Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

March 11, 2008

A new study conducted by technology blog IT Pro reveals that about 20 percent of businesses in the United Kingdom are increasingly dissatisfied with their current Web hosting providers, leading to offline websites and upset customers.

The survey asked British companies about their Website and hosting experience. Companies said that their sites are among a company's most important assets by providing an informational resource for potential and current customers, a great marketing tool for the business and an additional retail outlet.

IT Pro's survey also found that a little over 39.8 percent of those with access to out-of-hours support are normally put on hold for long periods of time.

Additionally, another 70 percent of businesses said they have no service level agreement with their current hosting provider, leaving them completely unaccountable when their website is down.

Despite these findings, 20 percent of companies said they only have access to customer and technical support from their Web hosting provider during regular office hours. IT Pro called this lack of around-the-clock support "ludicrous", considering the peak times for Web traffic fall during weekends and evenings.

On most days, Internet surfers and consumers typically logon at these times in search of information, entertainment and shopping services.

Ironically, two of Netcraft's Ten most reliable Web hosts for last month were UK-based hosting providers. Netcetera and Web Fusion came in sixth and seventh place, respectively.

Finally, about ten percent of company websites said they have a total of two days of downtime a year on average, which IT Pro said was unacceptable given today's modern server technology, and generally more reliable data centers.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Source: Tech Blog