UX update released on host.it

Reading it like this seems like child's play, however, behind a website, in particular that of Host, there was the work of 8 people, including UX Designer, Front end/back end developer, content strategist, sales and tester who carried out all the functional tests before release into production.

A personal and sincere thank you goes to all my colleagues who made this release possible: Ilenia, Anthony, Alice, Giulia Gaia, Alessandro F., Alessandra, Fabio F., Paolo

What has changed with this new release of the site? The big problem we faced was the lack of clarity and visibility of our hosting profiles.

Strategically we thought we could lead the user to make an informed choice, through a configurator, that is, answering a series of questions to present him with the most correct profile.

However, we realised, after several weeks of user research, that users used the configurator but in a completely unexpected way: they performed more and more iterations with the sole purpose of discovering all the profiles.

This "inefficient" use and numerous feedback from frustrated users made us think that perhaps a more "traditional" approach was better.

We have therefore highlighted the 6 Host profiles, created a product page for each one, with individual technical data sheets and comparisons.

Shall we try to discover them together? I leave aside the description of the "Domain Only" profile, it already speaks for itself and I make a premise: all profiles include the registration or transfer of a domain from another provider to the Host.

ideal for: domain parking, landing or waiting page in html email: yes, 5 boxes included

in summary: perfect for parking a domain, publishing one or more pages in html and also having email inboxes

ideal for: blogs, institutional sites, up to 5,000 visits per month email: yes, 5 boxes included

in summary: it is a profile that can be activated exclusively by Partners, so if you are interested in this Hosting solution that we can define as "starting" and you also want to be followed by a professional, search for the nearest Partner on our map.

ideal for: blogs, institutional sites, up to 10,000 visits per month email: yes, 5 boxes included host business kit: application manager, performance manager

in summary: it is the profile dedicated to all companies that want to independently manage their website, have a direct relationship with Host and enjoy our fantastic customer service 365 days a year.

ideal for: websites for events, e-commerce, online booking, SEO projects, up to 10,000 visits per month email: yes, 5 boxes included host business kit: application manager, performance manager, speed test tool, security&reputation manager

in summary: more important resources (e.g. memory limit 196mb) allow you to manage more important projects. Integrated tools such as the Security & Reputation Manager guarantee peace of mind and a good night's sleep, in fact, every 24 hours the tool automatically performs an antivirus & antimalware scan, plus it checks that the site is not present in the web blacklists. Furthermore, SSH access allows for more "programmatic" management of the system, also thanks to commands such as wp-cli and git.

ideal for: websites for events, e-commerce, online booking, SEO projects, e-learning up to 15,000 visits per month email: yes, 5 boxes included host business kit: application manager, performance manager, speed test tool, security&reputation manager

in summary: perfect for already established e-commerce sites with up to 15,000 visits per month, the 256Mb memory limit allows you to activate most of the basic plugins.

ideal for: websites for events, e-commerce, online booking, SEO projects, e-learning up to 35,000 visits per month email: yes, 5 boxes included host business kit: application manager, performance manager, speed test tool, security&reputation manager

in summary: ideal profile for sites with high traffic potential, the springboard for planning to exceed 50,000 visits per month. The 512Mb memory limit allows you to manage even the most "complex" applications. There is nothing else to say, because this default profile inherits everything that the previous ones have, you simply manage more monthly visitors.

Visits? Why do you mention them so often? Have you ever asked your hosting provider how many monthly visits the chosen plan could handle?

Before writing this article I personally called 10 of the most well-known hosting providers in Italy and no one was able to give me a precise and transparent indication of what a visit is and how many I could manage with the plan they offered me.

At Host we have recently started to introduce the concept of visits and we are already realizing how important it is to communicate this data transparently towards our customers, but even more so, to measure it accurately.

What is a visit? Let's start by defining it. For us, a visit is a human (so we exclude all known bots) who visits the website uniquely within 24 hours.

With this first (still improvable) definition of visit we have inserted a number of guaranteed monthly visits on our profiles.

So? You will never hear us tell you that the profile is not suitable if you do not reach or exceed that number of visits. More than a limitation (because it isn't) it is a guarantee.

I will do an in-depth analysis on visits and scalability in one of the next posts, introducing some new features that we are completing in recent weeks.

In short, what are Host's differentiating elements compared to its competitors? Data Replication and Disaster Recovery No one is interested in these things, but everyone is interested in it when their website, or worse, their e-commerce remains down for hours, only then do they ask themselves: have I purchased the right hosting solution?

All our profiles are replicated in at least two data centers, at least 300km apart and completely independent.

A sophisticated and automated disaster recovery process allows us to get back online in the event of a major disaster, for example, the complete loss of a data center, in approximately 1 hour

Host Business Kit We have collected the innovations that save time in the Host Business Kit and they are:

it is a tool that measures the response times of each website we host every 60 minutes, we graph them and make them available to our customers. Included for free with all profiles

security&reputation manager

it is a tool that performs an accurate antivirus & malware scan every 24 hours and warns the customer in case of infection. Furthermore, check that the site is not in the main web blacklists (for example that of Google), by notifying immediately you can intervene to avoid losing important positionings.

is a tool that performs an analysis of the site's loading times, carefully analyzing all the loaded resources and giving important information and suggestions to optimize the site's performance and stay under the infamous "3 seconds"

TOP customer service 365 days a year with full technical and commercial support, operated by highly qualified internal staff, responds to our customers with high quality standards and times, only 15 minutes for the first response via email and a few telephone rings.

These that I have mentioned are the elements that I consider most important. In the next posts, we will go into a little more detail and I will introduce you to the new services we are about to release.

I refer you to the profile comparison page for more details