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Being an internet business and working form home is okay if you are a sole trader and stay that way, but the minute you are big enough to need to take on staff, then you're going to need an office.

I have done that, and it was quite nice for a while to do so, but it became pretty clear I wasn't getting enough of what type of client and work I wanted. But yes, for an business where nobody visits you or where your address doesn't matter, then yes it will be fine. Although you may be more productive going to an office every day.

I decided to get an office so that more clients (who seem to want to come to me and not the other way around) can come visit me. I didn't really like folk turning up to what was my personal home space, and yes, a couple of clients turned up unannounced, albeit to pay me, which balanced the issue!

One client turned out to live 4 doors away and she thought it fine to keep posting her web hosting fees through my letterbox, often with a pound missing or 50p short, whatever! It felt like an invasion of my privacy, especially when she sent her kid down with money on a night!

Also, I left my job to go self employed a month after getting burgled so yes, security wise I felt safe being at home for what was most of the day as well as evenings. But after a couple of years that worry wore off. I was paranoid after it first happened and locked everything away in my new big heavy-duty safe, even when I went to the shop!

Firstly, this is an open business forum and if you are going to open a discussion, be prepared for some other opinions but don't consider the word insult, because that in itself can be deemed insulting to us that have taken the time to constribute and give another opinion. One that is solidly backed up, I might add. It has nothing to do with a closed mind; it has everything to do with a mind that has extensive experience and knowledge in business. I worked from home myself for a couple of years, so it can't possibly be a closed one if I have experience of both sides of this debate.

It's pointless asking if you do not want to hear something you don't like. A bit like the 'review my website' when it gets torn apart, the OP gets the hump on! Yet we are more experienced to comment than the OP is on their own website.

Back to the subject though, it really does depend whose busines you want to win, when I am referring to the image you present to potential customers. Like I said, it doesn't come across as bad in any way, it just makes you less competitive in the B2B world as clients will cosndier your position as a whole.

I have worked for larger organisations and I have used advisors and consultants who clearly don't have or even need an office, or if we needed a small caterer who worked form home for sandwiches for a course every week thenn that was fine but if I wanted a caterer for a big event, it wouldn't be ordered from someone who worked from their home kitchen. It's very much horses for courses, and therefore what is appropriate.

Cakemakes are expected to work from home and could be thought as expensive if they worked from their own shop. It's what fits the business really. But for B2B you would do better working from an office, even if you only went there 5 hours a day. I also half own a virtual office company and a lot of people will use that if nothing else, just to make it look more professional. If they have a client who wants to come to them as does happen, then they would hire the meeting room here. it still works out cheaper than renting an office all year. So you see, there are ways and means of getting around it that will help you do better. There will be one not far from you or at least in your region, why not go check it out?

I have just moved offices, for a completely different reason, but my enquiries literally noticeable since the week I moved here, have tripled. The office costs me half as much as the last one (though that wasn't the initial reason for moving here) yet my status has increased being based at an airport; I do not believe it to be a coincidence especially as nearly every new enquirer now says "oh I see you're at the airport".

People just take you and your business more seriously, that really is the truth. Branding yourself as a business isn't just having a logo, it is positioning yourself in your marketplace to win business against your competitors. Of course you can stay where you are, doing what you do, doing what suits your current family lifestyle, but you cannot be compared to someone who has invested a lot more money and time to win more business and therefore, nobody will think badly of your business, but they may choose to overlook you. My business was boosted when I got my first office, so it is noticeable.

PS Yes if my printer lived down the road and had a workshp in his garden, and my consignment wasn't huge, I would be okay with that. If I wanted what I once ordered - 500,000 leaflets - I would be ordering from a big printer comapny, since the order was tied in with a scheduled distribution. One coonsiders the capabilities when assessing the risk factor.

You would notice the difference if you had an office, put it that way. I have done both and would never work from home again, unless it was the MLM sort of self employment. Image is everything.

Not sure what being a parent has to do with it working from an office or from home, as you can still go to the office after school drop off and leave early enough for pick-up, just as if you were at home. I suppose the only folk who would need to be at home all day are those with toddlers or babies who don't have childcare options, but that woudln;t last for too long. You would struggle to get much work done though as they need your attention most of the day though.

Also, it certainly doesn't sound good if your kids suddenly starting making background noises, or if the dog barks, washer goes on full spin, and so on. It's not so much not loking legitimate, but being professional and also being as available and committed in order to compare with your competitors. It's a sign of how much you want to invest in your business.

I charge up front, but my client's SE spend isn't in the thousands per month, but then again the keywords aren't highly competitive that require that sort of spend.

I also charge up front for web design and nobody minds that either but again, my projects don't to go over the

Hmm, we are with Rackspace already, not sure what bloody cloud though it is a Linux Cloud!

I got a reply 3 and 3/4 hours later from my hosting ticket, saying "it's okay at our end" - lol well it would be, obviously the issue had resolved itself by then!

They wanted a tracert; not sure what that would have shown nearly 4 hours later that would be of any use to them?

it's just annoying, as are the replies I get..... "It MUST be you!!"

The time has come for us to move to another hosting company. We currently use shared Linux cPanel reseller hosting for hosting our clients websites who choose to host with us after we have designed their website.

I would like recommendations please.

Our current hosting company isn't the most helpful when it comes to any issues or just seeking guidance to rule out a server issue, in fact I try not to bother raising a ticket if possible. I would never use their white label support for my clients. My clients get personal 1-2-1 support from me and I see to all their issues, though rare, as they rarely login to their cpanel, site admin, etc. I look after most of the websites, hosting and site admin myself.

When raising a ticket, the first reply will always make you feel as if it's a problem at your end and I have to say all the things I have done and checked before they will consider it's worth looking into at their end. I do far more than this for my website clients when I provide hosting support, so why can't someone who is far more experienced and knowledgeable than me do even better?

They also continued to advertise R1Soft backup feature on their website even though they suddenly withdrew this feature last year, and without any notice to me. I only knew when I went to use it and couldn't find the icon and they told me they no longer offered it. However, I only notice today that the icon has miraculously re-appeared in cpanel accounts and must have been restored, although again not a word from them about it.

For the past few days and this morning in particular, hence writing this, we are suffering slow loading times when I have tried several of our sites including whm and cpanel pages. I had notice it was taking ages in past few days but am patient enough to let short spells pass without complaining, but I reckon I can get a better service elsewhere.

I want UK based server with a support person/team whose English is perfect so we can clealy understand each other when exchanging support tickets and must also be physically UK based.

Many hosting companies are based abroad, but using .co.uk and a virtual office (I should know!) and a UK voip landline number, giving the impression they are physically based in the UK when clearly, they are not. Gmail tells me their local time when they sent the email so when it's 5hrs+/- I know they are on another continent! Hello!!

I don't mind paying more, I am not looking for "the cheapest", however it needs to be reasonable and competitive as I buy 'value for money'.

There are 2 companies I do not wish to use who I have tried but I will not name them here publicly. One is the current one obviously, and one is the one I used before that. The one before that one (and our first) was okay generally, but had some serious downtime (1-2 days) and I lost a couple of customers because of that. A refund of a months hosting back then was of no use to me whatsoever. Those clients were worth to me, the cost I paid for the annual hosting with that provider.

The next company needs to have contingency plans that can restore services asap and IMO, at their own expense rather than at ours.

I pay 100% of my invoice on time each month; I therefore don't see why my service should be late (slow loading) or reduced in any way (poor service, removal of features). Am I asking too much?

I only want the same level of service I offer my customers, which might explain why I have 100% retention for all website clients. But I do have to make an effort when needed, to ensure that. Put another way, if my response was the same level as my provider gives me, or if my clients got those same responses via white label support, quite a few would have moved to another hosting provider before now, that much I do know.

The problem with hosting is that once an issue is fixed, you tend to just be glad it's all back to normal and then you forget, a bit like going to the dentist...until next time. But of course, it's another task to start moving so I wouldn't do it impulsively.

So, anyone you can recommend would be great.

But not someone who goes out of their way to get you as a customer but does nothing to keep you. A bit strange, but there you go!

Please, no self recommendations, affiliate links, or a first post claiming "I can recommend "xyz hosting" they've been great".

Did you end up going with that one steve? What results did you get?

It was only his website and the webmail and cpanel login pages for his server account.

However, last night he texted me to say that it had resolved itself and is now working! Whether Virgin Media was playing up (they seem to be having a lot of problems over a long period of time including issues like this) or not we don't know for sure, but that's my guess.

Hi

Wondering if anyone can throw light on this problem.

A client suddenly mid-late last week he could not access his own website or his cpanel or webmail login pages. Thunderbird has also stopped retrieving his emails. It has previously been fine.

He is not aware any settings at his end have been changed. His broadband provider at home is Virgin Media. He cannot access on his laptop, wife's laptop or via the wifi on his phone. They are all accessing the same router.

The website, cpanel and webmail login pages can be accessed by any other computer in other locations, and a test email shows email works fine as does the website.

I have reset the DNS zone for him in his hosting account and talked him through Flush DNS on his laptop, router and computer/phone reboots, all with no joy. Any one of these usually fixes a typical DNS issue so now i'm stumped.

He has phoned VM who says the problem isn't their end and also showed him his website and webmail page via a proxy.

The common denominators are the ISP and the router. I have suggested a router reset (back to factory settings) and re-install.

In Googling the issue, I see VM are having a wedge load of problems this month including last night's outage.

Can anyone suggest anything else he can try?

Thanks