We’ve found that lots of web hosts, small and large, are eager to get the word out whenever they have news. A while back, I did some reorganizing and created a special page for those who want to tell the world about their new web hosting feature, product or what their company has been up to lately. The new Web Hosting Finds Submit area also lets you submit to our directory of web hosting resources. Check out the rules before submitting (don’t worry, they are not burdensome) and remember to be sure and submit something that you think all your friends and fellow readers here at the orange dog will be interested to hear about!

Does Google Love the Orange Dog? The Super Bowl Ad Contest page for Web Hosting Finds showed up at number 2 in Google search results for the phrase “super bowl commercial contest.” The 2 minutes of ranking fame has descended below the fold now, but I loved coming up higher than Yahoo!, Search Engine Watch and Digg! for something, even if it’s not web hosting related.

Good morning everyone! No worries, I’m not really up this early in the morning. I have figured out how to set the time stamp in WordPress to schedule a story for publication–a sweet feature!

Today is January 4, Web Hosting Finds’ 6 month anniversary! Back when our Independance Day was declared, I never dreamed that we’d go this far so fast. I just checked the stats and there are 990 news stories published by various sources. I have been involved in lots of web site projects and this one has been one of the most fulfilling, rewarding and just plain fun. I have met several fellow web hosting nuts, discovered some good and bad hosts, and learned a bit about designing and marketing a new site in a ferociously competitive industry. This year, I plan to have lots of fun with the site and include you as well. Thanks for being a Web Hosting Finds’ visitor!

We seem to spend a lot of time talking about the latest shared hosting provider. There has been buzz lately around companies like BlueHost, DreamHost, and many other who have raised bandwidth and disk space offerings. Some have been criticized for “overselling.”

A while back, we took some time out to turn our attention to hosting by an ISP that you wouldn’t normally think of as a web host: Earthlink. A large company with an established brand name can do things that other smaller competitors cannot. One example is the ability to stock a team of 24 hour customer support staff. EarthLink won the coveted CNET Editors’ Choice Award for web hosting last year. Take a look at the review we whipped up on EarthLink Web Hosting. Have you tried the service? Even if you haven’t hosted with EarthLink, post your comments please.

I would like to say that I really appreciate everyone’s comments about the web hosting reviews and other content on Web Hosting Finds. I hope that we are accomplishing our goal of making this site a truly useful tool for visitors. There are many pros and cons when choosing a hosting provider and it can be a mind racking event to try and pick just one even from the few we have featured here.

There seems to be a lot of discussion and interest surrounding the BlueHost offering, which I have used myself and felt fairly satisfied with their offering. I can be biased toward BlueHost because of the cPanel control panel. Some think that the 1&1 Interface is difficult to navigate. I definitely like 1and1′s domain registration service, mainly because the pricing has remained one of the cheapest available. Then, there is the prospect of customer service pampering from EarthLink‘s 24/7 technical support via email, live chat via the Web or 24 hour phone support.

To all visitors, I would like to say that when you make your hosting decision, I would be very interested to hear back from you about which host you have chosen and whether the service meets your expections. So, please post your experiences here. Thanks.

How would you feel if Eddie Van Halen, Brad Pitt, Jay Leno or–insert your favorite celebrity–called you up and said that you rock? Well, that’s sort of what happened this week when Mitch Keeler, the undisputed rockstar of web host podcasting let it be known that WebHostingFinds.com was the choice for the Web Hosting Show podcast number 70‘s Site of the Week. The show’s theme covers the subject of blogging and Mitch seems to like WordPress a great deal–my favorite blogging software by far and the what we use here on this blog. If you have the slightest interest in web hosting or just want to hear a creative voice in the industry, I recommend giving this unique podcast a listen here.

Or, better yet, you can listen to the current show here I believe:

One of the most perplexing things about 1 and 1 web hosting is not they their control panel is not user friendly or that they separate everything into “packages” or that they are not ostensibly as “hip” as Godaddy, but how do you spell the name correctly? I’ve narrowed it down to the below from references on the company site and other references on the Internet. Which one of these is the correct way to refer to the company?

1. 1&1
2. 1 and 1
3. 1and1.com
4. 1&1 Internet Inc.
5. “2″

I’ve decided to go with 1 and 1 because I don’t like the “&” character (must be the SEO in me). At any rate, we’ve made some notes about  the company’s web hosting offering and here’s a taste:

The 1 and 1 services offered to the small and medium enterprise are impressive. Their strength is their excellent value for money, in offering a very large array of services and features with their web hosting products for an extremely low monthly charge.

The 1 and 1 homepage is attractive and is set up to give clear information about their products and services and what they offer. There is a graphic showing very clearly the extras to be had for each package, helping reveal what stands out. This is definitely a plus in deciding which package to choose. The company track record is also clearly stated with financial summaries, and is rock solid.

Most folks think of BellSouth in terms of telecommunications or ISP services and that probably will not change anytime soon.

The BellSouth web hosting web site is one of the least surprising of the hosting home pages. The offering contains every feature required to set up and run a fully functional web site. Since Bell South is a telecommunications behemoth, the customer can be assured that they will be served by a stable and robust web host. As expected, the support for the web hosting is offered 24 by 7.

A few bullet features bullet points from BellSouth:

More of our look at BellSouth Web Hosting…

Source: http://hosting.bellsouth.net/

We’ve taken a brief-and I mean brief-look at Rackspace web hosting and put a few thoughts about their goals and what they have to offer. This is general stuff, a mini-review that may help you if you’re thinking of going the dedicated server route.

Rackspace is a provider focusing almost entirely on the market for 100% uptime for web hosting. If their hosted services go down for network of hardware reasons, they will refund a percentage of the monthly costs to the customer on a ‘per minute of downtime’ basis, capped at 100% of the monthly fee. This is certainly putting their money where their mouth is, and it generates a great deal of confidence in their service offering.

More about Rackspace web hosting…

Well, if you’re a site builder, you know that it’s never really done. Never-the-less, I’d like to say thanks to everyone who contributed to building Web Hosting Finds. Todd Bemis created the ubiquitous blood hound graphic of the dog that will be forever sniffing, tracking and pointing out the most palatable hosts. Tristan Bergman contributed to the content. The mysterious “Suzana” (last name withheld by request) whipped up some of the buttons and other graphics. Also, I’d like to thank Google, Yahoo and MSN in advance for sending us lots of visitors who will enjoy the fruits of everyone’s labor–bring em on guys…

On the back end of things, I and many others are deeply grateful for the work of Internet rock star Matt Mullenweg in developing the excellent WordPress blogging technology that powers the blog and news portions of the site. Also, the WordPress theme called Almost Spring, by Rebecca Wei is used here as well (although with the shakey CSS modifications, it looks more like Almost Fall).

Thanks also to Josh for the comparison idea. I could go on and mention others who made this possible (our web host, bosses, and the writers of the U.S. constitution for the free speech amendment, etc). But, in the interesting of preventing this post from sounding like an academy award ceremony speech, let’s stop here!