OK I've had enough!!

I have stuck by my host for over a year, believing them when the tell me "it's the datacenter" or "someone's attacking the server" or some other happy horse****.

I'm tired of my sites going down when I need them up, when I'm in the middle of a transaction, or working on a custom design, or whatever.

I need a good RELIABLE host. I have 2 sites, both have a vB forum on them. I would like to have both on one account, but not have to have a reseller's account again to do so.

I'm seriously thinking VPS after the first of the year.

Opinions? suggestions?

Peggy,
I will PM you on this one.

--Black Scorpion

peggy, remember when danny boy had issues...maybe he has a good referral now since he went through it...

i am with bluehost...they are ok.

I clicked on the bluehost ad on the left here... like their package

Peggy,
Check out Dreamhost.com for the time being.
I will stay with them until.......

Hey PEGGY - MochaHost has ALWAYS resolved every single issue that I've ever had with my sites! Their support IMHO is AWESOMENESS personified. 99% uptime - the 1% downtime is when they're making the nightly automated database backups

They're also relatively inexpensive for the service that they provide.

If you wait a day or so ((I just signed up for their affiliate program)) I will provide my affiliate link... But until then - If you want have a look at their hosting packages.

I can guarentee that you'll be extremely satisfied: http://mochahost.com

Jacquii.

Peggy, I wholeheartedly recommend ServInt. (http://www.servint.net) Last month, I downgraded to their lowest package an am running 2 vB forums, one wiki, and a few static sites with no problems at all. Support is excellent! When I installed combull and couldn't get it to run because I didn't have ioncube installed support installed it for me in less than 5 minutes. Support normally answers me before I get a chance to investigate the problem further. I know their a bit pricey compared to others but it's worth it in my opinion. :)

A note on DreamHost: Peg if you followed my DreamHost thread on WTF you know that I just started a new account. I canceled my first two due to downtime. Since I started the new account, I haven't had any problems but I wouldn't recommend trying to run a vB forum there. My blog loads slow as it is this because they pile all the databases on to separate servers to lessen the load on the file servers. The problem for database driven sites is that the database servers are overloaded thus resulting in slow database connections and a slow website.

I know, believe me ODJT was first hosted on DreamHost from there I hopped around. I've burnt through 5 or 6 hosts and ServInt is the only one who has kept me happy, in fact I think I've stayed with them the longest. ;) Shared hosts are going to drop you once your sites start getting a lot of traffic and put stress on their server. I'm surprised HostWW lets you run two vB's on the same account.

eh Hostww lets me get away with alot that other hosts wouldn't, but I've done alot for Phil too. I've had enough tho. It's not worth it to me anymore, now that I'm actually making some nice $ from both sites, I need UPtime, not excuses. I think that a year is enough time for them to prove themselves and they failed.

No I'm not going to Dreamhost.. I remember your nightmare there.

Hi Jacquii!!! *waves* I'll check yours out too, hun.

Thanks everyone!

peggy, i was thinking about your hosting issue some more last night, and i wouldn't go with bluehost...i was having ALOT f problems with them...they were having major issues and when i would try to call or log into my cpanel, their whole site would be down...i mean for like an hour at a time...not a good thing if their own site is down. so i would call tech and be on hold for 45 mins before anyone would come on...and even when they did, by then the server was usually back on...this was during peak business hours and was happening about once a week...when i called they said i had too much traffic and tried to upsell me BUT when my server would go down i had like 4 members on.

then i was having problems with not getting emails on time. they would get stuck somewhere and i would get them the next day. this was not acceptable to me.

also, their customer support is not great...i spoke to one person who was a supervisor and he was very helpful but the other 10 people i have talked to did not seem to know much and i felt like they had little experience.

they recently upgraded their servers so supposedly these issues wont happen again, but i am waiting to see if this is true. i am still keeping my eyes open for a better solution but am hoping bluehost gets better because the thought of changing hosting is so scary to me. :(

Thanks for the advice Tammy. Geeze, my host sounds almost angelic compared to that.
VPS is sounding better all the time.......

I have heard nothing but good things about bluehost --

Some people like them some don't. Odd... Tammy's been having alot of trouble with them

I have heard nothing but good things about bluehost --

i am pretty easy going and laid back about issues but even my husband pointed out how much downtime i had...i run a pretty small forum so there should not be problems with too much traffic. also, the email issue kind of baffles me. i went on their forum for support because i could not get through to tech and alot of other people were having the same issues i had.

they even sent out a company wide email apologizing for the problems they were having and they were working on fixing them.

this is one of the emails they sent out late nov AFTER i complained about issues that they told me were not happening...uhh, ok...was i imaging the problems?...i don't think so!...i was calling them once, maybe twice a week. i know no host is perfect, i just wish they acknowledged there was a problem that they were fixing rather than making me feel like my problems did not exist.

ps. it was matt who i thought was supervisor and he is very helpful but the others on phone support and NOT helpful at all....i got a lot of "i don't knows"

Dear Bluehost.com Customer,

I am writing today to give you some important information
regarding your Bluehost.com account. As many of you know
Bluehost.com uses Cpanel, a third party product, as our control
panel to allow customers to manage their sites. While this is
normally a good thing, it also takes much of the control away
from us and sometimes forces us to live with deficiencies that
we would normally not tolerate. Lately Cpanel has become so slow
and cumbersome that despite buying some of the highest end hardware
available some sites are sluggish at best and extremely slow at
worst. This was never acceptable to us and we tried to work with
Cpanel to resolve our issues, but it is clear to us that our issues
will never be at their forefront. So what do we do?

Yesterday was my breaking point. A customer called in to complain
of a slow site. I checked it myself and the server load showed it
was running fine. Clearly it wasn't, and I wanted to know what was
causing his issues. To make a long story short Cpanel was hitting
every server's hard drive array close to 50,000 times per day more
often than it needed to (Based on my rough calculations). Our
server monitoring was not doing its job and our customers bore the
brunt of these issues. There wasn't an easy fix and our servers
were all grinding to a halt. We had to implement a custom fix and
it had to done immediately. The main issue causing these problems
was mail related. About 70% of all users had to have their mail
moved to a new system and converted to a new storage method. I
made the difficult decision to execute these fixes immediately
without notifying all our customers first because of a couple of
reasons. First, to mail all our users with our current system takes
approximately 18 hours (We could do faster, but then many emails
would be denied by large ISPs because too many emails come form a
single source too quickly), and second because it was causing such
a severe problem with all our servers that it simply couldn't be
delayed. It was causing so many sites to run poorly that we acted
as fast and effeciently as we could.

This made many users email temporarily unavailable. No emails should
have been lost in the transition. It simply wouldn't allow you to
log in while mail was transitioned from one platform to another.
Again, we greatly regret having to do this without prior notification,
but the benefits were exactly what we hoped for.

While all server issues aren't immediately resolved, the VAST majority
of problems we were seeing on all servers are virtually gone. You
should now see a SUBSTANTIAL improvement in almost all areas of your
site including mail issues, script execution time, and overall
responsiveness of your hosting experience.

Next week we will provide a link to a user monitoring service that will
allow you to monitor your server (From our perspective) to see basically
what we see, and know if issues you are experiencing originate on our
end or if some other factor is involved. We have more speed improvements
being worked on aggressively right now and in the near future those
details will be made available as well.

I know this email is lengthy, and I congratulate those that made it this
far :) I just wanted you to know that I care about what happens to
your sites, and not just because you pay me to care. I don't get to
be as technically involved as I used to be because of trying to run the
company, but I realize now that a change is needed. I may not be the
best admin out there, but I care the most and will always be your advocate
to making your hosting experience better.

All users (All 210,00 of you) can ALWAYS email me directly at -
matt@bluehost.com

Thanks for your support,
Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com

One site you can check out for the good and the bad in hosts is WebHostingTalk at www.webhostingtalk.com. You can ask about and others can steer you in the right direction.

I know about bad hosts. I just moved my sites to a new host recently.

I also recommend ServInt and The Planet - my sites are running off of a dedicated server with The Planet and have been for the last 2 or so years, nothing but good to say about them.



-Michael

Thanks everyone.

Michael I've heard nothing but good stuff from everyone who has a VPS with ServInt. One of our mods here, Danny, has an account with them.

I'm really leaning towards a VPS with ServInt, but even tho my sites, and income from them, are growing very well, I'm still not at a place where I can dish out $50 per month without hesitation.

A couple more months perhaps.

KimmiKat, I enjoy WebHostingTalk forums. Been checking things out there, some very good info to be found. Thanks

The Best Web Hosting On The Internet ---> CLICK HERE (http://www.mochasupport.com/aff/idevaffiliate.php?id=191)
http://www.mochasupport.com/aff/banners/234x60gray2.gif (http://www.mochasupport.com/aff/idevaffiliate.php?id=191)

Jacquii.

I actually recommend Servage.net (http://www.servage.net/?coupon=cust30028). They seem way too good to be true but its been 3 months already and they havent let me down. Pretty good hosting site and affordable.

PoorMSjac just posting the best host on the internet really doesn't tell allot. You might give a reason why they are the best host on the internet. Why they are so good or bad? How long have you used them? Any downtime?

Also nice affiliate link. :p

...Also nice affiliate link. :p

Mac, you've answered your own questions - that affiliate link is why it's the best web hosting, or at least to him.



-Michael

+1 mac

maybe check out hostgator peggy, Steve uses it for a few sites, and we haven't had a issue

I'll second host gator.. They are decent :) I only canceled my account with them because I found it cheaper elsewhere.

I have wondered about host gator. I might have to look into them more. I think Peggy and I have discussed them to. Thanks for the info about them guys.

Actually, I read a thread on vbulletin.org and there was alot of complaints about hostgator. Also, I know a site who had trouble with them. I think some said they were good but the support is lacking.

how can any shared host offer 100 gb of space and 1,000 gb of bandwidth??

LoL. For the baby package on hostgator? I do not know. Surprisingly though, it lets you have alot of other features as well than you would get on a package with higher GB and bandwidth.

yeah but i mean, that's more space and b/w than you get with most decent VPS accounts

True. Like I said though, Ive heard that the support is lacking. So unless you can run your site and hope that no problems will occur hostwise, then its a good offer. Myself, I stick with servage...the only catch is that you have to pay up front. Like for 3 or 6 months advance. 6 months is the better catch, also their site CP is really simple and easy to use. I want to mention one thing, when you goto buy...if you do, be sure to change your country to teh USA. I found that its cheaper that way. ^_^

EDIT: Whoa, I never saw my post show up so I made another and now I think they both are gonna show. Sorry. T_T Ill delete it. UNless of course the posts are moderated then nevermind...

Meh, thats true. Maybe they suck you in with that...I dont know. Although like I said...I heard the support is lacking so if you know what you are doing and can assure you wont get any errors concerning them, then you should go for it. Meh, I stick with servage (http://www.servage.net/?coupon=cust30028). They havent let me down yet and their site CP is really easy to use. There is a catch however, you have to pay like 3 or 6 months in advance, 6 months being the better deal of course. You can lessen the price really by changing your country if you go buy to USA. Hope you take a look...they really seem too good to be true and so far they are proving their worth.

Yes it was auto-moderated, it was merged and it is visible now.

Mac, you've answered your own questions - that affiliate link is why it's the best web hosting, or at least to him.
-Michael

Actually it's her AND you don't know me well enough to make such a generic generalization ;)

===========

PoorMSjac just posting the best host on the internet really doesn't tell allot. You might give a reason why they are the best host on the internet. Why they are so good or bad? How long have you used them? Any downtime?

Also nice affiliate link. :p

HO-K ----->
1. MochaHost advertises/offers 99.9% downtime.
I've been with them for 6 months and the only time the site has been down (other than when I borked something up) is when MochaHost does they're nightly database backups.

2. When I have managed to bork things up - MochaHost has provided the best service imaginable to make sure my site is up with as little downtime as possible. I fill out a Service Ticket and within 30 minutes I've received at least an automatic answer, if not personal email. PLUS they offer service via phone as well. I would grade the service a 9.9 or 10 ===> I can't say enough about how pleasantly surprised I was to learn that about MochaHost Support Service. They even answered my NEWB questions, as I was totally new to being a Webmaster (Webmistress for those with respect)

3. My site has always loaded very quickly, with the exception of the .01% downtime ;)

4. They are really inexpensive. Trust me - I shopped around bigtime before finally settling on MochaHost - Best Webmistress decision I've made thus far (with the exception of choosing vBulletin of course ;) )

Anyway - that's really all I can think of to say about MochaHost right now - And ABSOLUTELY - If you like what you've read - SURE - use the affiliate link - Perhaps it'll be the return of good favor, as I can guarentee if you receive 80% of the hospitality and lovely service I have gotten from MochaHost - You will be extremely happy!

Otherwise use they're regular link --- widely available blablablablablabla (for those of you who think you know me :P ) --- http://mochahost.com

Jacquii.

The Best Web Hosting On The Internet:
My story & I'm stickin' to it LOL
CLICK HERE (http://www.mochasupport.com/aff/idevaffiliate.php?id=191)
http://www.mochasupport.com/aff/banners/234x60gray2.gif (http://www.mochasupport.com/aff/idevaffiliate.php?id=191)

Oh they were just teasing about the affiliate link jacquii, lol.
But thank you for taking the time to tell me what you like about this host. I'll have to look into them

how can any shared host offer 100 gb of space and 1,000 gb of bandwidth??

yeah but i mean, that's more space and b/w than you get with most decent VPS accounts

It's the same thing most shared hosts do. They promise huge numbers to keep up with their competition. In reality these companies know that maybe 2% of their accounts will go near the quotas. When the person gets near the quota 1 of 2 things happens:

1: The host terminates you for using to many resources based on a vague TOS

or

2: They move you to an overloaded and crappy server where your site loads slow and hope you'll get fed up enough to move elsewhere.

It's more a less a psychology thing, by offering those huge quota at a price lower than their competitors people feel their getting more value for their buck when it reality it's rarely true.

At the end of the day, it just doesn't add up: Hosts have to pay for bandwidth from their providers if everyone was using the quotas the host would be spending more for bandwidth then they're taking in. Most shared hosts do quanity based business. We all know how good customer service is when the business is based on quantity not quality.

I have stuck by my host for over a year, believing them when the tell me "it's the datacenter" or "someone's attacking the server" or some other happy horse****.

I'm tired of my sites going down when I need them up, when I'm in the middle of a transaction, or working on a custom design, or whatever.

I need a good RELIABLE host. I have 2 sites, both have a vB forum on them. I would like to have both on one account, but not have to have a reseller's account again to do so.

I'm seriously thinking VPS after the first of the year.

Opinions? suggestions?

I did have a dedicated server, and to a point you are right, they are constantly under attack by complete idiots, and to be honest sites do go down, and any site that claims 99% uptime, nothing but BS...sites sometimes goes down for various reasons, bugs, software conflicts, or something just stops working, and the server needs rebooting, happens all the time...if a site claims they are up most of the time, I would take that for truth as being up 99% of the time, and if a site can not offer dedicated hosting, then more then likely he is just another reseller, and a reseller would have to contact the datacenter if there was a problem.. and unless that person lived minutes away, it may not be til the next day when a reboot can be performed...

how can any shared host offer 100 gb of space and 1,000 gb of bandwidth??

sounds impresive to a customer doesnt it... you would come
no where close to that before they cut your account. basicly
they are writing a bogus check hoping you dont cash it...so
they can rack up their customer base....I bet you, if you just used
5 or 10% of those above figures, they would close your account.


Think of Enron...sooner or later it will all come down around them....

.... a reseller would have to contact the datacenter if there was a problem.. and unless that person lived minutes away, it may not be til the next day when a reboot can be performed...

doesn't every host/server/etc work with a datacenter?

doesn't every host/server/etc work with a datacenter?

what is a datacenter? computers need to be in a temp controlled room,
as you can figure that one out... datacenter can be huge mainly for major
corportains, for people like us, a datacenter more then likely is in a small
room, called a datacenter as it sounds like a fancy term... if a server or more
goes down, that does not mean there are people around at all hours of
the night waiting to put the server back online, unless it was a major
corporation, then you can understand why... for the rest of us.. there is
no one there waiting to reboot your server, unless they are truly monitored
24 hours a day...you would then have to be a pretty good size hosting provider,
meaning someone is in the datacenter 24/7 - if its a small provider, forget it,
no one is there all the time...at best they get an email if something happens,
and the reseller is the one sending the email, whats going on??

When I had my dedicated server, he had 5 servers, and he was a
one man operation... so if your server goes down at 10pm, and he isnt
in, then more then likely you are just down until he gets in the next day...

it is a lot more work then you think to actually run a hosting company dealing
with servers, there is a lot involved, and most of your time is spent
dealing with customers, keeping the servers online, etc...

if you ever get a dedicated server, dear god, be sure you get it
managed, so the datacenter will do everything for you, if they are in...
you would not want to run a unmanaged server...

also watch out for 24/7 monitoring...that does not mean someone is
at the datacenter 24/7, that just means it is monitored...and that doesnt
mean someone will get up at 2am to go fix it either....

dont get me wrong, a dedicated server can be fun also...its your server,
and you can basicly put whatever you want on it, and as long as it is kept
online, you have no problems.

Peggy,

who are you hosting with now? Have you tried pair?

I'm still with the same host walleye, but hope to move soon?
What is pair?

pair.com

I have an account with them for a number of my sites and they have been great so far.

I have also heard good things about hostgator, but if you want multiple domains, I think you need to go with the reseller package. That package is fine, but less bandwidth. If you don't, then your subdirectories sit inside your 1st site's main directory. I have not used them, but I did help a friend install his sites and we had problems with this.

Hope that helps.

Oh they were just teasing about the affiliate link jacquii, lol.
But thank you for taking the time to tell me what you like about this host. I'll have to look into them

I know - I was just giving them attitude LOL - It is of course my prerogative to be a smart@ss every now-and-then right? :P

Anyway MochaHost really is fabulous - and funny thing happened over the weekend - They had a server crash - Site was back up in about 24 hours and they had managed to salvage the data in my database = YAY! I was scared/mad/pissed for about a couple of minutes and then received note from MochaHost support that they'd be able to help with the issue!

We had a good laugh over it, as I told 'em I was bragging on their service - But anyway - yeah! Nice that I can stand by my bragging :P

Jacquii.

pair.com

I have an account with them for a number of my sites and they have been great so far.

I have also heard good things about hostgator, but if you want multiple domains, I think you need to go with the reseller package. That package is fine, but less bandwidth. If you don't, then your subdirectories sit inside your 1st site's main directory. I have not used them, but I did help a friend install his sites and we had problems with this.

Hope that helps.I've known people who had problems with hostgator, so I wouldn't go there.
pair.com looks good, but out of my budget with all those set-up fees. Thanks for the recommendation, though :)



I know - I was just giving them attitude LOL - It is of course my prerogative to be a smart@ss every now-and-then right? :P

Anyway MochaHost really is fabulous - and funny thing happened over the weekend - They had a server crash - Site was back up in about 24 hours and they had managed to salvage the data in my database = YAY! I was scared/mad/pissed for about a couple of minutes and then received note from MochaHost support that they'd be able to help with the issue!

We had a good laugh over it, as I told 'em I was bragging on their service - But anyway - yeah! Nice that I can stand by my bragging :P

Jacquii.
haha you're entitled to have and give, some attitude! I'm glad they got things back up and running for you :)

Peg I'm with you.... Just about ready to blow a gasket over here now... Been using Dreamhost for the last coupel of years...and they have been 'okay'...

But this is what I'm seeing right now...
Page generated in 77.15109 seconds with 16 queries
REDICULOUS! remote mySQL server or not...

I'm hopping mad, and going to bail as soon as I find something I can live with.. I've gotten a pretty decent VPS offer from rosehosting.com... before I disclose thier offerings/prices, has anyone have any dealings with these guys?

Hi dakar. To be honest I've never heard of that hosting company. How do their prices compare with ServInt? I think I'll go take a look.

Ok I'm back, lol. Their prices and packages seem nice. They offer more disc and bandwidth for the $ than ServInt. However... ServInt VPS is fully managed with 24/7 phone and email support, whereas this one is self managed. Do you really want to do that?

Peggy, if you are looking for really reliable hosting check http://pair.com or http://fluidhosting.com I had been with both of them and I can say they are excellent host.

Pair has completed 11yrs today so probably one of the oldest host in the industry. If you can pay for year in advance you get 24% discount. e.g for Pair dcresource.com a very busy camera review site

annoying bluehost is down again...so it their site :mad:

Well I've had a deal cooking with them for on a dual CPU box shared with 3 other users, 512M dedicated RAM (1G burst), 1TB/xfer per month, and 20G disk... for slightly more than double what I'm paying for shared hosting. (well below thier advertised price).

An unmanaged server? Menaing nobody else monkeying around with my daemons, telling me what I can and can't compile, what versions of that and that I HAVE to use, or that I can't run my own IDS or monitoring scripts, or anything else I want?.... two words.. YOU BET! (BTW that's my 'day job' only on a far larger scale, so I'd suppose that and gives me a bit of an advantage and some leverage). And co-location of my own server has gotten way out of reach financially.

I just haven't heard anything very positive or very negative about these folks, but the prospect of being able to 'share' the VPS with other sites to help reduce out of pocket costs (maybe one heavy hitter sites or two less intense).... only having 20G diskspace would be my real concern, but I think for a few bucks more I can solve that.

Contemplating....... I have roughly 30 days left on my present contract.

Hey if you feel comfortable with that, go for it!
I know nothing... nada... zilch... about managing a server, vps, or anything technical at all, lol. That's why ServInt is so attractive to me I guess.

Peggy,

I can vouch for ServINT. I've used them for about a year before I moved to a dedicated server. These guys are some of if not the best I've dealt with. Support is extremely fast, friendly, and knows what they are doing.

If it weren’t for my need for a dedicated server I’d still be with them!


-Michael

Thanks Michael. I've about decided to go with them in a couple of months or so.

Thanks Michael. I've about decided to go with them in a couple of months or so.

Hey did you considered FluidHosting? VBulletinsetup is hosted there and they are quite good hosts too

Yes I did look at Fluid Hosting. They don't offer as much disk space or bandwidth as ServInt for the same $, the VPS is not managed, while ServInt is, and the small package doesn't offer cPanel/WHM, which I absolutely must have, so they're out of the question.

Thanks!

Somebody has experience with HOSTMONSTER.com?

a friend of mine said it ate his site...... no pun intended.

a friend of mine said it ate his site...... no pun intended.
:D:wave: That's funny.. I'm sorry but..

:D