Small Business Blog

Two Hosters That Did Me Wrong and One That Hasn’t (Yet)

I’m just not interested in dealing with the technical aspects of Web hosting. I’d rather pay a hosting service to manage those details for me. And, with the competitiveness of the hosting industry today, it doesn’t seem unnatural to ask a hoster to manage these details both seamlessly and cheaply.

In a nutshell, here’s what I want from my Web hosting provider: minimal downtime, unlimited amount of space, an intuitive control panel, good customer service and a low price. Are these demands extreme? Maybe so, because I’m on my third hoster in three years, and I’m just waiting for the current one to screw something up.

Several years ago, I moved from a higher priced provider to HostExcellence. At the time, I had one Web site and was planning to launch a couple more. HostExcellence lured me in with an unlimited hosting package at a dirt cheap price. I didn’t know any better and jumped on it.

HostExcellence: poor service and security

Here’s a rundown of my interactions with HostExcellence:

• All of my sites were hacked, such that the hacker embedded adult links within the coding on my pages; tech support told me that it was my fault and advised me to hire someone to manage my Web site security.
• Google bots were blocked, a situation that was brought to my attention via error messages in Google Webmaster Tools. Tech support denied it repeatedly. After the exchange of numerous emails, the matter was elevated to someone who apologized and said the problem had been resolved.
• All of my sites were hacked, such that the home page displayed an anti-American message from what appeared to be a terrorist group. I didn’t bother with tech support, because I knew what the response would be. I manually replaced all the files.
• I contact tech support to ask if HostExcellence supported the PHPMotion video sharing script; the answer was yes, this script is supported. I spent hours installing and trouble shooting a video share Web site. I contact tech support again and was then told that this script was not supported.
• Google bots were blocked again, as indicated by the return of the error messages in Google Webmaster Tools. Tech support denied it again. I asked them to review the previous support ticket for further information. I was then told that the situation was related to new security protocols and there were no plans to resolve this problem.

AptHost: a run of bad luck

When I found that HostExcellence couldn’t support the video share site noted above, I moved that site to AptHost. For about a year, AptHost provided service that didn’t require any effort from me. They even installed the PHPMotion script for me. As far as I know, the site was up most of the time, and I had no complaints. After the last Google bot episode with HostExcellence, I decided to move all of my sites to AptHost. And then, everything went sour.

All of my sites and email addresses went offline for several days. Tech support indicated that everything would be up and running within 48 hours. This didn’t happen. Via Twitter updates, I learned that the problem (which had been massive and affected a large number of customers) had been resolved. But still, my sites were down. I couldn’t log into my control panel and I couldn’t see my Web sites. Tech support told me there was nothing wrong and they could see my sites just fine.

It was at least a week before things returned to normal. During that week, every email that was sent to me disappeared permanently into oblivion. The senders of those emails did not receive bounce notifications. I was later told by AptHost that an ex-employee had hacked the server. By that time, I had already started migrating my sites to Host Gator.

Host Gator: all’s well so far

Host Gator has been good so far. In the six months I’ve used the service, I have only seen some occasional, short-term downtime. I contacted tech support once to ask when the sites would be back up and received a relatively accurate estimate.

I did end up moving our email accounts to Gmail, just to prevent any server issues from impacting the sites and emails simultaneously. So I can’t speak on issues with Host Gator’s email services.

Host Gator offers a single site package for $8.95 a month (or $4.95 a month if you pay three years upfront) and an unlimited domain package for $9.95 a month (or $7.95 if you pay three years in advance). You can also buy a more robust unlimited package that comes with a toll-free number, dedicated IP and private SSL. With all packages, you have access to the Fantastico script library, which allows you to install WordPress, Joomla and a bunch of other scripts with the click of your mouse.

Host Gator does not support video sharing – so I do still have one site at AptHost. In all fairness, I haven’t had any further problems with AptHost since that one massive meltdown.

For what it’s worth, Host Gator gets my vote of approval – for now. The service is cheap and relatively reliable. The pages load fast, noticeably faster than they did with HostExcellence. And I haven’t yet been hacked. I’ll keep you posted.