A web host is a company that provides you with server space for your web site, including all of the files associated with your site. When your web address is typed in a browser, the web host serves up the files pages.
Things to consider when choosing where to host your website:
Where are the servers?
Many web developers will arrange for your web hosting. It's
important to know that you have right to choose who you do that
business with. Oftentimes, the server that your site is with may
actually be in another part of the country, or even out of the
country.
At CharlesWorks, we have our own servers and infrastructure on site,
making us available to our clients as needed, at many times of day. We
also have servers and infrastructure available to us in other parts
of the United States. We can truly say we are a local, American web
services company.
Costs
Our costs are comparable with other hosting companies, but our
personal service is priceless. Cheap hosting also often comes with
little or no service, but providing opportunities for
advertisers. We at CharlesWorks know and care about our clients and
make ourselves available for them to keep the services available
round the clock.
What is a referral worth to you? At CharlesWorks, we actually refer
our clients to those needing their services every opportunity we
get. That simply doesn't happen with the big companies where clients
are simply anonymous account numbers for the most part.
Options
We supply services on both Windows and Linux platforms. Our servers will support sites created using HTML, .net, ASP, or PHP. We also handle most Content Management Systems, and MySQL
database driven systems.
Back up
In case of power outages, lost data, equipment failure, hacked sites, does your current web hoster
maintain a backup of your files?
At CharlesWorks, we back up ALL of our websites on
a regular basis that we maintain for those unforeseen circumstances.
Bear in mind that at CharlesWorks you can have your own web
developer or even maintain your site yourself should you wish to do
so. In such cases, you are responsible to ensure your site materials
are backed up, as we cannot assume responsibility for sites we do
not maintain.
Contracts
We do not require contracts on any of our
services. And just like the very largest of companies, no one can guarantee 100% uptime. We feel that by providing quality service to our clients,
contracts are certainly unnecessary. On some products that are
prepaid, additional charges may apply for early cancellation, as
with email packages we will waive setup fees when prepaid by the
year. Early cancellation requires that we charge those fees prior to
any refunds. Nearly all of our competitors do not issue refunds at
all.
Server space
1,000 megabytes of server space is provided for most
websites. That is plenty of space for most very large websites. If more
space is needed, we of course will provide that.
Stats
"Stats" is commonly the web slang word for web statistics. It is simply seeing how often and from where a web site is being visited. More sophisticated stats software helps the user understand how the visitors came from where they did as well.
On our Windows platforms, we provide our clients with access to their log files and stats so that they can monitor traffic to their site using the popular AWStats software.
On our Linux platforms, we provide the popular Webalizer
software to monitor website traffic.
On any platform, the user can always choose to
install and use Google Analytics into their website coding as well.
Support
CharlesWorks provides down to earth, friendly support, avoiding technical jargon! We like our clients to feel comfortable calling us with questions or for help, without their having to feel like they ever have to be a web guru!
Our best testimonials are received as a result of our service. People want someone to talk to who they are confident will talk to them and genuinely interested in helping them resolve problems when they arise. That's what we do.