Hosting, explained properly
No jargon, no sales pitch. Straight answers to the questions small businesses actually ask us — written by the people who answer our support inbox.
Behind the scenes
Why We Chose KarnakPanel
Most hosts rent the same big-name control panel and pass the licence fee on to you. Here's why SwiftNest runs its own KarnakPanel installation instead, and what that changes for customers.
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Domains
.co.uk or .com?
Which domain ending should a UK small business pick, should you buy both, and what about .uk on its own? A plain-English answer with no upselling.
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WordPress
Why Is My WordPress Site Slow?
The things that slow most WordPress sites down, in the order we check them. Most of them are fixable in an afternoon, and very few need a more expensive hosting plan.
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Backups
Website Backups Explained
Your hosting includes backups, so you're covered, right? Partly. Here's what a host's backups are for, what they aren't, and the simple routine that means you never lose your website.
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Email
Business Email on Your Own Domain
Why hello@yourbusiness.co.uk is worth having, the difference between a mailbox, an alias and a forwarder, and how to get it on your phone without the usual headaches.
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Support
When Your Website Goes Down
Your site won't load and customers are ringing. A calm, step-by-step list of what to check in the first ten minutes, the most common causes, and what to tell your host.
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Migration
How Long Does a Migration Take?
A realistic answer, from 30 minutes for a simple brochure site to several days for a large e-commerce store — plus what you can do to make it painless.
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WordPress
Managed WordPress vs Cheap Hosting
Honest comparison of managed WordPress against a £3.99 shared plan — what you actually get, what you still have to do yourself, and when each one makes sense.
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Email
Why Is My Email Going to Spam?
Mail vanishing into junk, customers saying they never got your reply, and replies arriving from nowhere. The three DNS records that fix most of it.
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Pricing
How Much Does a Website Cost?
An honest breakdown of what UK small business websites actually cost in 2026 — DIY, template, freelancer and agency — and where the money really goes.
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Marketing
Do I Need a Website With Instagram?
An honest answer. Instagram is genuinely fine for some businesses and genuinely not enough for others — here's how to tell which you are.
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Performance
UK Data Centres: Does Location Matter?
Does server location actually affect your website speed? Honestly, when it matters, when it doesn't, and why UK hosting matters more for trust than for milliseconds.
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Security
Free SSL Certificates Explained
What an SSL certificate actually does, why the padlock stopped meaning much, whether your site genuinely needs one, and where the free option falls short.
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Hosting
Shared Hosting or VPS: Which One?
An honest look at when shared hosting is genuinely enough, when you need a VPS, and why the jump in price is usually not worth it for most small businesses.
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Hosting
How to Choose a Web Host
The ten questions that actually separate hosting providers, what to ignore in the marketing, and the warning signs worth walking away from.
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Building
WordPress or a Drag-and-Drop Builder?
An honest comparison including the case for each, and why the best answer for most small businesses is to start simple and migrate later.
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