Hosting Reviews

    Hostdime.com – a VPS customer’s review

    Normally Hostdime.com would not find its way on this blog.  I have yet to find it on any of the review sites that I have monitored.  Yet they are guilty of offering so called unlimited space hosting accounts. I could of coarse read their terms of service and find some way out offering you space that goes beyond their profit margin. But hostdime.com’s unlimited space accounts are not the reason for this post.

    So if Hostdime.com is not having so-called review sites push their product why would I have a post on them?  Sure I could go into a long rant about the flaws of unlimited hosting.  This is the first time an outsider is responsible for most of the content on a post in this case a friend of mine that has been trying to get me to sign up with hostdime.com for the last few months has had a change of heart.  I had held off on signing up because his few months with the company was not enough to inspire me choose them. At the time he was referring me to hostdime.com I was having my own problems with mediatemple.net.

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2872

    He decided to write a review on hostdime.com and he did not want to give a flawed review industry anything that would help them. I have yet to post reviews by other people because they all lack any detail and are not willing to answer any more questions.  My friend assures me that he will answer questions and he sent me 3 pages worth of content.  By questions I am referring to either those by me or those that are working at hostdime.com. Hostdime.com like any other host has a right to respond to any post that I write about their company. He of coarse reserves the right to remain anonymous.  I have in the past offered this to people that wanted me to take on their host, but they wanted me to do all of the leg work, which is pointless as I don’t have their experiences to write a review for them.

    It’s up to hostdime.com to either take this feedback and improve their services, or outright ignore it and continue on like Burst.net.  Sure Burst.net has lasted more than a decade, but I honestly can say I would not want to run a company that has so much angst against it.

    A hostdime.com review

    Why am I submitting this post for your blog? Because right now, I have nothing better to do.. all of my HostDime VPS’s are down… All of my friend who I referred to HostDime are b*tching and complaining because all of THEIR virtual private servers are down, too…

    So I have nothing better to do while I wait for HostDime to fix the problem… While I wait for the goodwill I created with my clients to erode because of HostDime’s negligence… While I wait for any trust I built with my clients over the course of years to evaporate… While I watch my sites and my business unravel…. While my friends email me with remarks like, “I thought you said HostDime was good…??”

    Yeah, it’s hell right now and the bottomline is: HostDime sucks. Oh yes, indeed. HostDime sucks BIG TIME.

    Let me explain…

    I opened a HostDime VPS account 6 months ago… and I was amazed at the speed of the server. But my amazement was short lived….

    At first the speed was breathtaking. It was almost like having my own server. SO I bought another HostDime VPS… and another… and another… all over the course of 2 months. I had 4 VPS’s to host approximately 50 sites total. Yes, a bit exorbitant, I agree… but I believe in safety in numbers. I like to diversify my investment.

    At first, I was happy the speed was great. It was amazing. But I was worried…. It looked like all of my VPS’ were on the same node. Cause for alarm? Not by judging the glorious reviews on Webhosting Talk. They all spoke of HostDime’s proactive support and performance…

    Well, I know people tend to exaggerate. To be honest, I didn’t find their support that “proactive”. On weekends, I was lucky if I could find a HostDime technician who would answer my chat within 10 minutes. Often times, when I initiated a chat request, I would have to wait 10-15 minutes for an “available operator” to pick up…

    Well, I’m a forgiving person by nature. I mean, my troubles weren’t major. I could wait 10 or 15 minutes for an answer to a non-critical question, so all in all I was happy…

    So, immediately began referring my friends and clients to HostDime. After all, why keep a good thing to myself, right??

    WRONG.

    In fact, it seemed like the more people I referred to HostDime who bought their VPS, the slower and slower my own Virtual Private Servers became.

    After referring 5 clients to HostDime, I immediately noticed something wrong: They were all placed on the same node as my other 4 HostDime VPS accounts …

    WARNING, WILL ROBINSON! WARNING!!

    Then, within days, it all went bust… All of my VPS accounts… and all of my client’s VPS accounts.

    The tragedy began with intermittent uptime. I would go to one of my sites and it would fail to load. I would hit refresh a few times… and then… finally, after a few server errors, they would come back up.

    Then my clients began emailing me. “Hey… my VPS is down…  what’s up?”  or “I thought you said HostDime was good. For the third time this week, all of my sites are offline…”

    Well, what could I do?  I wasn’t operating HostDime. I just recommened them. I wasn’t working their chat system for them, I was just trying to help my clients by referring them to what I thought was a good host.

    Ugh. Was I ever wrong. The problems continued and I became intimate with their support team: Ashton, Christian, Sanjin, Jason…  I knew them well – because I was chatting with them every day, complaining about my VPS’s being offline… and reminding them that my own client’s ALSO were wondering why their own Virtual Private Servers were dead in the water.

    Here’s what I learned about their support “methodology”. If you use their chat system, be prepared to for unpredictability.  They might answer right away. Or you might be waiting for for up to 30 minutes all-the-while being exposed to their self-aggrandizing messages such as, “Did you know we have our own data center in Orlando, Florida? Please continue to hold. The next available technician will be with you shortly.”

    Now in retrospect, who in their right mind would host with a datacenter in Florida?  Hello? Hurricanes. Torrential rains. Seasonal power outtages. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

    But I digress…

    To make a long story short, right now I’m trying to LEAVE HostDime… but I can’t; I’m their hostage. While my sites are online  and I can access my Webhost Manager (WHM) via VPS, I have absolutely NO FTP access…. So I can’t move my sites off. Whenver I *can* access my sites via FTP, HostDime’s network is grudgingly slow. I  might be able to move two 12KB (yes, kilobytes… tiny, tiny files) files before HostDime’s network crashes.

    Simultaneously while I am trying, furtively, to escape HostDime and move my sites away, I have all of those clients I referred to HostDime emailing me… Skyping me… calling me…  saying, in sum:  “Thanks a lot, Assh*le… We trusted you… You can forget about any future business from us”

    So here I am…. Waiting… watching my income go down the drain, wondering if I will EVER be able get access to my data on my multiple HostDime VPS accounts… So far, no luck. I have over $15K in developed website inventories…  held hostage by HostDime…. Sites I can’t sell. Sites I can’t move because of HostDime’s stupidity… because of my stupidity for trusting them and their rave reviews on WebhostingTalk.com –

    You can say I am bitter, yes. But the fact remains: If HostDime is as successful as they claim to be WHY did they, over the course of 5 months, put me and ALL of my clients onto the same node? It stands to reason that their VPS inventory is limited, that they have few Virtuozzo licenses…. And so they must cram as many VPS clients as they can onto a single server in order to break even. Why else would HostDime oversell a server? There’s not another reason for it?

    One final note about HostDime support: It’s formulaic. Is your issue simple or do you just need a reboot? No problem a phone call or a chat is all it takes (if you don’t mind waiting for 10-15 minutes at times). Is your issue complicated? Does it require sophisticated technical expertise? Lo and behold: After chatting with “John” or “Mike” or “Jason” or “Ashston” they will say, “I have to open a ticket for you….” Then, you’re communicating with “Sajin” or “Sachin” or “Inder” or something like that —  outsourced, offshore support. In other words, it appears that HostDime can’t afford “expensive” US-based support for complicated,… If you have a serious problem, a ticket is created… then you wait for an outsourced provider to respond.

    That’s where I am right now: My sites are offline. “Ashton” wasn’t able to help me on chat, so now I am waiting for “Sanjin” to respond via the ticket system. Same old story – except this time, that story is coming to an end – finally… just as soon as I can access my sites again and leave HostDime once and for all…

    A few thoughts about the hostdime.com review

    I have to say I am baffled by the placing of multiple accounts for the same person as well as those that had been referred by said person on the same node. It does not make any sense.  For that matter when I ran a hosting company we made it a practice to not place shared accounts by the same customer on the same server.  While many people were not happy with a practice of manual approval of all orders it did more than just prevent fraud, it allowed for changes such as making sure a customer’s new account was far from existing accounts, even when it came to vps and dedicated plans.

    Why would I do that? Well a good example of why not is a customer of mine that had 10 accounts with us.  One of his accounts was on a server that was down for 6 hours.  If all of his accounts had been on that server it would have been very hard for him to justify staying with my previous company hence that old proverb of not putting all of your eggs in one basket. It makes no sense to put them on the same node unless the customer asks for it to be done.  In my experience customers never ask for this.  If anything they ask to be placed far away from existing node, just as I have never had customers ask for their account to be on the same set of IPs.

    Hostdime.com questions:

    • Why would all of these accounts be placed on the same node?
    • Are the problems still going on with hostdime.com (realize its less than 12 hours since I was emailed this)?
    • Is the reviewer still in progress of leaving hostdime.com?
    • Exactly what parts of the world are the staff of hostdime.com located?
    • Are different departments stationed at different parts of the world, or are their staff for each department located as these international facilities?

    It’s been my experience that many times when someone says they are going to cancel their account, a person is simply letting off anger, perhaps hostdime may retain this customer.

    Webhostingstuff.com – A Hostgator.com Affiliate

    This is an open letter to Hostgator.com in regards to their affiliate webhostingstuff.com.

    According to your Affiliate Terms of Service:

    http://www.hostgator.com/tos/affiliate-tos.php

    “HostGator expressly requires you to disclose that there is a “material connection” between you and HostGator any time you offer an endorsement or testimonial on our services, in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission guidance as outlined here. Such disclosure should be clear and prominent, meaning close to the endorsement or testimonial.”

    In short they must disclose that they get paid for every referral.  Through my screen shots you can clearly see there is no disclosure.

    Webhostingstuff.com does not disclose on any page that links to Hostgator.com that they get paid for their endorsement of your site.  For which they put your company on the number 1 positions for Top Best Hosting and Hot Deal list.

    Instead they have what is called WHSRank, where supposedly they base ranking off of customer feed back.  Regardless of this there are two hosts with more positive reviews then your company.  After years of reviewing their site I can tell you that they do not base any ratings off of WHSRank, but off of what they are panning off as PPC, which really is bidding on positions.  In Hostgator.com’s case they signed up as one of your affiliates.

    I have suspected for a while now that webhostingstuff was an affiliate of Hostgator.com. That Hostgator.com may not be involved in the ruse called PPC (pay per click) which is no where evident on Webhostingstuff.com’s site or other sites.

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=1015

    All it took to find out if they were a Hostgator.com affiliate was a simple cleaning out my cookies going to webhostingstuff.com and clicking on the HostGator.com  link and ta da, sure enough a Hostgator.com affiliate cookie shows up in my cookie folder.

    But in short here is what I did to look at the cookie:

    Firefox seems the best way to watch cookies.

    1. Go to options
    2. Click on Options
    3. Select Use custom settings for History
    4. Show Cookies

    From there you get a window to watch cookies as they come in.  You can also clean out all cookies from here for Firefox.

    What I did next was go to webhostingstuff.com, clicked on the hostgator.com link.  Where for some bizarre reason I have to select from three sets of characters which one has an actual word. After sending me to Hostgator.com I find an affiliate Cookie for Hostgator.com.

    No surprise that Webhostingstuff.com has Hostgator.com at the top of both Top Best Hosting and Hot Deal lists.  After all that $50 – 125 per sign up is hard thing to resist.

    In short I am asking that you have webhostingstuff.com put up a disclosure or that you remove their affiliate access.

    Regards,

    Benjamin of Hosting-Reviews-Exposed.com

    Hostgator.com and FTC Compliance

    A few months ago Endurance International Group announced FTC compliance; it appears that Hostgator.com has also done the same. In the middle of last month I had wrote a post and emailed Hostgator.com in regards to their upcoming black Friday promotion.

    I challenged them to take on the spam which had gotten pretty bad as I was getting it in emails, YouTube comments, and blog comments. While I don’t approved of the method which they choose to deal with it, I can say I only got one comment spam for Black Friday.

    A simple challenge to Hostgator.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2743

    My other challenge was for them to do the same FTC compliance that EIG was doing with their affiliates.

    My mistake in writing to back to them was I had just woke up when I had gotten the email early in the morning. I missed the part where they stated that they had sent out FTC compliance emails to their affiliates. I was told after my last response I could personally contact one of their staff if I had any additional questions. Which I waited till after Thanks Giving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, to ask for the FTC compliance email (last Tuesday to be exact). I realize the next part I could have found on my own by reviewing their terms of service, but I wanted an email that stated in short that if you do a review and get paid you had disclose that fact.  Right now there is someone that I had always thought that was making money as a Hostgator.com affiliate, turns out I was right. I should have looked at the cookies, pretty simple clear my browsers cookies out and then go to the site to see if any affiliate links come up. Sure enough this process showed an affiliate cookie, and not just for Hostgator.com. Tomorrow I will revel which review site it is, and if you read my blog it should not be to figure out who it is.

    Part of the reason I am sending this post out as a email is in hopes of getting other people to email Hostgator.com once I expose the review site for not following FTC guidelines. While Hostgator.com can ignore me, it’s a little harder for them to ignore other people.  I plan to have the post up tomorrow.

    A brief examine of their affiliate terms of service revels that reviews for profit must be disclose.

    Hostgator.com’s terms validates the FTC requirement

    http://www.hostgator.com/tos/affiliate-tos.php

    5. Responsibility for Your Site.

    HostGator expressly requires you to disclose that there is a “material connection” between you and HostGator any time you offer an endorsement or testimonial on our services, in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission guidance as outlined here. Such disclosure should be clear and prominent, meaning close to the endorsement or testimonial.

    http://business.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/bus71-ftcs-revised-endorsement-guideswhat-people-are-asking.pdf

    Stay tuned for updates in regards to the review site I plan to expose that is not FTC compliant with Hostgator.

    Ixwebhosting.com – How legit are those video testimonials?

    Back when I was working on the video that would become the trademark  to this site, I was told to look at ixwebhosting.com.  There was no site at all at the time, I threw it together in less then 30 minutes prior to making the finale sequences of the video.  I was also still in the hosting business running 2 companies starting up a third, and only a year away from the 4th.  One of my business partners wanted me to start a blog, and make a post on ixwebhosting.com / featuredprice.com. I never quite understood the point of doing a blog, let alone  a post on this host at the time.  His reasoning was that the owner of this site operated a company called featuredprice.com, which also had their own review site where they were on top.   That is still a post for another day.  This post is about something I found back in March when I was looking at a anti-ixwebhosting.com blog.  I gave him the idea of looking at the videos.  I noticed one problem, and that was none of the sites existed in 2003, or before ixwebhosting.com came into being.  Granted there are more details.

    First let me be clear before I proceed into what I found out about the these video reviews and give you my opinion.  I do NOT think these are fake reviews.  The bulk of what I have found are still with Ixwebhosting.com at this time.

    Still with Ixwebhosting.com

    Here is a list of all the sites in the videos that are still with Ixwebhosting.com

    http://www.ixwebhosting.com/testimonials

    houndsinthekitchen.com – Created Nov 25, 2008 / Updated Nov 18, 2010 – Ohio
    kellsband.com – Created Jul 21, 2005 / Updated Jul 7, 2010 – Ohio
    digitaldynamicdesigns.com – Created Sep 16, 2007 / Updated Aug 16, 2010 – Ohio
    yunbootcamps.com – Created May 6, 2008 / Updated May 6, 2008 – Ohio
    1canalgirl.com – Created Feb 26, 2010 / Updated Jan 27, 2010 – Ohio
    djscolumbus.com Created Aug 27, 2009 / Updated Aug 12, 2010 – Ohio
    ryanomics.com Created Apr 25, 2006 / Updated Mar 17, 2011 – Ohio
    fox-counseling.com Created Feb 13, 2009 / Updated Nov 2, 2010 – *privacy protection*
    kellisautosales.com Created Oct 30, 2008 / Updated Sep 30, 2010 – garbage information entered, at risk of having their domain yanked.

    The thing I noticed while looking up whois dates and address information was two things.  The oldest site is 2005, and all the sites that did not have privacy protection pointed to Ohio.  Which appears to be where ixwebhosting.com is based out of.  To be exact the addresses are literary  in and around Columbus Ohio.   Which is weird because on the page says is:

    IXWebHosting is trusted by over 500,000 websites and their owners all over the world.

    As I have repeated many times, the number of websites does not equal the amount of customers.  But numbers are not the issue here, I have no doubt that Ixwebhosting.com may very well have these numbers if not more.  My point is that this page indicates they serve the world, yet all the reviews are one tiny spot of the planet. I am willing to bet all the videos were done by the same crew.  Not to mention the videos are hosted on Ixhosting.com, not with youtube.com which could generate traffic.  Not to mention they could feed in more customer reviews that are from around the world.  Back when my oldest host turned 8 years old we had started to ask for testimonials.  When we sent the first mail out asking for them, we did not ask everyone.  We asked people from the first year.   I did not care that they may have been paying less then $10 a month, I wanted feed back from people that had stayed with us since the beginning as who better to give a testimonial?  Made it a point to show case their site, as Ixwebhosting.com has done.  Also when they signed up, which Ixhosting.com has not done.  Granted these were not video testimonials as Ixwebhosting.com has done.  Granted the updated does not always indicate when the dns was changed, but I am willing to guess that most of these customer signed up in 2010.

    No Longer with Ixwebhosting.com

    esotercdetail.com (no longer exists)

    servicemasterelectric.com, Site appears to be under a whois privacy, Updated April 8, 2011

    nateriggs.com Updated Mar 17, 2011- Ohio

    ast.edu updated May 20, 2010 – Ohio

    Here are two video reviews I found on the main page that were not on testimonials page.  Which appears to be due to not being with IXwebhosting.com

    Collegeprops.com *private registration* Updated Jul 7, 2011.

    Mpex.com, while the domain shows a PA address, the site itself has a Columbus Ohio address. updated  April 19, 2010.

    Joe Cortez, no website listed, but how ever there is a Linkedin.com profile for someone with the same name in Ohio who is a webmaster.  However I have no idea if he is still with them or if he left.  A bit bizzare considering all the other reviews list a website.

    I will try to contact some of  people whose sites are no longer hosted with Ixwebhosting to get their take.

    Hosting Reviews Exposed – Webhostingstuff.com March 2011 top 25 list

    For March 2011 there will not be any new hosting reviews there are no hosts that I have not reviewed on webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 for this month.  Which works to my advantage as I have had issues with Dell and Eset that have delayed me from posting this month, not to mention several other projects in the works (2 of which are just for hosting-reviews-exposed.com .  But that does not mean there is nothing to look at with this top 25 hosting reviews list.  Unlike last month, there are actually 25 hosts.   For this months post while it will only be one post, its more of a re-review of hosts that have contacted me or have had frequent updates on my previous posts.

    Webhostingstuff.com is blocking me from looking at their hosting reviews

    Its gotten really hard finding a friend some where around the world that is not being blocked after only one or two page clicks.  Still that does not mean that I am not able to look at webhostingstuff.com’s hosting reviews.   While I do enjoy encouraging paranoia with this company I am no longer going to mention where people are doing screen shots for me.  But if they are blocking me and many others, those that paid for so called advertising fees are not getting what they paid for.   But lets face it, if webhostingstuff.com was honest about their hosting reviews there would be no reason to block me or anyone.  They would not be afraid to let me and anyone else put their system to the test.

    Hosting reviews for March 2011 on webhostingstuff.com 1 – 10

    Arivixe.com number one host for March 2011 with webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/hosting-reviews/review-arvixe-is-arvixe-com-bad-host%C2%A0arvixe-sucks-complaints.html

    When I first did a review about this company I did a short review because I found a disturbing trend where they were trolling any place that had negative hosting reviews from customers.  I tend to believe they were trolling my blog because of the person who wrote: “I’m not Arvand, and I’m not a fan of Arvixe”, despite the criticism of Arvand, there seemed to be alot of harsh critisim of the client complaint I highlighted.  I love how people that claim they are no way associated with this company, go on the attack of whatever negatively effects the company they are not part of.   Perhaps they would be willing to buy my Ocean front property here in Arizona.

    One comment I missed with web-hosting-top.com hosting reviews:

    “Hello,

    I’m sorry that you feel we are a scam. Your site was attacked through a DDoS by your own visitors. We suggested that you identify the cause of this and remedy it through proper website management and you refused to work with us and blamed our systems for the fact that your site was getting attacked.

    Our job is to protect our systems and make sure that all users on the server have a positive experience.

    Therefore, your account was suspended and a full refund was sent back. … — arvixe.com representative”

    Here are my thought on that:

    1. How do they know it was the Visitors?
    2. If it was the customers fault, why did they issue a refund?

    It seems like they have discontinued their responses to negative feedback on hosting reviews after my first post.  But amazingly webhostingstuff.com is the only place to not have any negative hosting reviews.

    Hostgator.com number two host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/unlimited-hosting/hostgator-bad-web-host-read-honest-hostgator-review.html

    For some bizzare reason I have been accused of aiding this host for “google bombing with fake websites and prolifically self-aggrandizing” (http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2010/Oct/466 )with my first post on this company.  The author  does not respond to my emails, nor apparently did they bother to read my post.  I did not give Hostgator any positive hosting reviews.  If there ever was a host that I would not like, it would be this host.

    Amazingly this month they have a negative hosting review to go with the rest of the hosting reviews on webhostingstuff.com this month.

    Granted it only took a little more then a year to get a review on webhostingstuff.com.  But alot seems to be changing with webhostingstuff.com since I started doing monthly my own  hosting reviews.

    Myhosting.com number three host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/myhosting.html

    This site is back on the so called top 25 hosting reviews list.  Despite this its still averaging 3 out of 5 star approval on Webhostingstuff.com.

    At this time I have received no responses on this host.

    Site5.com number four host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/site5-sucks.html

    At this time I have no feed back from anyone on this site, unlike Hostgator.com this site appears to get regular hosting reviews.

    Lfchosting.com number five host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/lfc-hosting.html

    This is a bit of an oddity.  The choose to contact me in regards to my review, and for some reason wordpress marked their comment as spam.  They later contacted me via email and I posted their comment as well as my response.  I made it clear that the reason that I only reviewed their company because they were dealing with one of many hosting reviews sites, webhostingstuff.com in particular whom I have a vested interest in exposing. The strange part is that for some time they had not been on the top 25 list, and when they had contacted me they were not on the list.  But a month after their comment and my response clearly indicating I only reviewed them because they bought advertising by webhostingstuff.com.  I have to wonder why they are back on this fake hosting reviews site.

    Kvchosting.com number six host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/kvchosting.html

    At this time I have no feed back from anyone on this site, unlike Hostgator.com this site appears to get regular hosting reviews.

    Mochahost.com number seven host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/hosting-reviews/mochahost-com-is-the-worst-host-check-this-review-out-before-you-buy.html

    When I first reviewed this host I have to say I was filled with a bit of disgust when I read one customer review that was later countered by someone at Mochahost.com decided to attack the customer by using their relgion against them.  At this point I have seen not postive feed back on my site.  But for that matter even though the negative feed back is strangly absent unlike other review sites like http://www.hostingsthatsuck.com/mochahost-sucks/

    Where there is a disclaimer hidden far enough to still get affilate commisions:

    “Updated: Due to the more recent negative comments and feedbacks from our visitors, we are now also recommending an alternative hosting plan byMyHosting.com. See below for their custom-fit packages priced from only $4.84 monthly! You pay for what you need and all packages come with cPanel and eCommerce-ready support. Our MyHosting review is as good, if not better than about the above webhost. If you have any doubt at all about the above web hosting service, get MyHosting instead. If you are asking for another webhost recommendation, MyHosting.com is your answer.“

    Iweb.com number eight host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/hosting-reviews/iweb-technologies-inc-iwebs-com.html

    I think the exchange on that post explains their philosophy on hosting reviews.  My satisfaction is that they remove the “since 1996” because of that post.

    Omnis.com number nine host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/omnis-review-does-omnis-com-suck-omnis-web-hosting-review.html

    At this time I have no feed back from anyone on this site, unlike Hostgator.com this site appears to get regular hosting reviews.

    Scalahosting.com number ten host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/uncategorized/scalahosting-is-there-dirt-on-scalahosting-com.html

    There have been no comments up this month.  Though I am not sure how “the claim of a website being deleted that might just have been a bad luck.” helps their case.

    Hosting reviews for March 2011 on webhostingstuff.com 11 – 20

    Hosthttp.net number eleven host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/hosthttp-net.html

    2 months online yet no reviews anywhere.  You would think a host that has been deemed a top host would have some validity to its ranking.

    Spacenets.com number twelve host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/spacenets-com.html

    Another host that amazingly has been online for just a few months.  While they do not have alot of hosting reviews……. well they actually just had one review this month.

    Hostek.com number thirteen host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/hostek.html

    Ok there are reviews on my site, but the problem is the pro hostek.com hosting reviews did not leave valid contact emails or websites.  sites behind them don’t exist.

    Condorhosting.com number fourteen host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/condorhosting.html

    While there is one comment, it had not postive or negative feed back for this host.

    Serversanddomains.com number fifteen host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/serversanddomains.html

    No comments at this time.

    Wooservers.com number sixteen host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/wooservers.html

    This burstnet reseller was not too happy with me as you can read in the comments.  For some strange reason they expected me to delete, change, or not allow them to post comments.  But the one thing they did not do was explain the advertising fees that allows them to be at the top of a fake hosting reviews website.

    Infiniti.net number seventeen host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/infinitie-net.html

    Here is a host that thinks I have no right to write a review about them just because I never used them.  I doubt that webhostingstuff.com has used them.  Even with that said the reviews at webhostingstuff.com clearly do not back this host being a top 25 host when it has a 2 out of 5 star rating.   Honestly if I was Infiniti.net, I would stop paying for advertising atleast until I got the 2 star rating up to atleast 4 or 5.

    Gigapros.com number eighteen host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/gigapros.html

    No comments at this time, other in relation to their use of ratepoint.com

    Yaspe.com number nineteen host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/yaspe.html

    No comments at this time.

    Siteground.com number twenty host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/siteground.html

    Unfortunatly at this point just a question on how to cancel their account.  I had hoped to get more comments then I have right now.

    Hosting reviews for March 2011 on webhostingstuff.com 11 – 20

    10looniehost.ca number twenty one host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/10looniehost-ca.html

    Another host that does not have alot of hosting reviews, for that matter they only have one.  Interestingly enough it comes from a site thats 4 days younger then the review.

    The host contacted me the same day I was working on their review.  But they never responded to my email to clarify any part of my review.

    Layersevenhosting.com number twenty two host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/layersevenhosting.html

    While I have no comments I thought it might be intresting if they have improved on their seo score since I did my review.  Its some what up it went from 3,871,793 to 1,538,214.  While brash.im there supposed seo expert site was at 1,936,294 and now its at 1,289,075.  You would think after 2.5 months with a claim of “rash is all about the white hat SEO and we’re pretty damn good at getting web presence for businesses. With 16 billion online searches every month, you need a bit of Brash about you.” they would have made some drastic climbs in their search engine ranking.  Not to mention not to buy advertising to get ranking in a fake hosting reviews website.  Still no reviews with webhostingstuff.com

    Phastnet.com number twenty three host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/phastnet.html

    No comments at this time, and only one hosting review on a fake hosting reviews site.

    Ampheon.co.uk number twenty four host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/ampheon-co-uk.html

    No comments at this time, and only one hosting review on a fake hosting reviews site.

    Bounceweb.com number twenty five host for March 2011 webhostingstuff.com

    https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/bounceweb-com.html

    No comments at this time, and only one hosting review on a fake hosting reviews site.

    There may not be any new hosts this month, but there is still little reasoning to why many of these hosts are in the top 25 based on their hosting reviews alone.

    Hostgator.com – Black Friday Spam

    The week after Thanksgiving I found tons of spam in relation to hostgator and Black Friday.   It was everywhere email, this blog, my personal twitter account and my YouTube videos.  I suppose its not all Hostgators fault.  They did say not to spam forums and email.  Though I did get spam by email, and so far my forum seems to have been ignored.  Yet they offer a super cheap package which is hard to resist when you don’t understand the ramifications of overselling.  After all a three year unlimited account for roughly $36 a year, and yet still get $50 – $125 per sale.  Even some one as bad as marketing as myself should be able to manage a few sales with that kind of a deal.

    The pre-Black Friday Hostgator Promotion

    Be ready to see a huge amount of activity and unbelievable sales numbers that will only come around once a year!

    Here’s what we want you to do:

    Post about the promotion on your blog
    Post on Twitter and Facebook
    Post about it on forums (follow all forum rules and don’t spam)
    Tell your E-mail lists (Again, no Spam!)
    Refer friends and family
    Push all of your hosting related traffic to HostGator and EARN BIG!
    Tell everyone you know!

    Which leads to hostgator spam

    Spamming a blog is ok, because Hostgator did not say you couldn’t right?

    I suppose hostgator can use the argument that their terms of service and their mail outs stated not to send spam via email and forums.  But this line motivates people to get a high payout “Any commissions earned during our Black Friday special will receive a FULL commission!“.  Top that off with Shared hosting” $4.95/month AS LOW AS $0.99/month.  How hard is it to resist doing spam for an offering that is super cheap when there is a chance for a big pay out. It may be questionable if Hostgator intended for there to be spam, but its clear what happen.

    kvchosting – Is Kvchosting beyond excellence or just a mirage

    Kvchosting is the first of seven hosts that find themselves on webhostingstuff’s top 25 list for September 2010. I find myself commenting on the design on hosts, this host is no exception.  Attention to detail says a lot about a host.  Designing a site with colors a person may like is not the same as having a professional design.    The main page has colors that I just don’t like, never mind I like the color blue.  They have awards on the main page with links that do not work as well as a rewards page.  Clearly they want people who come to their site to think that they are a good host.  Using some of the same awards that other companies that claim to be a top host.  So if you have not guessed I am going to review and take apart each award. So the question is what makes them so good.   There not exactly a long term host.

    Domain Whois record

    Queried whois.internic.net with “dom kvcwebhosting.com”…

       Domain Name: KVCWEBHOSTING.COM
   Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
   Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
   Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
   Name Server: NS7.KVCHOSTING.COM
   Name Server: NS8.KVCHOSTING.COM
   Status: clientDeleteProhibited
   Status: clientRenewProhibited
   Status: clientTransferProhibited
   Status: clientUpdateProhibited
   Updated Date: 23-mar-2010
   Creation Date: 05-may-2009
   Expiration Date: 05-may-2013

    Keep in mind a creation date does not mean a start date.  One perfect example would be a domain that I bought 10 years ago, and just this week finale came up with a idea for what I am going to do with it.  Yet still that domain does not have an active website.   It could have been months before Kvcwebhosting became active.   At a glance I can tell you I have found reviews of the site from December 2009.  There might be some earlier reviews.  But its so strange for a company that is a year old to have as much or more reviews then HostGator.

    Kvchosting awards 2010?

    The thing I find funny in this picture is “2010 Hosting Awards?”  Then there is a award dated December 2009 with webhostingdir.com.   Why would there be a question mark?  Is that to indicated that they are not sure they are awards or that they got them this year?

    Kvchosting award: Best Supportive Web Hosting

    There is no link to where this award came from.

    Kvchosting award: About.com

    An annoymous review.    It might has well have been faked, after all there is no website to look at.

    Kvchosting award: RESELLERRATINGS.COM

    Three reviews from three people that don’t show a website.  Reviews were done 8/19/2010, 8/23/2010, 9/1/2010.  Interestingly enough these people never used this site before then.  This appears to be a site where you reveiw websites of any genere that sells online. Something does not seem right here.

    Kvchosting award: hostreview.com

    Ok so they are the 10th host on the list.  But what exactly was it that made them the 10th host of choice?  Where is the data and numbers.   Simply all there is this:

    “KVCHosting.com is a center that endeavors to make high-end technologyavailable by providing cheap and affordable quality web hostingpackages. KVC Hosting specializes in web hosting services of variouscategories, and since 2008 have been named as one of the fastest growingweb hosting companies for quality-driven, technology enriched andaffordable web hosting developers.”

    2008?  Really?  The domain was created May 2009.  How does a webhost offer service before their site existed?

    Kvchosting award: webhostingstuff.com

    At this time I can’t look at webhostingstuff, as it appears their site is down.  So I will add a comment later.

    Kvchosting award: findbestwebhosting.com

    Once again another review, this time with just the name Jacqueline, but once again no website.  I have a feeling that this review is the same as the about page.

    Kvchosting award: softaculous NOC

    No Link on kvchosting, and for that here is what they have posted where a link should be: “We Partner with softaculous” So not an award, or even a review.  Its a partnership, or in this case something to extend the page.

    Kvchosting award: Tjoos.com

    Once again no link.  For that matter this does not look like a review site.  But all the search engine results looking for kvchosting and tjoos.com has one word in every search engine result on the main page “coupons”.  Any time you see the word coupon and webhost together on a website you can tell that website is an affiliate.

    Kvchosting award: castironhostingreview.com

    Until today I had never heard of this site, and considering the design, primitive comes to mind.  Perhaps why you don’t see this review site on other webhosts.

    Ok here is a site where there are websites in the review, however the ratings are a bit weird and not all are 5 star.  Some which should be all 3 star are somehow 5 star overall.   Some of the three star ratings, have what equates to 5 star reviews.  However one review sticks out:

    Web Host: KVCHosting January 10th, 2010
    Posted By: nidhi – acid-reflux-symptoms.info
    I’ve tried 5 other web hosting companies, none of them can remotely compare with the support and uptme that I’ve received from kvc hosting.

    Web Host: KVCHosting January 10th, 2010Posted By: nidhi – acid-reflux-symptoms.infoI’ve tried 5 other web hosting companies, none of them can remotely compare with the support and uptme that I’ve received from kvc hosting.

    Is there a problem?  Perhaps its that the creation of the domain name was months after the creation of the review:

    Domain Name:ACID-REFLUX-SYMPTOMS.INFO Created On:23-Aug-2010 10:12:01 UTC

    I suspect I should look at the other reviews in further detail.  Frankly I can’t wait to get a look at the reviews on webhostingstuff.com.

    Kvchosting award: web-hosting-top.com:

    I don’t have alot of suspicions of web-hosting-top.com per say.  Though I do think they are long over due for a face lift.  But here is another case of funky reviews.  Not to mention no websites to validate that the reviews were done by users of the service.

    Starting from the cpanel hosting to the domain-managing tools, every feature of an ideal web hosting service was present in the package. Personally while writing the review on kvc hosting , I believe that there is no better web hosting.

    For some reason there is a rating of 2.5 stars on Customer Relation and 3 stars on features.

    Kvchosting award: comparewebhosts.com

    Here we find they have one review, though I can’t see it, no idea who did it but I find this text again:

    kvchosting.com – established in 2008. Kvchosting.com is a centre where high end technology joins hands with cheap web hosting packages. We are specialized in web hosting of all categories, since 2008 and are named amongst the fastest growing web hosting companies; for more quality driven, technology enriched and affordable web hosting. We have numerous clients, about 10000+ all round the globe, who have trusted our services and have long term hosting plans with us. Our data centre is located in Michigan (US) and the head office is in Oklahoma (US)

    No suprise but guess when they joined comparewebhosts.com

    Surprise its the same year as the creation of the domain.

    In regards to 10,000 plus clients, I refer you back to:

    http://www.web-hosting-top.com/web-hosting/web-hosting-top.kvchosting.com-reviews

    According to web-hosting-top.com they have 3224 domains.  I have made it a point in the past to clarify that the number of domains does not equal the amount of customers.  In this case its hard to picture that they have 10,000 plus customers.

    Kvchosting award: alreadyhosting.com

    In the past I made it clear this review site is an affiliate site.  Any site that offers you a coupon clearly is nothing more then a affiliate.  But here is the thing that sticks out to me.

    It almost appears that they had no one visiting back in May.

    Kvchosting award: thewebhostingdir.com

    Two more reviews, once again no websites to validate if these are hosting customers.  But here I see promises of 90 day guarantee.  Sure I have no problem with that.  My problem is I have seen places where its 45 days.  Looking at the main page for Kvchosting, I can’t find anything in regards to if its 45 or 90 days.  Clearly there is a 99.9% uptime.  But the money back guarantee is no where to be found on the main page amongst the many graphics to highlight why you should choose this host.

    Kvchosting award: webhostingrating.com

    Zero, thats right there is nothing to look at.  There is no reviews.  No endorsements either.  The best there is, is this:

    Monitored since:

    28 November 2008

    Monitored sites:

    25

    Total days of monitoring:

    467 days

    Kvchosting award webhostdir.com November / December 2009

    I have covered webhostdir in the past, frankly they suck in regards to being a review site because they do not provide one thing and thats proof of how one host is better then another.  This is how they determine who is best:

    Every month we rank the 25 most popular companies on Web Host Directory USA .

    The “25 Most Popular List” is based on the number of votes a company receives and the amount of times their profile page has been viewed each month. This ensures that every month we provide an up to date list of companies you can trust for your hosting needs.

    We offer service providers the opportunity to improve their popularity ranking by encouraging their visitors to vote for them. Our voting buttons can be obtained by logging into www.serchen.com.

    So its based off votes (I don’t see who received how many votes) and traffic.  This stinks of massive “fail”.  This does not tell you who to trust, or is there any indicator of quality.

    In the end I find the kvchosting awards and reviews questionable

    Hostingsthatsuck, or hostings that pay too much to suck?

    Hostingsthatsuck has a catch phrase for every host they show case: “Even The Best Hostings Suck Sometimes“.   You would think with a name like hostingsthatsuck.com that you would find a rogues gallery of webhosts to avoid.  Some how every host thats finds its way on this site is a host that you should select.   Every post for every host they select uses the same theme.  Its almost to the point they do nothing more then replace the previous host with the last host, copy and paste details from the host they are reviewing.  After which they do a quick search for the host they are reviewing with against others on the words sucks.   Then they estimate how many of those are valid.  Its been my experience that they do not actually look to see if there is more then one individual complaining about the host on a single search engine result.

    Hostingsthatsuck, rinse and repeat a repetitive theme one size fits all approach

    They claim to do the research for you on who ‘sucks’.  Preceding every review of  a host, using this little tiny bit of data from search engine results to tell you if a host sucks of not:

    If you are considering any hosting company, you should do a search for keywords “ABC Hosting Sucks” on Google. Perhaps you have already read tons of good stuff and rave reviews about hosting ABC but doing the “ABC sucks” search may reveal the true side of the hosting provider

    That would be great way of seeing if a host sucks or not.  But the problem is sucks is not the only negative word that can be associated with webhosting.

    Fraud, bad, lame, scam, terrible, evil, stupid, apathetic, dumb, pathetic, careless……………………………. and more words then I have time to post.  Its a huge list of words that can be used to indicated a host is bad.   But the search focuses on how a host has so few relevant to suck.

    After “proving” a host does not suck:

    We try to be nonbiased when we do reviews but with *host name here*, it is hard not to. So hostingsthatsuck.com have no problem recommending this hosting to anyone. Now click here to checkout the plan most suitable for you and start on a reliable hosting at lower price

    Don’t be conned by the “nonbiased” approach.  The bottom line is they want you to buy hosting from these companies because the company has a rather nice pay out.

    What happens when a site on hostingsthatsuck starts to go bad

    They deleted their negative feedback on Justhost (Probable because they get about $100 per referral), but Mochahost is still there.

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

    You have to scroll down past all the research in sucks on google.  Past the praise to find a update about how is no longer a recommended host.

    You have to scroll past all the glowing endorsements by Hostingthatsuck to see a host that at the start of the post did not suck, but you come to find that the host does indeed suck.   The affiliate links are still there, and so are the coupon codes.  So why did Hostingthatsuck not have the update at the top?  Perhaps the affiliate link at mochahost can tell us:

    http://www.mochahost.com/affiliate.php

    Commission Type Pay-Per-Sale:   50% of all sales you deliver. You can earn up to $731 per sale !

    Its not hard to see why the update, which should be a warning is not at the top.  Their excuse would be that you should have read the whole review.   Its a case of your lose is their gain.

    The final word on hostingsthatsuck

    The one thing that every site has in common on hostingsthatsuck is they all have rather nice payouts.   Its my opinion that the name implies you would find hosts to avoid.  Hostingsthatsuck does show you if a site is bad, you just have to read past the gold foil at the top of the review.

    ThePrimeHost, is theprimehost.com a flip flop?

    ThePrimeHost,  number 25 of 25 for Webhostingstuff.com’s  May 2010 list and the finale host to review from this  list.  At this time they are no longer in the top 25 list.  The design of the site is fairly modern, but it seems cluttered.  There are too many graphics grabbing my attention.  What sticks out at first glance of their site is “Now hosting over 15,000 websites since 2001”.  That in my opinion is an honest statement.  But it leaves a lot of details out.  Is that total from 2001 to today, or is it current amount hosted?  15,000 websites is not 15,000 customers.  They after all offer reseller hosting.   Meaning they could have customers that have 1  or far more websites.  Ultimately the number of sites hosted is irrelevant compared to the number of customers.

    ThePrimeHost where to start?

    Looking through the site I find a lot of quirks.  There are lot of parts of the site that would make my business partner (the one in charge of every bit of sales text be it email or web sites) cringe.  The order form is drawn out through several pages, I often wonder if too many pages can detour someone from signing up for service.  Then any search engine results I  find have lots of positive reviews, yet there are people out there that claim that the reviews are fake.  Then there is an affiliate program thats disabled.

    ThePrimeHost affiliate program

    The affiliate system is very similar to those of hostgator, ipage, fatcow, bluehost, and others of its like where there is high payouts.  But for some reason they are stuck at 11,000 sites.  I find it odd that they are so far behind when they are older then many of those hosts that use this insane concept.  It works for these large scale “unlimited” hosts because they have ways of getting out of payments, and not everyone finds a host through their affiliates.   But it drives affiliates to promote the site for what in the end will be a big payout.  Not to mention the more pages that mention your url the better it works for a sites search engine results.   The essential problem with the hosting review industry is that people are promoting the high payouts as the best host regardless if they are not the best.   I tend to think that its no coincidence that they are no longer on Webhostingstuff’s top 25,  while ThePrimeHost’s affiliate sign ups have been disabled.

    In regards to the term “Make Bank”, I think the urban dictionaries second defintion works out for this.

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=make%20bank

    to extract as much money as possiable from a player at the poker table.

    I slow played the nut flush cause I knew I would make bank on the river.

    It appears they only tried one Google ad campaign:

    http://spyfu.com/Domain.aspx?d=287410903466461605

    I can tell you that it takes more then one month to make Google Ads payout.

    ThePrimeHost reviews

    Here is my problem with the reviews, first the below image is the reviews on their own site:

    This is from their site: http://theprimehost.com/customertestimonials.html

    The one thing I notice is there is only one website listed- mdpillstore.com, and the domain is expired.  Then there is a anonymous review.  I had one company where we asked for reviews, we required a first name and their website.  The encouragement was that they could get traffic from our site (afterwards the reviews came flying in).   The lack of websites from the reviews has me wondering if the people claiming “the postive ThePrimeHost reviews are false” may very well be right.

    Finale Thoughts on ThePrimeHost

    This is another host that while having some years in their belt, they haven’t quite figured out how to get their word out there.  They try one month of Google Adwords, and then stop.  They try webhostingstuff.com, despite the growing public knowledge that this review site is a scam, and quit.  They try what their bigger competitors do unethically and then suspend access to their affiliate program.   11,000 sites is not a lot, especially since they are running a reseller program.  While ThePrimeHost has been around a while they have not learned a sure fire method for bringing in and keeping customers.

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