promotion offered.

Reseller Hosting – Similar but some difference on disk and bandwidth allocation. Also, free whmcs is included for all reseller plans on mother site while not supported for copper plan on Chinese version.

Dedicated Server Hosting – Only linux server provided at the moment and cpanel is not included for free. There's steps to configure your server during sign up process and you can choose control panel service and storage service.

Price

Generally, much better price is offered on Chinese version site. For example, the basic shared plan is offered at $3.96/mo, after default 20% discount then deducted to $3.168/mo. On Chinese version site, the basic plan is configured at ¥15/mo(about USD2.5). Similar for VPS, reseller and dedicated plans. But please be noted their price for Hongkong server is a litte higher.

hostgator china features

Hostgator China FAQ

When hostgator China launched?

It's launched on May 15, 2014 with another partner site – hostgator russia

Where is the headquater of hostgator China?

Hostgator China headquater is located at Xiamen, Fujian province.

What's the server location of hostgator China?

It's still the same server from USA data centers but just offered for Chinese support. They also partnered with Hongkong data center service.

Is 24*7 support available?

Not at the moment, their official business time is am9:00 – pm17:00, but with our observation, their support is always started later. Currently they provide support through QQ chat, Hot line phone calls and helpdesk ticket.

Is there any coupon code available?

Seems not, the registration procedure is different than mother site. You have to register an account first in order to sign up hosting service.

What're the server specifications?

  • DELL E5530 2.40GHZ Xeron Quad Core
  • 48GB RAM for every hosting server
  • 250GB RAID 1 mirrored OS drive
  • 1 TB RAID 1 mirrored data cache

Visit Hostgator China to check more http://cn.hostgator.com