Click for Nick

I can not stress the value of fast loading websites, but the problem is most people don’t know what server to get.  So I’m going to go through the history of the servers that clickfornick has been under in the hopes that your question of what kind of server your blog needs can be answered.

1. Started with Blogger

Blogger is a good service, free and no costs.  You can’t ask for much more, however, there is no way to really back up your files, and limited customization.

2. Godaddy Shared Hosting

Shared hosting works fine and when I was getting about 10,000 page impressions per day it worked.  It was however a bit slow at times.  Cost of shared hosting is extremely cheap, only $6 a month usually.

3. 1 and 1 VPS 1 Hosting

This worked fine when my site started getting 20 -30,000 impressions per day, but randomly the server would just go extremely slow or even shut down. This was not fun.

4. 1 and 1 VPS 2 Hosting

Now I am down to paying around $40 per month for a faster server and more space.  So far this site seems to be loading faster and hasn’t had any problems so far.

When Asking Yourself What Kind of Server You Need the Answer is:

More than you can handle.  It’s not good to have a server that sometimes crashes or is just what you need to handle your blog.  Be safe and pay for more than you would ever consume.

For anyone that chose shared hosting as their initial host, probably noticed problems with Godaddys server when they started getting too much traffic.  It’s then time to decide Dedicated or VPS Virtual Private Server? Both Dedicated and VPS Virtual Private Servers are quite a step up from shared hosting as the control is at your fingerprints.  Though for most users this control leads to plenty of problems.

My Experiences with VPS, a Virtual Private Server

I currently use VPS for hosting this website.   You don’t realize what you are getting into when suddenly you have to migrate to a server that is designed or someone who knows all about software like Plesk. Thankfully I had a brother who could get it setup, but for the basic user, they may need to hire help.

Another thing to watch out for is the lack of safeguards.  Shared hosting has almost anything anyone could dream of.  But, when you switch to a VPS your server can crash, things can go slow, and the optimal settings aren’t intially setup.  You need someone to install processes which will keep your server at top performance and able to come back online if it gets switched off.

With Dedicated Server you get more speed and control, but it’s even more pricey.

If you need to choose between the two, better to pay for more than less than you need.  Every second counts, and an hour of server time can be costly.