Premiumwebdesign.com – Hostgator.com customer
Apr 26
Premiumwebdesign.com is my First host review of 3 hosts for April 2011 webhostingstuff.com’s top 25. Another host that choose to try webhostingstuff.com’s advertising, perhaps they are not aware that makes them a top 25 host. Depending on how much they pay determines where in the top 25 they are. So if they choose to contact me like 1/4 the hosts have they can read http://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/webhostingstuff-com-a-rigged-contest.html. Frankly anyone that tells me they did not know at this point have no excuses. Just by searching for webhostingstuff.com this site comes up on the first page of Google search engine results. This has been the case for at least 8 months.
The Premiumwebdesign.com / Hostgator.com connection
If you read my initial thoughts I thought that this host may very well be a reseller for hostgator.com.
To be honest I am not 100 percent sure they are a hostgator.com client, but the network whois tells me a bit of information that makes me think its hostgator.com, which is websitewelcome. There not the first host to have that in their network whois. Webinternethosting.com, has the same network whois and they are a hostgator.com customer.
If you visit Hostgator.com you find they made a claim to websitewelcome:
http://support.hostgator.com/articles/private-name-servers-setup
“Many resellers choose to have their own name servers for appearance reasons. Using our anonymous name servers of ns1.websitewelcome.com and ns2.websitewelcome.com can be less professional looking for a hosting company.”
I am not sure that by definition that websitewelcome.com is anonymous, as a simple search via Google.com I found that link. That and I really do not think that most people look at the dns of most sites unless they are a host.
While I am not sure if Premiumwebdesign.com is on a dedicated account, I am certain of what they are not on because they have their own private dns.
“If you have reseller, SEO, VPS, or Dedicated, you should have those IP’s listed in your welcome email. If not, simply contact HostGator so we can provide you with the correct IP’s.”
Here is why I think Premiumwebdesign.com is on webhostingstuff.com
As I stated in my initial write up, the down time webhostingstuff.com may be greater then what is actually listed because they ping only once every 6 hours or greater.
Premiumwebdesign.com has all 5 star review from all 14 reviews
Clearly on webhostingstuff.com, which seems to be the only place that has reviews for this hosting company are all 5 star reviews. The last host to do a review with them is still with them. But the last review was May 14, 2008. Worse yet That site is not active.
“Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@rjlmusic.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.”
Google cache shows a site under construction page.
The other sites that are on webhostingstuff.com have me wondering the legitimacy of the reviews. Because some of the same people have posted a review, granted it may be years later. Then in February 3rd and 4th of 2007 they got 6 reviews. But thats not all that makes me wonder.
But my biggest gripe with Premiumwebdsign.com – No up front terms of service
From the main page clicking on the “Services” tab and picking “Web Hosting” it took me 7 pages to find, but it turns out I could have found it on the first page I came from the tab. Most companies that don’t have the terms of service on the main page tend to have it on the same page you enter your credit car at.
http://www.premiumwebdesign.com/wordpress/services/web-hosting/web-hosting-terms/
Where you find that the terms of service has been cut up and placed into several pages. This is the amount of text that they have before sending you off to navigate to pages that have no links to the other terms of service:
“Premium Web Development, L.L.C. has a responsibility to protect each of our clients and provide the best service possible. The customer is expected to have a basic knowledge of how the Internet functions, the types of use which are generally acceptable on the Internet, and the types of use which are to be avoided. Common sense is the best guide as to what is considered acceptable use. Also, common sense is the rule when uploading files during high traffic usage times on the Internet. Premium Web Design and Hosting offers space for your site on our servers and has nothing to do whatsoever with your access to reach our servers or the time it takes to upload, etc. The following guidelines were designed to ensure these services”
Most hosts have the bulk of their terms of service, they don’t piece meal it through the site to make multiple pages. But I think I know why it was made in to separate pieces.
My personal take on Premiumwebdesign.com
The design and the domain are defiantly not choices I would have made. Regardless of it being a wordpress site, the design seems out of date. I don’t like turning a hosting site into a blog, where comments can be posted anywhere. A blog can defiantly enhance a site, it defiantly does that for hostgator.com. I am not sure I would want to make the main page of any site the place for anyone to post their comments. Esspecially with a comment such as:
“Hi Glennette,
I notice that from your greeting on this page (Dear Christian Business Owner,) you assume that everybody is a Christian. I have nothing against any religion. However, do you require all your clients to be Christians?
Regards,
Jim”
While it appears the greeting has been removed, the comment is still there. Which leads into my whole separation of religion, politics, and business. Seldom do the three mix well together. Here you have Religion and politics on the main page. Clearly allowing the comments is for the sake of increasing search engine rankings.
The hosting packages are not even up front. I can’t imagine many people can find out where to order a package on this site. Clearly they need to look at the competition to see how to actually sell hosting, as opposed to purchasing fake advertising from a so called top host review site.
The terms of service is in my opinion a big problem, its not upfront its spread out to too many places when it should be linked to every page and the content for the terms of service should only be on one page. Its not easy to access as the “About Us” tab that takes you to a page that is just about one person. Which tends to make me wonder if Premiumwebdesign is a one person operation.
Yeah… I’ve been watching these guys, too. There is little, if any, real integrity in any of these “testimonials”.
I never accept any of this crap as genuine.
Want to see a bunch of scam testimonials? Check out HostGator’s Affiliate promo page:
http://support.hostgator.com/articles/affiliates/when-and-how-often-will-i-be-paid
Karl A. Krogmann
What brought this host to your attention?
You mean HostGator? I signed up with HostGator a year ago. I design websites for a living. I needed a decent hosting provider with unlimited domains (for development, cPanel, and good reliability. In that respect they have been fairly good.
Their help desk people are less than stellar. I’ve been working with Unix/Linux for more than twenty years, and do not appreciate being dicked around by a half-witted part-time “Systems Administrator” HostGator did this twice. I put an end to it.
Their affiliate program looks more and more like a scam. I have sold a half-dozen legitimate hosting packages to my clients and have yet to be paid. I am giving them 21 days to set this right. After that I will be initiating civil action to get these paid. I live in a state where the the plaintiff is awarded reasonable costs of recovery in civil action.
This will be an expensive proposition for HostGator if it goes that far.
Karl A. Krogmann
Hi Karl,
Oh, I had thought you meant premiumwebdesign.com. I was going to say not sure why anyone would be watching this host .
When did you start pushing sales to hostgator, or can you give a time line of when each sale was done?
Honestly anything that offers unlimited, has me asking what are the limits.
Regards,
Benjamin
Hi! Thanks for the review. I’m not sure how you review a host without signing up for an account and I’d like to clear up several things mentioned.
Webhostingstuff.com – I try all sorts of advertising due to the exposure and the incoming link.
HostGator connection – I am NOT a reseller for hostgator. However, I do have my dedicated server through them.
Downtime – I could go in and hit a button and reset the downtime so that it would appear there had been none. I choose to have integrity. The January 2010 downtime is why I moved to HG. The others are maintenance, moving to a different dedicated server, etc. I’m not sure how accurate it is. Anytime there’s downtime due to an account using too many resources or something like that, it’s immediately addressed and access is restored. My clients aren’t complaining so I can’t imagine why someone else is.
Reviews – I assure you they are all legit. The most recent ones can be found on thumbtack.com. They’re sporadic because I don’t ask my clients to do a review very often. Anytime I do remind them about the reviews, several of them happily go do one. I’m happy to give email addresses if you’d like to verify them.
Terms – I didn’t realize having them on separate pages would be an issue for anyone. Most people just want to see them. I can create a PDF with them all in one place if it’s truly a big deal.
Out of date design – I have no clue why you say this. I update the site frequently. I have considered creating a separate site for the hosting and you have me reconsidering that.
Comments – Agreed! Not sure what I was thinking when I allowed comments on the homepage *LOL* I have considered deleting them but don’t feel right doing so. They are not there for SEO purposes. They’re there because I approved them at one time. I’m all about building relationships.
Hosting plans – Thanks for the input. I’ll make it clearer where the hosting plans are. Hosting is not my primary service. I provide web design and search engine optimization as well.
One person operation – I do not claim to be a huge web hosting corporation. Some of my clients are with me *because* of that fact. They’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I have clients who have been with me for close to ten years. I do have a virtual assistant, a graphic designer and a writer but as far as the web hosting support, yes it’s just me. I don’t need a huge staff. I take great care of my clients and they stick around.
I respectfully request that you reconsider your review. I’d be happy to give you free hosting for three months so you can do a true review.
)
Glennette Goodbread, Owner
Premium Web Design and Hosting
Hello Glennette,
Why don’t you look into webhostingstuff.com, because you were not reviewed by me because you did advertising with them, which clearly they do not offer any advertising. You were reviewed by me because you appeared on this so called top 25 list. Do you seriously believe you are one of the best 25 hosts out there? After all your a client of Hostgator.com who in turn is a customer of theplanet which is now softlayer. After a year of pointing out the flaws in the top 25 Michael Low of Webhostingstuff.com changed the top 25 to something that will make that so called advertising, more of a burden then a way of bringing in clients. You just happen to be on the last month he had a top 25 on his main page. Do a search on my site for i7net, the host was not even online yet it some how managed to be a top 25 host. But thats just the start of issues I found with many companies on that list, one of which faked their own review on webhostingstuff.com, and their bbb record proves it.
I suggest reading
http://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/webhostingstuff-com-a-rigged-contest.html
Also are you telling me that webhostingstuff.com will allow you to reset the down time? If that is the case that adds a whole new spin on their corruption. Your reviews were not sporadic, they actually happened around the same period of time, and were repeated.
Also a pdf file is not what I recommend. I recommend a clear terms of service that is linked on every page, most commonly done on the bottom of a website. Why not use hostgator.com as an example of what to do.
As for comments on the main page, move them some where else if you don’t want to delete them.
Regards,
Benjamin
Thanks for your input Benjamin. My clients don’t have a problem with how I do things but being in business since 1999 has taught me that if one person feels a certain way, others probably do as well. Increasing my client base is something I’m certainly interested in (what business owner isn’t?) so I do listen to feedback.
As for the top 25 web hosts, I probably got an email from them, placed a bid and moved on. The money ran out fairly quickly so I don’t plan to bid anymore but I’ll check out the URL you suggested when I have some time.
Thanks for allowing me to comment.
Glennette Goodbread, Owner
Premium Web Design and Hosting
Re: resetting the downtime: From what I recall, they allow it once every X months or once a year or something like that. I logged in real quick and don’t see it so I can’t say for sure if it’s still an option. I could be thinking of another site. I’ll try to find out for sure.
Glennette Goodbread, Owner
Premium Web Design and Hosting
Hello Glennette,
I am not going to stop any host from placing comments on posts in relation to them, though at the same time I am not going to delete them either even if asked. Granted not all hosts have been as civil has you have been. Which works for you as this is a public comment.
If you happen to have the email that webhostingstuff.com sent you to sign on with them I would love to see it. You really should have done your homework before dealing with them. They delete positive feed back from those that don’t pay them, and delete negative feed back from those that will pay them.
As for advice I will be doing a second review of your site and every site I found on webhostingstuff.com, though I am not going to be looking for flaws as I did before. I want to do more of a surface scan type review, after all I get asked by a lot of hosts that do not engage in any form of business with “review: sites. Some time next month I hope to finish up the formula for a surface review in place. Which basically focuses mostly on support and terms of service while including some design and performance though not the biggest focus of the surface review.
One of the biggest problems with your site is the terms of service. Which I can not find a link to on every page, and it appears once I do find it, its on several pages. Granted I only looked at two pages of it. You really should look at Hostgator.com’s terms of service. While I am not fan of this host for many reasons, their terms of service are pretty solid.
Honestly most of the other parts of your site that bother me such as part of the design and the allowing of comments everywhere is not covered in my the surface grading system as I am using third party sites for grading such as:
http://websitegrader.com/site/hosting-reviews-exposed.com
Honestly removing the comments off your site should not hurt it, they belong on a blog and not on every page of your site.
Regards,
Benjamin