About AldoMedia, a Buffalo Web Company

Who we are a good fit for

This is built around one kind of customer: a small business that wants the technical side handled by somebody reachable, and does not want to become an expert in it.

• Businesses starting from nothing, who need the domain, the hosting and the email set up in the right order and pointed at each other correctly.
• Businesses inheriting a mess, where the domain sits in a former designer's name and renewal notices go to a mailbox nobody reads.
• Businesses consolidating, with the domain at one company, hosting at another and email somewhere else, on three unrelated renewal dates.
• Trades, professional practices and local service businesses that need it to work and keep working rather than to be interesting.
• Other web designers who want a sensible place to put client domains and hosting.

Who we are not a good fit for

Worth saying plainly, because finding this out after you have moved everything is expensive for both of us.

• Anyone chasing the absolute cheapest possible price. There is always a provider a little cheaper, and it is usually cheaper because there is nobody to call. If price is the only criterion, buy on price and skip us.
• Anyone who needs a guaranteed 24-hour enterprise support desk. This is a working web company. Urgent problems get attention quickly during business hours, and the platforms behind the products run their own support behind us, but if a contractual overnight response is a requirement then buy from a provider that sells one.
• Anyone who wants root on their own hardware. If you are running your own stack and want a bare server to administer yourself, a specialist infrastructure provider will serve you better than a reseller.

Moving from another provider

Most people who arrive here already have something running somewhere, so moving is the real question. It is routine work, but it is not a single button, and the order matters more than the speed.

• Inventory first. Which company holds the domain, which one holds the hosting, and where the mail is. These are often three different answers and one forgotten login.
• The domain transfer is the slow part. It needs the name to be more than 60 days old, unlocked, and an authorisation code from the current registrar. Nothing goes offline while it runs.
• Email is the risky part. Existing mail has to be copied before the DNS changes, not after. This is the step where people lose things, and the step most worth asking for help with.
• DNS changes last. Copy the site, confirm it works, then point the name at it. Never change hosts and transfer the domain in the same hour.
• Keep the old account alive for a short while. Cancelling it the same day is how a forgotten mailbox or a missing image gets discovered too late.

The guide to domain names covers the transfer mechanics in full, including what an authorisation code is.

What we talk people out of

These are the recurring ones. Every item here has cost somebody real money.

• Buying a bigger hosting plan for the storage number. Storage is almost never what makes a small business site slow. Buying more of it does not fix a slow site.
• Paying twice for the same thing. Before you add a certificate, a backup service or a security product, ask whether the plan already covers it.
• Leaving the domain in someone else's name. If a former designer is the legal registrant, the name is theirs. Fixing that after a relationship has soured is far harder than getting it right at registration.
• Skipping domain privacy and then wondering about the calls. Your details in the public record get scraped continuously. What domain privacy hides explains what it does and does not cover.