Jude's Blog

Since I’ve done a hack job on HostNine, I thought it only fair to let you all know my experience with all the other hosts I’ve been with over the years. When I started my own web presence in 1997, it was with an AOL page. In 2000 I ventured out on my own with Jude’s Place. Who did I decide to go with?

Well, back then registrars charged WAY too much for domains. I was paying about $25 a year with the one I was with back then. I did some research and found omnis.com. They only charged $7.95 a year, so I transferred over. Needing a new host as well, I noticed they had a rate of only $2.95 a month for their hosting. I looked a bit and that was about the best rate I could find. The space (only 5MB) and bandwidth was very low, but I had a small site and didn’t need much. I don’t remember any downtime with them, and I was with them longer than any since, from 2000 – 2005. They did well until my site started growing, and I needed more space. Their next level was $6.95 a month, which was too high for me, so I decided to look elsewhere. Not finding any other registar with better rates, I left my domain with them, and have since registered ALL my future domains with them. So obviously I trust this company!

In 2005 I saw a funny Super Bowl commercial for GoDaddy. It stuck in my mind, so when I was thinking about finding a new host, I looked them up. They were only a bit higher than omnis.com, around $3.29 a month if I purchased at least a year at a time. They offered a huge amount of space and bandwidth, along with MySql databases. I hosted with them until mid 2008 and never even got close to using all the space, bandwidth or databases offered with my plan. The downtime was very minimal and was usually only with the database servers. I did have a few minor issues with them about the max email storage, main ftp accounts and cron jobs, but none of that really interfered with my hosting experience. I did leave their hosting to see if I could find better, but I discovered the hard way that there wasn’t. The next 3 hosts made me decide to return to Godaddy about a week ago.

I found IX Webhosting in early April 2008, and it sounded perfect! Their Expert plan was about the same rate as Godaddy with even more space, and I could host ALL my domains with just the one account. The more time you sign up for, the cheaper per month you paid. Not wanting to pay more than a year in advance, that made it $4.95 a month. Not bad. I moved Jude’s Place over with very high hopes. Luckily, I didn’t move anything else over at first, since I wanted to give them a shot first. All I had was nightmares with this host. I’ll copy and paste my cancelation request with them:

“I have been unhappy with your company since day one, but I gave it almost two months to see if you would get better. Well, you’ve only gotten worse, and I’m tired of all the frustration. If it’s not downtime, it’s too many connections on my database so that my forum is down all the time. Not to mention the pitifully slow email and lack of spam guards! I made a mistake moving to you as a host and would like to be refunded at least my unused 10 months prorated from my initial payment!!! Thank you.”

Once they canceled my account and refunded my unused months, I realized the amount was too low. I asked them about it, only to find out that the $30 “waived” setup fee had been deducted from my refund. I told them that I would dispute that $30 with my credit card company. I did, and I got that money back. I left them in late May 2008

I asked some people I knew online who they would recommend for a host. Everyone raved about HostGator, so I thought I’d give them a try. Their Hatchling plan looked to be pretty economical at $4.95 a month, but I was shocked to discover that you only get that rate if you pay for three years in advance. Not wanting to do that, and not wanting to pay $8.95 per month, I signed up for a year at $6.95 a month (which I still feel is too much to pay), but at that point I was willing to pay a bit more for a reliable host. I thought I might have better luck with this host, since I couldn’t find a negative review on them. I held my breath and hoped I would be lucky. Everything seemed to go well at first but then I consistently couldn’t view my site. HostGator has a live chat, so I used it quite frequently for a few days. My site would come up for a few minutes but would then “go down” for hours at a time. I complained to support, who told me that they could view my site just fine. I tried to explain that I couldn’t and asked them what could be the problem. They asked me to view the site through a prozy site, and I could then view it…but why not through my regular browser? They did a check of my IP to see if it was banned, both at home and work, but neither were banned. It didn’t matter which computer or connection I used, my site couldn’t be viewed for more than a few minutes at a time. I finally got one of their support techs that admitted that their firewall was the problem. He reset it, and my site came back up…for a few minutes. I couldn’t continue to deal with this, so I asked if I canceled, what was their policy on refunds. I was assured that I would get all my unused months back, and I did. I left sometime in July.

So I searched for a new host. Not wanting to backup, download and upload to a new host, I found one that would do it for me. HostNine seemed to be the answer to my dreams. The transfer to them from HostGator was seamless. They even had my emails. Except for a few variations in my cpanel, I couldn’t even tell I was with a new host, except my site was up ALL the time! I was ecstatic. I was gun shy about paying for another year in advance, so their monthly billing of $3.95 was ideal for me. I could try them out, and if I didn’t like them, I could easily tranfer back to GoDaddy. That was my initial plan, to switch back if I had 3 bad luck situations in a row with other hosts…but everything went well. Except for one downtime of a few hours after about a month with HostNine, I never noticed any other problems. My forum ran fine, so I could finally breathe a sigh of relief…or so I thought. Please read my other blog for more details on this unbelievably bad host. It is my guess that they decided to increase their price to $6.95 a month to be paid a year in advance and wanted to weed out those of us only paying $3.95. You would think they would just discontinue that lower rate and give their customers the chance to leave or upgrade to the new price. I wasn’t given such an opportunity, but I would have left, since I’m not willing to pay that much.

So I moved back to Godaddy. I lost my lower rate and am now paying about $4.45 a month. I paid for 2 years in advance to get that rate, but I feel confident with my decision to return to my previous host. The best advice I can offer you is to do your research before choosing a host. Take the negative reviews seriously!