The vast majority of websites in our survey turned out to be professionally hosted elsewhere. Not a big surprise given the relatively low cost of hosting and the wide variety of companies offering the service. We were interested though, to see how externally hosted sites compared with in-house solutions and 'piggy-backed' sites - those sites that reside on an umbrella group's other organization's site. While our pool of respondents was too small to generate statistically reliable numbers, we offer our findings in the coming pages...
Most sites report being happy or very happy with their hosting. However, the highest levels of satisfaction come from in-house hosted solutions.
These figures exclude the respondents who did not know how their hosting was set up.
CAUTION: the sample sizes for in-house hosting (9) and piggy-backed sites (6) are small and should be viewed with discretion
While the satisfaction levels are still good overall, it is clear that the people responsible for hosting non-profits' websites have more work to do in the area of responsiveness. It seems to make sense that organizations with in-house solutions report the highest level of responsiveness - after all, they are co-workers and not contracted help.
The trend of in-house hosted sites outperforming other options continues...though the percentage of 'very good' or 'excellent' scores is impressive.
These figures exclude the respondents who did not know how their hosting was set up.
CAUTION: the sample sizes for in-house hosting (9) and piggy-backed sites (6) are small and should be viewed with discretion
Since most piggy-backed sites are hosted for free, it's no surprise that they had the highest levels of satisfaction for cost-effectiveness. In-house solutions, even with larger start-up costs, outperform professionally hosted sites when it comes to overall cost effectiveness.
Very, very few organizations give poor marks to the overall value of their hosting solution. Yet it's clear that in-house solutions seem to provide the most value, even though there are costs involved. The comparatively lower 'excellent' ratings for piggy-backed sites seems to support the old saying, 'You get what you pay for'.
These figures exclude the respondents who did not know how their hosting was set up.
CAUTION: the sample sizes for in-house hosting (9) and piggy-backed sites (6) are small and should be viewed with discretion