Outgrowing Google

In my Exploring Internet Technology series, I've opened different blogs, websites, network in research projects, using different technologies for each. Because when I make a recommendation I want to have as much first hand experience and accurate (to me) information, as I can, for the benefit of my clients and "five" readers.

I started with my evaluation of the Google family of products, back in December. I won MegMeyer.com in an auction, when it became available. (It was previously owned by someone who only had up a few pictures, and it had sat like that for as long as I can remember. If this is YOU, let me know, I'll give you space to host your personal site.) I knew I needed more time to pick a professional host, so I opted to host the "Pre-launch" phase of the site on Google, with their "Applications for Domains."

The suite of products includes personalized Gmail, start page, calendar, IM, and webpages.

The email, start page and all were easy to set up & I've been very happy with them. I'll likely keep my email hosted with Gmail for quite some time.

Due to constraints of my registrar, however, and not exactly helpful help on the Google Group that I posed my questions to - I had quite a difficult time getting the website verified, and had an ugly web address for quite a while.

At first, I didn't mind having www.megmeyer.com-a.googlepages.com as my website name. I was still building the site, playing with page creator, and hadn't publicized it at all, except to a few close friends. But as I got ready to launch, and was able to point www.megmeyer.com to my Google hosted site, the issues started to show up. Page Creator still publishes to the longer, uglier name. Even though, my domain is verified as mine. And while we can access the site through either address, typing certain individual pages into the address bar produces 404 errors.

And since I've spent more time into researching what is out there, I've come upon my ideal solution. AN Hosting is where I'll likely move, for my web hosting. Their list of features, awards, and price are all ideal. With 25 gigs of space, 250, gigs of bandwith, I can host up to 20 sites and never reach the end of that amount. I also like that the servers are located in Chicago, IL.

I'll still utilize Google's other Apps, like gmail, calendar, docs, and Adsense, but I've outgrown them as a viable host for my businesses.

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