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Pssssst!...Have I Got a Host For You... It's Cheap and You Must Have It!
by Robert Leggett Copyright (c) December 2003 It's not free! It's only $5 per month. This service has so many FREE features! If you host with them you will do nothing! and make a whole lot of money! in a month! and be set for the rest of your life! Yeah...right! Note: I won't mention names of hosting company wannabes. They don't deserve publicity of any sort - negative or positive. To be consistent I won't mention the good ones out there either. I will give you some guidelines for choosing the right-for-you service. *** Our First One *** Our first host was nothing but excellent. They are Canadian and we spent many years with them. Unfortunately as more competition entered the marketplace they kept their prices relatively high. But their service was excellent...you get what you pay for. As budding iMarketers, we required more features. Each one added to the basic price tag. If you want a basic site with good tech support (by toll free telephone, when you really need it) and intelligent technicians only an email away, definitely consider this Vancouver, BC company with a long history and an excellent track record. We cannot afford ~$21.00 per month per site and pay on an annual basis. Right now we own five sites and will add more. None of these sites justify huge cash outlay. What is our solution? Reseller Account - where we can host as many sites as we want for the same low price. *** Our First Regret...er...Learning Experience *** We researched and found one which charged $25 per month. Hey...that's $5 per site per month. They offer cPanel site management and all sorts of benefits. They guarantee 99.99% uptime. Wow...what a great deal! Well...you get what you pay for. Their server was more like 85% uptime. Then we used our purchased-from-a-trusted-guru opt-in mailing list. It was over a year old. Many on the list didn't remember subscribing. This hosting company shut down one of our sites because somebody accused us of spamming. We were assumed guilty until proven innocent. We had no chance to prove ourselves innocent. We experienced previous difficulties with them. We researched their reviews. Seems the owner's wife wrote a glowing review. *** Our Second Regret...er...Learning Experience *** We researched and chose our next Reseller service. They had promise and charged only $10 per month. Their guaranteed 99.99% uptime proved a fantasy. In the beginning they were pretty good. But everything degraded as time went on. We liked them so much we stayed longer with them than we should...hoping they would get past their creeping, accelerating incompetency. We were even told the spam we automatically bounced overloaded their servers. It was our responsibility to see we are not spammed! Back to Google and Whois... We queried several potential Reseller services addressing the following - We own several domain names we wish to host. We would like to propagate one over soon. * Q-1...Our biggest list is just under 1400. Will there be problems mailing to it? * Q-2...You host any site. If we mail from your DNS will some of our subscriber's ISPs block our email because we would be considered guilty by association. Some ISPs block automatically any email from some DNSs. * Q-3...We want to gather Credit Card information from our "Preference Forms." Can our CGI scripts be placed in a secure area? * Q-4...We are on the verge of automating more operations. We plan to buy a script such as http://www.EarnYourLiving.com/AutoResponsePlus.html AutoResponsePlus. Will there be a problem installing it on our site(s). We have ezine subscribers. We must follow up inquiries. We will offer sequential lessons in various courses. * Q-5...We do not use the global catch-all email address (anything@ourdomainname.com). All POPs are specific. All other email is bounced. Some spamware out there will change a million times the email portion to the left of the @. We have no control over this. If we bounce all this non-specific email...will it overload your servers and get us into trouble with you? * Q-6... I am used to cPanel. Does your panel work in a similar fashion? Will I be able to access my cgi-bin and change permissions on cgi files to 755? * Q-7... Can I FTP upload my pages with, say, WS_FTP software. * Q-8... Our mailing lists are fairly clean and some entries go back to about 1993...long before the modern meaning of "opt-in" became in vogue. If anybody accuses us of spam will we have the chance to defend ourselves? We have 95+% on file the original initial contact of those currently in our databases. Some Hosts simply take the un-American attitude ... "Guilty until proven Innocent!" Without ever giving a chance to prove our innocence. Thank you very much for a prompt reply. Best regards, [our names] P.S. I hope we can work together. We are growing. We have plans for near future growth. We require the right environment to do this. We are in that gap between newbie and established pro. We got some interesting, revealing responses. To the point we felt it not prudent to send out our inquiries. It is better to read each prospective service's Terms & Conditions. Their answers really sharpened our insight when we researched prospective future services. We are not experts in understanding all the different ramifications of DNS ownership. It is fairly EZ to find a prospective new service. Run a Whois on their domain name. Then run another Whois on their DNS servers. Then access their site and research further. You tend to find ownership and locations as well as how long they have been in business. For example... You find a service which has been less than a year in business. They are hosting under a DNS which hasn't been there much longer. They offer no money-back guarantee during the first month. They require payment for a year in advance. Watch out! *** Our Third Regret...er...Learning Experience *** OK...let's try this one...they look pretty good...and what the hey...it's a slow time of the year for us. We are getting very good at propagating our sites from one hosting service to another. They also had a very high position on a review site. Well...we should have read more...but $15 per month might give better service than $10 per month - you get what you pay for. We are getting pretty good working cPanel, adding POPs, Forwarders, Autoresponders, CGI and HTML files. Been getting a lot of practice of late. Well...let's not re-invent the wheel. Read our latest - - Original Message Please reread the terms you agreed to whilst ordering the service. A chargeback would be considered fraud and our fraud policy would take affect. Hope this helps. If we can be of any further assistance then please do not hesitate to contact us. We're here to help. Name, Support@abcdefg.xxx 30 November 2003 Hello...Name, Thank you for immediate cancellation of our account. We read your "Fraud Policy." We don't contest we paid for a month of service. And we exercised our guaranteed "Cancellation Option." Your "Fraud Policy" does not apply to your "Breach of Contract." We have been very frustrated by your lack of support...therefore, we had sort of a "bad hair day" with your operation. If you were trying to generate business over the Internet, your website was not working properly and support offered was ineffective, you might feel the same way. We hereby request refund of our $15 because [name of hosting service] did not fulfill their end of our contract. You did not fix a very simple problem. You did not provide support you promised. Specifically...our CGI/FORMS would not work because we were not able to CHMOD (change) Permissions on CGI files to 755. Furthermore, you were unable to change them at your end. And... after many emails to your support group...they eventually ignored us...after they made several inapplicable suggestions. The result of your breach of contract was our potential clients could not send us a form... neither subscription nor inquiry for quote. This resulted in damage to both our credibility and potential generated revenue. We have lost potential business. We have on file over 40 emails back and forth with you. We did our best to communicate with your tech people via email. We faxed both your UK and US numbers. 00nn.nnn.nnn.nnnn and 1.nnn.nnn.nnnn - 10Nov and 12Nov respectively. We tried to contact your owner..."Xxxxxxxxx" (Xxxx@yyyy.zzz). No replies. This lack of communication is contrary to what you advertise. After we waited 3 days for any sort of response from you we propagated over to another hosting company. And we removed all our files from your server(s). Please immediately process our refund of $15. Regards, [our names]
We have no idea how this will eventually resolve. On the grand scheme of events, this negative experience has contributed to our storehouse of knowledge and we will be more wary in the future. If they are a responsible operation they will refund our $15, and make improvements. If not, well...karma does have a way of "biting one in the butt." The ball is in their court and we have let go - takes two to fight. *** Our Latest Has Great Promise *** Our new Reseller Host seems terrific. If absolutely necessary we can phone. So far we have a real tech person answering correctly and efficiently our email help requests...and fast! I guess telephone support kicks in when you pay $20 or more per month and you get competent help. You get what you pay for. We've had a learning curve with the Plesk panel. We don't want ever go back to cPanel. It is fast and efficient. And the help popups pertinent to each screen are excellent. For the first time in our Internet experience we feel all is finally coming together. Working with Plesk panel answers many questions we've had over the years. All is up and running. We hope this hosting service is our final stop. Before we can ever hope to add iMarketing enhancements to our efforts, we must have a firm technical foundation. What we have learned to date - * You get what you pay for. * Don't blindly trust and follow gurus. * Research thoroughly. * Reliable hosting service begins at ~$20 per month. * Always back up on your own computer your complete website(s) * Every time you make changes that work online, backup again. * List your POP boxes, Forwarders (Re-directs), Autoresponders, and anything else. * Be ready to "pick up your marbles" at any time. * Expect the very best - but anticipate the very worst. * Know your options in various what-if scenarios. * Learn from others but Think and Plan for yourself. * It's your iBusiness, your energy, your money - you can always vote with your feet and wallet. Robert Leggett has over ten years experience marketing Dive Adventures over the Internet. Robert helps individuals and businesses globally grow their businesses and enrich their lifestyles. Learn more - ( http://www.EarnYourLiving.com ). Subscribe to his "Free for Life" newsletter - "CyberSpaceMarketeer" - Receive your Free eGift.
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