Your questions are answered below on how to operate the software. While we try to provide some support for the software, we are unable to guarantee that all support questions will be answered.

However, if you donate over $25 you will be given priority support. Simply forward your PayPal receipt with your question to support@hostevaluator.com.

Need to know more? Our most common general questions about Host Evaluator are answered here.

Questions

Getting Started

What does this software do? Do I need to be online for this software to work? How should I use this software?

Adding or Modifying a Web Host

How do I add a web host? How do I modify a web host? How do I delete a web host?

Graphing the Web Hosts

How do I graph a web host? How does the graph work? How do I interpret the graph?

Testing a Host

Important Information How do I test a host? What does the host get tested on? How important is Ping Time? What factors influence ping time? How do I change the frequency of testing? Why does the Host Evaluator report my website as being down, when I can access it with my browser? Should I ask permission to test a website before testing it?

Comparison Report

What is the comparison report? How do I generate a comparison report? How does the software find the results? What is the individual scoring?

Extra Features

How do I use the software to alert me if my webhost is down? Changing options What is the guilt meter and how do I remove it?

Answers

Getting Started What does this software do? Your website host is your lifeline and link to your prospective customers, and website visitors. Where you host your website is an important decision, and should be carefully considered. Many people use the pricing of a website host as the main characteristic to base their decision on. Really there are lots of areas you should use to determine if a website host is suitable or not for you, and price should only play a very small part of your final decision. This software is designed to help you evaluate and compare potential website hosting companies before you decide to host with them. Without the host evaluator software, this process can be pretty hit and miss. However when you use the Host Evaluator software, you can make more informed and objective decisions. You can analyse and compare hosts over the most important attributes and hopefully make a more informed, and superior decision. [Back to top] Do I need to be online for this software to work? No you don’t need to be online to use some aspects of this software. However you do need to be online to use the testing and alert features of the software. When using these features you must ensure that you do not lose your internet connection while testing otherwise the software will report that the host is down. [Back to top] How should I use this software? This software is just a tool. Just like any tool, it should only be a helper not as the only method for making your decision. You will need to use your own judgement to make your final choice. We cannot and will not be held responsible for your final choices and the impact that they have. Remember: THIS IS ONLY A TOOL TO HELP YOU MAKE YOUR DECISION, NOT A TOOL TO MAKE THE DECISION FOR YOU. [Back to top]

Adding or Modifying a Web Host How do I add a web host? Adding a website host is very simple and straightforward. All you need to do is to click on the “ADD” button on the left hand side of the toolbar. This will open the "Add Host Assistant" wizard for you. All you need to do is simply fill in the boxes as described. Some things to note: 1) Step 2. – You should try and find out from the prospective web host a test URL or IP that you should use to test their services. This will give you a more accurate indication of the quality of the hosting the company offers. Most times, website hosts will not host their company website on the same server as their clients. This allows them to still be able to communicate with customers even if the customer server is down. If worst comes to worst, you can always just test their company website. Always make sure that you have the permission of the URL you are testing before you test them. The testing load is virtually non-existent, however it is always more courteous for you to ask for permission first. 2) Step 5 – The comparison for the support details is only based on the score out of 10 you give them. The other fields are just used to help you think about the different characteristics that make up good support. 3) Step 7 – Again, the comparison only uses the score out of 10 that you give them. The check boxes are just used as a guide to help you think about the different features that might be offered. [Back to top] How do I modify a web host? Modifying a web host is very simple. Simply highlight a host in the host list window, and then click on the “EDIT” button. You can also simply double click on the host you want to modify in the host list window. [Back to top] How do I delete a web host? Deleting a web host is very simple. Simply highlight the web host in the web host list window, and then click on the “DELETE” button. This will delete all records. [Back to top]

Graphing the Web Hosts How do I graph a web host? You can graph a website by simply highlighting the web host in the hosting list, and then press on the “GRAPH” button in the toolbar. You must have been testing the host for at least 12 cycles. If you leave the testing time as the default of every 5 minutes, this will mean that you will need an hours worth of testing before a graph will be able to be generated. [Back to top] How does the graph work? The graph simply plots the ping times and builds the graph with the more tests it performs. It then gives an average in the box on the right hand side. [Back to top] How do I interpret the graph? The graph is based on the ping times reported by the software. When you test for a long period of time, you will notice fluctuations, sometimes based on the time of the day. A good web host will have a graph that doesn’t fluctuate too much, and should have quite low ping times. You should read the FAQ on Testing a host to understand the limitations of this type of testing. [Back to top]

Testing a Host Important Information You need to be connected to the Internet at all times while the testing is being performed. The software will detect if an Internet connection is not present initially, however if you disconnect while a test is being performed, the test will report the servers being tested as down. So always stop all tests before you disconnect your Internet connection, otherwise your tests will return false “Host Down” reports, and negatively affect the uptime reading of the host. [Back to top] How do I test a host? You test a host by highlighting the host in the host list window and then pressing the “START” button on the tool bar. You can run many tests at once, as the software is designed not to have two hosts testing at exactly the same time. You can stop a website host from being tested by simply highlighting the website host in the host list window, and then clicking the “STOP” button on the toolbar. [Back to top] What does the host get tested on? Ping time: The host gets tested on an attribute called ping time. Like in a submarine, the software sends a “ping” to the webhost. The webhost will then send one back and you can assess how fast the host returned the ping. This helps you check not only if the server is up, but how fast the host is able to make a connection. Uptime: The software checks to see if the host web server is up. The reason it does this is because a host can sometimes (for example when apache crashes) still ping ok, but is inaccessible via a web browser. So the software makes the HTTP tests to help determine uptime more accurately. [Back to top] How important is Ping Time? Ping time isn’t really a big deal. As long as the ping times are within the same ballpark (as other hosts), you can consider that the host passes the ping test. It really is only an indicator of a bad web host, rather than necessarily a really good one. You should be looking out for ping times with large variations, or many big spikes in the graph. [Back to top] What factors influence ping time? Ping time is can be influenced by many things. As has been outlined, slow ping time may not necessarily be a good indicator of a very good host, mostly an indicator of a bad host. You should look for steady ping graphs, with few spikes. A low average is important, but not necessarily a good indicator. Ping times may be influenced by many things that may not have anything to do with how good or bad your prospective host is. For example: 1) Your own connection speed to the Internet. 2) Your physical location compared to the server you are testing 3) Activities you do while the testing is happening. For example if you are downloading a large file, this may negatively affect the ping test. [Back to top] How do I change the frequency of testing? You can change how often the test is performed in the options menu item. You can test anywhere between 1-60 minutes. [Back to top] Why does the Host Evaluator report my website as being down, when I can access it with my browser? This happens when the server you are testing blocks ping packets. The software will think that the server is down because no ping will be returned. You will need to change test servers in this case. [Back to top] Should I ask permission to test a website before testing it? Yes, we certainly recommend it. [Back to top]

Comparison Report What is the comparison report? The comparison report is a HTML report that is generated by the software that allows you compare both the results of the host testing, as well as the characteristics you entered in the “Add Host Assistant” wizard. This will help you determine to some objective degree which is the best host for your needs. [Back to top] How do I generate a comparison report? Generating a report is a simple four-step process: Step One – Ensure that you have added all the hosts you want to compare using the “Add Host Assistant” wizard. Step Two – Choose which hosts you want to include in the comparison by checking the check boxes beside each of the hosts in the main list area. Then click on the “REPORT” button in the toolbar. (You will need to choose more than one host to generate a report). Step Three – A box will appear that will allow you to weight your characteristics according to your needs. This allows you to go through each of the characteristics of the webhost, and change the importance of these. This will change how much these will count in the final report. For example, space might be really important to you, however bandwidth not be important at all. So in this case, you would perhaps weight space as 10 and bandwidth as 3. Step Four -Click on the ok button and a comparison report will be generated. [Back to top] How does the software find the results? The evaluation report is the crux of the software. It is fairly simple in principle, however is a little difficult to explain. The evaluation report is generated when the checkboxes are checked beside the listing for the web host in the main window, and the “Generate Evaluation Report” button is pressed. The evaluation displays the results of the information found in the add web host assistant and the performance testing. When a user selects the hosts and then presses the “Generate evaluation report” a table is generated based on a special scoring process. The scores are generated by either the numerical value of the attribute or the score given to the attribute. These have been outlined in the “add web host” section. The process goes like this. Each web host has a score that is based on the following attributes Storage Space Bandwidth 12-Month Cost Email Support Redundancy Features It also has a performance score based on the actual testing of the hosts. This is the uptime percentage as well as the ping average. So the total attributes are: Storage Space Bandwidth 12-Month Cost Email Support Redundancy Features Connection Speed Uptime So each web host will have these characteristics. Now the evaluation report compares each of the web hosts against each other. The host with the highest score for a given characteristic is given the maximum score, the next highest is given one score lower etc. So for example, lets say that 8 hosts are compared for testing. A host with the most web space offered, will be given a score of 8, the next highest a score of 7, the next highest a score of 6 etc. Then bandwidth will be compared. The host with the highest level of bandwidth will be given a score of 8, the next highest a score of 7 etc. All characteristics will have this scoring procedure assigned. The uptime performance measures (the uptime measures that have been found with testing) will have the same done to it, however once a score is found, it will be multiplied by two. This is because this is a more important measure. Ping time is not doubled. When the generate host button is pressed, it will bring up a box first. This will allow the user to assign a value (between 1 – 10) to each attribute that will indicate how important that is for them. This will allow us to weight the scoring. For example, they might think that web space is much more important than bandwidth so they might give web space a value of 10 and bandwidth a value of 3. Once they have all been assigned a new score is found. Then, each assigned attribute score (as assigned in the comparison above) is multiplied by the weighting score. This will generate a new score that can be added up to give a final hosting overall score for that comparison. A table is then generated with the hosts ranked according to their overall score. The actual values are shown in a table. [Back to top] What is the individual scoring? Storage Space - Just compares raw space between hosts. More is better. Bandwidth - Just compares raw transfer amount between hosts. More is better. 12-Month Cost - Compares total cost. Less is better. Email - Compares characteristics, and then adds up the points for a comparison score. More is better. Email Accounts (1 point per email account up to twenty - then max at 20 points. This means that if the host offers unlimited email accounts for example, they will still only be allocated 20 points.) Forwarding Accounts (5 points if the say yes.) Autoresponders (5 points if the say yes.) Web Based Email (5 points if the say yes.) Mailing Lists (5 points if the say yes.) Support - Essentially, the only score that is used here is the rating by the user. The listed items are just used to help you think about the score you are giving. Higher is better. Redundancy - Redundancy looks at the different measures the host has taken to make the host redundant (reliable). The difference measures are weighted to give a final score. The scoring is below. Higher score is better. Backups - Daily (15) - Weekly (10) - Monthly (5) - None (0) UPS Power backup (5) Diesel Backup Generator (5) 24/7 Network Monitoring (5) Backup Mail Server (15) Fail Over Server (15) Uptime Guarantee (15) Features - This is just the score given to the features of the host. The list is just there to help guide you. Your ranking is the only score used in the analysis. Higher is better. Connection Speed - This is simply used to compare across hosts using the average ping time. Lower is better. Uptime - This compares the uptime percentage across web hosts. Higher is better. [Back to top]

Extra Features How do I use the software to alert me if my webhost is down? You can just go to the options menu, and put the settings your require for the alerts. It can either be as a system alert message (pop-up box) or you can set it to send you an email. You will need to be connected to the Internet and put in the correct mail settings for the mail function to work. [Back to top] Changing options You can change the options to set up your alerts, as well as change the frequency of testing. You can test from either every 1 minute to every 60 minutes. [Back to top] What is the guilt meter and how do I remove it? The guilt meter is just a reminder to you that you haven't yet donated to the Host Evaluator effort. It doesn't disable anything even when it becomes full. It just gives you a message at 20 hours of use. You can remove it by donating where you will get a key for removal. [Back to top]