About Laughing Squid

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What is Laughing Squid Web Hosting? #

Founded in 1998, Laughing Squid Web Hosting is an independently owned and operated web host that provides dependable hosting services to to a diverse group of customer from around the world, specializing in hosting for individuals, artists and bloggers. Our focus is on great customer support, reliability, security and plenty of functionality for the price. We are open source geeks who are here to rescue you from the endless void of impersonal and unreliable web hosting.

When you host your website with us, you help to support the art, culture & technology side of Laughing Squid.

Web Host Industry Review did an interview with Scott Beale about Laughing Squid Web Hosting in their March 2009 issue.

For more info on what Laughing Squid is all about, check out our blog post “What Is Laughing Squid?”
Who is Laughing Squid Web Hosting? #

Laughing Squid Web Hosting is the offspring of Laughing Squid, founded by primary tentacle Scott Beale, who heads up our web hosting operations with a talented team of tentacles consisting of Jason Laskodi (operations manager), Frank Escamilla (sys admin & support) and Rebecca Mosher Webster (billing manager). Rounding out the crew are special projects coordinator John Law and evangelist-at-large David Klass.
Where is Laughing Squid Web Hosting located? #

Laughing Squid Web Hosting was started in San Francisco in 1998. Laughing Squid operates as a virtual company with offices San Francisco, New York City and Portland.
How do you promote your services? #

Most likely you are here because someone told you about Laughing Squid, you saw one of our “Powered by” buttons on a website or maybe you found us through an internet search. We grow mostly by word-of-mouth and do very little advertising and when we do it is typically in the form of a sponsorship of an art event or an ad in an independent magazine/website or an event sponsorship. We feel that this grassroots approach is the best way for us to grow the right way and serve our customers properly. In fact most of our customers seek us out and choose to use our services because of our reputation in the community as an experienced, personable, reliable and secure web host. Unlike many web hosts out there, we do not spend thousands of dollars on advertising or lower our pricing to an unrealistic level just to host as many domains as possible, with the goal of selling-off our company to some megahost.
Why did Laughing Squid start a web hosting company? #

Back in 1997, we started a web design company, building websites for artists and others as a way to support the community-based side of Laughing Squid. As new websites were created, it was necessary to find hosting for them. At first we rented shared server space from some of the internet’s largest web hosting companies. This was a very frustrating and unpleasant experience. The servers were always going down, their network connections were continually failing, and on top of that, the customer support was miserable to say the least. After moving our entire operation four times in 1998, we decided to setup our own servers and start a web hosting company. We knew that other people must be having similar episodes of horrific hosting, and they had to be growing tired of dealing with those faceless corporations. So here we are.
What types of websites do you host? #

Our focus is primarily on hosting for small, content-driven websites. Many of our customers are bloggers, artists, writers, musicians, bands, filmmakers and other creative individuals. We also host a few non-profits and small organizations, but we do not host any large-scale, resource-intensive websites. For this reason we tend to turn away high-bandwidth websites, overly complex websites running a large number of scripts, and so on. This helps to maintain optimum performance and uptime.

Here’s what some of our customers have said about our cloud hosting service.
I really want a website but I don’t know much about the Internet. Can you help me develop a website? #

Laughing Squid provides web hosting only, we do not offer any kind of web design or development company sevices. That being said, building a website these days is far from rocket surgery, and anyone with basic computer skills and a little patience can do it. For instance, it’s now possible to install a weblog script like WordPress in just a few minutes.
Give me one good reason why I should move my website to Laughing Squid. #

Okay, here’s three:
1. Service
  
  You may have forgotten what it’s like, but Laughing Squid tech support is staffed by live, helpful humans who actually know what they’re doing. No half-smart interactive mail-jails, no half-trained (and half-paid) offshore temps, just the responsive service you need.
2. Value
  
  There may be cheaper web hosts out there, but we humbly submit that our service offering is one of the best values on the market. Our hosting plan offers great features and reliable service at a fair price.
3. Community
  
  By hosting your site with Laughing Squid, you contribute to the wider efforts of Laughing Squid, and help fuel our ongoing support for independent art and culture. As a Laughing Squid customer, you become part of a creative community unlike any other.