Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare
Ultimately, the true test of a web host comes from your own experiences with them. With this article, I wanted to compile some of the experiences of a few people to bring to you cautions when choosing a host: clients, friends, and myself. I’ll also then give you a few points you have to consider when choosing a web host.I wanted to start with my own experiences. I chose a web host based upon price, and the ability for this host to charge me monthly, instead of a year or two upfront. I was just starting my company, and had to watch those pennies. Even though I knew that spending the money up front would have been more cost effective, I simply didn’t have it. I thought I did some good research on this host, and asked all the pertinent questions at the time.
I wanted to start out with one of my latest experiences with my old web host. I had been with this host since March, and since that time, I’ve had a plethora of problems. When I started with them, they were great! We set up an e-commerce store, and had a big sale over Memorial Day weekend. The web server went down. The host could not be contacted, as they only handled support via trouble ticket and email or phone. Email went unanswered all weekend, and phone support was nothing more than a dispatch person, who was to contact support, who’d then get back to me. They did on Tuesday.
Further, there were other similar incidents, with the 24/7 support not available on the weekends. It would also take them many hours to get back to a trouble ticket, even during the week. It was very frustrating. The final straw for me was in the month of November; I had 14 trouble tickets in to them for one reason or another, like a hard drive crashing, or not enough RAM. Because there was one excuse after another in each of the trouble tickets, the length of time it took them to respond to one, and the fact that I had to plead for a month’s refund, due to their server issues; I knew it was time to move.
A client of mine for whom I did SEO work had a nightmare web host. The big problem here is that her web host was also her design company, who was only available for support Monday through Friday, from 9 am till 5 pm. When I was contracted by her to perform SEO work, her web host was very reluctant to allow me to do so. At first, I considered this client somewhat of a pain, as I received a phone call at least five times per day. Nine out of ten of her issues were related to her web design or web host. But because I was the only one available, I was the one she called.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – The Webhost Who Deletes Upgrades
Her web host would take it upon themselves to “tweak” her web files. This usually meant overwriting the work I had done. Her site was finished in September, and it worked wonderful up until the very day they got in there and messed with her files, which was exactly November 23rd; they then had the nerve to claim her site wasn’t working because of my “third party scripts,” even though it was working well for almost three months. What was almost funny about the situation was that the “third party scripts” they were referring to were simply upgrades with addons that were designed by her e-commerce software company. The problem with the design in the first place was that they had installed software that was several years old, for which the company who developed the software no longer supported. The “third party scripts” were actually upgrades. The other “third party scripts” they talked about were simply 301 redirects in her .htaccess file. They changed the .htaccess because they claimed that she’d have better design options with FrontPage extensions, which they did without either notifying her or asking her permission. Please take a moment to laugh here. They also told her, “The optimization you paid for has corrupted our work.” Well, if they meant upgrading to the new software, then yes, I guess I corrupted their work.
They then proceeded to add FrontPage extensions to her site, telling her that because they were no longer supporting their off-site WYSIWYG editor, she would have to use FrontPage. For those of you that are familiar with FrontPage extensions and Linux, you can only imagine what the problems were. They then deleted the .htaccess file, and uploaded old, unsupported software files. It became clear to us at that point that a new host was in order. You may laugh again.
When she complained about their “tweaking” efforts, they emailed her that as long as a third party company had her logins and passwords, they wouldn’t provide support. I’ve never heard of a web hosting company telling anyone this. Considering that I had been out of her site for months before their tweaks, honestly, this was probably irrelevant. But she knew that their problems, which they blamed on my work, were hurting her site. Unfortunately, they told her that she couldn’t move the site, because she technically didn’t “own” it, even though she paid them to develop the site, paid for the domain name, and paid for the hosting. I might mention, by the way, that her server was a shared virtual server, and they charged her nearly $60.00 per month for only 600 MB of space and less than 1 GB of bandwidth.
There were other issues with this company that she had, while not directly related to her hosting issues, were just indications of being a bad company all together. These were things like retaliation for complaining, charging her another $400.00 so that she could “own” the site, and then never giving her registrar login information.
She signed up with a new host, who came highly rated on web host review sites. After she paid them, they then told her they wouldn’t help her transfer her website; she had to do it herself. This lady doesn’t know what an FTP program is (she thought I was talking about my car), so that’s not really an option for her. They claimed that because they were so cheap, they didn’t have the resources to transfer her site. She then found another web host who not only helped her move her site, but they were cheaper than this other host. This host she finally found came by word of mouth recommendations.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – The Webhost Who Doesn’t Deliver
Another story I want to give you may be a minor one in comparison to the one above, but it still has pertinent issues that you will want to consider. A friend wanted to move her web host, and feeling that the company she was researching had answered the questions she asked to her satisfaction, such as the ability to get a dedicated IP and SSL for her web store, decided to sign up.
The company was offering a free domain name, so she found one she liked, and they put the hosting account into this domain as the root. In the process of a couple weeks of setting up her older site with the web store as an addon domain, she found out that she could only have a dedicated IP as long as her SSL certificate was on the root site. Unfortunately, her SSL certificate was for the site she was moving and setting up as an addon domain, not for the root domain. After much hard work moving her web site, she had to search again for a web host; one that wasn’t stingy with IP addresses. It’s probably a good thing anyway, because she also found out that several of their script versions, like PHP and SQL were older than her store supported.
These stories now bring me to the important points I wanted to give you when choosing a web host, and avoiding the nightmare.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – Reliability and Support
Reliability
If a web host has great features, price, and support; these things don’t mean much if your server isn’t reliable, and your websites have a great deal of down time. Most web hosts, when you ask them directly, will tell you they have 99.999% uptime. My first thought is: yeah, right. You say to them, “Be honest!” and they respond “No, honestly!” My point here is that it really doesn’t matter what your host says, because they will all have the same answer. So you’ll need another method of finding out how reliable the web hosting company is.
Find out what web host companies others are using, whether in the Web Hosting forums or from people you know, and ask them what problems they have had. Trust me, you’ll get an answer, and probably more reliable information from those who have used the web host you are considering. It also never hurts to ask your web host for references. Good companies will gladly give you information on satisfied customers. If the web host is reluctant to give you this information, whether citing privacy issues or whatever reasons, then it should be a red flag.
Support
For me, web support is probably one of the most important aspects of deciding on a web host. One test I have when choosing a web host either for me or my clients is how soon their support company responds to a trouble ticket, or an email. When researching a host, chances are you are going to have questions. Simply sending them an email with your questions and find out how long it takes them to respond. If they respond within 24 hours; great, but how helpful is that really? If your site goes down in the middle of a customer order, do you really have a whole day for them to respond to the crisis?
Maybe you’re thinking that an initial question email to the company won’t necessarily tell you how they’ll respond in a support situation. But you better believe it does. Think about it this way: when searching for a new host, you have literally thousands of companies out there that you can choose from. If a web host catches your interest, and you send them an email that you are interested, they are probably going to go out of their way to impress you with their prompt response. Once they have you’re business, and your money, there’s not necessarily that need to impress.
Make sure they have multiple forms of communication: phone, email, trouble ticket system, live support, and instant messaging as well as being available 24/7. Having more than one form of communication is important. And again, ask around. People will be more than happy to let you know if a web host’s support is good or not.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – Moving a Site, Dedicated IPs and SSL
Moving an existing site
Moving a new web host is almost like switching bank accounts. You don’t want that lapse in “funds” while you are moving your “money” to another account, especially if there are outstanding payments. This analogy may be a bit off, but there is a point here where it is related. It’s a royal pain in the derrière to move your bank account or your websites. Nobody likes having to do either.
You should find out if your files are first compatible with the new host’s server, operating system, even script versions. You don’t want to find out later that in order for your files to work, your host will have to upgrade their version of whichever script is a problem.
If you’re not especially technical, you may find that a new web host that requires you to move your own files and configure them is really not going to be in your best interest. You will want to ask whether or not the new host will transfer your websites for you. Some will, while others will not. Many times, these questions are not answered until AFTER you’ve paid them, so it’s a good idea to ask them before you shell out the dough.
Dedicated IPs and SSL
One thing that may not occur to you to ask is what the new web host’s requirement on getting a dedicated IP or whether they will configure the SSL to be on your root account only, or for all domains; use your own https domain or a shared SSL account. These issues are important to you especially if you have an e-commerce website. If a web hosting company is stingy with dedicated IPs, then find out why.
The host my friend went with told her in live support beforehand that she could get a dedicated IP for only an extra buck a month. But what they failed to tell her is that they don’t issue dedicated IPs for any reason other than if she had her own SSL certificate, which had to be installed on the root. You might want a dedicated IP for the sheer reason of not being able to know which websites were also associated with my IP. From an SEO standpoint, you could really be paying for someone else’s mess. It shouldn’t make a difference why you want a dedicated IP. It should be available to you if you want it.
Another point here is to ask if they can install SSL certificates on addon domains. Many do not. If you are thinking about moving your website to a new host as an addon domain, and have your own SSL certificate, then stop and ask the question.
My friend could have ended up having to have another hosting account so that she could have the domain that needed the SSL certificate which she owned set as the root domain. She cancelled the account instead.
Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare – Hosting with Your Web Design Company
Hosting with Your Web Design Company
You can disagree with me on this point, and that’s okay; but in my book, hosting with your web design company is a big no-no. To me, that’s like giving your home builder/general contractor the keys to your house long after his work is finished. In my compiled experiences, this only brings nothing but trouble, as I talked about with the client earlier.
The first point I want to bring up here is that it seemed the design company couldn’t seem to keep their hands off her web files. Allowing your web host to have access to your ftp, passwords and whatever information you have store on the server can be dangerous, as a web design company must be able to do. While I’m not arguing here that it isn’t sometimes necessary for your web host to access your files for support reasons, generally what you do with your own files is really not their concern. But if you decide to alter your design on your own, many times a web design company will feel that you are altering their files. You may find this will be a conflict of interest.
Regardless of your reasons for finding a web host in the first place, these are only a few points to consider when selecting one. There are many other ones, such as server hardware, but those can be explored at a later time. My purpose for writing this article is to help you avoid the nightmares of choosing the wrong host. No web host is going to be perfect; but still, if they meet the criteria above, you can be assured that other issues can be worked out.
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Avoiding the Web Hosting Nightmare