Many hosting companies, big and small, are offering 24/7 technical and customer support these days. Be very weary of these claims. Most companies that claim 24/7 support don’t really live up to expectations. In addition, a 1-800 number does not guarantee that someone will actually answer you phone call, or even be helpful. Look for a company that has a good, honest support structure set up with a variety of support options: support tickets, live support chat, e-mail support, and perhaps phone support as well. My own web hosting company, for instance, has everything but phone support. We are still capable of answering inquiries within minutes. If you are considering a particular web host, best thing you can do to evaluate their support is simply send them an e-mail or open a support ticket and see how long it takes them to respond to your inquiry. If it takes more than 24 hours, that’s probably a bad sign. In order to substantiate credibility of your potential web hosting company, I suggest looking for some type of customer testimonials on their webpage. If they list customer’s website or e-mail address, go extra step and contact at least one of customers. They will be able to confirm that they are real customers and let you know about their experiences with given company. If they have no testimonials, or testimonial listings do not contain a means of contacting customers, do a search on company using a big search engine like Google and Yahoo!. Look for forums and other webpages that may contain customer feedback about your company. Many times, customers that have either had a very bad or very good experience with a hosting company will go onto at least one webmaster forum and tell others about their experience. Looking up these comments is a good way to get a third-party assessment of a particular hosting company.

If you follow these bits of advice I am certain you will find a reliable, affordable hosting company that is right for your website. If nothing else, you could give my hosting company (SitePhase.com) a look and compare it to other companies offering similar plans. Whatever company you decide to go with, I wish you best of luck!

With addition of an optional program, WHM AutoPilot, you can automate account creation and suspension, email notifications, and other tasks. WHM AutoPilot also integrates with common payment gateways and has a helpdesk, an invoice module, and other tools.

H-Sphere

H-Sphere is designed for both Linux and Windows platforms. Moreover, resellers can set up plans for both Linux and Windows and administer sites on different servers from same control panel. The control panel, actually a separate server, also provides administrative access to integrated helpdesk.

The H-Sphere control panel server automates account configuration, credit card processing, domain registration, and email notifications. It also includes a built-in billing module and supports over 20 payment gateways.

From reseller’s point of view, H-Sphere has a higher learning curve than most other control panels because of its numerous features. For example, when setting up a new plan, administrator has two pages of features to choose from, including setup and monthly pricing for optional services.

Beginning webmasters may find H-Sphere too complicated for their needs. More advanced users, however, appreciate features and control that H-Sphere offers end user. A key feature is ability to have control over separate domains with multi-domain hosting.

H-Sphere comes with website builder Site Studio, which guides users through a variety of style choices and stores content separately from layout. No HTML or FTP knowledge is required.

Plesk

Plesk is known for its stability and security. Resellers and end users like its simple navigation, its clean interface, and its professional appearance. It comes in versions for both Linux and Windows platforms.

With Plesk, all users use same control panel but with different levels of control:

• Server administrator
• Client / reseller
• Domain owner
• Mail user

Each level of control panel gives user control of that level and level(s) below it. Email users, for example, can log into their mail user control panel to change their password, add autoresponders, and change other personal settings without having access to domain owner control panel.

Plesk handles SpamAssassin at mailbox level rather than at domain level.

This feature enables users to whitelist or blacklist email for each email address, allowing each email user to have individual settings.

SWsoft, company behind Plesk, also offers Site Builder, a five-step website builder using pre-built templates. SiteBuilder has over 300 templates in different categories to choose from, and users can publish their sites without any HTML or FTP knowledge.

If your Plesk reseller account is with a web host that offers HSPcomplete, you will have some automation available with your account, such as credit card charges and email notification.