QUESTION

What are the advantages of hosting our website through 501tech?


ANSWER


There are many low-cost hosting options for your organization’s website (GoDaddy, TwoCows, Bluehost, 1&1 just to name a few) and cost used to be the primary factor in determining where your site should be hosted. But as the market share of WordPress based sites has grown to more than 60% (see chart below), these sites have become increasingly attractive targets for those who develop and distribute malware. These risks have led to the rapid growth of managed hosting solutions.




In addition to basic hosting, managed hosting solutions include a full range of protections against the risks of infection and downtime as part of the basic service. These protections include the following:

  • Built-in protection against malware (and free remediation if your site is ever infected)
  • 30 days nightly backup with manual checkpoints option (for site restoration if required)
  • Managed WordPress core updates (failure to apply core updates increases vulnerability)
  • Web servers which are optimized specifically for WordPress sites
  • No downtime as a result of exceeding resource caps (you will be notified before this occurred)
  • Free SSL certificates
  • Free site migration from other hosting providers

The site owner retains accountability for the following:

  • Maintenance of site design and content (either directly or through a third party)
  • Updates to site plug-ins (if used, which is common)
  • Update to WordPress themes (if used, which is common)


As of January, 2017, 501tech hosts 60 nonprofits sites with new sites being added at a rate of two per month. We subscribe to a custom hosting package offered by FlyWheel (https://getflywheel.com) on which we have negotiated a substantial nonprofit discount. Purchased individually, the monthly cost for a single site is $30 per month with caps on visits per month, disk utilization, and bandwidth. 501tech is able to make managed hosting services available on a fractionalized basis to Oklahoma nonprofits for $9 per month with essentially no caps.


If you are an Oklahoma based non-profit and have an interest in our hosting solution, please open a ticket (if you are a managed services agency) or email us at [email protected].