July 27, 2005 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Choosing a hosting company can be a daunting task for any newcomer. Factors including cost, reputation and scalability are enough to make a potential Web master second guess their decisions.
One company, is working to simplify the process by creating a resource for Web masters that compares the performance of competing Web hosting companies.
The recently launched HostingSpeeds.com (hostingspeeds.com) allows Web masters to check the various server speeds via a comparison chart of leading Web hosting providers.
HostingSpeeds.com founder and CEO Jan Paul ten Wolde first came up with the idea for the tool when he was first seeking a Web hosting company. Frustrated by the inability to distinguish the server speeds and performances of competing Web hosting companies, ten Wolde took it upon himself to create such a tool with the help of his programmer.
"I wanted to be the first to do this project," says ten Wolde. "Anyone can check how many visitors they have, but there is no [service] where you can test your speed, which is also important information for a Web master."
Using PHP scripts and open source database MySQL, HostingSpeeds allows Web hosting companies to upload a 100kb page load test file and add a piece of HTML-code to their sites, enabling their clients to perform speeds tests.
HostingSpeeds then collects the speed test results and present a list of the best performing hosting companies. The overall speed is determined by ping response times and 100kb page load speeds.
The highest performing hosting companies receive traffic from HostingSpeeds' growing membership of Web masters searching for a high performance Web host, says ten Wolde. Hosting companies can see how they rank among the list of other hosting companies.
With the tool launched just last week, the list is still short, but ten Wolde hopes the base of participating hosts will pick up quickly.
HostingSpeeds has also tried to stay one step ahead of Web hosting companies that may try to tamper with their speed and performance - setting up a custom-built fraud protection process. Any companies responsible for any fraud are not written to the database and, therefore, not included in the speed comparison test.
Membership to the site is free, and it also free for any Web host companies to submit their service to be ranked in the comparison test. HostingSpeeds enables Web hosting providers to include a link to their site, as well as a description of their various hosting plans and prices.
And while the resource tool has significant revenue earning potential, ten Wolde says he has no financial interest in the project. Rather, he hopes that HostingSpeeds will become the premium source for determining a Web hosting company's performance.
"It's a kind of fun project for me," says ten Wolde. "It's free for Web masters and hosting companies because advertising for hosting companies usually costs a lot of money anyways. The only money I get out of it is through (Google) AdSense ads and that's to pay for the hosting."
In addition to Google AdSense, ten Wolde has registered HostingSpeeds.com on such Web master resources as scripts.com and hotscripts.com. He hopes this promotion will help expand HostingSpeeds' list of participating hosts quickly.
