I may be looking for a new host.

[Rockefeller]

Don't worry, Rock, it just sounded like an advertisement, I didn't mean any insult by it (some people are just good at marketing - if anything take it as a compliment). Right now they seem like my top choice.

I may be moving soon - I've been having TONS of downtime with HostMonster recently. I'm trying to work on some now and they're down, again. Now to just wait at least 30 minutes for the hamsters to start running in their wheels to get the servers going again.

If you're going to go with webair, drop me a PM and I'll give you a contact over there. They'll also move all your files, dbs and email accounts for you.

[draggar]

Just a thought. If your sites are not yet making enough to pay for their Hosting, perhaps now would be a good time to start learning the server side yourself. If you have a static IP at your home, you can easily setup an old box with linux, apache, mysql to run your own sites. Sure, it'll probably go down more frequently than if you paid for hosting somewhere, but if they are not bringing in enough to pay for it, so what? Take the time now to learn while you have little to lose. If you need an old box to experiment with, I'll be more than happy to hook you up with something that would do the job.

Did you forget who my ISP is? Comcrap - they limit uplolad speeds (and I think block incoming ports) etc.. but it may not be a bad idea to do this with an old machine and a not so popular site. What do you think, LAMP? Also, will it be an issue if it is going though a (LinkSys) router?

If you're going to go with webair, drop me a PM and I'll give you a contact over there. They'll also move all your files, dbs and email accounts for you.

Will do. I don't mind moving the files myself, I've done it before and will expect to do it again.

HM had a lot of downtime last night while I was trying to work on sites, which is bcoming more and more common (just think how often they go down when I'm not working on them).

[Gerry]

HM had a lot of downtime last night...

I realize you have ruled out HG (thankfully) but one thing you have to be aware of is overselling on the host server. Prior to moving away from HG, all my sites started "timing out" (pages not loading). No matter what I did, I could not solve the problem...until I moved away.

Cutrate businesses typically offer cutrate services. I suspect they were overselling their services and servers. I have no idea how many accounts they were piling on each server. HG's support staff to a series of questions was pathetic and no help at all...as you said, vague answers. And, I got the feeling they really did not care.

[south]

Did you forget who my ISP is? Comcrap - they limit uplolad speeds (and I think block incoming ports) etc.. but it may not be a bad idea to do this with an old machine and a not so popular site. What do you think, LAMP? Also, will it be an issue if it is going though a (LinkSys) router?

Yes, "LAMP" is just an acronym someone came up with for Linux/Apache/Mysql/PHP.

Comcrap may suck, but it can't hurt to find out what the bandwidth cap is, what ports they block, etc. Find out what you can do, and work within those limits if possible. Don't be your own obstacle. For the router, port forwarding would work, or you can setup your linux box as a NAT firewall itself. Once your sites start making enough to pay for themselves, you can move on to a VPS or dedicated server, etc. And by then you will have a lot more knowledge of how it all works by doing it yourself.

[draggar]

I have a few sites now that are going, one is a charity that will start to pay me when things get going (they'er already going a lot faster than they expected), I have another site that I manage and host (not much). I have a few other sites (one goes in conjunction with the charity) so it may take off a few steps behinf the charity since they are supporting it, too.

In a year or two I may be able to start to afford VPS.

Comcast has a 250GB limit but I'll need to get specifics. As for the box, I'm assuming I'd ave to have two NIC cards in it - one incoming, one outgoing (if it was the firewall)? What specs should the machine have? I have sold old boxes I was about to throw out or donate.

[south]

Any old P4 should be enough to get started with, a GB or more of ram would be nice, and a DVD reader for the install (but not necessary, you can also do a net install). Yes, you would need 2 NICs if you were to use it as a firewall. 250 GB should be plenty for now. I would check to see if they have a way to monitor it somehow, and find out how much per GB if you go over.

[clasione]

A good alternative to HosGator if you don't want to use them is Hosting.com (they used to be called HostMySite.com). I do like HostGator, but Hosting.com is a similar alternative if there is a reason you don't want to go with HostGator... I have had some isssues with support at HostGator in the past but they've since improved it seems, no issues with HostMySite.... But keep in mind, these are both low cost hosting pages..... For sites with really huge databases, or sites I anticipating needing really good support, I go with Rackspace.

[David G]

Yea, I would like to know why he dislikes HG too? I must have opened at least 100 support tickets at Hostgator and dozens of 24x7 live support sessions (not necessarily because they did anything wrong), with every single one of them handled quickly and with extremely good replies which specifically addressed every single issue and told me exactly what to do or they did it for me, even things not their responsibility such as help with a programming issue, which they happily helped with.

[draggar]

Yea, I would like to know why he dislikes HG too?

I asked specific questions and their answers were way too vague. If they aren't going to answer my questions how do I know I'm not going to have the same problems?

[JB Lions]

I have HostGator, the $10 a month plan, 10+ Wordpress blogs, no problems. Also on one of the biggest affiliate marketing forums out there, there was a big vote, favorite host (can send you the link) and they overwhelmingly won and these are people with lots of sites.

[Gerry]

Just a thought. If your sites are not yet making enough to pay for their Hosting, perhaps now would be a good time to start learning the server side yourself. If you have a static IP at your home, you can easily setup an old box with linux, apache, mysql to run your own sites. Sure, it'll probably go down more frequently than if you paid for hosting somewhere, but if they are not bringing in enough to pay for it, so what? Take the time now to learn while you have little to lose. If you need an old box to experiment with, I'll be more than happy to hook you up with something that would do the job.

Got a link on how to do this?

I have several PC's laying around. One has no OS installed. I have have a few 2TB drives not in use.

I'd like to learn this for my own benefit and knowledge.

---------- Post added at 01:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:56 PM ----------

Wait until someone from HG tells you that you are "fraudulantly" trying to set up an account.

Wait until someone from HG tells you that you are guilty of "coupon fraud".

That was the phone conversations I had with their support staff this past fall when I went to open a third, yes THIRD, account with them.

I was accused of fraud because, as an existing customer, I should upgrade an existing account.

I told them I did not want to upgrade an existing account and that I wanted to open a NEW VPN account with them, they said I was guilty of "coupon fraud" by trying to use a coupon code for a NEW ACCOUNT. This was not a NEW ACCOUNT, she said, as I was already an existing customer.

When I read the coupon criteria back to her, she said it was wrong (even though that is what was advertised)

I then called tech support, they agreed with me and that the coupon applied to ALL NEW ACCOUNTS (even upgrading), I was then told, "oops, wait a minute. Sales just sent out a memo that this is for New Hostgator customers only, not for existing account holders."

So, instead of have three accounts with Hostgator, I now have zero.


There are stories I could tell you about saving Hostgator's CEO's ass and bailing him out a a big jam and ruckus (as well as saving him thousands of dollars and untold accounts)...but I will not go into because those are private communications.

[south]

Got a link on how to do this?

I have several PC's laying around. One has no OS installed. I have have a few 2TB drives not in use.

I'd like to learn this for my own benefit and knowledge..

I have never actually used any of the tutorials on how to do it, but here's a couple I found with a quick search:

http://www.howtoforge.com/centos-5.1...-ftp-ispconfig

For a slightly older version of centos, but should be about the same:
http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_centos_4.3

Your best bet is to go download a copy of centos5x and install it a few times to get your feet wet. There are many flavors of Linux, but centos is probably one of the more commonly used, and it's based on Redhat Enterprise Linux, so will have plenty of drivers and software available down the road, and there is a large community of people involved to help.

[draggar]

Looks like I have a new project.

Thank you South!

[jdk]

Just make sure your host doesn't have a limit on inodes. This may hurt you more than the database table limit. I know HG has this limit.

[draggar]

I can highly recommend webair.com. I host 100s of sites through them...and unlimited is truly unlimited. I've also tried them all and outgrew them all...hostmonster, arvixe, justhost, etc.

I signed up with them and what a pain in the rear it's been!

Signed up - prepaid for a year. I got the welcome email with some basic information but it said I would get me FTP information soon. 24 hours later - no info. Logged ticket #1. Resolved in a few hours.

Upload my first site and try to upload the database - errors out with .SQL, .CSV, .XLS, and .XLSX. Log ticket #2 - back and fourth (and then not fully reading my responses) they had to manually enter it.

Trying to upload another database, 9MB, beyond their limit, ticket #3.

DNS foe the first site is resolving to them but it going to their "welcome to the future home of" page, not the site. Time for ticket #4?

Am I going to have to log a ticket every time I want to do something?

Also, the contact said they don't transfer the files / email / DB etc. for the virtual Hosting plans.

Edit: I've tried several other databases, none will import.

[Gerry]

Just make sure your host doesn't have a limit on inodes. This may hurt you more than the database table limit. I know HG has this limit.

Exactly! And joomla sites are loaded with tons of them. Any joomla install has numerous accompanying files and you can exceed the inodes in no time.

[draggar]

OK, so there's an 8MB limit on database uploads. You keep telling me that and I always respond I ONLY HAVE ONE LARGER THAN 8MB - what about the others????

Also looks like I need to do a fresh install of all CMS sites and then have them access the DBs - I've never had to do this before. Change the login / PW information etc.. and you're good to go.

[James-A]

Hi Draggar

I completely understand what issues you have to go through. My only suggestion is that before you sign up with any other web host, you must discuss all this over a live chat or on phone. Make sure that all you are making the right investment. Moreover it is also crucial to consider if the web Hosting company is offering with a 24/7 technical support so that any issue can be discussed at any time.

[ksinclair]

Hostgator is the best I have seen from these inexpensive Hosting plans. I think hosting for $10 for $15 is quite a good deal. Hostgator support is excellent. The main limit of these 'unlmited' hosting plans seems to be file handles. So it depends on what you are doing. But you can get more than one hosting account too.

If you want to run a lot of WP blogs, you will use up your file handles - unless you use WP MU. WP MU is excellent.

If you have a lot of domains to monetize, you might want multiple IP's also... so that means multiple accounts. You can get multiple IPs at hostgators SEOhosting.com site.

Hostgator might cancel you if your traffic or dbase usage spikes a lot too; I have heard that - but not experienced it yet. Sadly, I dont have enough traffic!

Kevin

[12345678910]

yes i agree with James-A discuss your problems through live chat they will suggest you the best, and i think hostgator is best for you needs , their Hosting services are best i am sure you will be happy having hosting from hostgator, and if you need help you can call them it is free they will solve your problem.......