Hosting Companies
posted on May 10th, 2006
I currently have my sites set up with three different hosting companies:Â HostGator, Globat and ThirdSphere. At the moment they are all running fine. ThirdSphere has been the least trouble of any host I have EVER used in ~9 years. Globat I am still fairly new with (a couple of weeks) so it’s hard to say anything either way, but so far I am loving them. HostGator is great (price, features, etc) except for the downtime last month.
I suppose every host will have it’s problems. And I suppose there are going to be good things and bad things said about any hosting company out there. It makes it hard to choose a host, even harder to know which host to recommend to others - and there are a lot of choices these days.
I do go along with the little bumps and know not to expect “perfection” from any hosting company (or any company, for that matter). But where do you draw the line? When do you consider it necessary to move a site to a new host? Granted, that can be a pain. So just how much will we take before we get to that point?
The first time that I had a problem with HostGator was the very first week I had my account with them. My site went down, I used the live chat support feature, and was impressed with their quick response and that they got my site back online within 10 minutes. I perceived that as a ‘positive experience’.
Until the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and even 5th time. At that point it didnt matter to me that they responded quickly or that they were easy to reach. I was more frustrated that I even had to use their support that frequently in the first place.
Now every time I hear someone say “their support is great!” I think to myself “yeah, too bad you have to use it so often!”
I imagine to some extent I am spoiled as I have had so few (very minor) issues while hosting at ThirdSphere for the last couple of years. I almost forget they are there sometimes - no support issues, billing is automatic, it’s just all handled behind the scenes without any major glitches.
I do realize that ThirdSphere is not for everyone (at 24.95/mo) and so I set out to try out some cheaper hosts for myself so that I could recommend them as I get asked so often for a personal recommendation.
To be fair, my feelings about HostGator are based more on the timing than the actual downtime. I had only set up one site with them: ClickNewz.com (this one) and this happened to be the one URL listed on my business card. These are the cards I had with me at the PubCon event and so that site/email was their one and only way of reaching me after the event.
After a full week away, I sit down at my computer on Saturday morning to work and make contact with some folks… and my site/email was down. I have no idea how long it had been down at that point - but it was down for a full 3 hours that morning that I was aware of.
Why was it down? They told me that they were having to do a chassis switch on that server. Personally I would expect them to move the sites to a working server before taking one down for maintenance… but that’s just me. I was not happy.
The next incident - timely as well - happened to be at the exact time that my blog was featured in Joel Comm’s newsletter. It was down for most of that hour.
After the 3rd time, I asked them if this was a problematic server they had me on, or if all of their equipment was up and down all the time. If it was just that one box - could they move me? I got no decent response. I even emailed the person I was instructed to about my downtime, but never got an apology or a refund or any resolution at all.
Granted, HostGator seems to be on a good streak at the moment. But I’m still a tad bit upset… I guess you can tell 
I’ve had no problems at all with Globat, but like I said I have only had my hosting account with them for a couple of weeks. So far it’s been nothing but smooth sailing, and the people there are great to work with - very personable, knowledgeable, fast set-up, etc. I’m totally in love with it so far…
Of course, someone recently pointed to some complaints about Globat that I hadnt been aware of. It leaves me wondering:
Are there going to be problems with any web hosting company?
Are some complaints legitimate, while others are made by people who are not experienced with web hosting? Is any service going to get at least one bad mark by a sour whiner out there? Is there any real way to know where YOU should host your sites? Is it possible for a hosting company to improve, making it a good choice even if others experienced problems in the past?
These are the things running through my mind at the moment…
Tags: hosting, web hosts, hosting companies, hostgator, globat, thirdsphere
Did you like the post above? If so, please share it
with your friends using the services below.Thanks!
I feel your pain and often the move isn’t worth it. Everyone has their glitches and when you move, you just seem to get new glitches.
I was talking about shopping carts and payment processors with a friend just this morning. I’ve hopped around a little bit, but have come to realize that nobody’s perfect…and the effort to move systems like this just isn’t worth it.
But when it comes to moving a website to a new host, it usually isn’t very complicated. If you’re most happy with ThirdSphere, why don’t you move all your stuff to them? Or stick it out and maybe the HostGator problem was isolated.
That’s a thought, of course - but the whole reason for picking up a few other hosting accounts was to keep from “having all of my eggs in one basket” as they say. I already have a dozen or so sites on my one account at ThirdSphere.
I am actually considering a dedicated server for my own sites… but I do still need a good host to recommend to those starting out on my eBiz sites. I prefer to have personal experience with the hosts (and products) that I recommend, which is the reason I’ve set up a few small sites here and there.
Thanks for the input!
-Lynn
Lynn,
I’ve got multiple accounts with ResellerZoom, starting at $5.95. They seem pretty good, although I’ve not been with them for too many months.
Andy
Thanks Andy - I’ll keep that in mind
I’ve been very happy with Site5 for the past several months. The occasional small bit of downtime, but nothing significant.
I suppose downtime is a typical thing that we just have to put up with… agree, or no?
[...] At any rate, in yesterday’s post I was talking about Hosting Companies - and specifically about the recent issues with HostGator. As I mentioned, I am currently using 3 different hosting companies: HostGator, Globat and ThirdSphere. [...]
Hi Lynn!
The reason I mentioned WebHostingTalk.com on your forum is that it’s a great way to get an overall feel for a particular hosting company. Yeah … you’re gonna have the sour grapes type whiners on these types of forums but when you have a majority of the different users saying good things about something then it might well be worth the look.
Just another way to gauge things before you take a “drive”!
The problem is … There are a ton of “low budget” hosting services out there that have no clue what they are doing. Most of these are promising unrealistic amounts of disk space and bandwidth for an unrealistic price. THOSE are the ones that aren’t gonna last very long.
I agree … it’s tough to gauge.
Have Fun!
Rick Wilson aka CorpRebel
Thanks Rick! I’ve been checking it out - lots of information to go through over there
-Lynn
Oh shoots! I just switched over to HostGator. Yup, all 1GB worth of data. I’ve been with many web hosts as well. I was quite happy with my last one except for the fact that I was running out of my 1GB space and the next plan up was a lot more expensive.
So far I’ve been quite happy with HostGator. I guess with web hosts, you only really tell how good they are when something goes wrong. Or when we detect something. Otherwise, even if one has extensively more features than another, we wouldn’t see it as better.
I’ve realized though that good support is everything. It’s reassuring to know that something is being done. But 3 hours???
I just saw your other comment on the Hosting Issues Resolved post, Bina - so I’m glad you had a chance to read both.
You make a good point about Hosting Features, and I agree with you on that. Unless you use them, they dont have a lot to do with your perception of the service or the value.
The 3 hours was an extreme incident, obviously - due to major hardware issues. After talking with them in more detail, I’ve decided to keep my accounts with them and see how things go. As I mentioned above, things have been running very smooth lately and I was otherwise very pleased with their service.
I say if YOU are happy with your host, dont let individual reviews (including mine) change your perception. That would keep you host-hopping forever, as there are negative things posted about almost all of them somewhere.
And I tend to agree with Alice - there are going to be glitches with all of them. How they handle those glitches, and whether they continue happening, is what we should make note of.
-Lynn
[...] Normally, I would be stay cool and just contact support. But this time, because I had been following Lynn’s web hosting experience, I was more on the edgy side. My first reaction was, “OH NO! It’s happening to me. I just switched web host. This can’t be…” [...]