Unlimited Hosting

    ServersAndDomains – Can ServersAndDomains offer you a guarantee?

    ServersAndDomains was on my June 2010 list for webhostinstuff.com. It was one of 5 hosts not on my list from May 2010, but it was not the one that grabbed my attention at the time.  That honor goes to i7net.net. This leaves me with only 4 host to review.  Serversanddomains seems to be one of the most generic of site names, but unlike other sites a more uptodate design.  However the site seems another cluttered mess, too many graphics distract from

    http://www.serversanddomains.com

    Looking at the reviews on webhostingstuff.com you can tell not everyone that has signed up with them was happy.

    http://www.webhostingstuff.com/review/ServersAndDomains.html

    Here is a summary of the poor to not so thrilling reviews:

    warning: do not use serversanddomains  (Poor)
    – by j (howmuchshouldiweigh.org) on 22 January 2010

    Servers & Domains Fraud – Poor Service –  (Poor)
    – by Lucy (actionradio.com) on 18 August 2009

    Cluless Customer Service  (Poor)
    – by Sue (webfrau.net) on 14 April 2009

    Downhill Fast!  (Poor)
    – by Kevin (cognitial.com) on 15 March 2009

    Just awful host  (Poor)
    – by Ted (tacticaltech.com) on 4 March 2009

    ServersAndDomains Sucks  (Poor)
    – by Malc (tdbpublishing.com) on 3 March 2009

    Careless Hosting Company  (Poor)
    – by ahronn (dalaguetebai.com) on 16 August 2008

    support tickets ignored  (Poor)
    – by Steve (partnersinhr.net) on 29 June 2008

    Not so good…  (Average)
    – by ian (itsolutionsnorth.co.uk) on 13 June 2008

    Control Panel  (Average)
    – by Yuri (mediseb.com) on 27 May 2007
    ServersAndDomains have seriously problem with ControlPanel for hosting – it’s very-very slow

    Apparently ServersAndDomains was bought out.

    My first quirk with ServersAndDomains

    The first thing I wanted to see was how long did I have to pay for to get the $1 a month hosting.  When I clicked I found that this only applied to one domain.  When I clicked on $1 from the main page, I was brought to a page that showed the other unlimited plans.  I clicked on “Order Now!”, which allows me to select between Plesk, cPanel, and Windows with Plesk.  I decided to click on Plesk.  This brings me to a sign up screen.

    You have to register before you can actually order an account.  This is not something that I see with other companies.  But what this does is if you decided not to complete your order, even though you registered a user login with ServersAndDomains they can now email you with offers to sign up for service.   In order for me to see how many years I have to pay for to get $1 a month I have to register.   I will not be registering, and I don’t have an email that I want more spam on.   I have to say I am bothered by the fact that they do not disclose up front how many months I have to opt into to get $1 a month.  I know its not a month because credit card fees would eat a huge chunk out of that.

    ServersAndDomains offers a 21 day trial

    While trying to find how many years I had to register to get $1 a month, I noticed they have a 21 day trial, not a 21 day guarantee.  Or better yet a 30 days.   Anything under 30 days leaves me suspicious.   They state that they do not charge you for hosting for the first 21 days, all other services are billed at the time of order.  Regardless of being free, there is no guarantee period.  Anything less then 30 days should be avoided.

    ServersAndDomains offers no refunds

    http://serversanddomains.com/corporate/legal/index.php?hosting_tos

    Refund and Disputes: All payments to ServersAndDomains are nonrefundable. This includes any one time setup fees and subsequent charges regardless of usage. All overcharges or billing disputes must be reported within 45 days of the time the dispute occurred. If you dispute a charge to your credit card issuer that, in ServersAndDomains’s sole discretion is a valid charge under the provisions of the TOS and /or AUP, you agree to pay ServersAndDomains an “Administrative Fee” of not less than $50 and not more than $150.

    I am not sure how they will charge you for doing a charge back.  But clearly they leave no other option then a charge back to get a refund if service does not work.  If they were able to enforce the policy then clearly they would be able to fight the charge back.

    Finale thoughts on ServersAndDomains

    The refunds and disputes part of the terms of service is the part that makes me say to stay away from this company.  They offer no guarantee period.  Without any way of getting a refund there is no guarantee that you will get the service you paid for.  ServersAndDomains is a company I suggest avoiding.

    GreenGeeks Not for Geeks? Is it a iPage clone or just another host that sucks?

    Number 17 of May 2010, GreenGeeks another greenwashed company.   When I loaded this site the first thing I thought was that this company looked like another company I reviewed.

    Side by side this company looks a lot like iPage.   But from there I have a trouble finding any other similarities.  They are owned by different entires on separate parts of the country.  They are not even on the same network.   Asides for the same chat program I am not sure if there is much else that would connect them.   But I think there may be a connection, more then just a shared theme.

    But the real problem is this is a greenwashed company, not a green host.   Their big claim to being green is that they buy energy credits, but so does British Petroleum.   At this point its hard to imagine BP having any positive environmental impact.   There is not a lot of detail given by companies that offer green credits for sale.

    Greengeeks have alot of links that are in reference to being a green host.

    The first link is

    http://www.greengeeks.com/going-green/new-earth-day.php

    Here you find a link to this company,

    www.co2NeutralWebSite.com

    I am not sure if I am correct in my assumption but it looks like you pay them per every page view you get or you are paying for traffic that you get from their site.  That or you can buy traffic from them.   But its unclear how this offsets carbon.  Not to mention this site seems to have mostly .dk / Denmark domains, which may have to do with them being from Denmark.  Not that I have a problem with doing business with a foreign company, but I like to know details.   For an organization that does so much, there are so few webpages with data on how they do it.  Not everyone sees the green movement as a way of life, some see it as something to capitalize on.   There also those that see that they don’t have to be green to capitalize off of the green sector.  Those are companies that are called greenwashed.  Its not clear as to what Greengeeks gets from this company other then a fancy banner, and perhaps greengeeks gets traffic.

    On the same page I find their reseller program GreenResellerWebHosting.com, where you can sell unlimited reseller accounts.   I have a hard time believing that unlimited hosting can be associated with quality hosting, let alone a company claiming to be a  green host.  Green and efficient are two words that come to mind when being eco-friendly  Effiecent technology is not cheap in the beginning, and for that matter technology thats not part of the main trend is not cheap.  The cheaper the hosting cost, the more customers the company needs to pile in to make a profit.

    http://www.greengeeks.com/why-us/wu-green.php

    They have made the claim : “It is important that this industry becomes green and GreenGeeks is the world’s most eco-friendly web hosting company”  Other then a lot of pages telling people what to do and how they can be green.  There is nothing to show exactly how green they are,  the biggest thing that is missing are the numbers.   Numbers like the amount of electrify that they use per year.  Details are also missing like what company is receiving money to run wind generators.   I am looking at actual hosting companies that have their own data centers at buildings built from the ground up to be green.  Which include solar power straight to the source.  Not buying offsets.   They can be claim to leaning towards green when they talk about rigorous recycling of paper, but nothing in regards to equipment.  But clearly they a recycle text from their web pages.

    The finale link I am going to review is http://www.greengeeks.com/going-green/epa-partner.php

    From here I find a link to the EPA.

    http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/partners/partners/greengeeksllc.htm

    I decided to contact the EPA, because I wanted to know if you really had to provide any proof in order to be a member.

    __________________________________________________

    Email Exchange with the EPA

    From: Benjamin
    To: Matt Clouse/DC/USEPA/US@EPA, Blaine Collison/DC/USEPA/US@EPA,Allison Dennis/DC/USEPA/US@EPA
    Date: 08/03/2010 05:18 PM
    Subject: In regards to green power partnership

    Hello Matt, Blaine, or Allison,

    I was wonder what documentation I would have to provide to be part of the green power partnership.

    Thank you for your assistance.

    Benjamin
    To: Benjamin
    From: Collison.Blaine@epamail.epa.gov
    Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2010 17:21:10 -0400
    Subject: Re: In regards to green power partnership

    Benjamin,

    Thanks for your inquiry. The information requirements are included in

    the Partnership Agreement here:

    http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/documents/gpp_partnership_agreement.pdf

    The program is designed to cover only commercial & institutional sector purchases. We’re not able to recognize residential partners at this time.

    I hope this is helpful. Please let me know if you have additional questions.

    Blaine

    From: Benjamin
    To: Blaine Collison/DC/USEPA/US@EPA
    Date: 08/03/2010 06:35 PM
    Subject: RE: In regards to green power patnership

    Hello Blaine,

    I am not seeing what the EPA requires an organization to submit as valid proof of participation. From what I see you merely take the word of the submitter as opposed to any documentation. Is this the case, or do you require copies of receipts and other valid documentation?

    Regards,

    Benjamin

    Subject: RE: In regards to green power partnership
    To: Benjamin
    From: Collison.Blaine@epamail.epa.gov
    Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2010 19:10:30 -0400

    Ah. Right you are, Benjamin. We don’t require that partners submit proof of purchase. We do, however, check our lists partners with the listed providers once or twice/year: This is what we think we have, could you, the providers, please confirm our understanding of your clients’ numbers?

    Hope that helps.

    Blaine

    RE: In regards to green power partnership‏
    8/03/10
    From: Benjamin
    To: collison.blaine@epamail.epa.gov

    Hello Blaine,

    I am actually contacting you for research in regards to green credits. So far I am not finding any information from the companies that provide credits and those using the credits. One of the companies that I am looking at is listed in your Green Power Partnership. But the only numbers that are given is 300%. There is no number telling me what their on the grid power consumption is. Or what companies the credit seller is getting the wind credit from.

    I find it rather disturbing that the credit sellers, the companies that buy the credits, and the EPA are not disclosing numbers, facts. documentation and reasoning that a company is using renewable energy.

    Benjamin

    __________________________________________________

    I never got a response back to my email from the EPA.  But it clear you do not have to give them valid proof to be in their green power partnership.  Without numbers and other data they can not prove that they are a green host.  Other then a lot of pages GreenGeeks has no relevant proof they are green,

    2gbHosting Review: Is 2gbHosting a good host?

    Number 16 on May 2010 webhostingstuff.com top 25 websites. This is going to be a rather short post. The reason being they have a 7 day guarantee. If a host offers anything less then 30 days they are not a serious webhost and must be avoided at all costs. There are a lot of other problems with this company such as language problems, support issues, and down time  which can be easily found if you use a search engine. But there is not much reason to explore that in detail since the biggest alarm bell is there 7 day guarantee that they seem to think is a good thing.

    7 Days money back guarantee

    We offer no question 7 days money back guarantee with following terms

    1. Money Back available for all shared and reseller hosting accounts.
    2. We do not offer money back on domain registration, SSL certificate and on Dedicated & VPS server payments.
    3. Money back is not possible if requested after 7 days of purchase.
    4. Money back process takes 24 hrs to 72 hrs max that means if you are asking for a money back on 7th day of purchase date, you will get it before 10th day of purchase date.

    Then there is their uptime guarantee that offers 99.98 uptime. I would love to show my wonderful chat in regards to what is they offer in regards to compensation, which is defiantly not money. After asking 6 times and being told to read the terms of service that do not say what you get the chat session abruptly ended. The chat operators first language was defiantly not English, nor was the person I spoke with on the phone. As the person on the phone was not direct in what compensation a customer would get for more then .02 downtime. Which equated to more time on your account.

    I would avoid this company like the plague. The biggest red flag is that this company has a 7 day guarantee. If their uptime was as great as the phone operator indicated they could easily do a 30 – 60 day guarantee.

    Site5.com Sucks & Problems with Site 5 Hosting?

    Number 15 of May 2010 for webhostingstuff.com. The first thing that strikes me is this little link you click on in order to get more info about (How?):

    http://www.site5.com/hosting/web/

    Throughout the web hosting industry, one of the biggest catch phrases and movements is the shift towards Unlimited web hosting. Some of our shared web hosting plans allow unlimited disk space and bandwidth.

    As the shared hosting industry has progressed, it has become apparent that disk space and bandwidth are not true indicators of how well a website can survive on shared hosting. Instead, the real indicators are server memory and processor usage!

    It is important to remember that “unlimited” does not always indicate “oversold”, so do not let anyone tell you otherwise! We monitor our servers constantly to ensure optimal operating performance.

    I am going to tell you otherwise because they are flat out lying or stupid. Granted on all but the unlimited company I owned, I never oversold. But customers who bought a reseller account were allowed to. One such customer had 83 domains. Between the 83 domains he had given a total of 23 gigs, though he was only using 2 gigs. He was on a plan with 5 gigs. But once the total space used hits 5 gigs and beyond he is going to have a problem. Normally most of my customers monitored for this, but the few that didn’t were always the first to complain about their sites not working all caused by running out of space.

    In order for this not to be overselling the space provided must not exceed the space available. Unlimited meaning infinite it would still be overselling if they have every hard drive on the planet available. Overselling is done under the assumption that a customer will not use all of the resources listed. Just like a all you can eat buffet, they are assuming that your not going to eat them out of house and home. Where interestingly enough they don’t out and out say “we don’t oversell”. Though they are right unlimited is a catch phrase. But they do state “We monitor our servers constantly to ensure optimal operating performance.” some how this makes it not overselling. At least hostgator.com (Who is on the same network as site5 – Theplant.com) is willing to be honest:

    http://blog.hostgator.com/2008/10/20/all-you-can-eat-hosting/

    We change an unlimited plan to say “unlimited” and bam — sales increase 30%, if not more. Many people will argue that “overselling” is evil and that it’s the cause of poor hosting service. This is not the case when it’s managed correctly and the proper staffing is in place. When a hosting company hops on the overselling bandwagon, their sales usually increase exponentially. Since very few companies actually have the capacity to handle a major surge in growth, their quality of service is almost guaranteed to deteriorate.

    While hostgator is willing to admit to overselling, they are also doing the whole monitoring to ensure there is not a problem. Which boils down to eliminating those that are not profitable. Before signing up with their company I would take some serious time and review:

    http://www.site5.com/legal/resource-usage/

    Asides for the weird take on overselling, they have ratings at a company called ratepoint.com, the strange thing when you go to the homepage for ratepoint.com you can’t search for sites or companies. There is not a listing of any company using them. This seems to be a direct company you mention on your own site, and not one that you would search for approvals.

    http://www.ratepoint.com/pricing.html

    I am not sure why an email list plays into review site. But clearly this is not an independent review company. Though clearly their terms of service makes it clear they do not endorse their customers.

    6.2         In no event shall any reference to any third party or third party product or service (including ratings thereof) be construed as an approval or endorsement by RatePoint of that third party or of any product or service provided by a third party. Likewise, a link to any non-RatePoint website does not imply that we endorse or accept any responsibility for the content or use of such website.

    My question is does this company allow you to delete feed back, or for that matter approve or decline reviews before they are even online.  I know there is a lot of complaints about this company, and this site shows a larger ratio of positive reviews then negative in comparison to other sites.  I tried calling ratepoint and the first thing I get is someone that works at a call center for them and other companies. Apparently I need to call 8 – 5, Monday through Friday. But chances are I will still get one of these call center operators. When I called I had selected the sales dept, but before I could ask any questions I got asked my name and phone number. I stop the call operator after she asked me the phone number, as I thought it was strange a sales associate would ask me questions before I could ask my own. It looks like I will email them to find my answers. So I may have a later post about them.

    Omnis review. Does omnis.com suck? Omnis Web Hosting Review

    Next on the list was number 13 in May 2010, but now they are number 8 with webhostingstuff.com. The first thing that strikes me is webhostingstuff’s information on omnis,

    Site Established: 18 Jan 1996 (14 years and 179 days ago)
    Traffic Popularity: #200 of 10,292 companies

    Then there is this on omnis.com’s site

    Serving over 200,000 accounts since 1999.

    I can only take two things from this. First of all what about the time between 1996 – 1999? The second is exactly how many accounts is currently hosted with them. Sure they have served 200,000 accounts since 1999. Its like how many McDonalds telling you how many burgers they sold. While the strategy works for McDonalds as you can see their fast food chain every where. Nothing near that level of visibility with this webhosting company. There is nothing indicating how many accounts / customers / domains are currently hosted with the company.

    But that is not really got my attention, what got my attention was that they have an asterisk next to the free domain on the first page.

    * Free domain name offer is limited to 12 month or longer hosting packages for the initial year of domain name registration of TLDs priced at $8.95 or less per year.

    Its not exactly clear, but I think its safe to say that the domain is only free for the amount of time paid for on the first payment. In other words you buy one year, you get the domain free for the first year. Every year after you are charged for the domain. This has to be the first company that I have seen do that. But there is a real problem with buying a domain with this company:

    http://www.omnis.com/dnregistration.php

    Domain name registrations do not auto-renew upon expiration. Renewal must be explicitly requested through the current renewal process prior to the expiration date. Domain name registrations will be deleted 30 days after the expiration date. Deleted domain names may enter a Redemption Grace Period status. The Redemption Grace Period provides an opportunity to restore the domain name and retain ownership. Restoration from the Redemption Grace Period requires a fee of $50.00 in addition to the renewal fee and must be paid prior to a domain name being restored from Redemption Grace Period.

    This is a rather absurd policy. Its practically begging for a $50 retrieval fee. Perhaps this is where I don’t play customer advocate. But if you don’t want to manage your domain you should not bother with hosting. You might as well be on some obscure directly or sub-domain by some free hosting company that makes its money off of advertising on the content you create. I realize this is not much of a point as I own hundreds of domains. There is not a week that goes by that I don’t pay for a domain. I make it a point to review the domains that will renew in the next 30 days to decided which will be renewed and which will be allowed to expired. Out of most of my business expenses domains are the lowest cost, but most worth keeping on automatic renewal.

    This is another company where they create a lengthy multi-segmented terms of service. Frankly I tend to think customers that buy unlimited space hosting are going to pay as much attention to the terms of service as they paid for their hosting account. But here is the part I find funny:

    Omnis Network provides no guarantee or assurance to the time in which a new order will be processed.

    Located at http://www.omnis.com/policies/hosting.php

    I find this absurd, there should be a max amount of time of when to accept an order no matter how cheap it is.

    On the same link I also find

    Omnis Network uses Network-attached storage devices to store Customer’s files. The nature of this type of storage requires that Omnis Network limit the number of files Customer can store with the hosting service to prevent exhaustion of the total number of files permitted on the storage device. This limit is 81920 files. Customer acknowldeges that this limit exists for all hosting service and can not be adjusted.

    There way along with CPU usage another way they use to close accounts down, but I tend to doubt they have ever shut account down for reaching the file limit.

    Also here is a reason to maintain your own back ups if you decide to host with them:

    A fee of $100.00 may be charged should Customer require any files from system backups. Omnis Network does not guarantee that the files contained in the system backup are the most recent copies for a given site. System backups are available for at most 6 days.

    The omnis affiliate program

    Is another high payout, at least on the hosting account which they hand out $75. On domains a more reasonable $1 per domain.

    This is the first company that I have seen, or perhaps I missed it when reading the terms of service for other companies, but they do not allow you to use their name in search engine marketing strategy:

    Affiliates are prohibited in utilizing our protected keyword “OMNIS” or any variation, misspelling or combination of words with our keyword, in advertising and search engine sites.

    This means I should not find any sites with does omnis suck? Read my review to find out.

    http://www.hostingsthatsuck.com/omnis-sucks/

    I know to many hostingsthatsuck.com appears to be a webhosting review site. But underneath the surface they are really an affiliate that is better served by making companies appear in the best positive light. By the domain name I would assume this would be the place to go to find webhosts that do indeed suck. After spending an hour on their site I am having a hard time finding anyone that they don’t approve of. But they are clearly violating the affiliate terms of service by utilizing Omnis in their search engine results.

    Are Greenvillehost.com and Webhostingpad.com the same company?

    In May 2010 Greenvillehost.com was number 12 on webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 list. Now they are not on the list. That does not mean I forget. This is another so called green company. Their focus is on green energy credits, going paperless, furniture from renewable or recycled materials, and energy efficiency compliant technology. Though I am, suppose to take them at their word from this page with limit information to prove they are green.

    http://www.greenvillehost.com/greenhosting.html

    Plus a few well known green facts that seem more like fillers to make a full page then actual facts on what makes their company green. To me it seems they are using “green” as marketing gimmick. There is nothing in regards to recycling of old equipment or details in what makes their data center green. While many companies such as my bank don’t send paper statements, that does not stop them from sending marketing to my mail box, nor is it going to stop employees from bringing cans of soda to work. The one word that does not come into play is recycling. There are a lot of elements from the periodic table in computers. Some of which you don’t want to end up in a land fill.

    Interestingly enough they bought their domain in 2008 and they have no problem with stating that. To forgo the problem of not using an aged domain they claim to be formed by “web hosting industry experts”. Which I assume would be webhostingpad.com. Webhostingpad shows up on the network whois, and when you go to webhostingpad.com you find a similar single unlimited package. No signs of the ability to resell on their network. I think the finale part that tips me off is the award(s). http://www.greenvillehost.com/awards.html

    This link takes you to http://www.upperhost.com/webhostingpad_web_hosting_review.htm

    Greenville hosting has no awards of its own. Not even the one from webhostingstuff.com on their site, though that might have to due with greenville no longer being on the top 25, no telling as I did not review the site before they were off the list. Webhostingpad has a bunch of awards from paid spots as well as their affiliates. If I was to choose who to be an affiliate for it would be greenville for a $100 per sign up, versus upperhost which is $75 per sign up.

    But lets get in to my phone call and there terms of service. Clearly when any company tells you they are unlimited, their not being honest. Here is the dandy I found in their terms of service.

    http://www.greenvillehost.com/terms.html

    Server Resources
    Any Web site that uses a high amount of server resources (such as, but not limited to, CPU time, memory usage, and network resources) will be given the option to reduce the resources used to an acceptable level, or upgrade its service to a VPS plan. Greenvillehost will be the sole arbiter of what is considered to be a high server usage level. Please see our    abuse terms for a detailed listing of our resources. Any Web Hosting account deemed to be adversely affecting server performance or network integrity will be shut down without prior.

    And at http://www.greenvillehost.com/billing_policy.html

    VPS Server Billing

    VPS servers are billed on 1 month or 3 month cycles. Payments are made in advance based on the billing cycle selected. Accounts are automatically renewed at the end of each billing cycle for the next cycle to avoid interruption of service.

    To cancel service, you must confirm the cancellation by completing our cancellation online cancellation form at
    https://secure.greenvillehost.com/cancellation.htm

    In the Reason field, please state”Canceling VPS service”. No refund is issued for cancellations or for termination of VPS account.

    Here is the thing I find fasinating, while the terms of service mention VPS, there is no vps plans listed any where on their site. I called them because there were two things I wanted to find out . 1. How much it cost to keep the free domain if you planned on leaving (which is $14.95). 2. Specs and a page for the vps plan listed in greenvillehost.com. On number 2 I pretty much stumped the new sales person. It took 8 minutes to find out Greenvillehost does not offer a vps plan, or remedy should you go beyound the unwritten resource limit. I decided to go to webhostingpad.com and find that unlike greenvillehost.com they do offer chat. I did a screen shot of this rather slow chat. I was able to get a link to the vps plan but it did not cover quarterly billing.

    http://www.webhostingpad.com/vps-package.html

    I think the most disturbing thing is that when I click on the bbb link on the bottom I get the following screen:

    Going to the BBB’s site I get an even less favorable view of webhostingpad.com:

    http://www.bbb.org/chicago/business-reviews/internet-web-hosting/web-hosting-padcom-in-rolling-meadows-il-88274902

    Looking for greenvillehost bbb I get this interesting link:

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/archive/index.php/t-934275.html

    I too have had a lot of trouble with the WebHostingPad affiliate program, I have not been very impressed with them in the past but recently they got a new affiliate manager. The new manager seems to respond a lot more quickly than the old one; however, I still think they have a lot of work to do.

    What I find humorous is that alreadyhosting.com (in my sights)  a company that works much like hostaz.com (Also owned by Micahel Low of webhostingstuff.com) a site that claims to be “AlreadyHosting.com is an independent web hosting review site.” is complaining about webhostingpad.com.

    04-21-2010, 09:50 PM

    I too have had a lot of trouble with the WebHostingPad affiliate program, I have not been very impressed with them in the past but recently they got a new affiliate manager. The new manager seems to respond a lot more quickly than the old one; however, I still think they have a lot of work to do.

    04-22-2010, 03:58 PM

    Hi,

    I also agree that you better join an affiliate network like Commission Junction. The commission rates at CJ are higher than those inhouse affiliate program of Web Hosting Companies.

    I would have to disagree.. I really dislike CJ. A host that I deal with has a CJ affiliate program as well as an in house affiliate program. They ran a test and estimated that affiliates who chose the CJ route lost about 15% more sales than those who did the in-house program.

    NOW.. If you have a dishonest host you would be better off going with CJ.

    http://www.alreadyhosting.com/reviews/webhostingpadreview.php

    “WebHostingPad recently was moved up to the #3 spot on our site! WebHostingPad.com is known for their affordable web hosting package that includes a free domain. Web hosting for only $1.99/month!”

    HostGator = Bad Web Host? Read Honest HostGator Review

    Disclaimer: The content has undergone modifications for grammatical corrections and to update inactive links, utilizing Archive.org where feasible. Videos no longer available from original sources have been substituted with alternatives or indicated as missing, and any instances where replacements couldn’t be found are clearly noted. For reference to the original article as it was, https://web.archive.org/web/20230930130451/https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/unlimited-hosting/hostgator-bad-web-host-read-honest-hostgator-review.html

    We now come to Hostgator number 5 on the top 25 and #5 of 10,293. with webhostingstuff.com. The only host whose top 25 ranking matches its popularity ranking. Also, Hostgator is the only company with a single-digit ranking in traffic popularity on webhostingstuff.com. It does not seem that in the last 2 years, HostGator has been able to get past number 5 in the rankings despite their growing popularity claims.   You would think they could at least beat Arvand.  Perhaps hostgator paid in advance for their “advertising” on webhostingstuff.com for that 5th spot. I would suggest contacting webhostingstuff.com to get a push-up on those rankings; perhaps HostGator can get in a bidding war with iPage for that number 1 spot… sorry I meant advertising Webhostingstuff.com does not “sell” rankings *eye roll*.  Did I forget to mention the mysterious disappearing negative fee back?

    Hostgator has no problem listing awards from websites that are nothing more than elaborate or not-so-elaborate affiliates.

    http://www.hostgator.com/reviews.shtml *Only an ERROR 404 page in June 2010 was recorded on Archive.org*

    Only a few offer an award that doesn’t have an affiliate link or, better yet, a coupon.  Webhostingstuff.com is on the list.

    Though one of the affiliates……….. I mean, award sites do not have all good reviews:

    http://www.reviewshut.com/web-hosting/hostgator.html *Updated with Archive.org link*

    I am unsure of the point of these “awards” when most sites don’t have any visible advertising other than coupons and affiliate links.  Clearly, they have to pay for their hosting somehow, and is anyone going to write tons of content for nothing?  After all, will you bad-mouth an organization that will pay you $50 – $125 per sign-up, or will you sing their praises? This is nothing more than a list of reviews for profit, not an unbiased setup like Consumer Reports.

    Hostgator Affiliate Program(s)

    So far, I see that Hostgator.com has two commission programs. One at Commission Junction and their own.

    Through Commission Junction, you get a flat $100 fee per sign-up

    At Hostgator.com directly

    • 1-5 a month, $50 per sign up
    • 6-10 a month, $75 per sign up
    • 11-20 a month, $100 per sign up
    • 21+ a month, $125 per sign up

    It appears that, unlike other companies I have reviewed, this is on any term, monthly or higher terms.

    Depending on your marketing skills, you’re better off with Commission Junction if you are not that great. If you’re really good, you’re better off with Hostgator.com.

    But the big payouts are the reason why they are growing so fast. Just like the other 4 hosts I reviewed, they have a large payout that encourages their affiliates to flood the search engines with tons of crap.  You can see this when you do a search on “host gator sucks”, real complaints are hidden in between the “I have your coupon” sites and other affiliates.

    Hostgartor.com likes to brag about numbers, which makes people believe they are legitimate operations. This is why I got so many comments on my video from people who need a lesson on ethics: having money does not mean you need to cheat. Their large numbers are based on a high payout.  I would love to know the amount of cancellations versus the number of new orders. The amount of refunds. How about operating costs? Numbers that I don’t see. Their company may be growing, but they are going to suffer losses. Another number I would like to see is the number of affiliate payouts. What they are paying Commission Junction, after all, is that the affiliate gets $100 per sign-up, and Commission Junction is not a free operation.

    Then there is this link: http://www.googlelady.com/1281/exhostgator-employee/*Updated with Archive.org link*

    I am not sure how valid the information is, but there are several points that ring true, such as the affiliate program. But anyone can look that up. Its not like the person she is supposedly interviewing is not disgruntled or, for that matter, real. However, having worked at Wal-Mart during my college years, I know that those benefits that drew me in were not immediately available and had many catches. Two examples were their health insurance and college tuition programs. They claimed I had to be a full-time employee (it did not matter; I was working 40 hours a week for 18 months). But on the flip side, I have been with good employers that had dirt thrown at them that were lies, such as one company where I only had to wait 30 days for my health insurance to kick in. But I have to wonder if HostGator employee pages http://www.hostgator.com/benefits.shtml *link dead, no Archive.org link* is nothing more than veneer.  After all, they have to make sacrifices somewhere to make sure that their affiliates drive those big numbers and drown out the negative feedback.

    Unlimited Hostgator.com plan, you must use this much space in order to apply

    http://blog.hostgator.com/2008/10/20/all-you-can-eat-hosting/*Updated with Archive.org link*

    I am not sure how many customers read the cartoon and saw the irony in Hostgator talking about the wonders of overselling and unlimited space. But a thick guy who is not slim enough to eat at an all-you-can-eat buffet next to what is a mock “you must be this tall” roll coaster ride sign, indicating you must be this thin to enter.  Subliminal truth?

    The Hostgator.com Traceroute

    Tracing route to hostgator.com [67.18.54.28]…
    hop rtt rtt rtt ip address fully qualified domain name

    1 1 1 1 70.84.211.97 61.d3.5446.static.theplanet.com
    2 90 1 1 70.87.254.5 po101.dsr02.dllstx5.theplanet.com
    3 0 0 0 70.85.127.109 po52.dsr02.dllstx3.theplanet.com
    4 9 1 1 70.87.253.122 te1-3.dsr02.dllstx2.theplanet.com
    5 1 0 0 70.87.254.94 te1-2.car09.dllstx2.theplanet.com
    6 1 1 0 67.18.54.28 gator.hostgator.com

    Even though HostGator has its own building, it does not appear to have its own server center, and like the first three companies I reviewed, they are also using theplanet.com.

    Final thoughts on whether anyone should buy from Hostgator.com.

    Even though Hostgator.com is only in the 5th position, they probably should be in the top position at webhostingstuff.com. Granted, I consider the top 25 hosts a list for the top 25 to avoid because their main concern is raking in money, not investing in infrastructure that advances their services. Developing “unlimited” / “overselling” is not investing in infrastructure but concentrating on the misinformed worldwide consumer who may not understand that you get what you pay for. Bernie Madoff did the same thing with over-optimistic promises of high returns on investments.  Anyone who offers a higher than 100% commission on a first payment is more interested in bringing customers in than keeping them.

    *Dead Video*

    This is my own personal rant against hostgator.com

    Hostgator.com has been a good host for me in many ways, and I am not saying it because I hosted with them. I say that because I would get a lot of their dissatisfied customers. Customers who thought before HostGator that my prices were too high only turned around and realized that being cheap on your source of income was not all that smart. For that matter, I think at the time, I loved hostgator.com, at least until I saw this post back in February 2009:

    http://blog.hostgator.com/2009/02/06/bad-economy-good-for-hostgator/ *Updated with Archive.org link*

    It was as if Hostgator was telling everyone in the United States we have jobs, but you ignored us.  They’re a big host, but it does not mean everyone is going to know who they are.  So, in the search for jobs, they are not at the top of your list.  Better yet, not everyone is going to have the skills to deal with computers and customer service. My grandfather was a soft-spoken person, awesome at fixing cars and generally anything mechanical.  He would not have the first idea of how to use a computer. I could not imagine him trying to handle customer service on the phone, as he is not very loud.

    Somehow, the 10% employment was a result of people being lazy. It had nothing to do with the mismanagement of companies, the deregulation to prevent those companies from being corrupt, or did it? Apparently Brent has never had to go door to door with a resume. What job that you might be able to get barely pays the bills, so you have to get a second job, and still, it’s not enough. The jobs you have skills for won’t hire you because you have no experience (in my case) or are too old (my grandfather’s case). The first job I had to settle for did not even involve a resume but an application. I am sorry, Brent, but you need to walk in the shoes of the people who are getting welfare before complaining about handouts. I encountered these problems when I was in school, and my scholarship, which only covered so many of my expenses, had to be supplemented. The effort to find a secondary source of income was killing my grades. Yes there are deadbeats, and even those that milk the system to get a nice paycheck from the government. But it’s not everyone.

    But this is coming from someone pretending to be a bum for a day:

    *Hostgator removed the video, and this is the only copy I can find*

    Oh, look, I see my video to the side when you go to YouTube to view his video 🙂

    Justhost Just Sucks? Warning – Read this Justhost review first …

    Second on the list is JustHost.com, I first mentioned this host when I brought up hostingsthatsuck.com.

    Forgive me while I figure and fine tune the format. At the same time I had originally thought that I could spend part of my free time in a day and do a single review on each hosting company. There is a lot of information out there on just iPage.com and JustHost,com. Spending an hour to sum up as much information as I find is not really all that feasible. So I will try to get what I can get out, and revisit these hosts when I review other webhosting review websites to expose. But here is what I dug up:

    Looking at the trace route for this site I get the following information:

    Traceroute to justhost.com [67.225.149.185]…

    61.d3.5446.static.theplanet.com
    po101.dsr02.dllstx5.theplanet.com
    po52.dsr02.dllstx3.theplanet.com
    2d.ff.5746.static.theplanet.com
    gigabitethernet7-3.ar2.dal2.gblx.net
    giglinx.tengigabitethernet3-1.ar5.chi2.gblx.net
    w-dc2-core3-te9-1.rtr.liquidweb.com
    www.justhost.com

    I see liquidweb.com, who appears to be on theplanet.com’s servers. Its starting to seem that all webhosts are on theplanet.com’s servers.  Not a lot I can take from the trace route, but I like to look at where a hosts physical location might be.

    A Rabid Advertising Campaign:

    The bulk of my look at Justhost.com is that they seem to be on a rather aggressive advertising campaign. They seem to appear every where over night back in 2009. Which brings me to hostingsthatsuck.com. Hostingsthatsuck.com wants you to believe that there a great company with almost no negative feedback, despite the fact they did not suck. Atleast that is how it was at first, but later they changed it to they did suck so they had to recommend another host, but you had to scroll past the glowing review and affiliate link to see the disclaimer. But finale they changed the page and put this up:

    “Firstly, maybe we can take the negative feedbacks about any web hosting with a pinch of salt. According to a study conducted by America’s premier customer services research firm, TARP, customers are more likely to speak about a company when things go wrong rather than when they go right. On average, customers are twice as likely to talk about a bad experience as they are to share a positive one. So we can safely say that for every negative comment about Justhost, there are two more good Justhost reviews we did not hear about.”

    However their original review as well as their policy to say something sucks, but not really while applying what they call an “unbiased” seems to have a copy cat site where the original post was later re-posted:

    http://reviews.azhan.com/web-hosting/17/not-one-of-those-just-host-reviews.html

    The problem is suck is not the only negative meaning that would turn someone from buying (fraud, downtime, up-time, terrible, bad, incoherent, poor, nasty, lame, evil, stupid, cheat …………….) I figured while looking, why not see what I get when I search for “just host sucks”, and to the left of google is 2 sites that are using those terms for their adwords: 10-cheapwebhosting.com & webhostingdeals.org. Most of the sites on the first page of search engine results are affiliates. Hostingsthatsuck.com (that has no actual hosts that suck on it that I can see now), used complaints that did not seem valid to validate their “not” sucking.  But I have found a lot of complaints in regards to orders not being set up, and issues with getting it up or getting a refund. Multiple complaints of downtime and deleted content. In some cases people were told that they deleted their own content. I supposed you can trust these affiliates that choose to market on the word sucks with just host. All of which try (or not) to sound like some unbiased site that want to convince you that justhost.com is the host for you. So where are they hosting?

    Domain Name: 10-CHEAPWEBHOSTING.COM
Name Server: NS2153.HOSTGATOR.COM
Name Server: NS2154.HOSTGATOR.COM
    Domain Name:WEBHOSTINGDEALS.ORG
Name Server:NS.INMOTIONHOSTING.COM
Name Server:NS2.INMOTIONHOSTING.COM
    How about the sites that are using suck to determine if a host sucks (or really just trying to get you to buy Justhost hosting)?
    Domain Name: HOSTINGSTHATSUCK.COM
Name Server: NS553.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
Name Server: NS554.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
Websitewelcome.com is Hostgator.com
    Domain Name: AZHAN.COM
Name Server: NS1.NAME.COM
Name Server: NS2.NAME.COM

    None of the 4 sites that I have looked at, and for that matter no site that promotes justhost.com as the host to use, are hosting on justhost.com. After all if they are so good, why are they not using them?

    So why are they everywhere in the search engines?  JustHost.com seems to have two affilate programs.  Both of which have rather heavy pay outs, enough to encourage anyone and their dog to do what ever it takes to get their site in the top of search engine results.  Their own personally ran affiliate program can be found at:

    http://www.justhost.com/affiliate-program

    Also they use Commission Junction, their policy is:

    We are a first class web hosting provider that offer free domains, unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email accounts and the ability to host unlimited domains. We are committed to making web hosting simple and understandable for every user. We have ensured our sign up process is as straightforward as possible to ensure customers have no problems setting up their account. Customers will usually receive their login details within 10 minutes of subscribing, making the process swift and efficient for both the customer and the affiliate.

    Just Host’s affiliate program gives you the ability to make up to $200 per sale and an additional $100 if you convert over 10 sales in a month. We offer two plans each available for 6, 12, 24 and 36 months, a sale qualifies as a subscription to any of these plans. Please see our commission structure below:

    • Just Plan & Premium Semi-Annual sign-up – $100
    • Just Plan 12, 24 and 36 month sign-up – $100
    • Just Premium 12, 24 and 36 month sign-up – $120
    • Just Reseller sign-up – $200!

    We also offer an incentive of $100 if an affiliate sends us over 10 sales in 1 month. Our cookie referral period is 30 days. Just Host has a variety of banners, skyscapers and buttons to suit all sites along with text and content links.

    We are heavily promoting Just Host online and in print. This exposure will greatly increase our customer base and our conversion rate which is one of the highest in our industry will continue to grow with our customers.

    The Just Host team has over 10 years experience in web hosting and are dedicated to providing customers with the most reliable web hosting service possible. We guarantee affordable price plans, secure servers, first class 24/7 tech support and a wide range of features.

    Looking at both it seems clear the one to go with if you want a big payout, its commission junction and not JustHosts.com own affilate program. Both of which have rather insane payouts like iPage.com.

    At the same time while they claim being 10 years old to their affiliates on commission junction, their domain registration says the domain was bought in 2002.

    http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Report/Just-Hostcom-100076574

    They claim on the BBB site that they were founded in 2002. But I have serious doubts, as the oldest piece of information that I have seen is no latter then 2008. I suspect that justhost.com was just unused aged domain. I have many that I have never used some that are over 10 years old. I suspect this is the same case with justhost.com and they are blatantly lying about their start date.

    I admit they are a fast growing operation, but I imagine this is nothing more then another arm of another hosting operation. Much like what iPage.com is to fatcow.com. Its not my concern what they tell their affiliates, but that’s going to be what the affiliates tell people when they try to refer people.

    Onto the chat and phone call with Justhost.com

    I thought I would chat and call them since I had read a lot of complaints about English problems. I can tell you that there was a lot of copying and pasting going on. I actually stumped the person on chat for a whole three minutes on how much it would cost to keep my domain. $20 is a bit much. From the chat I could not see a lot of problems with English use, but this was just sales and clearly a lot of copy and past to my answers, due to cases where text was pasted and sent soon after one another.

    Chat start time Jun 13, 2010 5:23:09 PM EST

    Chat end time Jun 13, 2010 5:30:55 PM EST

    Duration (actual chatting time) 00:07:46

    Operator Andrew

    Chat Transcript

    info: All our operators are currently assisting others customers. You are currently in position 1 Thank you for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.

    info: You are now chatting with ‘Andrew’

    Andrew: Welcome to Live Chat support, how may I help you?

    Benjamin: Hello Andrew, I just found your site had a few questions

    Benjamin: If I change my mind how and decided to cancel, how much will my domain cost to keep?

    Andrew: If you cancel your account we will provide you with a full refund for the remainder of your term, excluding any setup fees that were charged when you signed up, and excluding domain registration fees. (Even if you received your domain for free through one of our promotional plans)

    Andrew: The domain registration fee we incur on each domain registration is $20.00. So all refunds are subject to a $20.00 registration fee charge, but you will own the domain name afterwards.

    Benjamin: Your cost seems a bit high on the domain, I think I will go to another domain register for my domain. On the order form it only indicates buy new domain or transfer. Do you give me dns so I can change it with my domain register?

    Andrew: So you want to signup hosting with your existing domain, right ?

    Benjamin: a domain I am buying from godaddy

    Benjamin: $20 is a bit much if I decided I do not like your company

    Andrew: Ok… For this select the option ‘I already own my domain name’. In this case your domain will stay with your registrar and you can host it with us. Also, please note that we initiate the transfer of domain only if you place a request with us for the same.

    Andrew: Our name servers are as below

    Andrew: ns1.pipedns.com: 67.212.177.42

    Andrew: ns2.pipedns.com: 99.198.106.66

    Andrew: ns3.pipedns.com: 99.198.106.74

    Benjamin: that will not try to transfer my domain?

    Andrew: Right

    Benjamin: ok

    Benjamin: where are your servers located?

    Andrew: Our Data Center is in Chicago US

    Benjamin: are you located at that center?

    Andrew: Yes

    Benjamin: nice, many hosts don’t seem to staff their centers.

    Benjamin: thanks I will order sometime tonight.

    Andrew: You are most Welcome !!

    Andrew: Is there anything else I can help you with?

    Benjamin: nope have a good day

    Andrew: Thank you for visiting Hosting Support. Should you have any queries or require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

    Andrew: We are pleased to bring to your attention the following offer.

    Andrew: Let us take away any worries of accidental deletion or modification of your website or files by backing up your site on a daily basis. If you ever need a previous days backup, just let us know and we will happily restore or upload backups for you – $19.95 per year.

    Andrew: Have a nice day!! Good Bye.

    ______________________

    After I said “nope have a good day”, I got a barrage of sales copy and pastes, and the operator left before I could ask about the back up service. I figured I would try covering that with a phone call. After the automated system transferred me to sales I was stuck for 3 minutes of ringing. I hung up before trying to see if I could make it 4 minutes. You would figure they would have a answering machine to tell me that they are not open and when to call…… if they were not open.

    Onto the JustHost.com complaints:

    The BBB has 169 complaints at present, though not all are viewable, here is what the BBB states about those complaints:

    “Complainants allege a variety of billing and refund related problems. Customers complain that previously undisclosed fees are added to billings, or that advertisements for service at $3.95 per month failed to disclose that in order to get the discounted rate, customers must agree to be billed two years in advance. Other complainants allege they were unable to send emails or were advised that they must upgrade their service in order for basic services to function properly. Many customers complain they are unable to communicate with the company to resolve problems due to the company’s email only policy, or that tech support does not resolve problems. Some complainants allege the services are not as represented, or that the company falsely advertises a 90% uptime rate. The company responds to complaints by issuing refunds or partial refunds and agreeing to close accounts along with apologies for any inconveniences. One or more complaints are unresolved meaning the company failed to properly address the complaint allegations or their response was inadequate.”

    This is not the only organization that has multiple complaints:

    http://amplicate.com/sucks/justhost

    http://www.trustlink.org/BusinessProfile.aspx?ID=205976637

    There are many more non-affiliated sites that are reporting multiple issues with Justhost.com.

    The reasons I give to not buy from Justhost.com are as follows:

    1. Probable no more then a 2 year old company at best, and they are using an aged domain name. I can not find much information that shows they were in business prior to 2009. The BBB states they signed up with them in 2009. However I know BBB asks when you start, and don’t actually look for business licenses. Most complaints are in 2009, and I am having a hard time finding anything from 2008 or before then.
    2. Keeping your domain with them is a $20 charge, they claim that’s what it costs them. But there are tons of domain registration programs that cost most hosting companies $8 or less.
    3. Multiple complaints of accounts not being set up when ordered.
    4. Multiple complaints on getting a refund.
    5. Complaints of content being deleted
    6. Complaints of poor tech support, in many cases musical chairs between departments.
    7. Complaints of constant down time
    8. Heavy affiliate commission payouts that encourage false advertising just to make a sale.

    When Unlimited Space is not the same as Infinite Space

    I will never trust hostingsthatsuck.com. Why?  Well they at one time had a glowing review of justhost.com.  Only to change it to they suck, because they had a lot of negative search engine results.  Keep in mind you had to scroll down past the positive review that said “Just Host just sucks, not really” to see a disclaimer that they no longer approved of Just Host and recommend another company, though their Just Host affiliate link and banners remained on the site.    Then they changed it back to not sucking because they (hostingsthatsuck.com) finally figured out that people are more likely to post negative comments then they are positive.  Took them long enough to figure that out.  Considering before that they based their methodology on rather a host sucked or not based on the amount of search engine results for suck with a dot com.  But that’s not so much the part that I have an issue with, regardless of the stupidity of their prior methodology.  I have an issue with the fact they are in bed with the same people they are supposed to have an unbiased opinion of.

    Then there is this:

    “admin says:December 29, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    Mr Abasi, I hope you don’t take the word “unlimited” to mean infinite. Realistically, it just means that you get enough space more than you ever need or it is an unreachable limit. Read their TOS. If are hosting a file/movie/photo sharing, get a dedicated server!The “abusers” make life of decent users like us harder than it should be, when the web hosts put more and more constraints on what we can do on our hosting account.

    We predict that the “unlimited” bytes hard-drive will never be invented, but all web hosting will offer unlimited everything in the future – go figure”

    It took another response from Abasi to get the admin to admit that the practice of using unlimited space in sales wording was unethical.  Clearly whoever the Admin is, he / she was trying to reinvent the use of the word unlimited.  While unlimited has never meant ‘all that you will ever need’, unlimited is a far catchier draw in then ‘all that you will ever need’.  How do you determine how much resources that a individual will ever need?  A constraint is clearly a limit.

    I think the only bigger mess then unlimited hosting is unlimited reseller hosting. Especially when they are reselling webhosting to other customers.  Let me tell you the mess that unlimited space reselling can be, or better yet reselling to other resellers.  One day I had a customer who moved his site from another host, only to find his previous host shut down his unlimited reseller account because he passed the “all you will ever need” quota.   Yes reselling to resellers was allowed.  At the same time he did not bother to answer his email or phone to my company’s calls or his customers.  His customers found me when they did a whois on his new dns to find my company, thinking we had shut their sites down.   We soon shut his account down due the headache it had caused, last time I did the math he cost at least 80 hours of lost man hours between dealing with 47 different individuals that were also reselling.  Clearly his $16.99 a month was not going to cover the cost of man power.  He obviously was not going to deal with his customers despite the multiple emails and phone calls.  Only after shutting his site down did he contact us. Despite pointing his customers to the right company housing their content by doing whois on the dns to their sites, we generated no sales.  I was not really eager to guide these people to my company when they were looking for unlimited space, meaning they had the same disaster to look forward to all over again.  I tried but when I indicated my company did not offer unlimited, and perhaps it would be best to be with a company that has limits as opposed to being shut down without warning.  Their recent downtime did not bring the point home.

    Hostingsthatsuck.com does not have those affiliate links and banners on their site for nothing.  For the same reasons that webhostingstuff.com has justhost.com on their number 2 spot.  I also don’t agree with them on all hosts as offering unlimited in the future.  Frankly saying something is unlimited means there is no limits.  If the terms of service starts listing limits on space and its usage then they need to remove the “un” from limited.   When your website is your source of income you want to make sure you don’t push any limits, or have your limits / needs determined by a webhost… Seriously, if your website is your only source of income, why would you ever trust it to an unlimited account that is $2.95 a month?  I suppose you can be cheap and hope that you don’t find out what has been determined to be your needs.  Can you afford days of downtime?

    Regardless of the so called unlimited false claim, every host has a limit to how much resources a customer can use.  Bandwidth can be unmetered, but it will always have a cap on how much data you can send per second.  Just as there are limits on how much email you can send out per hour.   I reluctantly am willing to say it, but I had one of those unlimited space webhosting companies.  It was not something I wanted to do, it came from pressure from a business partner who had started a separate operation.  His claim was that it was the future of hosting.  But my thoughts were that Dollar Generals, 99 cent stores, and other stores that focus on the cheap had not put Wal-Mart and Target out of business.  The unlimited market is simply the cheap market, and no serious website should consider such a service.  I consider any one running an unlimited host along the same ethical standards as a payday loan operation.

    I got dragged into it when he was drowning in the customer service side. For some reason he thought the level of support and flow of customers would be equal to our other hosting companies where we were charging between $20 – 500 a month.  It was going well, and the customers did come flooding in faster than previous operations. But it had been my experience that those that pay you $5 a month require a lot more hand holding then those that pay you a lot.  This proved especially true for the unlimited company, which is why I got dragged into help sort it out.

    Part of my business partners’ problem was he had long been against my policy of approving orders before setting them up. Unlike the companies we co-found, orders would only be created once they were screened, this was done because I managed customer service.  After several fraud orders and charge backs and threats of having his merchant account closed down he quickly come screaming to me to fix it.  That and his authorization charges were to the point of eating 90% of his income.  I been long screening for a variety of reasons, though charge backs are what started me on screening.  Also the credit card industry is not a friend to the businesses that use their merchant services, even worse if you sell a service like webhosting.  If you have any doubt of this you have not had a charge back.  Credit card companies that offer buyer protection are taking the money straight from the business, in this case my business, often without warning.   So you get hit from both the guy committing fraud and your merchant provider.  If you’re luckily you have a merchant that does not charge a charge back fee for a third level of pain (it really does pay to read the fine print on those contracts).  This happens regardless if the claim is valid or not.  Rarely have I been able to win counter claims on charge back claims.  So the best way of preventing is to screen every order.

    Then the other side of this is a webhost is a hosting company is not going to host every site, even if their intention is not to do a charge back.  But screening allowed prevention of those that might violate the terms of service.  In my case it was warez, spam, phishing, pornography, hate sites…. (There are so many websites that I wish I had never seen in my 11 years).   A unique problem this company had was that every order with a ‘mail’ in their name domain was pretty much signing up to spam.  Not something I had encountered with the other hosting companies I had owned.

    But the true damage control came in screening existing accounts.  When accounts reached 1 gig we started looking for terms of service violations.  I would say 20% entered this category at 1 gig.   Like those that decided to back up their desktop, back up of their site, any site that was not was not reachable through navigation of their home page, file sharing, etc., etc., etc..   Keep in mind most websites rarely use more than a 100 Megs.  When they started reaching 50 gigs it was pretty much a 100% kill rate.  Keep in mind part of our terms of service was no reselling, and that all domains must belong to the account holder.

    Every account has a magic number with every company for what amounts to a profit threshold.     If the account passes by those unpublished limits it surpasses the profit margin the account.  Clearly any company that likes money will have such an account in it for the chopping block to ensure they do not running in the negative on income.  Otherwise the company becomes a charity.  Equipment, advertising, taxes, merchant fees, staff, affiliate payments, web design, utilities,  and so much more expenditures are part of making sure a webhosting company runs properly and profitable.

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