Web and Graphic Design HQ

There’s virtually unlimited choice when it comes to finding a web host. Although, when you start comparing features, there’s only a handful that I’d really consider for my needs. A couple of marketing-focused hosts get my attention, but I haven’t yet given them business.

For the last 10 years, Pair Networks in Pittsburgh, USA have been our web host of choice.

We have a commerce level account with Pair, and host a couple of dozen separate domains, each with their own IP address, in that account. There are so many reasons to like Pair’s service and features. The main benefits I find are that I’m dealing with an honest, reliable provider who I can put my trust in to look after every aspect of our web hosting needs.

When I get the very occasional need for support, Pair are super-responsive. Downtime is very brief, generally in terms of minutes at a time, and months and months can go by with zero downtime on the server. With over 1,000 servers, I know they can fix any problem, and fast. There’s phone support with my account, but I’ve never had to use it. Their urgent ticket service works perfectly.

(Someone else I know had their domain offline for 5 full days just this week — our biggest downtime in recent years was about 10 minutes for an operating system upgrade! With Pair, there’s no need to put up with hassles — in Australian terms, they’re “ridgy didge”).

Feature-wise, the account has more than I need. More bandwidth than I can ever get close to using (so I know they can handle massive requests). And plenty of inclusions at each account level that means Pair compares very favourably to their competitors.

Unlike some big name providers, they’re very upfront and honest too. They’ll tell you EVERY time something happens — on all of their servers. The data is publicly available, not hidden, no login required. They’re not scared of that data, because they’re world-class service providers!

I first joined Pair in late 1997 (I had 2 other providers over the couple of years prior to Pair), having an account on server number 8 (called xi) — we have accounts now on two other Pair servers, but back than xi was their latest server online.

Most of our clients get hosted by us in our Pair account, rather than having their own separate account. We can share the cost (no price rises at Pair, only increases in account features!) of the account, and we administer our client’s web hosting on their behalf. Pair is setup to let you easily do that. Your client gets to focus on what they’re good at in their own business, and you can reliably look after their web hosting, knowing you’re backed by Pair’s reliability and expertise.

For all the choice, all the promises others might make… the best endorsement a company can get is having their customers stay with them for so long.

I thought you’d like to know about our favorite web host — they come with our highest recommendation!