Choosing a Web Host
Several years ago, before I ever considered the idea of starting my own company, I had a couple web sites that I used for creating business leads. These two sites ranked quite highly in the search engines, and were the only lead sources I had for making money. (Yeah, not a great strategy…..)
Anyway, I was hosting these sites with a “Not to be named” web hosting service that charged like 4 bucks a month. I was thinking, what a great deal. It was costing me basically $100.00 a year in hosting for a couple sites that created leads and made me quite a bit of cash. Terrific. Then, one day, the leads stopped coming. Hmmmmmmm. Checking it out, by golly, my host was down. No problem, I took a couple minutes and completed the old “Help Desk Request” form to let this hosting company know my web site was not working and proceeded to follow up on the leads I had called by not been able to “Close”. Later that day, still no response so I used my Yahoo account to email the hosting manager directly.
Well….the next morning I was up bright and early as is always the case, and bam…. My web sites are still down. Now, when your web site is down, and your business email is tied to your web site, guess what, You can’t send and receive your emails either. Nothing in my Yahoo account either…..I’m really starting to rethink the value of that hosting at this point. Now here I am, losing money, my sites are down, I haven’t heard back from my hosting company and Time is Money. Bad email address means either “That guy must be out of business” or “That guy must be crooked”. Not doing business with them. Nope, Nope, Nope….. Know what I mean? So I head to my web hosting companies web site (Which of course, isn’t down…..imagine that - you’ll sell me the space on your server, but you won’t even host your own site on that server….I got it….) and well…. They don’t have a published phone number. Just an address and that stupid help desk form. I must have gone through every page on that companies web site looking for a phone number to contact this hosting company without any success.
So I decided my step was going to be registering and using that stupid handy dandy Forum they had on their site which had nothing but “Nice Things” to say about this hosting company….lol (which of course, was up and running just fine…..) Well…. I sign up, post my little nasty about my two web sites being down for uh, now, 36 hours with no response yet, etc. etc. etc. Yeah…was a wee bit of a strong post. An hour later I go back and the post has been removed. Hmmmmm. You moderate your forum, your hosting company web sites are up, probably selling new hosting accounts, but both of my web sites are down and you don’t respond?Now, let it be known, both of these accounts were paid through the entire year. I believe you have to know which side of the bread your butter is on, and make sure you pay the waitress whose bringing you the meal. Know what I mean? Anyway, the following day I get up again and you got it, my sites are STILL down. Imagine that. So I spend the day scouring the Internet for a phone number. Heck, I got the address…. No Phone Number…. Imagine my surprise however when I stumble across a fax number. Pay Dirt! Yeah Baby!
So I fax over, that evening, A nice nasty letter about how I am going to sue the pants off them for ignoring me and costing me money etc. etc. etc. The next morning I start looking for a new hosting company (Yeah, I probably should have done that sooner, but by golly, this other host had a years worth of hosting paid for…grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr). While I am surfing, Guess Who Calls….hmmm. Yeah, they did. I got the old “We’re Sorry” your we never “Got Your Information About Your Sites Being Down” Doh….. Didn’t get my e-mails, my help ticket, deleted by forum post and you don’t know when you have a server down? Yeah Right.The moral of the story folks, don’t do business on price alone. If your site is geared to making money, you better have hosting accountability and the capability of contacting your hosting company. That means, Phone numbers and Warm Bodies that actually answer the phone.
There is no worse feeling than having your cash flow cut off because of a web hosting company you can’t get hold of when you need them most.
