Web hosting: don't believe everything you hear

I don't think I've ever had bad customer service whilst I've been with any of my hosting companies. I can't remember who I've been within the past but I'm currently with Hostgator.

No problems so far but then I didn't have with any of the other ones until the day the stopped paying their bills and the servers were seized. That was fun trying to get my db's back for the websites I had. Still it did teach me to be more current with my backups.

My main website and three blogs are on WebHSP which gives me 10GB of space and pretty much unlimited BW. However, I'm only allowed 2 add on domains and 10 subdomains and 15 MySQL databases. I get that for $6.95 per month. It has Cpanel access and wordpress support and their support team is great. I've had 99.9% uptime since moving my website from Geocities some 6 years ago.

I have one blog that was hosted at BlueHost, that I moved this year to Holdfire.net. I didn't have any problems with BlueHost, but it was time to renew and Holdfire was half the price for something that was plenty adequate for the blog that's hosted there. I did that before I knew what addon domains and subdomains were. If I had understood those things I would have just put that blog over at WebHSP as an addon domain. Holdfire was $30 per year. I don't remember now what the details are, but suffice to say, I've never used more than I'm allocated, so it doesn't seem to be a big deal. Holdfire has been good as well with maybe 2 hours of downtime since March and that was warned of in advance. Their support has also been good.

Recently I've been looking at HostGator and SitePoint has been promoting another web host that sounds pretty good - Webhostingbuzz as I would like to have everything under one access -- I think. I know it's probably foolish to put all my eggs in one basket as it were.

What is your recommendation? Should I merge everything to one host or leave them scattered out like they are?

Bob, when I say the service went downhill, I meant the performance of the shared servers. I'd like to see more hosts providing a "middle" solution that is more reliable than shared hosting but less expensive than a dedicated server. Some hosts provide VPS but I have noticed that this is becoming less common - didn't Hostgator stop providing VPS?

I think it's ridiculous to tell a blogger with a tiny site to consider a dedicated server as shared hosting always has issues. The blogger could just as easily move to a hosted blogging service such as Blogger, WordPress.com or Vox. There are many others. Why not provide some kind of "good behaviour" server for sites with low traffic so they don't get bumped off by bigger sites? Why should the small sites suffer?

Margaret - in an ideal world I think it's great to have all of your sites on one host, both for convenience and to keep your costs down. But I'm starting to think it may be safer to split them across a couple of hosts, or at least a couple of accounts with the same host. Perhaps get each account on a different server.

I wouldn't recommend using lots of different hosts or not keeping several domains in one account, but when you have more than a couple of domains, it is quite a risk to put them all in one place. Ideally I'd like to have all of my sites on a dedicated server but none of them generate any decent money and none of them are really big enough to make it worth doing.

So I'm really undecided on this one.

Hi Ben, I haven't been by in a while. Just dropping a wish for a good day. Did you get my message about the award I gave you? I am sorry if I missed it.

Hi ettarose :) Yes, I got it - thank you. I did say thanks in reply to another post where you first commented about that. :)

Something close to my heart ... :P

I've been running my own hosting, as a reseller, for years. I've had frequent conversations with the owner of my provider, he's been very approachable on IM and forums with me, and in a few cases I've taken prices from other suppliers to him and asked him to match.

A couple of times he's stated flat out that he can't match it, because he will not allow overselling at his end. He does allow clients to oversell, but everything he sells he actually has.

I've been there for 4-5 years now and been incredibly happy. Now if only I actually put some effort back into my own hosting business, I might actually get it running again rather than just sitting there ticking along with the long-term clients paying their monthlies :P

http://www.lemonred.com for me (redesign and relaunch coming soon)

http://www.insiderhosting.com for my supplier. Not the cheapest, but solid.

Edited: September 08, 2008 10:05

I've been using Geohost.ca for a few years without trouble. But, mine is a small personal site. Even when I did blog from there it never came close to using all the bandwidth I have available. They have been great for customer service though. Answer all my stupid questions and look into anything that is a problem. The only downside is that I have to pay extra to run a blog from it. I didn't know that when I signed up. I've stuck with them anyway cause they have been really reliable.

Don't get me started about shared hosting, and the big promises of "$7 a month" plans. :)

While I've only heard anecdotal evidence so far, people who switch to dedicated hosting usually report an immediate increase in their website traffic.

It's not really a jump as such though, it's more a case of the visitors who couldn't always reach a site on a shared host being able to when it switches to a dedicated plan.

A cursory glance at dedicated plans sees entry level dedicated hosting start at about US$100 p/m though...

xeyr - something I never asked when using Lemonred was do you allow addon domains? Just out of interest, really. I can't afford to pay for every domain individually. Overselling isn't a wise thing to do, especially as I am someone who actually looks at the limits and thinks "do I need this much?" With Hostgator and BlueHost it's been a pretty simple answer - they say they provide far more than I would ever need - but with previous hosts, I needed more.

John, long-term I really wish I could afford a dedicated server - we have enough sites with enough files on them that it is almost worth doing, but none of them make any decent or regular money, and we don't use a huge amount of bandwidth. Sadly, I don't really see a way I can make it happen.

Edited: September 15, 2008 17:57

Ben, I agree. But the problem is that because everyone in the industry, generally speaking, oversells, you can't compete if you don't. Sure, you'll get a few more discerning types who'll back you simply because of the straightforward approach, but sadly the average joe out there has the attitude that "more is better", even if they don't need it. You see it everywhere, from broadband packages to cars - you name it.

Rod, you're absolutely right, although it seems deeply ironic that the people who really fall for overselling may not even know what the jargon means! :)