If you thought I was done reviewing sites that appear on webhostingstuff, you were wrong. While trying to finish up May and June 2010, I slacked on July and August 2010. So whatever host was on the top 25 on July – August 2010 will not be reviewed if they are not presently or in the future on webhostingstuff. This is a company that I should have been following since the beginning when I first created my video. I never realized til the last few months how flawed the top 25 hosts were. Some of the hosts belong in the worst hosts lists. All it took was constant monitoring of their site, despite the many times I get blocked, I have had plenty of volunteers willing to get me the information that I needed.
Webhostingstuff top 1 – 10 most popular hosting companies
1 – 10 on webhostingstuff is a bit mixed from the previous times I have looked.
FatCow is no longer on the top 25, However another of the Endurance International group – iPage.com is still there. Losing there number 1 spot to Arivixe. I have to wonder how Arivixe managed that besides for having some terrible reviews they made worse, there a outdated website. HostGator seems to after I started monitoring moving back and forth between 4th and 5th postion. Two new hosts that I have not reviewed appear in the 1 – 10 spots.
KVCHosting.com
Awardspace
Webhostingstuff top 11 – 20 most popular hosting companies
Webinternethosting is still there, despite their singe rating they faked. I had sent an email to Michael Low in regards to this but like in most cases he blocks anyone with any negative aspect to what he is doing.
Three new hosts in the 11 – 20 spot that I have not reviewed
Vexxhost
Hostek.com
Topgreenhost.com (another green host that probable buys green credits)
Webhostingstuff top 21 – 25 most popular hosting companies
Fire Dragon Hosting a site that is the worst designed site I have seen is in the number 22 spot.
Two new hosts to my list
Cyber Host Pro
Banahosting.com
ummm wait. What the?!?!?! Webhostingstuff has i7net.net in the top 25 again!!!!!
I recently reviewed the problems with this site and for some reason even though the site has not been active for months its the 25th most popular hosting company?
I have to wonder how this site is there, and I would be surprised if i7net.net is was paying anything. I do know that people are paying webhostingstuff via pay pal. Perhaps i7net.net has not canceled the subscription payment and so this is on auto pilot. While I7net.net is paying the bare minimum for “advertising” in a bidding war. It shifts in and out of the 25th postion.
Webhostingstuff the place to go when you really want to gamble with the quality of service for your website
Chances are you may have found this post because its about ‘cheap unlimited host’. ‘There are twenty cheap unlimited hosts under the Endurance International Group. While all of them offer the same package, there not the same price. So today I decided to go through and see who is the cheapests and who was the most expensive. Not to mention I wanted to see if all the sites offered hosting. Not all of them do. 3 do not offer hosting, 8 do not offer unlimited hosting. The remaining 19 plus iPage which is not listed make 20 sites that can be called a “cheap unlimited host”. I found the owner of these cheap unlimited(s) while looking into the Endurance International Group.
*WARNING* I do not endorse any cheap unlimited host!!!
If anything I would tell you to avoid these sites and sites that offers you a promise that simply can not be kept. Its a gamble any time you get into a cheap unlimited host that offers more then is reasonable feasible. You never know at what point the cheap unlimited host is going to shut you off. There is always an unwritten profit margin that a host is not going to let you pass. Sometimes its called processor usage. Often when I see that someone was shut down because they exceeded 1 – 3 % of processor usage I have to wonder how powerful the server they were on, or how old it might be. Granted with The Endurance International Group you may have a longer limit then other unlimited providers due to the fact they use their customers as an advertising platform.
Why would I create a list of cheap unlimited hosts?
Some people no matter what I say will still buy cheap unlimited hosting, and for that matter will flock to the cheapest of them. Despite the possibility of getting burned, its perceived as a deal. So if your not going to listen to my warning, you might as well know which one is the cheapest. I went through all the sites I could find on The Endurance International Group BBB page.
I found that 20 of them offer unlimited hosting. iPage was not listed, but i am including it on my cheap unlimited host list. All offering essentially the same thing Unlimited space and bandwidth with various sign on bonuses (carbonite, Google adsense, free domain……..). So if you have to have one of these hosts you might as well have the one with the cheapest price. Why pay more then you have to for what is essential the same cheap unlimited host plan?
A cheap unlimited host list for the Endurance International Group
The below list is in order of the cheapest price per cheap unlimited host. All of these sites belong to the Endurance International Group. Keep in mind you may have to sign up for almost three years to get the price I have listed. The price listed is per month.
iPage
$3.50
FatCow
$3.67
PowWeb
$3.88
Dot5Hosting
$3.95
HyperMart
$4.25
Globat
$4.44
DomainHost
$5.95
ehost
$5.95
Enteryhost
$5.95
FreeYellow
$5.95
HostCentric
$5.95
IMOutdoorsHosting
$5.95
Ipower
$5.95
IpowerWeb
$5.95
NetworkHosting
$5.95
StartLogic
$5.95
USANetHosting
$5.95
Xeran
$5.95
ApolloHosting
$6.95
Webhost4Life
$19.95
…. And the cheap unlimited host winner is iPage
If you have to have a cheap unlimited host, and it has to be from the Endurance International Group why pick any other host then iPage.
…. And the cheap unlimited host loser is Webhost4Life
Compared to iPage you could save $16.45 a month, $197.40 a year, $394.80 over 2 years, $592.20 over 3 years. For that matter its hard to call Webhost4Life a cheap unlimited host considering most hosts do not have their unlimited hosting price this high.
They all have the same plan, with the same support team. So why pick any other cheap unlimited host plan?
What if you went with one of the sites that offer their cheap unlimited plan for $5.95 a month?
You will pay $2.45 extra per month
You will pay $29.40 extra per year
You will pay $58.80 extra for a two year period
If your getting the same essential cheap unlimited host plan from the cheapest company, why would you want to pay even a penny extra? The cheap unlimited plan to go with is the one by iPage if you have to have one from the Endurance International Group.
During my initial review of iPage and Fatcow, I discovered their connection to Endurance International Group, sparked by their rankings on WebHostingStuff’s top 25 hosts. Interestingly, these two hosting services were ranked higher than HostGator, in second and fourth places, respectively. This prompted a deeper dive into WebHostingStuff’s ranking system, where, after evaluating 30 web hosts, it became clear that the rankings might not be entirely based on performance or customer satisfaction. The lack of a transparent ranking system and suspicions of under-the-table incentives were highlighted by the fact that a host previously ranked 25th had since gone out of business.
While many of the hosts on WHS’s top 25 were paying for the top spot, some were placed there due to affiliate programs. Sign-ups earning up to $100 or more. Most of the hosts owned by EIG have such a program.
How did Endurance International Group get my attention?
A chat session with iPage made me wonder how many companies this support operation had to handle. All because the chat operator had to ask me what URL I was referring to. I told the operator that it was the main page; a site only has one main/home page. The chat operator kept asking me for the main page until I gave them iPage.com. Having used chat programs with my hosting companies, I can tell you my techs knew what site, and for that matter, what page of the site a customer was on. Clearly, this is something that this group should be using as opposed to having customers tell a chat operator what site they are on.
My first impression was that it was just an outsourced support working with multiple hosting companies. But there was also this that one of the chat operators told me:
Bryan Smith:FatCow is the sister company of iPage.
The chat operator gave me more information than he/she should have. The support company was not well put together because they had to ask which website I was referring to. But by the time I reviewed Fatcow, I was looking at its BBB record. The search engine results brought me to:
It became clear that while it was not only outsourced, it was part of a company that buys out web hosting companies. They claim to have natural growth, but all the growth appears to be mostly acquisition. While looking at some hosts, it becomes clear that the buyouts don’t happen smoothly. One company out of all those bought out by Endurance International Group sticks out, and that is host4life. People liked that company before it was bought out, but the opinion is clearly in the negative now. I have to say that Endurance International Group has me curious. So, I am adding another part to my reviews: all the sites that appear under Endurance International Group.
Endurance International Group appears out of the picture with its acquisition.
I have a bottle of Tylenol on my desk; looking over the bottle, I can tell you what company Tylenol is a division of. Which is MCNEIL-PPC, inc. You go to tylenol.com, and you find MCNEIL-PPC, inc. When you go to iPage.com and FatCow.com, you can’t find a reference to Endurance International Group. I have gone through several of their sites, looked at the bottom of the main pages, and looked through various terms of services. Yet, not one site brings me any detail about being owned by Endurance International Group. I have read some sites indicating that they are the third largest hosting provider in the U.S., with around 700,000 customers. But nothing is open to telling the customers that their hosting company is a division of Endurance International Group. When I was looking at how Endurance International Group is a green company (more about that in another post). I found an order link. http://www.enduranceinternational.com/green/
They have a lot of companies to link to on their greenwashed sites. Greenwashing by means of buying energy credits.
Endurance International Group, where hosting customers are a reusable commodity
One thing sticks out to me on Endurance International Group’s website:
Access Millions of Potential Customers
Learn more about the vDeck Integration Program (VIP) which puts your product or service in front of a high-quality, targeted audience of small business owners looking for cutting-edge solutions.
Endurance International Group appears to be using its customers as an advertising base. Much like what AOL did with their service. This is my assumption, but based on this page: http://www.enduranceinternational.com/vip/
I will assume that products are placed inside a customer’s login area. Looking at several of the sites randomly, they cover their butts from the people they sell the advertising to.
and the list goes on……. But every site I have looked at has the same privacy policy. The part that connects the hosting company to Endurance International Group is 5. Online Shopping.
Online Shopping. At some Web sites that you access through links on FatCow, you can purchase products and services or register to receive materials, such as a catalog or new product updates. In many cases, you may be asked to provide contact information, such as your name, address, e-mail address, phone number, and credit/debit card information. If you complete an order for a Web site or service that is not provided by FatCow, FatCow has no control over the third parties’ use of any personal information you provide when placing such an order. Please exercise care when doing so. If you order products directly from FatCow, we will use the personal information you provide only to process that order. We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to complete that order.
In addition to hosting fees, Endurance International Group also makes money off its clients through advertising.
Here is the list of sites that I know of with Endurance International Group
AccountSupport
ApolloHosting
BizLand
BlueDomino
DomainHost
Dot5Hosting
Easy CGI
EasyCGI
eHost
EntryHost
FatCow
FreeYellow
Globat
HostCentric
HostYourSite
HyperMart
IMOutdoorsHosting
iPage
Ipower
IPowerWeb
Networkshosting
PowWeb
PureHost
ReadyHosting
Spry
StartLogic
The Endurance International Group, Inc.
USANetHosting
VirtualAvenue
VPSLink
WebHost4Life
Webstrikesolutions
Xeran
YourWebHosting
I have heard rumors that they also own Justhost, but at this time, I have not found anything to confirm that.
Endurance International Group, a company with so much more to review
If you have a horror story, a success story, or information for me to look at with Endurance International Group, this is the place to post.
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.
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:
Commission Type Pay-Per-Sale: 50% of all sales you deliver. You can earn up to $731 per sale !
Its not hard to see why the update, which should be a warning is not at the top. Their excuse would be that you should have read the whole review. Its a case of your lose is their gain.
The final word on hostingsthatsuck
The one thing that every site has in common on hostingsthatsuck is they all have rather nice payouts. Its my opinion that the name implies you would find hosts to avoid. Hostingsthatsuck does show you if a site is bad, you just have to read past the gold foil at the top of the review.
“I love MediaTemple.com! I hate MediaTemple. MediaTemple is the best! MediaTemple sucks. MediaTemple rocks! MediaTemple is a joke. Ahh… Sweet, Sweet MediaTemple!”
That’s basically my experience with MediaTemple. When MediaTemple works, it works beautifully; my sites fly, huge databases are no match for MediaTemple, and no matter how much traffic I get, I can (generally) count on Hosting-Reviews-Exposed being up and running.
But then something goes wrong and then I can’t stand &#$@!@ MediaTemple!!
Let me explain…
For over 3 years, I hosted Hosting-Reviews-Exposed.com with GoDaddy. But that was when this site was a single page, and Youtube was doing the bulk of the heavy lifting due to the video.
Then something happened…
I got picked up on Google’s front page.
Early last month, things slowed down to a crawl. Admittedly, I knew that day would come and I can’t complain. . Anybody who pays $3.95 for hosting and then suddenly starts getting thousands of hits per day, running an MySQL-dependent CMS (WordPress) is a fool. You simply can’t expect the same level of speed and any empathy from a hosting provider when you become too successful and you refuse to accept that it’s time to get more powerful, “big boy” hosting.
Eventually you’re going to need stronger hosting. Which is why I decided to go with MediaTemple.com.
Just look at MediaTemple’s site! Slick huh?! And the “Grid” technology. WOW! Before cloud hosting became a familiar word to most of us, MediaTemple was offering it in the form of “(gs) Grid” and labeled it “Hundreds of Servers for the Price of One”. From MediaTemple’s site:
“(gs) is a cluster-based, modern hosting service powered by hundreds of servers working in tandem to power your websites, applications and email with unrivaled power, burstability and reliability…”
Pretty cool! And frankly, it’s awesome… when it works….
Today was one of those days when it did not — and I went from “Media Temple is awesome!” to “&#$@!@ MediaTemple!!”
Thankfully, this site (Hosting-Reviews-Exposed.com) was not affected, but one of my other sites running on MediaTemple’s (gs) service went down for 4 hours. UGH!
Calling MediaTemple!
Immediately, I picked up the phone and called MediaTemple. In the past, a human has always answered within the first few rings and I have *never* had to wait on hold, but this time there was a busy signal.
I called back again in a few minutes later and their phone system must have been rebooted because this time I received an automated message to stay on the line… and that I was the 9th person in line. Ok. Well, at least I could get hold of somebody, right?
WRONG.
I waited… and waited… and waited… and waited… and waited… for 2 hours. While I was waiting, I opened a ticket, explained my problem briefly. This is the message I got from their Ticket System when I hit “submit”:
MediaTemple’s Support Ticket Response. Could It Get Any Worse?
Does MediaTemple’s Support Suck?
No. Don’t get me wrong. MediaTemple’s technicians are some of the most talented and brightest technicians I have ever had the pleasure of communicating with. The problem is, MediaTemple’s support department seems sorrily understaffed. Frankly, I don’t know how many people they employ, but when you have to wait 20 hours for a response, when nobody answers the phone, when you have to wait on hold for 2 hours, when you’re virtually the only mainstream hosting company that doesn’t offer chat support… then you are understaffed. Period. When you are understaffed, it doesn’t matter how intelligent your employees are — and when you’re understaffed it’s unfair to those bright people who have to communicate with angry, disgruntled customers.
This is what I don’t understand: When you (MediaTemple) are one of the original innovators of Grid/Cloud/Custered hosting technology, why-oh-why would you throw it all away and create such ill-will amongst your clients with slow support. Come on! Your clients’ sites are down. They can’t reach you on the phone. When they submit a ticket, they’re told they have to wait 20 hours (!!!!!!) for a response.
Now for some 10+ years I was an executive at 3 major hosting companies, supporting thousands of clients by phone, chat and email. Our customer service philosophy was simple: 1) Clients must get a response via chat within 30 seconds. 2) Clients must get a response (human) via email within 15 minutes. 3) Clients must never be on hold for more than 10 minutes. If a technician failed to meet these expectations repeatedly, they were summarily fired.
Does MediaTemple’s Management Suck? Well…
Good management plans for the unexpected — and it’s not unexpected that, if you’re in the hosting business, servers will go down or offline or get hacked or crashed or whatever. It’s going to happen sometime. Plan for it and make sure your clients can reach a real person, even if it’s to bitch about something very legitimate your company needs to do (like a security patch or upgrade that must be done.)
Look, I know you can’t have an army of technicians on duty 24×7 and yes, I know that sometimes you need to do emergency system maintenance and you’re going to have a lot of angry clients to deal with, BUT…
How hard is it to have a back-up support team in place? An outsourced team? How hard is it outsource your email support at a critical time, to ensure your clients know what’s going on?? It’s not hard at all. How do I know? Because we had such a plan in place for emergencies. All it took was a phone call and we had an unlimited number of outsourced technicians ready to answer emails to ensure our clients received a 15 minute response time when the &#@T went down. And to be completely honest, outsourcing our email/ticket support was a BARGAIN compared to our outlay for our own, in-house support.
Now look, I’m all for US-based support. I think it’s the right thing to do. I’m all for hiring locally — again because it’s the right thing to do, but you need a backup plan… and you need to have technicians (outsourced or otherwise) available to take up the slack when things go bad… like they did at MediaTemple this evening. If things go really bad, then you’re out of business and your locally-hired employees are out of a job. Not outsourcing in times of need is irresponsible!!
Wake Up MediaTemple!
Look, this is not the first time I have submitted a ticket with MediaTemple and had to wait hours — and in one instance a week went by without a response (the said the ticket was mis-directed to the wrong department, but anyway, let me continue….). This also is not the first time I had to wait more than an hour on the phone (and by the way, when someone did answer, they hung up… I even heard their chatter in the background right before the “click”… so in actuality, I never was able to reach a real person and I didn’t feel like waiting another 2 hours on hold on. Who would??
Do you want to know what’s really bad??
The last time my MediaTemple sites went offline, it was due to planned maintenance. MediaTemple’s management KNEW IN ADVANCE that clients would be affected… and yet at that time, also, their phone system was offline (overloaded I imagine by angry clients) and their support response time was chronically slow; at that time, the guaranteed ticket response time was 20+ hours. Yet did MediaTemple’s management do what was necessary (ie outsource) to protect their reputation and ensure the satisfaction of their clients?
Will I Remain With Media Temple?
When I sold my previous hosting companies, it was liberating to not have to manage a server farm and a department of technicians. Likewise, I thought it would be equally liberating to let somebody else’s employees take care of things, watch the server, answer *my* support requests.
Well, obviously MediaTemple doesn’t run their company like I ran mine…. and now for the first time in over two years, I’m actually thinking I should get back into the hosting business.
Will I remain with MediaTemple? I just don’t know… Can I recommend them? Again, I don’t know…
|<———— THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE END OF MY POST ————>|
MediaTemple Update!!!
Well it seems like the MediaTemple gods have it in for me tonight. Just when I was about to wrap up my post and I clicked PUBLISH, I got this screen:
Just when I thought I could forget my MediaTemple Problems….
The MediaTemple Saga Continues…
Alright…. so. What happened? I gave MediaTemple a call. Amazing, I got an immediate answer and the technician was very helpful. He fixed the problem right away. But what was the problem?? Well to understand that, you need to read this email that I wrote to MediaTemple.com after my 2 hour telephone ordeal. It’s from Nat, a support supervisor, who “does not claim omniscience” (obviously). Click to enlarge:
My dialog with “Nat the Non-Omniscient”
The MediaTemple Plot Thickens…
So with all of my MediaTemple (gs) sites offline, I gave MediaTemple a call again. Got straight to an operator this time. No waiting. This guy was good. He read the ticket post from Nat and I thought I could detect a little chuckle. Maybe it was my imagination. After 10 minutes he said, “Check your sites now, sir.” And they were backonline? Yes, they were!
Why Was My MediaTemple (gs) Server Down??
It turns out that Nat, as he claims, really is not omniscient…. nor does Nat check his own work. He put an extra .htaccess file in my site directory. And it screwed up not just one site, but all of my sites running on my MediaTemple (gs) server.
How Do I Feel About MediaTemple Now?
Well before I said, “I don’t know…” and I thought I would end it there. Then I hit “Publish” and got that nasty (Nat-y?) error and I thought, that’s it. That’s the last straw…. Then when I read Nat’s response, I was even more infuriated. To me, having seen all forms of BS in this industry, I could not believe Nat’s denial — nor could I believe his insinuation that I wasn’t on hold for 2 hours. His claim? 18 minutes was the average. I was mad (in fact I still am mad at “Supervisor Nat the Non-Omniscient”. He could have done better….)
Luckily, one of his own people saved the day. Read this ticket. Click to enlarge:
My Savior (No, It’s Not Nat)
Short, Polite Not Condensending… and FAST.
Did you read that ticket above? Short. Polite. No fancy words, “tone” nor an anal tendency for adverbs. It was a responsible, perfect reply — and it saved his supervisor’s (Nat) ass.
That’s the reason why I’m giving MediaTemple one more chance… again. That last perfect, polite, fast response above. That’s why I’m still with MediaTemple. It goes to show that MediaTemple has some good people and those people aren’t just smart, they’re also courteous. (Hello, Nat?! Getting a clue yet, buddy??)
One Last Word About MediaTemple
I really wasn’t sure if I should say this. I wanted a nice ending, but something was bugging me.
Nat really pissed me off (can you tell??) It wasn’t so much him personally… nor his insinuation that I’m lying about my 2 hour “on hold” time… or his absurd comment about being “not Omniscient”. No F&*#Xing duh, Nat. If you were Omniscient, I wouldn’t have to tell you that my sites were down…
Sigh.
No. It was none of those things.
It was Nat’s absurd comment about “we will never outsource”. What a dangerous, viral, ignorant, myopic view. MILLIONS of companies outsource their support. Some do it very well (and you never know it). Some do it poorly (and you always know it). Yet “Nat the Non-Omniscient” has concluded that outsourcing is bad, bad, bad. He erroneously assumes that it’s better and more acceptable for clients to have to wait on the phone and go to the ticket system and receive a pop up window that say “20 Hour Estimated Response Time” than it is to outsource, save some money and ensure that your clients get fast timely support when they need it.
Obviously, to Nat, it’s more acceptable to apologize to the client about a long response time than it is to find an immediate solution. Simply saying you’re hiring people doesn’t mean that’s an acceptable reason why MediaTemple clients have to wait on the phone for 2 hours. 18 minutes is your “average” telephone response time?? OMG. That immediately implies you’re understaffed and it should not be the client’s responsibility to have to suffer your staffing problems — especially when Nat is thumbing his nose at outsourcing (which would provide MediaTemple with an immediate supply of talent which could supplement their local force — on demand — and make for happier clients at MediaTemple.
I found 5 new sites on webhostingstuff back in June 2010. But I only reviewed 4, because I could not identify which host may be Plexihost Affordable Web with 100% certainty, because I can not find it in webhostingstuff’s data base by searching for that term. I should have saved the domain name. My focus is on hosts that pay to be in the top 25, not the some 10,000 hosts that are listed there. If I am not 100% certain of who a site is with I will not review them. That does not mean I will not find out who the site above is later. Bottom line if you are thinking of buying “advertising” from webhostings stuff, don’t. There are better ways of getting your company out there then ending up on my list.
So what did I find with these 4 new June 2010 hosts on webhostingstuff
None of the 4 hosts I have reviewed are in a weight category with Hostgator, iPage, Bluehost. For that matter they are hosts that either not figured out a way to market as many of the sites have lesser search engine rankings then this site. Keep in mind most of my search engine rankings have been from the last three months. The video helped but its not the greatest source of traffic. Its the content I am putting to gather.
ServersandDomains, number 11 on webhostinstuff.com in June 2010
No longer at this time on the top 25 list with webhostingstuff. This company does not offer one thing that I consider to be on any person’s check list of features when ordering a host – a guarantee. They offer a 21 day risk free trial on hosting, and no other services. Meaning they bill you for everything else at the time of order and 21 days later they bill you for hosting. Further to that they are heavily anti-refund policy to the point they will charge you a fee for any charge back you may do. Even though the only option they leave you to get a refund if service is bad is to do a charge back.
On top of that you have to register with them before you can see how many years you have to sign up for before you get the show cased price on their hosting packages. This is their way of capturing your email, regardless if you buy service or not.
WebInternetHosting, number 22 on webhostinstuff.com in June 2010
They were 19 when I reviewed them, today they are number 20. Besides for being one of the worst choices in domains. Scam comes to mind. The only review they have on webhostingstuff.com, is from a domain that can be found in their Better Business Bureau file. The review even claimed to have been hosting with webinternethosting for 3 years. That means they would have had to started hosting with this host as of July 2007 or later. Clearly impossible as the domain for the review as well as the hosts domain are no older then 2009.
On top of that they are under a Hostgator account, and do not have their own private dns to be a functional reseller. The humor in this is a Hostgator client on the same top 25 list as Hostgator.
FireDragonHosting, number 23 on webhostinstuff.com in June 2010
Mess, this is the first thing that comes to mind. A blog / web design profile / personal site with a hosting company in the folds of a very cumbersome site. I found looking through their profile they had a reseller for a customer, thats out of business. Looking at the reseller showed me that they were a Wild West Domains reseller.
Also 2 out of the 4 review found at webhostingstuff.com have the owner of FireDragonHosting as the owner. I am partly suspicious of the reviews because they occurred in relatively short time span for a small company. But they may be legit, I say that because there are links on the site where he is trying to get people to rate the site for further awards.
But I fear that the worst of this is that owner is using their Wild West Domain account to purchase what his customers purchases after they buy them from him. Which is why those two domains are in his name. Meaning his customers do not have control of their domains.
The claim is that the site is all about the personal touch, and only offering to a limited amount of customers does not make much sense. Because if he was he would steer clear of the review sites. Based on his WordPress fees I can tell you that you can get more bang from your buck elsewhere.
i7net.net, number 25 on webhostingstuff.com in June 2010
i7net.net is gone. For some reason they were supposed to be a host you should choose, but they could not even stay in business after getting a top postioning on webhostingstuff. I knew back in June of this year this was a site that I should keep my eye on and I was correct. It goes down with hostdawgs.com as another site that was in the top position but now its gone.
Webhostingstuff gives you 4 more reasons not to trust them
On the main page webhostingstuff states:
Our Top 10 Best Hosting chart features some of the best affordable web hosting deals on the planet. We hope to help you find the perfect web site hosting that suits your budget and webhosting needs.
Below the top 10 are 15 more sites. It stands to reason Webhostingstuff wants you think that these are 11 – 25 of the bests hosts on the planet.
Firedragonhosting, Number 23 in my June 2010 list for webhostinstuff.com and number 23 today. Another Canadian company, not a plus or minus but a neutral. This time it seems that this is where someone was into web design that evolved into webhosting. Thats basically what I had done.
Between the ranking on webhostingstuff and the about pages I am a bit perplexed. The site design is probable the worst of any webhost or reseller that I have looked at. Its a mess, a combination of blog, personal site, design site, and a webhosting company some where in between. Looking at some of the sites in the profile I have to wonder why there has not been something done to bring firedragonhosting of a pre-1999 design into something modern. Granted most of firedragonhosting’s designs look more like templates I have seen.
I began in 1999 as a small web design company that offered hosting to my clients. I continue to be a small web hosting and design company by limiting the number of clients I service and the number of websites I host on my servers. I do this so I can provide a more personalized and higher quality service for my clients.
So why would he need to have firedragonhosting on the top 25 of webhostingstuff?
Before he was selling through firedragonhosting it was smartbomb.co. As firedragonhosting was registered in 2006.
But it appears there is no site there, and for that matter generic place holder for this site reveals to me that firedragonhosting is not even a reseller in the tradtional sense that you buy hosting space and sell it, their in a Wild Wild West reseller program.
Firedragonhosting’s webhostingstuff reviews
After my last review where the only review that I could find belonged to the owner of the hosting company, I figured I would look at the 4 hosting reviews on webhostingstuff.com. What stuck out to me is there were 3 positive reviews July 26 – 31, 2009. Then one in September 2009. I have to say that I am skeptical of so many positive, or negative reviews for a hosting company coming in so close togather. Especially` for since Firedragonhosting is a self proclaimed small company. Webhosting is not like Justin Bieber, in which tons of fans rush into write reviews, and those that can’t stand his singing also rush in to write how they hate him. Unless of coarse a hosting company has a huge amount of down time. Even then you still do not see scores of negative reviews that would ever rival any muscian.
Highly Recommend Fire Dragon (Excellent)
`- by Paul (acifilms.com) on 14 September 2009
Domain belongs to Paul and is currently hosted with FiredragonHosting.
Hosting with Fire Dragon Hosting (Excellent)
– by Sherri Lynn (thereuthers.com) on 31 July 2009
The domain is under the owner of FireDragonHosting
Registrant:
John Overall
301-877 Ellery St
Victoria, British Columbia V9C 4R8
Canada
Registered through: Fire Dragon Domains
Domain Name: THEREUTHERS.COM
Created on: 08-Jul-07
Expires on: 08-Jul-11
Last Updated on: 22-Jun-10
Thanks to Fire Dragon Hosting (Excellent)
– by David (cowmug.ca) on 28 July 2009
It appears from the whois this domain does belong to David, but he moved away from FireDragonHosting in January of this year.
Updated date: 2010/01/24
Name servers:
ns1.mdnsservice.com
ns2.mdnsservice.com
ns3.mdnsservice.com
Fire Dragon Hosting Rocks! (Excellent)
– by Keith (greyhawkstudios.com) on 26 July 2009
The domain is under the owner of FireDragonHosting
`Registrant:
John Overall
Ste.330-1581h Hillside Ave.
Victoria, British Columbia V8T2C1
Canada
Registered through: Fire Dragon Domains
Domain Name: GREYHAWKSTUDIOS.COM
Created on: 22-Mar-05
Expires on: 22-Mar-11
Last Updated on: 21-Mar-10
Perhaps these are honest reviews. After all when I was doing webdesign I often bought my customers domains for them. Its something I don’t recommend.
FireDragonHosting charges for WordPress?
I have never charged anyone for wordpress, in part because I had auto installers. Though last year our auto-installer had problems and techs had to do it manually. But it was not like it took my techs hours to do. I considered it good customer relations to not charge for something that took fairly little time to implement. After that rarely did customers ever have anything else to do with WordPress. I could possible see a small set up fee, no greater then $10. Not something I would do or recommend. But I can not see paying a monthly fee for software that is already free. I am not all that technically inclined, but I have been able to keep Word Press updated. Considering FireDragonHosting is reselling through Wild West Domains, I don’t think its FireDragonHosting thats doing the installing.
My Finale thoughts on FireDragonHosting
Frankly I have no idea what to think about FireDragonHosting. On one hand its a self-proclaimed small company, that wants to take on a personal approach to offer higher quality support. On the other they are on webhostingstuff’s top 25 list. There is no logical reason for this site to be there. But there award site buttons. Two of which encourage people to go there to get them voted in (web-hosting-top.com and webhostdir.com). A small company that proclaims they want to remain small would focus on just their community. These sites are global, and hitting everyone that speaks English. I half tempted to believe that when he gets a order he is ordering stuff through his Wild West Domains reseller account. Which is why two of the customers that may very well have written positive reviews for him, have his name on their domains. I think that is a rather big nasty mistake. I have been down the road way too many times where customers lost control of domains because of their webmasters.
Are you considering Firedragonhosting? Frankly I think you can go else where for cheaper and a more qualified webhosting company that FireDragonHosting.
WebInternetHosting, Number 22 in June 2010 list for webhostinstuff.com, today they are 19th host. Webhostingstuff does not know when this site came into existience. But looking at the bbb record and the domain who is I am going guess between late 2009 and early 2010.
The name alone smacks of redundancy. Its no surprise that they bought the domain last year, its not a prize winning domain and probable would have never been picked up by any one with even the smallest sense of marketing. The design is just as unappealing as the domain name. They are another company trying to get into the whole environmentally friendly gold foil. But they are far more limited then any host that I have reviewed on to what makes them green.
WebInternetHosting whois information tells me alot
I don’t think there has ever been a time that I have gotten this much information from doing a whois.
Queried whois.internic.net with “dom webinternethosting.com”…
They are a reseller with hostgator. At first the only review that they have made me think it was fake (and it actually was when you read further down).
Due to the bad grammar I had thought that this was a fake review. Considering webinternethosting has only existed as a domain since 2009. Especially after looking to see where the domain was located.
Domain Name: DISCOUNTBEAUTYDEPOT.COM
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com
Name Server: NS859.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
Name Server: NS860.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 04-apr-2010
Creation Date: 22-apr-2009
Expiration Date: 22-apr-2019
It looked like they were really hosted with hostgator and not webinternethosting. After looking at the dns of WebInternetHosting I realized this was a reseller not a actual webhost. But then I found out the owner of discountbeautydepot.com is also the owner of webhinternethosting when I took a look at their better business bureau record.
WebInternetHosting’s BBB record
After looking at their BBB record I have to say this company is a scam. Yeah they may have a A rating. But they faked a review with webhostingstuff, and not a very good review at that.
I can tell you the additional sites found on that list were not around prior to 2009. Its also been my experience that the BBB contacts companies and asks them when their original start date was. Clearly the main domain for this company was not around before 2009.
Domain Name: WPDESIGNZMEDIA.COM
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com
Name Server: NS859.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
Name Server: NS860.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 05-apr-2010
Creation Date: 04-may-2009
Expiration Date: 04-may-2011
My finale thoughts on WebInternetHosting
Their another greenwashed company trying to market on whole “we are green” because they buy credits. But in the end there is no proof of those credits. But there is proof of them faking their only review on webhostingstuff. If they are willing to fake a review on webhostingstuff, what else will WebInternetHosting fake?
As consumers we seldom think about what we are buying. Most of us don’t look at a can of soda to see how many calories might be in there. Nor do many of us ever bother to read the terms of service of software we download. Everything we buy we get with an expectation, regardless of what the promise may be. For that matter when it comes to copy right, I have alot of friends that would love to rip my music collection. They like the musicians, but there not willing to pay them to make more of what they do best. I buy as I hope I get to see more albulms. I can’t tell you how sad I am to have no more new Shannon Hoon – Blind Melon. I am often told I could just rip my collection an sell the cds. Despite the fact I treat my cd collection like a treasure, the other side of me thinks doing such would be theft. Just because our computers have 1 trig drives we are driven to think why our hosting packages can not have more space then our computers. An unlimited package that really is not ‘that’ draws in. Regardless we want more, even if we really don’t need it.
This is my abridged history with computers
My first computer was a Packard Bell 486sx, 128 kilo bytes of memory, 80 meg hard drive, and a math co-processor (not something you purchase extra these days). To pay for that machine I worked for the Forest Service putting out fires during the summer of 1993. All that remains of the money I had earned that summer amounts to a mother board that has been mounted to the wall. At the time I had little understanding of how much space and memory I would need. Prior I had two cases of discs I carried around with me, and worked from borrowed computers. So a 80 meg drive seemed like a lot. It would take a few months before I realize it was not enough, and I should of paid $35 more for 40 megs extra space. Memory was an entirely new concern that I would learn about once I got the latest version of WordPerfect (Back in the early 90’s they were the word processor to use) and a game called simant (I wish Maxis would make a new version). Memory was called simms and I ventured on what seemed like a good deal at 4 sticks at256 megs each of memory for $150.
By the time I got into webdesign I had already gone through two machines, a hand down machine nick named ‘the brick’ and my Packard Bell. Packard Bell as a company would be a joke at the time. My third machine would be a Gateway and it would be my first computer with a dvd drive, making it my first dvd player. At the time almost everyone had a dial up connection and hard drives were starting to hold giga bytes of data. Regardless of the increase in hard drive space every bit of design that I did had to involve minimal space, because a slow site would lose interest.
Go forward a year I would be working in the hosting industry and the biggest hosting package we offered had 50 megs. By todays standards thats not alot of space. Which really did not matter as most people did not worry about having high depth graphics. It would not be until 2000 that I got a high speed internet connecting, and yet most people would still be on dial up. Which kept American Online a house hold name. DSL and Cable would become a slow poison to a company many would soon regret investing in. As American Online was unwilling to adapt.
Now its the year 2010, dial up seems to be dead as I rarely see advertising for it. High speed internet is everywhere. For that matter Directtv bombards me with their high speed internet, the only thing that stops me is that there seems to be a delay for online gamers and I am big World of Warcraft fan. I have 3 machines, 1 laptop, 1 netbook, 7 monitors, atleast 8 trigs between them and the network drive bay, a Kindle, Ipod Touch, PSP and other tech stuff on the way. The three mp3 albums I bought today make the data I accumulated during the 90’s minuscule. Like a hoarder I have keep every piece of data.
So why did I say: “I bust you”?
The problem with the increased internet speed has lead to less incentive to run lean space use websites. I have encountered so many customers that would not pay any more then $10 a month for hosting, and even then they think $10 is too much. There are claims of making thousands, tens of thousands off the site. Never mind the cost of the thousands of tons of copper that separates the user from the hosting account is simply an intangible item that cost can be anything they deem. The employee, whom most may never meet in real time, virtual, not a living breathing person that has to be paid to meet their all to real expenses. Unlimited means a buffet where you can have all that you can ever use. The host is deemed as someone with unlimited resources, and if they won’t offer unlimited they are not a viable business option.
Every company has a limit.
MMmmmm Coffee
I remember reading the site of one of my customers where he went into his obsession with Starbucks. Every Monday – Friday morning he would get his morning coffee. I figure he spent on atleast $80 a month on his favorite brew. Later it was followed with a post on why he was leaving my company because he could get more space for cheaper with a competitor. It was a long drawn out post as this post is probable getting. The part I like was where he stated you should always go for the cheaper solution. He was gone a month before he came back, and the post had disappeared. I think he could have started with his coffee budget as it was more then 500% of what he was paying me per month. Granted I am not exactly cheap in my own coffee obsession as I tend to lean towards whole bean shade grown organic – fair trade coffee. I love my brew freshly ground. All put together in a coffee maker that grinds my beans, and puts my coffee into a canister that can keep the coffee hot all day long. I spend $30 a month for coffee every morning. But it does not stop me from visiting a local coffee shop where I can get away from work a bit and read.
Why the coffee story? I supposed instead of a $150 coffee maker I could have gone with a $10 one, and coffee could be the cheapest ground version available. I could have saved a lot of money. But the coffee would not be the same for me. I am sure that the coffee would not be the same for the customer I mentioned. It might be cheaper if he made it at home, but it would not have the same feel as his morning runs to Starbucks. He discovered that simple truth with webhosting when he left. Just because it cheaper does not mean you will get the same level of service. He is still drinking, and blogging about his obsession with Starbucks, and I am still drinking my shade grown organic – fair trade coffee out of a coffee maker that grinds the beans, putting the morning brew into a thermos. Because anything else would not lead to the same level of satisfaction.
Webhosting can be an essential business expense, and in my opinion should be considered in the same category as office space. I know of many customers that operate solely from their websites. Customers do not meet them inside. But many act like they should pay more for paper clips. Many times I have had customers on my cheapest plans complaining about losing thousands from 20 minutes of planned and notified maintenance reboot. Many of these webhosts use their own customers as a tax deduction with this rather absurd payouts. If your using your hosting for business, its a business expense.
28% of the United States still uses dial up
http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db0813/DOC-300902A1.pdf I didn’t think dial up was dead, nor did I think it was in the category of 8 track player, closer to CD player. 28% is a large number. I am no fan of PayPal, but I gave in and never stopped using it even though it accounted for 17% of our income. My own philosophy is being prejudice is anti-capitalism, and I like money. In this case low bandwidth sites are still a good thing to reach a market others ignore with their high data websites.
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