Just a little flack

I have been getting flack over a second review I did.  I am not going to mention which host it is because frankly this post is for the people that are giving me grief.

I have been called a liar.  I am also told I am angry.  Not sure how people can determine my emotions based on what amounts to posts that are  emotion neutral. Though I can say there are times I have been angered by hosting companies attacking their former customers for placing a review.  In one case one host used a person’s religion against them.  Another host was so bad that the site that mediated the dispute blocked that host from responding any further to that customer’s complaint.  Maybe the customer was in the wrong, however nothing justifies this kind of behavior.

Some hosts that send responses don’t believe that I will allows them to post it or that I will edit their responses.  I have yet to not allow a comment from a host or for that matter edit a comment.  Though I often warn hosts that they may want to consider their comment  before submitting because I will not delete it later per a request.  I have only edited one comment, and that was to censor the profanity.   Even though it was censored you can clearly see what the poster meant.  There was also the case where one host’s comments did not go through because the spam filter for this blog caught it, because I get a lot of spam comments in a day I generally do not look at spam before deleting.  But I did post the comments when the host contacted me, and made it to where they can post future comments at their leisure.

As for being a liar, if I am wrong tell me where I am wrong.  Actually prove I am wrong show your sources.  When a host says they were formed in 1996, but their whois says they domain was created in 2002.  They have some explaining to do. I have made it clear that I will not delete a comment.  I will only delete a post I make if I am in the wrong, and I will post a retraction.  I have yet to be proven wrong.  Though there are a lot of times people have pointed out that I missed something when I did a review.   Less then a year, you can’t really expect me to have the perfect formula for busting a host or review site.  I make it a point if I can not back something up I will tell people when its my opinion, other wise I point to where my sources are on the internet.  There also things that I have not posted because I am not a 100% positive, and what I would post could be devastating especially if I am wrong.

Today  I got an email threatening me even though they have no connection to the host in question.  I have to wonder why someone that has not connection or concern for a company would write me on behalf of a company.  Better yet why am i supposed to answer to them?  This person does not even give me a real name.  Since my policy is only to disclose host emails to me, I am going to keep this fairly anonymous and black out the names.  Frankly I don’t need names to make my point here.

I am also not going to email this person, he/she can see my post with names removed for the world to see.

The threatening email

My response

Hello What ever your real name is,

Thanks for pointing out the misspelling, I made the correction. Though I recommend checking your own spelling first before pointing out someone’s spelling errors. “The main on being” should be “The main one being”.   Also when using “I” to refer to yourself its capitalized.  There are more mistakes, but I am just pointing out a few to make a point.  You lose intimidation points when you are critical about someone’s spelling when you fail on your own spelling.

I find it funny but I only have 8 followers on facebook and I really have very few visitors on the post in question.  Ipage (one of those big fish you tell me to go after) is one of the more popular reasons people visit my site.  For that matter most of the bigger hosts are my main source of my traffic.   What are the chances someone would find a repost from one of the 9 visitors I had  in the just a few days? Seriously I would love to know the odds.  After all I was just contacted by the owner via email me same day as your email. Not to mention right after I got a comment on my blog from one of the customers on the same day as your email. For a small host it sure gets a lot of concern all of a sudden. I only wish I could get that much interest from Endurance International Group (A school of whale sharks (EIG owns some 30 – 40 if not more large scale hosting companies) compared to the Leuciscus (a species of fish from your region) that is this host). Funny for someone not “connected” with a webhost to discuss probable legal action.  I got this person’s name from their whois information on their domain anyone who knows what a whois is can look it up. If they do not want that out there they should consider whois protection.  They should also consider removing it from their companies facebook page, or at least privacy so someone like me can not see their likes.

Webhostingtuff.com is pretty high up the food chain. Though its seems to be losing ground if you read my last post webhostingstuff post. Anyone that deals with them little or gigantic are in my sights. Which is who exactly webhostingstuff will deal with for a price that this host was willing to pay. Anyone that appears on webhostingstuff.com such as hostgator, ipage, justhost, myhosting, fatcow, and any other big host will show up on my blog if I find them dealing with webhostingstuff or any other fake review site. You would know that I go after big fish if you bother to read my other posts. Being small is not an excuse for doing business with a false “consumer” interest site.

As for the my second post not being allowed and being the cause of the break off communications happen long before the second post if you had bothered to read the first and second post.

If they wants their last name removed I will grant them that much, but frankly without whois protection anyone can find out their name.  but then again you can find it on the facebook page.  Nothing I have stated is false, perhaps there are grammar and spelling errors. But there is nothing I have posted that can not be backed up with sources that are ready posted.   My contact forum indicates that I will post all emails from a hosting company, and I do post every email in the comments area of any related post.

Also are you an attorney? I am guessing not since you are not a concerned party.  If your not a concerned party with the site, why do I have to answer to you?  I find it funny I am not allowed to do a second review, not supposed to post emails even though I offer no protection of privacy, and yet I should go after the bigger hosts instead.  Which pretty much invalidates your argument.

I am all for small hosts getting a start.   I make it a point when I find a host is new to indicated that customers should not hold that against the company.   But when they engage in dishonest practices like employing webhostingstuff.com to fake being a top host they earn my review rather they just started or have a million customers.

Regards,

Benjamin

Webhostingstuff top 25 or is it 24 or is it 19

This month I am schedule to finish my review of the new hosts on webhostingstuff.com.   As I have stated in the past I am being blocked from looking at their site.  So often I have to rely on either Google cache or friends to do screen shots for me.  This time around I had two people sends me a screen shots of the top 25 list for this month.  One sent me only 2 screen shots because it appears that there were only 19 hosts,  maybe it might have something to do with it being an iPad. Then another snap shot of the top 25 revieled 2 hosts in the 10th and 11th spot.  A re-review of the top 19 from an iPad revealed that a different host in the top 10 was also in the top 11 spot.  But I tend to doubt that its an iPad issue (and I am no fan of Apple).  Over the coarse of 8 days this has not changed.  There have been two hosts in the 10th and 11th spot.  Maybe less people are paying for advertising or…………

Webhostingstuff.com’s  human editors fell asleep at the switch

Perhaps my favorite page at Michael Low’s site is:

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/our_ranking.html

What I love about is that with in less then 100 words the page contradicts itself:

To build a fair and honest ranking system, ranking is always performed automatically by the system – free of human interference.

However just below that is the very sentence that tears apart that very statement:

Human editors are also needed to maintain the high level of integrity of our trusted reviews. Webmasters and system administrators are needed for the smooth running of this large site.

I pasted that after I did my first review of webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 for May 2010.   It took me a while to figure out what I was looking for, granted I still have a lot to learn.

How do they pay for those human editors?

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/advertise.html

We reach a highly targeted audience of webmasters, site owners, and web professionals.

You can advertise from as little as $100.

When I wrote my first closing review for May 2010, I found the little tidbit where they failed at explaining how they were fair and balanced.    Just as they failed to explain how they reach webmaster, site owners, and web professionals without using the top 25.  I have yet to see where it is, and none of the hosts that have fest up to me about buying “advertising” could tell me where the advertising was.

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

Webhostingstuff

Webhostingstuff.com from a iPad

Considering my friend was only able to send me 2 pages of what amounts to 19 hosts, though it 18 because Scala Hosting gets listed twice as its both in the 10th and 11th spot.   I sort of thought it might be a problem with iPad.  Yet the copy I got from a friend on PC had another host that I plan to add to my reviews for February 2011 Spacenets.com which on the 3 screen shots appears in the 10th and 11th spot just like the ipad version so there are only 24 hosts in what used to be a 25 positions.  The only diference between the two sets of screen shots besides taken less then 8 hours from each other is that the iPad screen shots had 2gb hosting.  A host I reviewed back in August 2010.  They still do not offer any thing better then a 7 day guarantee, and I suggest going with a host with no less then 30 days.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/2gbhosting-review-is-2gbhosting-a-good-host.html

Webhostingstuff.com from a PC

Here you can see part of the mock up for this months reviews.  Three hosts total

Webhostingpad.com
Spacenets.com (Appears twice)
Hosthttp.net

Not to mention why I choose to do a second review of Ioxhost.co.uk.  After the owner claimed he was going to stop using the “Advertising”.

I plan to do the write up for this once my new pc comes in.  After 4 years I think its time to get something more capable of doing videos.  The joys of a machine with 2 video cards.

How can Webhostingstuff be free of the human editors that it needs?

Ioxhost.co.uk – revisited

Back in June 2010 I asked “who is ioxhost.co.uk?”.   In May 2010 this was a host that would be number 10, and by the time I did the review in June 2010 ioxhost.co.uk went to number 17.  Come to find out this host existed under another name, and for some reason did not renew the domain they were with.  I found other flaws which you can find on this post about ioxhost.co.uk:

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/who-is-ioxhost-co-uk.html

What most may not know is this is the first host to email me in regards to my posts.   The person to contact me on behalf of ioxhost.co.uk  is Daniel Collins . He asked that I kept the email kept private and that I removed my post.  Removing my post was out of the question, and I have for some time pondered on rather I should post these ioxhost.co.uk emails or not.   While being the first host to respond, ioxhost.co.uk  is the only host to ask me to keep a lid on the emails.   I never promised to not publish the emails, but I was not inclined to post them after seeing this site disappear off webhostingstuff.com’s top 25.

This week I got sent some snap shots of the webhostingstuff.com top 25 for this month.  I actually got several screen shots from friends that will be a different post because spacenets appears in the 10th and 11th spot.  This of coarse is a post all of its own.  But this screen shot is the reason why I wrote a post on ioxhost.co.uk again.

As you can see in February 2011 on the number 19th spot is Ioxhost.co.uk is.

So here are the emails from Ioxhost.co.uk

I have tried to contact Daniel to explain why ioxhost.co.uk is back on the list or to refute that he is paying once again for advertising.  He has ignored my emails.  This is the point where I post all of his emails.  I have also made it clear on the contact form that I will post all emails on this blog that a host may send me.

The first email from Ioxhost.co.uk

July 1, 2010

From:
Daniel Collins
[email protected]

Message:
Hi Ben,

This is Daniel from IoxHost.co.uk

I would like to discuss and clear up some of your issue you are
having with us.

For not even being a customer or trying us you are making a very bold
statement and claim on your site.

I would prefer if our email conversation would be kept private and no
published on your site.
The aim of this conversation would be to clear up anything you think
about us and hopefully once its all cleared you will remove your
comment about us.

Would this be okay with you?

Regards

Daniel Collins
IoxHost.co.uk

Sent from (ip address): 91.107.34.89 (91.107.34.89)
Date/Time: July 1, 2010 10:27 pm
Coming from (referer):

For some reason my response to Ioxhost.co.uk is missing in GMail. But apparently it was enough to get him to respond back.

July 1, 2010

Hi Ben,
As again I would like nothing from my emails to be published.

Im not sure about the start you are going on about affiliates, we arenot an affiliate we have our own servers.

The ranking you are going on about for the,”This is a company that was supposed to be the the number 10 host outof 25, and now 17 out of 25. For that matter Alexa lists the TrafficRank at 1,476,372. Which by webhosting terms is not impressive.”

I agree with you the webhostingstuff website is missleading where itsays “top 10..” when its not based on anything apart from there bid.

As i have said before we are a small company so we need to get outthere in the big world and get noticed, so we need to advertise. thisis one method of advertising.I am thinking about moving away from this site and looking into othermeans of advertising the site.

I would like to speak to you about the customer service area so wecan get this resolved.

For the site switching to the uk version i think this is because itsdirecting you to the whmcs portal what uses a differnt template thatsnot dynamic, Thanks! will look into this.

Im sorry about the call and how it was dealt with, this does not giveus a good impression. We are now going to be setting business hoursfor our support.
regarding the name changes, we just was selling shared hosting a awebmasters website. we then thought we could take this to the nextstep and started it up as its own site, so this was when we madeioxhost.com, after that as we are a uk company and would like toregister most of our domains in time i registered the .co.uk.The .com domain 301 redirects to the UK domain.

The .com domain is currently under a dispute regarding our new officeaddress. We are in contact with PublicDomainRegistry to get thisresolved.

our about us page will be updated soon to make it more clear, we willnot include the time were we was selling on this other site, just fromday 1 of trading under our current name.

the TOS will also be updated soon.

the showcase page link has been removed until we contact clients whoare willing for the site to be displayed.

Regarding the review about firstnetserv, the owner of the site hasbeen making false claims about peoples hosting websites. (setup aforum and requesting a removal fee be paid to get your bad reviewremoved)

I would like to hear / work with you regarding these issues.

Daniel Collins

My response to Ioxhost.co.uk

July 5, 2010

Daniel,

First of all I never called your company an affiliate.  I was simple informing how I came up with the subject for my hosting reviews.  Since I could find no affilates marketing your site, I went with what came to mind,  which is “who is ioxhost”.

The very nature of my site is to expose fake review sites as well as those who use them.   Currently I am after everyone that is using webhostingstuff.com. As they claim that no one pays for the top 25 positioning. You were on my list as number 10 back in May 2010. I know positioning with the top 25 is paid for, as 2 years ago I busted them.

I am not sure what makes you think being in the top 25 is “advertising”  turn on a TV and you will find true advertising. There are many ways to get your company to the world at large as I have clearly done with my site and my popularity has increased everyday since I created the video that made my site famous, and it grows even faster since I started the blog.  I have ran 4 hosting companies in the last 11 years, and I did not have to pay for a lie to make the sites popular.  The best you can do is to stop using webhostingstuff.com, and do true advertising.  Even a affiliate program would be better then this (if you read my posts you will see that my problem is when companies use high payouts on their affiliate programs).    Better yet expose your dealing with webhostingstuff on here.  By bidding for your position you are engaging in business with a company that damages honest companies.  I owned one of those companies effected by the practices of webhostingstuff.com.  As long as you are listed in the top 25 of webhostingstuff.com you are unethical company that I have my sights on.

As for the flaws in your site,  this is something you need to find.  I spent less then 30 minutes to find the flaws I encountered on your site.  I did not do a full a review of the site as I have a list of things I look at when reviewing a site.  I suggest that you do a page by page inspection of your site (that means testing your site in every popular browser).  I am not in the business of telling webhosts (especially considering they used to be my competitors) how they can improve their service, especially I am not going to do so for free.   Clearly if you want to reach the world at large you need to perform quality assurance on your site, and not wait for people to find the problems for you.

Nothing will make me delete the post I put up or alter it, however I am not beyond putting up a second post that states that you redeemed yourself.  In other words an email that I can post saying that you had webhostingstuff.com remove you and that you are committed to doing true marketing.

Regards,

Benjamin

Ioxhost.co.uk’s response

Hi Benjamin,
Thanks for your reply.
I don’t know how they can say people are not paying for that, Its misleading to the visitors thinking these company’s are the best when all the need to do is bid a bit of money.
We will be making a lot of changes to the site, (currently 2 of us) such as the Terms, We have business hours and going top to bottom checking the site.
I have just send WHS a email asking for the complete removal of our site.
Daniel

My response to Ioxhost.co.uk

Hello Daniel,

The problem is they like to delete the negative feed back for the companies that pay, and the positive feed back for those that do not.  The companies that approach them on this are slandered for this.

I would like to see the emails that whs has sent you, I can assure you any posts I do would leave out key information that they can use to identify you.

At the same time this is my recommendation that you post a response on my blog post in regards to having them remove you, and plead your case.

Regards,

Benjamin

Ioxhost.co.uk’s response

HI Benjamin

I contacted them before regarding downtime they were showing where pingdom was showing none, they did nothing about this.

I removed all my bids from there site so i shouldn’t be listed.

Still awaiting there email to confirm they have removed my account.

Daniel

End of emails with ioxhost.co.uk

After that there were only a few exchanges.  Where I tried to get him to send me the emails that webhostingstuff sent.  For that Ioxhost.co.uk stop responding to me.  Even when I emailed Ioxhost.co.uk’s Daniel to explain why they were back on the top 25 7 days ago on February 1, 2011.  Despite the claims of changing the terms of service they are still as short as they were.  The chat program is not the same as you have to go to contact to find it, and clicking on it seems to only reload the contact page.

The down time for ioxhost.co.uk this time last year was 2461 minutes.  Last month ioxhost.co.uk had 155 minutes.  But this is according to webhostingstuff.com.

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/uptime/IoxHost.html

In regards to the webhostingstuff  ioxhost.co.uk reviews

This time around I find that Ioxhost.co.uk has their own testimonials.  I decided to do what I have done with other hosts that decide to show case their testimonial as well as the reviews on webhostingstuff.com.  The question I have to ask is are these hosts still with ioxhost.co.uk.

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

guaridaarcana.com – none active domain
gavinbrydon.co.uk – Not on Ioxhost.co.uk dns – digimaxgfx.com
freevertiser.co.uk – On Ioxhost.co.uk
infinity-network.info (also a testimonial on site) On Ioxhost.co.uk
express-webhost.com – On Ioxhost.co.uk – Offline
deluxfilmations.com (also a testimonial on site) – Now with Bluehost as of Feb 7, 2011
northislandmktg.com (also a testimonial on site) – With Godaddy since November 21, 2009

There is one testimonial on http://ioxhost.co.uk/testimonials.html that does not appear on webhostignstuff.com

shard-consultancy.co.uk – none active domain

So only 2 domains out of 8 reviews are hosted with Ioxhost.

BurstNET – What may have been my worst provider

Back when I did my review of Wooservers, I brought up my history with BurstNET.  Wooservers.com basic claim was that I could not judge their service based off of my own experiences.  But I have to ask, is a host only as good as their supplier? Supposibly BurstNET resellers get faster support, I have no idea because they could not handle 3 servers, so I saw no reason to invest in their reseller program.  After all if they can not handle 3 servers, its not a good sign to trust them with hundreds  of servers.  I still think wooservers.com is no better then BurstNET.  After all if BurstNET is willing to sacrifice support to their direct customers, they very well may skip lesser resellers to provide support to resellers that sell more then others.

Its been almost 10 years since I first used BurstNET

It really boogles the mind that any business can survive while being terrible at customer service.  Back in 2003 I got service with BurstNET because my previous company was looking for a viable cPanel company.   I was not particularly happy with Fastservers.net who would later become Layeredtech.   My second provider was OChosting, who were in the progress of leaving after they were threatening to charge extra for reboots because of outages caused by defective equipment. Which is a story for another day.  Also I have to say I prefer Plesk over cPanel another post for another day.   I don’t exactly remember dealing with the BurstNET sales dept that much in the beginning.  But after I got my second server there were setup issues and the server went down for 7 days.  After multiple calls that went to an answering machine that was full I was not particularly happy.  So I canceled the service. BurstNET was unwilling to provide a refund despite the issues being caused by them.

Second time is the charm with BurstNET?

By 2005 my business partner thought they would have the kinks worked out.  His thoughts were that no company could possible survive if they kept up that level of incompetence.   Clearly they can.  This server was held no longer then 2 weeks.  After 2 equipment failures  my business partner was sick of playing my part with this company because I refused to take any part of using them as a supplier.  Not once was he able to get someone on the phone, despite my recommendation that we call them first.  Though I ended up having to deal with them on trying to get a refund that never came.  Ultimately I feel I probable wasted more time then what a refund was worth.

This is one of those rare hosts where the searching for “BurstNET sucks” on google really does apply.

This is just off the first page:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/20467-BurstNet-STINKS ( 2 negative reviews from 2001)

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/review/BurstNet.html (12 negative reviews)

http://www.besthostratings.com/web-hosting/reviews/burstnet_technologies-Reviews.html
(6 negative reviews  Oct 2006 – Sept 2010)

http://www.web-hosting-top.com/web-hosting/web-hosting-top.burst.net-reviews (.5 out of 5 stars – 12 negative reviews)

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1609927 (negative review from 2009)

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6616_102-337170.html (negative review from 2009)

http://www.000webhost.com/directory/reviews/burst.net (2009- 2010 8 negative reviews).

There are even more.  For some reason the reviews on webhostingstuff.com about BurstNET start December 2008.

But there is also this tweet done on January 28, 2011

As for the what BurstNET reseller wooservers.com tried to tell me:

“Judging a different company with your own past experience of burst.net is very unsubstantial.”

Thats not one of their customers says:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=919430

“I saw there post on here and the high amount of bandwidth – space and price got me wanting to try them out, They tell you they have support in the uk and usa, and act like loads of people work for them when only one person was replaying to my tickets I checked out there domain and he’s the owner..

He also said they owned loads fof sites but all joined together to work on wooservers.com when i asked for the domains they worked on he refused to tell me..

He said server setup takes 12 – 24 hours but it look almost 3 days to setup, Once setup I asked a friend of mine to go over the vps to make sure I did it right, but he was unable to get on the server or open any of the pages and they wasn’t helpful about that..

 

I then asked for a refund as if he couldn’t connect or view anything on the server then it’s no good to me as me and him work together and they refused.

My advice is don’t use them, they seem to lie and it seem’s to be the one guy there, and not everybody is able to connect to the vps.

Is anybody able to recommend a good vps company that isn’t to pricey and have good connections to the uk.

– Matthew”

No similarities to BurstNET at all there right?

Then there is the negative review on Web-hosting-top.com

http://www.web-hosting-top.com/web-hosting/web-hosting-top.wooservers.com/type/add-review

“horrible service. my vps was down for over 24 hours and i lost all my data. support is so slow it takes 18 hours to respond to ticket. STAY AWAY FROM THEM.”

This was on August 30, 2010.

Strangely another review was done on September 11, 2010:

“I think wooservers is very reliable. I have never had an outage. Network Speeds are blazing fast. Customer service very nice and Super Fast. Amazing prices No One can beat. Amazing Ping Times Overall 100% Perfect”

Then there is the one I love that seems like a failed advertisement on October 14, 2010:

“woo servers is one of the best hosts around and is the most popular for businesses and i recommend all to use their service.

I tried several hosts but i failed in getting support, technical assistance, reliability, cheaters but woo servers are trusted and one can expect 100% satisfaction

* Fast email supports
* Different levels of servers so you can grow
* Very reliable with 99.9% Uptime
* Excellent support
* Good knowledge technically
* Very helpful, probably best known for top technical support

Overall, woo servers is a great choice, particularly for businesses.”

If I did not know better I would almost think that was not a review.

Then there was the Wooserver.com webhostingstuff.com reviews which started August 31, 2010

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

One day after the negative review on web-hosting-top.com.  Coincidence?  Perhaps.

But we were talking about BurstNET

There are two tweets I find the most intresting.

When it comes to BurstNET a fast response and 30 day guarantee don’t apply.

ServerClub.com and hostingsthatsuck.com both suck

Hostingsthatsucks wants you to think Serverclub.com does not suck.   I am going to use most of my last post on zyma.com to prove to you why you should not trust the templated response that hostingsthatsucks uses to convince people to sign up with a host.

I have to wonder if this is another host to get mad at me because I have a qoute that has the word scam in it.  Just to be clear if text is in red and italic then its a quote.  All of which can be found on hostingsthatsuck.com review for this host.

http://www.hostingsthatsuck.com/serverclub-review/

The whole methodology of they don’t suck if they have no results when you search ”serverclub.com sucks” on search engine. The problem is serverclub.com is an aged domain. An aged domain is usually one that was purchased a few years or more that was never used or abandoned.  In this hosts case it was abandoned and recycled from what it was.

ServerClub.com sucks really bad. They are so bad because they don’t have any bad reviews about them when we searched for “Server Club sucks” or “Server Club complaints” on Google today… yeah sucks for their competitors is what we meant. We also tried “ServerClub sucks”, “serversclub sucks”, “ServerClub sux” and other variation of misspells, just they cannot even spell the host name right or try to avoid being sued by ServerClub. Sorry still none.

There is a reason why their challenge is pointless.
Thanks to complete.com and archive.org (thewaybackmachine) I know this site has been pretty much dead some where around 2005 and came back to life in December 2010.
 

Why does Serverclub.com have my attention?

First of all reviews on serverclub.com as a host are rare, and the ones that are out there I suspect were all paid for. You might think I am wrong, after all there is no visible affiliate links.  However this host contacted me for any form of traffic that I could send them on January 5, 2011:
“Hello!
I represent a new but very fast growing hosting company
https://serverclub.com and would like to buy a direct link from your
site. A single link, pre-paid review or any other kind of ads is
needed urgently. Please tell me if it is possible and send me your
price list for such kind of service.
Thanks in advance for your reply

Message:Hello!I represent a new but very fast growing hosting companyhttps://serverclub.com and would like to buy a direct link from yoursite. A single link, pre-paid review or any other kind of ads isneeded urgently. Please tell me if it is possible and send me yourprice list for such kind of service.Thanks in advance for your reply“

Your probable wondering why I did a review of Zyma.com before I did one on Serverclub.com.  At the time when I got this email I was rather busy with the projects that keep a roof over my head and hosting-reviews-exposed.com online, and I did not send my usual response of the mission statement of  hosting-reviews-exposed.com.  It did not dawn on me until later when I was checking to make sure I had responded to everyone that these guys had contacted me.  I find it no surprise that mid January hostingsthatsucks.com decided to do a review.

Hostingsthatsuck’s has no affiliate id with Serverclub.com

In this case it was a pre-paid review.  Which earns them:

“ServerClub is almost perfect! With no or little complaint whatsoever. If you ask us how good is Server Club web hosting, our answer is they are the best web hosting according to our criteria.”

Who knows maybe the second time is the charm for this host, but hostingsthatsuck.com will find a reason for another host to not suck even if they have no history.

“Did you hear that ServerClub customers had problems? Did anybody say ServerClub.com is a scam? Read some ServerClub issues and bad experiences? Did you hear about Server Club horror stories and their limitations? We want to hear your stories. If not, stop wasting your time. Would you agree that finding a good web hosting can be tiring and time consuming, when you should be building your blog, designing your company website or selling your product? Why not take a look at their latest offerings today and start hosting that website project of yours. They provide dedicated server cheap and not many companies can beat their prices.“

Its safe to say that Hostingsthatsuck’s review about Serverclub.com is not to be trusted.

Webhostingstuff.com – January 2011 top 25 list in review

For January 2011 webhostingstuff.com added 5 hosts I have not reviewed before.  Unlike normal I will finish the new hosts I find in the same month I reviewed them.  Though I have to admit its pretty close as this is the last day of the month.  Most of the reviews were pretty easy to write, with the  exception of just one host.  Sometimes I find myself struggling to find what it was that makes a host not a top host.  Digging up the dirt so to speak.  Its not uncommon for me to be stuck with a host that is not spectacular.  By that I mean it may be dull as a rusty nail, but there is little to offend.  Like some hosts that are pretty easy to spot the flaws (like mochahost), some are not.  This is the point where I am hoping to get customers of the host in question to give me their take.  My review may give little or no reason to not choose a host  In some cases customers tell me how wrong and terrible I am.  But I have to ask if they are not so bad why are they using a fake review site?

For the first time ever a host that is on my review list has contacted me prior to my post, perhaps because they saw the video or post on my initial write up of January 2011.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/webhostingstuff-com/webhostingstuff-com-%E2%80%93-january-2011-top-25-list.html

Here is the video of my intial write up:

5 New hosts for January 2011 on Webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 list

While hostgator.com an siteground.com still manage to be the top 25 list.  The list has hosts that don’t seem to be on the same level as them in some cases no where near them.

Myhosting.com number 4 out of 25 for Webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 list

Myhosting.com – Another Host that Pays for Ratepoint.com Service

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

The first thing that comes to mind with Myhosting.com is ratepoint.com.  I suspect sometime I will be doing a review of ratepoint.com as soon as I get enough people telling me that their reviews on ratepoint.com are not showing up.  Despite there not being negative reviews on the paid system Webhostingstuff.com  and web-hosting-top.com  both have negative reviews.

eVerity.com number 15 out of 25 for Webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 list

Everity.com – Home of the $5 Reinstatement Fees

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

eVerity.com is the host that was not spectacular.  Asides for no proof of being a top 25 host with webhostingstuff.com.  There was not much proof that they were a bad host.  One complaint was taken care of and the complainer withdrew their complaint.  Though I have to say their last positive review was in August 2008.  Their last only valid complaint was December 2010.

The only interesting thing i found was a claim of being formed in 1998, but that was only by going through the way back machine and I can find no mention of having formed in 1998 on the present site.

Ampheon.co.uk number 22 out of 25 for Webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 list

Ampheon.co.uk – When you don’t need 24 / 7 tech support

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

Ampheon.co.uk’s main focus it seems is web design.  A look at the support page, which you have to know where to look to find it.  Its rather annoying for their not be a clearly visible support portal. But also what has my concern is the comments located on that support page thats not easy to find.

“Business Hours: 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays”

”customers using this service without the appropriate support agreement will be charged £125 per hour, pro-rata to a minimum billing period of 15 minutes if an urgent response is required before the beginning of the next working day.”

Meaning their cheapest host package could become their most expensive.

Its not clear that support is available all 365 days out of a year.

10looniehost.ca number 24 out of 25 for Webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 list

10looniehost.ca – A New Host, and Only a 7 Day Guarantee

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

As I write my wrap up for January 2011,  I am sure that 10looniehost.ca has either emailed me (again) or responded to my post.  I have to congratulate them on being the first to try and minimize the damage before hand.  Asides for some tweeks on thedesign, stopping the advertising with Webhostingstuff.com, and offering 30 day over a 7 day guarantee they could very well be off to a good start.    In short here is the three things I told them my post was about:

1. Making it clear I have no problem with hosts not being new.
2. I basically cover how you have nothing to prove that you have reason to be on webhostingstuffs top 25.
3. You have a 7 day guarantee that can only be found in the terms of service. Its not on the main page or the package pages  Which I make a point of telling my readers they should settle for no less then 30.

I also told them they are welcome to respond to the post I will neither delete it or edit it.  But then again neither will I delete their responses if they ask me to later.

Bounceweb.com number 25 out of 25 for Webhostingstuff.com’s top 25 list

Bounceweb.com – When 2 out of 5 Star support is all you need

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

Despite questionable awards they have a weird way of claiming to be green.  They just buy off set credits, thats it.  They give you some weird facts that I am not sure are correct.  Though I am sure the last one is just an opinion.

  • Datacenters take 4% of the world’s electricity.
  • Global warming is a concern for 90% of people.
  • Only 3% of web hosting companies are going green.
  • Going green costs 31% more than using dirty electricity.
  • Being socially responsible is cool.

But there are those awards one of which is webhostingstuff.com.

The overall support rating alone is a reason not choose this host.

Just 5 more reasons not to trust the top 25 on Webhostingstuff.

Bounceweb.com – When 2 out of 5 Star support is all you need

Bounceweb.com is my Fifth and finale  host review of 5 hosts for January 2011 webhostingstuff.com’s top 25.  With this host I finish off webhostingstuff’s top 25 hosts for January 2011.  Luckily I have found enough free time between my current projects that I will not be finishing up this in March 2011.

Since I did my intial write up of January 20, 2011 I have been from time to time peaking in on Blounceweb.  Mainly because when I first went to their site the sales chat was offline.  I wanted to see when it would be online.  I pretty much visited at random hours in my 18 hour day.  I have yet to see the sales chat to say online.  But the question I have is how did a host that averaged 2 stars in the last 6 months become one of the top 25 hosts with webhostingstuff.com.  Granted I know the answer to that is because of their “advertising” fees with webhostingstuff.  Below is a snap shot of the reviews that webhostingstuff collected on this host.

Bounceweb.com is trusted by over 57,000 sites around the globe

It seems like a big number but the number represents sites, not customers.  Never mind that many of their customers might have signed up for their reseller program and I have had customers that have had a 1000 or more domains on a reseller account.

http://bounceweb.com/reseller-web-hosting.html

Which offers unlimited domains.  My own experience with plans that offer unlimited domains is that they can house any where from just 1 domain to as many as 5000.  The number does not tell you how many active customers they have.

Yes they have good search engine ranking, not to mention an Alexa score of 67,148.

Also all of those wonderful reviews they have all but one site is still hosted with them.

http://bounceweb.com/testimonials.html

Bounceweb.com has facts on Green Web Hosting

Here is another company that buys energy credits or offsets, and they do……… nothing else.  They give a half hearted effort to try and make up some facts but they do not back up their sources.  I know that 90% of people are not concerned about global warming, all you have to do is look at the latest polls to see they are wrong there.

http://bounceweb.com/green-web-hosting.html

  • Datacenters take 4% of the world’s electricity.
  • Global warming is a concern for 90% of people.
  • Only 3% of web hosting companies are going green.
  • Going green costs 31% more than using dirty electricity.
  • Being socially responsible is cool.

I am not sure how being socially responsible is cool is a fact.

But there not any clearer on how they are greener on this post:

http://www.hostreview.com/news/090518bounceweb.html

Bounceweb.com has awards

http://bounceweb.com/web-hosting-awards.html

Web-hosting-top.com

About that “Web Hosting Top – Award Winner since 2006”.  There is nothing to prove on web-hosting-top.com has given an awarded.  I am not sure how the word “since” applies as its not been going on every year.  The only award I can see is  Listed and Verified since 2006.

Where webhostingstuff.com has 17 reviews, web-hosting-top.com has 16 reviews.  The average rating is 2.1 out of 5, which pretty much mirrors webhostingstuff.

http://www.web-hosting-top.com/web-hosting/web-hosting-top.bounceweb.com/type/add-review

Hostreview.com

There is no direct link to these awards by hostreview.com

Asides for a ton 7 pages of search engine results the best I can find is

http://www.hostreview.com/company-profile-awards/bounceweb

Which of coarse does nothing to prove that this is a fast growing company.  Its one of those “take our word for it” kind of deals.

Webhostdir.com

Once again no direct link.

http://www.webhostdir.com/search/profile.aspx?spid=10564

I am not sure the point of not directly linking to the site, as there is nothing negative to hide.   But this is another of those “take our word for it” kind of deals.  They don’t think you need to see data.

Findmyhost.com

Once again no direct link.  Here is what I can find, but there are no customer reviews.

http://www.findmyhost.com/reviews/bounceweb.aspx

Despite the claim “BounceWeb has passed stringent tests to become an approved host which proves our business has met AND exceeded the qualifications needed to stand out as a web host.”

Truth be told: “Support is available via online support system only. We’d like to see more options made available, perhaps live chat support and toll-free phone.”

Comparewebhosts.com

Of coarse no direct link.  http://www.comparewebhosts.com/ReadReview-WebHost-Bounceweb-CID-5650.htm

Also nothing that indicates that they have any awards.

Webhostingstuff.com

No direct links, but its not like that matters.

Even though they only had three reviews to get an average of 2 stars out of 5 in a 6 month period of time.  The average of all 17 reviews has support at 2 stars out of 5, or 40% which is failing in grade school terms.  On webhostingstuff the complaints are in regards to support being slow, accounts being shut down because of resource usage, and billing issues.

Alreadyhosting.com

No direct link, and Alreadyhosting.com does not have a search that requires me to use a search engine such as Google.

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

Lets review why this site gave out an award:

http://bounceweb.com/web-hosting-affiliate-program.html

  • 1-15 sales a month – Earn $35 for each sale!
  • 15-30 sales a month – Earn $50 for each sale!
  • 31-45 sales a month – Earn $75 for each sale!
  • 46+ sales a month – Earn $125 for each sale!

Need I say more?

webhostingsearch.com

It does not appear there is a direct link for this on Bounceweb.com or webhostsearch.com.  Using the search feature on webhostsearch I am brought to this link:

http://www.webhostingsearch.com/search?searchString=bounceweb

Clicking the only search engine result brings me to just a single link that takes me back to bounceweb.com

Is bounceweb.com for you?  Perhaps you should look at webhostingstuff.com and web-hosting-top.com customer written reviews before signing up for bounceweb.

10looniehost.ca – A New Host, and Only a 7 Day Guarantee

10looniehost.ca is my Forth  host review of 5 hosts for January 2011 webhostingstuff.com’s top 25.  Before I go off into my little ramble here, I want to make clear that I have no problems with new hosts.  Every company had to start some where.  There is also that chance that a new host could take the industry by storm, in this market thats always a possibility.   This is a post that is about a new host that is paying for “advertising” with webhostingstuff.com.

I am not sure why a host that claims “True Canadian hosting, Solid Support”, has choosen to purchase “advertising” from webhostingstuff.com who primarily is U.S. focused hosting (well it was, but it seems there are more UK hosts lately). This host had my attention because while they had no reviews, they had the highest “Traffic Popularity” score which Webhostingstuff assigns to the some 14,289. That number is 13,597.  Keep in mind that hostgator.com is 5 of 14,289 companies and Yahoo was number 1.  I was guessing by the no reviews and a score of 13,597 this was a new host.

This is not the first host I have found on the webhostingstuff top 25 to be new, In November 2010 I found hosting locker was one of the .

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

Did 10looniehost.ca just launch?

I don’t have much proof of it, but I am guessing that 10looniehost.ca just recently launched and not on the creation of the domain date.  By that I mean over the last 30 days.  I say that because the Alexa score was 11,732,342 when I first found them on webhostingstuff’s top 25 list, and now they are 6,717,734.  Its been my experience it takes little effort to move that far when your score is above ten million.  Most of my sites that have a score around ten million and above have nothing going on them.  I am willing to bet by the time I finish up January 2011 they will be down to five million.

10looniehost.ca Alexa score January 20, 2010

10looniehost.ca Alexa score January 28, 2010

10looniehost.ca offers only a 7 day guarantee?

http://www.sitehost.ca/10looniehost-review/

Since their a new host there is not much out there.  But I found that paticular site intresting because:

“Money back guarantee: 7 day guarantee but you can pay monthly“

My recommendation is to alway avoid a host that does not offer any thing 30 days or more.  I have indeed found that this host only offers a 7 day guarantee:

http://www.10looniehost.ca/tos.php

“If for any reason the Account Holder is not entirely satisfied with their hosting Account they may request that their Account be closed within an initial 7 day period of their order being placed. A full refund of any fees paid will then be issued. Beyond that initial 7 day period, all payments for hosting are non-refundable and service is provisioned for the period paid for.”

This is not on the main page, hosting package pages, or the faq however this is:

“Solid Support – timely, responsive and technically adept support is guaranteed.”

“Techie Support Guaranteed“

I am not sure why the “7 day period” is hidden away in the terms of service.  But this is coming from a company that says “For ten bucks a month or less, at least 90% of our customers ought to be able to get what they need.“.  If your a customer I hope you do not fall under the 10% they don’t think should get what they need.

10looniehost.ca is on my watch list.

Ampheon.co.uk – When you don’t need 24 / 7 tech support

Ampheon.co.uk is my Third  host review of 5 hosts for January 2011 webhostingstuff.com’s top 25.  You would think a host that claims to be in business since 1994 would have more then 1 review.  From maximsglobal.com on February 11, 2008.  The good news on this single review is that they are still with them.  The whois for the domain Ampheon.co.uk says it was created April 1, 2000.  I also not a 100% sure but I don’t believe .co.uk domains were available until 1996.  Not to mention the wayback machine does not have anything before 2000.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/ampheon.co.uk

But thats not my main concern.  This may very well be another host that was formed under another company name and this domain somehow became a trusted name since 1994.   My concern is if you goto  the website you find that the main focus is not webhosting.  The main purpose is design.  The big thing thats lacking here is a login area.  You have to click “Web Hosting”, and then search on the right hand side for  “Hosting Support”.  There is no direct link from the main page for support, which is a big negative in my book.  Its also going an idea I am adding to my grading system.  Support has to be clearly visible.

If I am guessing correctly the sites that appear in the rotating banner on top is satisfied design customer.  I am not exactly sure.

But which of those 9 is actually hosting with Ampheon.co.uk?

From what I can see of the whois data:

londonchamber.co.uk – Hosted by londonchamber.co.uk
rentright.co.uk – Hosted by Ampheon.co.uk
ukofficedirect.co.uk – Hosted by Ampheon.co.uk
roomft.com – Hosted by rackspace
thecommonwealth.org – Hosted by The UK Grid Network Ltd
rentpropertydirect.com – Hosted by Ampheon.co.uk
callanishpartners.com – Hosted by clara.net
essencesearch.co.uk – Hosted by Ampheon.co.uk
konextions.co.uk – Hosted by schlund.de

Only 4 out of 9.

Yes my post about Ampheon.co.uk is in regards to 24/7 support

http://www.ampheon.co.uk/web-hosting/hosting-support.html

This is the page I had to manually locate.  Its well worth reading if you are considering this host.

“Business Hours: 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays”

My first impression is that can’t possible be the hours you can get support.  But there is this:

“Out of Hours Telephone Support is available to selected shared hosting packages and dedicated servers only. Please have your hosting account username or domain name ready so that we can confirm you are entitled to out-of-hours support. Please note that customers using this service without the appropriate support agreement will be charged £125 per hour, pro-rata to a minimum billing period of 15 minutes if an urgent response is required before the beginning of the next working day.”

The part that gets me is the “Selected Shared Hosting packages”.  I figured perhaps the cheapest package is the one that does not get support beyond business hours.

Clicking on that blue “24-Hour Support” links directly back to that support link.

But Ampheon has business hours?

“Out of Hours: Those hours outside Business Hours”

Which means if  “customers using this service without the appropriate support agreement will be charged £125 per hour, pro-rata to a minimum billing period of 15 minutes if an urgent response is required before the beginning of the next working day.”

If I am reading this correctly thats the package I listed above the Home Hosting Package, gets only 24 hour email support.

Its also not clear that you will get support all 365 days of a year.

Its my opinion that if you want a company thats focus is webhosting, then Ampheon is not the host for you.

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