Plesk is a hosting control panel but less well known than cpanel, which is not to say it is inferior, just different.

Backing up your websites using Plesk is still a pretty simple process and after posting a video recently on how to back up using Cpanel,  someone requested that I consider offering some advice on Plesk and another control panel, Direct Admin. So, in consideration of that request, this is the first video in a planned series of posts covering alternative hosting control panels.

Backing up your data is vitally important, even if you’ve never had a problem before, because sooner or later, if you don’t do regular backups, the time will come when you live to regret it.  Bearing in mind how simple it is to do, there really is no excuse for not backing up your sites, regardless of which control panel you are using.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FKQY1Lmyuk

WordPress specialized hosting exists in various places nowadays but in this post I’m going to introduce you to a service that goes a little bit further than just giving you server space to host your WordPress site or blog.

The following video shows you just how easily and quickly you can have your own WordPress blog using your own domain name, set up and ready to start publishing literally within two minutes.

WordPress Hosting Services – We Only Host WordPress Sites

I think you’ll agree that’s a pretty impressive and amazingly simple way to get started with WordPress. As the company say, “Easy Like WordPress.com with the freedom of WordPress.org” and for those who are put off by technical issues and the entire buying a domain name, buying a hosting account, installing WordPress on their domain and then setting up the blog and choosing the right theme and plugins this could be the ideal solution.

page.ly basically take away all that and enables you to set up your first blog with a few mouse clicks. No need for FTP, no need to learn cpanel, no need to even know anything about the beautifully simple script installer Fantastico.

If you can click a mouse and fill in a few boxes there is now no reason why you cannot have a really smart looking blog on WordPress without knowing much about anything that goes on underneath the hood.

Purists and those with experience might sniff and turn their noses up at a service like page.ly and that’s fine because it isn’t really aimed at the techs or geeks or experienced WordPress users. What it provides is a complete solution for anyone who has always wanted a stylish WordPress blog without having to go through much of a learning curve and this encompasses a huge number of potential customers. So whilst experienced users may criticize the idea that knowing nothing about the mechanics does not really prepare users for striking out on their own, so what? page.ly‘s demographic are likely to be quite happy to stay with the service for a long time and let’s be honest, no matter how simple WordPress may seem to some, it’s always going to be a bigger headache for some who just want to get on with blogging and not have to worry about those aspects.  Let’s be honest, making things simpler and more accessible is not a crime.

If you visit their site and have a look at exactly what’s on offer, you will see that this kind of service is going to bring the joys of WordPress to an even greater number of users than ever before and that has to be a good thing.

As you have seen from the video, signing up and getting started is so simple that even the most technically challenged could realistically have a better looking blog than many more experienced webmasters without all the blood sweat and tears, so if you find it a bit sickening it’s probably a touch of elitism creeping into your viewpoint.

So what exactly are you getting and how much does it cost? Well, you’ll get a fully functional WordPress blog all set up with your chosen theme and running a suite of plugins selected  by page.ly to ensure that you have most important issues covered without shopping around for them yourself.  You can add and delete plugins and change themes as you see fit just as you can with any WordPress site. After set up you work through the normal wp-admin interface so familiar to WP users around the globe.

(Plugins installed with every setup are : All In One SEO, Google Analyticator, Viper’s video Quicktags, Akismet, Google XML Sitemaps, twitter Tools, Statpress Reloaded, Tweetmeme, Sociable and CForms which I think is a good starting point for any new WordPress blogger).

You can choose a new domain or use any existing one that you own. Should you choose to leave Page’ly at any time you will be able to do so and yes, you will be able to move your site and domain to a new host if you wish to. One point I could not find an answer to however was the price of the domains and the registrar used – something you may want to clarify so you know how much your yearly domain name registration is going to cost should you ever decide to move.

You are billed monthly by page.ly using either a credit card or Paypal, there is no minimum contract period.

The standard package costs a reasonable $14.98 per month – reasonable because your domain name is included in the price and you are paying for convenience and ease of use.  It might seem expensive to an established blogger or webmaster getting a sub $10 per month hosting account but as we’ve seen, page.ly customers will pay for the simplicity of the service.

One thing that I could not establish at the time of writing is the storage and bandwidth available for an account. If anyone could clarify that it would be interesting to know.

There are also several additional services that the company refer to as “power ups” which include things like FTP access and POP3/IMAP email accounts for a one off $5 each. For those who want premium WordPress themes you can access the entire collections from StudioPress  or 16 Woo Themes templates for $15 per month. There is an additional one time $10 setup fee to access either option. Ultimately, for a premium themed WordPress blog you would pay $39.98 for your first month and then $29.98 monthly thereafter.

Custom design services are also available – prices will obviously vary depending upon individual requirements.

That starts to look a little more expensive but again, for those with little or no knowledge it puts them in a position to have a blog that is up there amongst the best in terms of design and functionality.

Would I pay that? No, I have to say I wouldn’t but then again I’m not really a target customer and have years of WordPress experience under my belt as well as the confidence to run my own VPS. I also host more than just WordPress sites.

Do I think it’s good value? Overall, I would have to say that the basic package looks very fairly priced in view of what you are getting and whilst the premium themes options add a fair chunk of change, a lot of people are going to feel it’s worth it to have a stunning looking blog without paying designers or having to roll up their sleeves and learn about coding and such. For a non technical person, there probably isn’t an easier way to achieve that so to that person, yes, it’s probably good value for money.

Paying a one off  five bucks for FTP access or email services seems a bit mean, and the one thing I would criticize, although it’s hardly a lot of money and again, it’s horses for courses. Probably a lot of their users aren’t ever going to FTP into the server if all they are running is one WordPress blog.

If all this sounds good to you, I would suggest you head over to the site where most questions you might have will be answered.

Visit Pagely WordPress Hosting Here

In conclusion, page.ly will delight those new to WordPress but is perhaps not for the more experienced. They are actually quite candid about this on their own site. If you are considering your first WordPress blog, or have considered it and rejected it through fear of the perceived technical aspects, they could be exactly what you need.

We’d love to hear from anyone using the service or anyone who has used it. What were your experiences? Would you recommend it to others? How you found things like support and service as a paying customer and how your site performed in terms of uptime and loading speeds etc. Any other observations, questions or comments are also welcomed.

TCH

Related articles by Zemanta

• WordPress Plugins We Are Using (ghacks.net)
• It’s a WordPress World (befluid.com)
• WordPress plugins on davidairey.com (davidairey.com)
• WordPress Plugins In The News (thecaymanhost.com)

Having recently moved all of my sites to a KnownHost VPS it is time to expand a little on my experiences so far.

Knownhost reviews are plentiful on the web and I’ve honestly never seen a bad one or even very many negative ones. So, they came highly recommended and after looking at several providers and shortlisting a handful based on features, reliability reports, price and general customer feedback, the final choice came down to the support and customer service feedback.

Knownhost scored extremely highly in this area as did a couple of others, notably Liquidweb and Hostgator.

I had considered Hostgator and after receiving some very helpful advice and assistance when struggling to secure some backup data from one of their servers and they went above and beyond in their efforts to assist. However, having decided to go with a VPS, they lost out to my eventual choice based on the fact that it seemed to be the case that the support at KnownHost was likely to be a little more personal nature and whilst I could not find any really negative feedback on Knownhost, there was a little more of the big H. (I realize this is because simply due to their size and number of customers but I did also have some information from other webmasters which made me decide not to use them in the end).

I also considered Liquidweb, largely due to personal recommendations and based on their overall excellent reputation  but again, most of this came from people who are running dedicated boxes, most unmanaged, and I wasn’t intending to go down that route. The price differential between them and Knownhost for a managed VPS was not great, but they were slightly more expensive.

Other players who were researched included WiredTree and Servint and again, whilst both generally seemed very highly rated in the forums they were a little more costly.

Eventually the decision swung in favor of Knownhost who were offering a very attractive offer for new customers, something which they do on a fairly regular basis and well worth looking out for.

So far they have certainly not disappointed me. Support continues to be fast, courteous and helpful. As a new VPS owner there have been several issues, all due to me learning the ropes and setting up my server the way I want it. The support folks at KnownHost have been right there every step of the way and never have I waited more than 30 minutes for a response from them – no matter what time of day or night it happened to be.

I will admit that I did send a couple of tickets early on just to see how they would be handled. They didn’t disappoint and unlike some companies who can’t do enough for you at the point of sale and then reveal their true nature after you become a paying customer, Knownhost have been consistently patient and accommodating from first contact on. Absolutely great service.

As far as reliability goes our only downtime was caused by my own incompetence and was swiftly resolved when I admitted to myself that I needed help!! Aside from that, which I cannot really blame on the service, uptime has been 100% and load times very satisfactory indeed.

So, what if you don’t want a VPS – can Knownhost help? The good news is that Knownhost do offer shared hosting plans too and whilst I have no direct experience of those plans, I would bet that their support is equally as good for all their customers and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the company based on my own experiences. Very reasonably priced too with plans starting at just $7 per month or $60 per year at the time of writing.

At the time of writing you can still get 75% off of your first month of  KnownhostVPS service and a lifetime 10% discount simply by using the coupon code KH2010 at the time of signup. Ten bucks for your first month with a 100% money back guarantee so trying them out is a no brainer really

In closing, when researching your own hosting company, I would advise that you visit some of the web hosting forums and if you have specific needs or questions, address them to the company concerned via email or ticket system. Finding a good host that suits your requirements is often a difficult task but once you find a good one it’s a great weight off your mind.

You can read what others are saying about KnownHost at the following selected Knownhost reviews on other sites – just so you know it’s not just me!

The KnownHost Experience!

Knownhost set up the second VPS, sorted out the few little tweaks I wanted, then migrated 15-20 accounts across from my other VPS. A couple of hours and one ticket to ask for the migration was all it took in total. …

LiquidWeb || KnownHost || WiredTree

Hello everyone, So I am about to go for a 2nd VPS and I was wondering with which one I should go: Liquidweb OR KnownHost OR WiredTree I am currently using Liquidweb and I am extremely happy with everything (support, uptime, …

KnownHost Review – Excellent

Hello Team, Well, it is about time that I gave a big thumbs up to KnownHost , have been a client of theirs for more than 6 months and their support and service is absolutely amazing and their support staff are really fast in answering …

web hosting is a funny animal.

Not long ago I changed my hosting provider – I consider myself a pretty loyal customer if I feel I am getting value for money and have always believed it is a mistake to go cheap for any service, hosting or otherwise, or to use price solely as the criteria that drives your purchasing decisions.

I hosted my sites with Kiosk.ws, Now GVO, for a good number of years and I documented my reasons for migrating to an alternative service elsewhere on this site. It was not a decision I took lightly for a number of reasons but I found a service that fulfilled all my needs and seemed ideal.

When I first approached MK Hosting USA they responded positively and promptly and my experience at the point of sale certainly seemed to reinforce the good things I had read about them.  Their services and helpful attitude along with the responsiveness of their help desk persuaded me to make the move and for the first few months the service was very impressive – fast load times, very reliable with zero downtime and the email marketing and autoresponder services were a gem.

You could say I was patting myself on the back for making what seemed to be a pretty smart move!

Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever, or in this case for much more than four months. Long story short, one evening a couple of weeks ago I was editing my sites and making backups of all the recent work I had been doing on this domain and suddenly, everything went a.w.o.l.

I could not access my sites or my admin areas in WordPress or Nucleus – everything had gone down. I’m not one to panic so I logged into cpanel and checked the service status and was confronted with a lot of red x’s. Still not overly concerned I logged in and submitted a support ticket, but I received no confirmation as is the norm. I waited and waited and as my past experience of support has been so good, started to get a bit peeved after a few hours with no response.

Eventually, after 24 and then 48 hours with not even a whisper from the company despite numerous and varied attempts to contact them, I was unhappier than a very unhappy thing. I could see what was causing the problems – a full partition on the server which was bringing down all database driven sites – even their own support desk, members area and billing area. Emails sent to all their contact addresses began bouncing. It was apparent that there was nobody minding the store, nobody at the helm and little evidence that it was going to change anytime soon. I tried to raise someone’s interest through their twitter account, obviously unmonitored, and started a thread on Web Hosting Talk – most good hosts monitor those boards for discussions pertaining to their companies – obviously not MK Hosting USA however.

Throughout this downtime I was desperately trying to secure backups because that was exactly what I had been doing before the server crashed – unfortunately, the problems were preventing me from doing so. You can read the full story over on the Web Hosting Talk thread about MK Hosting USA. After several attempts I did eventually manage to grab a working backup but it was a hugely frustrating experience and at the time of writing the issues have still not been permanently fixed and no, I have not heard a whisper from the company in any form.

So, the upshot of all this is that we have moved to Knownhost on a shiny new VPS.

I apologize to anyone who tried to visit in the past two weeks – it took that long to get a working backup and even then, it was sheer luck. I pity any customers who didn’t grab one of the two pretty short windows to secure their data.

The positive things that occurred during these two weeks – the owners of the server, Hostgator, went above and beyond the call of duty to try and provide me with backups of my database files that were not corrupt. I was very impressed with their willingness to try to help a customer, and not even one of their own, in the face of insurmountable difficulties due to the complete absence of service from another provider. This is exactly why Hostgator are at the top of the game and have a solid reputation by and large. Thanks and good karma to the techs at Hostgator who answered my call.

And so to Knownhost – I first became aware of them through a video post by Mark at 45n5.com and then subsequently through various forums where customers had little but praise for them. So far, that has been borne out entirely in my dealings with them. They answer tickets blazingly fast and are extremely tolerant of even the most basic questions – polite, helpful and very responsive.

Running my own server is a whole new kettle of fish but to be honest, I am very confident that I have chosen an excellent company to work with and the prices for their managed VPS plans are extremely good.

Now, you may still encounter a few minor problems on the sites, but that is probably due to me and the fact that some adjustments will be needed in light of a new server configuration – please let me know if you do encounter any broken bits.

For all my email subscribers – the most painful loss to me is the services I was using to manage all my autoresponders and email lists. This is going to take time to replace but I have a few options to explore and you may not hear from me for a while. However, list facilities will be restored and if you are already on one of my lists, you won’t need to resubscribe as whatever route I choose to go, it will be one where I can import all my existing list members without inconveniencing them.

I will be removing recommendations for MK Hosting USA – technical issues are one thing but total breakdown of support and evidence that the server simply ceased to be monitored is more than enough reason to stay well clear. I’m immensely relieved to have recovered my sites but it should not have taken two weeks to do so and certainly should not have been the hit and miss affair that it was due to their total failure to respond to paying customers. When a company doesn’t even attempt to offer an excuse or explanation, it’s time to take your business elsewhere.

Sorry, but I’m terribly disappointed in what looked to be such a promising service and can’t understand how they went from so good to so awful almost overnight. It’s another cautionary tale…….

I would love to hear from someone at MK Hosting USA  who might be able to shed some light on how such an epic failure was allowed to occur – I mean, there might even be some incredibly valid mitigating circumstances, but until someone steps up to the plate, all I can assume is that they are in meltdown and will disappear along with all their customers’ data in the not too distant future.

Click Above For More On Our New Host

Related articles by Zemanta

• MakeTechEasier Is Now Hosted On KnownHost (maketecheasier.com)
• Top 5 Things to Consider When Choosing Shared Web Hosting (dtelepathy.com)
• Top 10 VPS Providers for Web Developers (sixrevisions.com)

The following video explains how to install Moodle using cpanel and Fantastico and also explains a little more about some of the scripts you can expect to find available in the majority of hosting accounts that offer both cpanel and Fantastico to their customers.

You can find out more about Moodle by visiting the website at Moodle.org

A tutorial explaining how to use the free web-based software installation tool Fantastico to install the open source learning management system Moodle onto a custom sub-domain. Our directory contains a variety of hosting companies who will provide these features and tools as part of your hosting package, and we recommend looking for a cpanel host who offers Fantastico which will normally include around 50 scripts that can be installed simply and quickly with a few clicks of your mouse.

Joomla can be used to build virtually any kind of dynamic website and although some claim it can be intimidating for beginners there is a huge amount of assistance both online and off for those wanting to work with this powerful platform.

Once you have installed the software the following Joomla resources will help you get the best out of the program.

Books about Joomla can be found and purchased online through Amazon

Immediate access to comprehensive online Joomla video tutorials can be found at http://www.joomla-tutorial.org

This video tutorial teaches you how to install Joomla, the most popular CMS today, using cpanel and Fantastico.

This is something that you have no control over – if one person on a shared server is a spammer, the effects on everyone else are the same. If the IP address gets blacklisted because of one person’s activities, everyone on the box will begin to encounter email delivery problems.

Some hosting companies will offer you the option of a dedicated IP address, normally at additional cost, and this is one solution that you could opt for.

Another option might be the process outlined in the following video – changing your MX records to those of Google. The sound on the video is not that great, but the methods are outlined nicely as the author walks you through the process. Once you complete the process you will be able to use Google to manage all your mail and hopefully, your outgoing mail will once again start reaching its intended recipients.

This video tutorial will explain how you can change your own domain MX records to point to Google mail. This will not only allow you to manage your e-mail through Google apps it will also make sure that your domain name emails will not be spam filtered or black listed. Start using the Google email servers with your domain for FREE! www.agc-it.com for more information.

web hosting explained for absolute beginners. It is easy to forget that the whole subject of web hosting is a complete mystery to many people and this video, covers the absolute basics, explaining in simple terms what web hosting is and the basic mechanics of how it works.

Whilst most of our visitors are probably a lot more knowledgeable about the subject, this video will benefit anyone who really is at the very first rung of the ladder and looking for a non technical explanation of how web hosting works. Obviously it does not cover a great deal, but as an introduction it serves its purpose.

If you are new to the world of web hosting, we hope it will be helpful. Please have a look around the site for more useful video tutorials and articles on a whole range of topics connected to the world of hosting, domain names, blogging and webmaster tips tricks and tools.

webhostingsleuth.com The basics on what web hosting is and how to use it.

Did you know you can get your first hosting account with Hostgator starting at only $4.95 Per Month? Click Here To Find Out More Now

Knownhost have an enviable reputation in the world of VPS hosting and dedicated servers and are rated very highly by users.

Let us know what you think and submit a review and rating below.

Having said that, we are well aware that many visitors to our site find their way to us through searches for free hosting and free domain names – everyone loves a freebie it seems!

The following video shows how you can use two free services to get a) a domain name and b) a free place to host it.

Beyond that we do not endorse or recommend either service in any way and have no personal experience of either one. How it compares to other free services or how reliable and stable the hosting will turn out to be is something on which we cannot comment. If you are insistent on running a website for free, we hope you will find the video useful however.

If anyone has any experience of either service please share your knowledge with others and leave us a comment below.

If you are looking for quality commercial web hosting services please check out our main page for web hosting providers.

Virtual is the key description here. A VPS offers most of the advantages of a dedicated server whilst actually running on shared hardware. It is achieved with the aid of modern clever virtualization software that creates and manages a number of ‘virtual servers’ on a single box.

Each ‘virtual server’ appears to the customer’s applications, databases and so forth as if it really is a dedicated server, which includes a predetermined memory size, disk size and network data transfer. It even allows the customer to fully configure the environment for their specific application and security needs.

The computer software then protects that ‘virtual server’ from the activities of all other ‘virtual servers’ which are operating on the same physical hardware. So, should another customer’s application go rogue because of a coding error or get swamped with internet transactions or be in any way compromized, other ‘virtual servers’ would carry on as normal. Even a significant crash within one virtual server won’t affect the the rest. Each partition is autonomous and to both inside and outside visitors the server partition appears to be is a stand alone server to all intents and purposes.

The software that makes VPS viable is becoming very advanced indeed and recent times have seen the entry of  companies like Microsoft into the marketplace with what they dub their Hyper-V product. That is strong evidence that the concept of VPS is swiftly becoming mainstream, not merely for hosting companies but also for large IT users trying to optimize the effectiveness of their hardware utilization.

There are multiple advantages of VPS compared to shared servers, some clearer than others. The greatest disadvantage to using a shared environment for your websites or applications is the possible impact on your system’s efficiency and stability of those that you share space with.

All you need is one of the other user’s applications to crash badly and the whole of the shared server is likely to quit and need re- booting or even repair. In addition another user’s website becoming very popular might slow the system down for your programs as they would use up a disproportionate amount of the shared system resources.

If you have a breach in security it can often affect a lot of or all of the sites on a shared server, meaning that every client has to hope that the hosting company are quick to respond and have enough expertise to resolve such problems quickly and effectively.

You will have less responsibility for your server’s security on a shared hosting account(virtually none in actual fact) in comparison with a customer on a VPS account but if those who own and/or manage the box you are on are not on top of their game, the consequences might be very frustrating.

Under the VPS approach these shared hosting issues just go away. It’s as simple as that.

The software protects each ‘virtual server’ from the others and isolates the key resources which have been configured. So if one VPS has been configured with 512Mb of RAM, then it always has that level of memory available to it irrespective of what other ‘virtual servers’ are asking for(despite the fact that the total pool of RAM is shared amongst all ‘virtual servers’). It is this protection and isolation that justifies the use of the word “private” in the VPS label.

What are the benefits of  VPS over dedicated servers? Consider that before the latest VPS software became available the only alternative to the performance ‘lucky dip’ of shared servers was a dedicated box, a server that you owned/leased exclusively for your own use.

This required the hosting provider to purchase and configure new hardware for each buyer. This in turn meant a significant capital investment upfront from the hosting company and the swift usage of their data center space, power, network connections and so on. Thus the fee for dedicated servers is usually pretty high.

The VPS process adjusts the web host’s costs significantly. Now, they can provide a near- dedicated server quality of service and features using shared hardware, which reduces the consumption of their data center racking, power and network connections. This cost reduction may then be passed onto their clients by way of reduced fees.

One other cost- associated matter that using VPS technology changes noticeably only comes into play after several years of use … hardware renewal. In the traditional dedicated server setup, when the server hardware attained a certain age, typically around three years, it made sense to lessen the risk of failure whilst also allowing the customer to obtain developments on processors speeds and so on, to renew or “refresh” the hardware.

The idea of renewing the hardware after a cycle of continuous use still holds true for a VPS, but the big distinction is in who pays for the new equipment. For a dedicated server, the full cost of the replacement hardware was borne by the client through the fee levels, sometimes including a new set- up fee too. With the VPS model, the price is distributed across a number of customers and as a consequence the fees can stay low throughout multi- year plans even when hardware refresh is involved.

Virtualization is being quickly embraced by both hosting companies and large IT using organizations because it makes strong financial and technical sense. There will, obviously, still be complex computing needs for which true dedicated servers are a requirement but for many commercial computing demands, virtualization offers considerable resilience and performance improvements over using shared servers with no technical disadvantages. VPS has certainly come of age.

As a VPS hosting customer you will effectively be allocated a partition within a server that’s exclusive to you. That partition is a self contained server where you can run all your applications as well as your own operating system, all customized to your requirements and wishes. It offers you the efficiency of a dedicated server at a more affordable price but the VPS option usually includes more tecnical and financial responsibility than a shared hosting plan.

One of the key advantages of leasing a VPS is the ability to have more resources allotted to your web pages. With shared hosting you’re restricted with resources and must share it with many other websites. All of these websites compete with each other for the resources of the server. When you lease a VPS, you’ve got the peace of mind that a set volume of memory, and hard drive space is allocated to you. This will be significant if you are running websites which are resource- intensive or that have particularly high visitor traffic. Not only do you have those set resources, but you can customize the VPS to match your demands.

The customization feature of VPS is perhaps the best selling point. The ability to run your own operating system and software as you wish, setup your own version of PHP, and MYSQL, and having full root access to your partition gives you an invaluable edge on shared hosting and a degree of autonomy and control that rivals those on a truly dedicated box.

Another great benefit of VPS hosting is the ability to handle growth. Most websites begin small, and then grow with time. By using a virtual private server, you’ll have the resources available to handle your growth. This is due to the fact that you are not on a shared web hosting environment. With shared hosting when you reach a certain point, the web host may request you upgrade to another plan since your site is using too much of the server’s resources. Always keep in mind that with shared web hosting you are literally sharing resources. With your VPS, you can grow as needed.

Prices for VPS hosting at the time of writing start at under$20 per month, or around $40 for a fully managed plan, which is a very inexpensive solution. It’s a lot more affordable than using a dedicated server, but also offers similar functions. You can now see why VPS hosting is very attractive for anyone seeking affordability backed with power and excellent customization choices.  As to whether or not you need it is going to be a very personal decision depending as it does upon your need for the features it offers – however, with prices now at almost shared hosting levels from many providers it is definitely more attractive to a much larger percentage of webmasters.

As with any hosting plan, remember that some are going to be better than others in terms of service, support etc. so we would advocate doing your homework just as you should for an hosting plan. Remember too that a VPS is likely to be a little more hands on in terms of server maintenance and configuration so it’s important to know what the hosting company offers in terms of support and management of your shiny new VPS and what the associated costs there will be for the level of server management you require.

We welcome your comments and questions along with any experiences you may wish to share.

TCH

A lot has happened in those four years and you can read my recent post about the resulting changes since the re-branding of the company to GVO, or Global Virtual Opportunities, for a little more on the background.

In this post I wanted to comment on a few more things that I either forgot or didn’t have time or space to mention in my last post. The gradual process of morphing from Kiosk into GVO has been a fairly lengthy one and, to be honest, the way it dragged on got on my nerves a little. There is only so much you can take when it comes to all the rah rah rah of such a relaunch, prelaunch and never ending cheerleading.

I think it is safe to say that most of that is now behind us and I for one am glad. GVO definitely brought in a fair number of some so called “heavy hitters” who have probably cleaned up by getting involved and whilst I do not doubt the experience and marketing power of some of these folks it does not mean you have to like them or their methods even if their involvement has ensured a substantial influx of new customers for GVO. One unfortunate side effect of the sudden growth is the plethora of ads, articles, blog posts and landing pages all selling GVO that are plainly written by people who know very little about web hosting, which is after all the core business of the company. I’m sure if you have studied most of the search results in Google you have found very little hard information about the pros and cons of their hosting plans aside from a few brief “it’s great value” or “I’m pretty happy” type sales efforts.

So let’s move on to the GVO services and look at what has changed from the perspective of a Kiosk customer.

GVO still offer three shared hosting plans, although you almost certainly wouldn’t realize that from any recent advertising. The old Silver and Platinum plans still exist, priced at $18.95 and $24.95 respectively. But, and this is a big but, there really are no good reasons to buy either one of them any longer as all incentives to do so have been removed, basically making the Titanium plan at $44.95 the only real shared hosting option on offer. Neither the Platinum or Silver plans include any of the additional services, so they are effectively dead in the water.

GVO’s Titanium bundled marketing and hosting package is really good value, just as many of the “reviewers” are saying but unfortunately at such a price point, many experienced webmasters are going to see a managed VPS as a much more attractive option if they have no need for the autoresponder service, video hosting and conference rooms. This is one of the major stumbling blocks because ultimately, shared hosting is shared hosting and it’s simply not good enough for those with a lot of domains and a lot of traffic. Conversely, for newbies who see only monthly $ signs and who are starting from scratch, a sub $10 shared hosting package with someone like Hostgator or Bluehost for example, is rightly or wrongly, a lot more tempting.

Don’t get me wrong, GVO offer a very competitively priced package, but convincing people of the fact is not always an easy task in view of the aforementioned considerations. I would guess that there might be a fairly substantial attrition rate in the early stages after the relaunch amongst those who joined in the belief that there were easy fortunes to be made through the affiliate program and the promises of spillover. Some will have done well already by signing up under the top recruiters, but many will not see the “money for nothing” they no doubt believed they would get and they will soon tire of paying each month unless they are willing and able to put the excellent tools to good use.

Existing customers, even those on the old Silver and Platinum plans of Kiosk.ws still get to enjoy the marketing tools due to grandfather rights, but for new customers, if you want the whole shebang it’s Titanium or nothing.

Many of the big marketing names associated with GVO and who recently marketed it so aggressively to their lists are obviously not using shared hosting but are on dedicated servers. This distinction is important because whilst Kiosk offered webmasters a pretty flexible set of dedicated server options, including one off custom builds for example, most of those now seem to be gone at GVO. Looking at the site, the only dedicated options at the time of writing are a fully managed Dell box at $299 per month with a one time $99 set up fee or a slightly cheaper box at $199 per month. Not bad, but only for those with deep pockets already.

One more thing worth mentioning on this topic is that if you outgrow a shared reseller hosting account, even one as good as GVO’s, the way things stand at the moment, you would have to either cough up for a costly dedicated server, or change hosting companies as there is currently no VPS plan available. This could be a real headache if you have built your lists and all your web real estate with GVO. Some people would no doubt argue that keeping all your services under one roof is never a good idea but again that will depend entirely on your outlook and your own forecasts of business expectations. As things stand, GVO can definitely save many webmasters a good deal of money with their packaged services.

Moving on to other changes, one of the major ones as been the outsourcing of many areas of support to India. For me, this as been one of the more disappointing aspects of the GVO re-branding. Whilst I appreciate that for the growth of the company to be sustainable there had to be investment in staff, premises and hardware, the end user experience is definitely not what it once was. When the old Kiosk.ws team in Canada were at the helm of tech support you were pretty much guaranteed fast responses, great service and experienced systems administrators. In recent times, whilst support as been available, the quality of that support as deteriorated. That is not to say it is really bad, just that the very high standards of old have slipped. Maybe it will not be permanent and things will settle down but like so many other industries rapid growth invariably results in  the customer experience suffering to a certain degree. This is something GVO must work on if they want to retain webmasters.

There have been several hiccups along the way but in view of the rapid expansion some of those have to be expected and I still feel very comfortable in recommending GVO if what you want is good solid shared hosting and some invaluable business and marketing tools. The new eResponderPro autoresponders are very good although they still lack one or two features offered by the established big names. The service is a massive step up from the previous Kiosk autoresponders and there are no graduated price points dependent upon the size of your list either – you get as many autoresponders as you want or need as a Titanium customer. With other third party services, the more subscribers, the higher the monthly fee.

Promoting GVO itself can be lucrative, but it is going to take work if you want to earn money as an affiliate. The compensation plan is very good but that does not mean you will get rich just by joining. I just think that should be made clear to anyone who is considering signing up with this as their primary motivation. You can learn a great deal about the compensation plan through the GVO Academy presentations and I would recommend these to anyone looking for a great overview of GVO as a whole.

Ultimately, when it comes to your webhosting and online business needs, GVO is either a good fit or it isn’t, just as with most web hosting, it’s not about which company or offer is best, it’s about what is best for you.

I hope that this honest summation will help my visitors in making that decision. What I will say is that Joel Therien has always been, and remains, an honest and trustworthy guy and consequently you can certainly feel comfortable dealing with his company. You will never need to worry about sharp practices as you sometimes do in the world of web hosting.

Overall, I would still recommend them to anyone except maybe those who are reaching the point where a VPS is close on the horizon because your hosting needs might not be best served by GVO at this moment in time. As an affiliate marketer, I would say that the affiliate program for GVO remains one of the best in the industry and will reward those who actively promote it. Resellers will also find GVO a good company to partner up with and a Titanium account with GVO still represents a solid investment for a lot of webmasters and online businesses.

(If you don’t want or need a reseller hosting account and can live without a conference room and video hosting a solid alternative at half the price is MK Hosting USA – we moved to them from GVO and have been very impressed to date, and would say that the email marketing tools are superior and support faster and more knowledgeable). (Sadly now no longer in operation)

You can try the GVO services for 14 days risk free with your $1 trial membership – no contracts, no catches.  I think you will be impressed with what you find on the inside.

As always I would love to hear what you have to say so please leave your comments below.

We tried this ourselves and after a bit of fiddling around we got it to work OK although for some reason, initially we could not get the domain name to work and only by typing the IP address into the browser could we view the webpage. Then, without changing anything, the site started to load OK. We only uploaded a simple lead capture page for testing purposes and the biggest problem was that the page was sometimes very slow to load indeed. This could be for a number of reasons but the DYNDNS service seems the obvious culprit in view of the fact that the IP address loaded fine.

If all you want to host is a simple webpage or site, this solution could be worth it for you. Remember that it means you will have to have your PC and internet connection running 24/7 so that people can access your site. There is no reason you cannot use this process to host your pages yourself, although some ISP’s don’t allow it so you need to know where your access provider stands on such issues.

We would not necessarily recommend hosting your primary website in this way, it has several drawbacks, but having your own server for testing purposes is a useful tool to have, so installing Apache or perhaps something like XAMPP which includes Apache, PHP and MySQL is cool if you want to do a lot of testing of sites as you build them. Also, the technical barriers for many non technical minded users can give you a lot of headaches and you might be better advised to find a simple free hosting service if your site/pages are simple and not mission critical.

Whilst the instructions given are pretty clear, if you would like a good reference for setting up a server on your home PC one of the best publications out there at the time of writing is Setting Up A Web Server – How To Host Your Website From Home which will give you everything you need to know and costs less than $16.00. It also includes a piece of troubleshooting software to make life easier if you should run into any problems.

If you can follow the instructions in the video below and don’t have any problems, all well and good. Enjoy, you could soon be hosting your own website from your own home PC! For more comprehensive help the above mentioned product will be of immense help – following the instructions in the video will not necessarily work for everyone because of all the variables involved and then you can experience all kinds of frustrations!!

How to host a Web server, Web page server from your home PC. website Using free programs from Apache and DYNDNS.

A great number of modern scripts work in conjunction with MySQL databases – common content management systems and blogging platforms such as Joomla, drupal and WordPress are obvious examples but many other scripts also need a MySQL database in order to function.

This video takes you through the basic steps of creating a MySQL database using cpanel.

With many hosts providing Fantastico along with cpanel nowadays, the installation of many common scripts and their associated databases is a very simple point and click affair, but there may come a time when you will need to create a database yourself and this video shows you what is required. If you do not have cpanel and are using another control panel provided by your host, the look may be different but the basic steps will still be pretty much the same.

Popscript.com – cpanel How To Create A mySQL Database

From Live.Pirillo.com – what are domain names? How do you register one?

GoDaddy.com Coupon Codes: CHRIS1, CHRIS2, CHRIS3, BLAUGH

From www.45n5.com

If you can have your web site and web hosting be down for a few hours move along. If you need your web hosting to be up as close to 100% of the time as possible,  this hosting video is for you.

There is no doubt that Joel Therien’s launch (or, more correctly rebranding and relaunch – more of that later) was a well executed and well supported piece of internet marketing and has without doubt been hugely satisfying for him and his team.

So what’s it all about, why are the network marketing crowd champing at the bit, MLM’ers drooling over the pay plan and newbies foaming at the mouth and authoring copy that they can’t possibly have the knowledge or experience to back up? It is my hope that people reading this post will appreciate that despite some of the crap and awful advertising that has been foisted upon the internet community by the “get rich quickers” and program hoppers out there, that a little bit of honest perspective is exactly what you are looking for.

One thing I personally find a great turn off is things such as comparisons with GDI which are blatantly nonsense – GDI is nothing more than an MLM program selling domains, originally the Western Samoan dot WS! Many people fell for the hype and some did make a lot of money but most probably did not and will not and to suggest that GVO is in any way similar is a fallacy and very misleading – how many decent websites have you seen from GDI users…not many I’ll hazard because they are not a marketing and hosting service provider and they do not enable their customers other than to sell on the domain MLM and throw in a few pathetic static templates to add a “website” to your shiny new domain. OK, got that one off my chest at least

Let’s step back from all the marketing for a moment and remind ourselves that GVO is a rebranding exercise, albeit one that is accompanied by some very real physical changes and improvements to the company previously known as Kiosk.ws

Kiosk.ws has long been touted as the hosting company run by internet marketers, for internet marketers and although its shared hosting plans did not come cheap, they were endowed with a bundle of extra services that made the overall package very good value for money. Not least of these extras were the unlimited autoresponder accounts and the provision in more recent times of live conference room services for members. Add to that the multi-tier affiliate program, ten levels deep and paying recurring monthly commissions and you had a very good package which was married to a very reliable hosting service with excellent support.

However, after many years of operation, it was obviously felt that things had become stagnant and there began a long process of updating and revitalizing the company from the ground up. Customers in 2009 have far higher expectations than those of a decade ago, particularly in relation to technology and Joel began the long and no doubt costly process of overhauling what had, to be honest, become a very dated looking web presence, even if the services underneath remained pretty sound.

For long time customers like myself, watching the whole process unfold has been fascinating and sometimes frustrating. The first real major change was the relocation of the company’s data center from Canada to Texas. Fortunately, this transition was pretty smooth from the customer’s side although it was obviously not a walk in the park for all the folks at Kiosk. Around this time, the first intimations of GVO started to appear – the first time I saw the now well known logo was on a tee shirt worn by Joel on one of his very early video blogs although no mention was made of the name for some time.

The plan slowly unfolded and it became apparent that the thrust of the marketing was going to be on the network marketing aspect of the relaunch – basically there had been some minor tweaks made to the compensation plan for affiliates, but it was nothing really drastic. It just goes to prove how dressing something up in new clothes and giving it a new image is often a very effective tactic – most of the new GVO hordes had never heard of Kiosk.ws and probably would never have considered becoming customers. The relaunch was of course given great impetus by bringing on board many big name marketers with large opt-in lists od get rich quick hopefuls!

Whilst I can see that this was a great way to generate huge amounts of “buzz” I believe it also has a not inconsiderable downside – that being that outside of these network marketing zealots, the image of the company can also be tarnished in the eyes of regular webmasters and bloggers and even affiliate marketers who just want a competent and reliable place to host their sites or to be part of a reputable affiliate program. Rightly or wrongly, there will be some suspicion of promotion with a focus so heavily weighted towards network marketing and that is a shame because GVO has a long and excellent history in providing value and service in its primary business.

Putting all that aside for a moment though, is GVO better than the old Kiosk.ws? In many ways I would have to say yes, but I will also mention a few reservations. It as taken a very long time for everything promised to new customers to materialize. As an old hand, this does not really surprise me, it is the way the company has always been and is really an indication of their thoroughness and desire to get things right for their customers. Unfortunately I suspect that some new customers have been put off by this.

However, the new GVO services are definitely a step up from Kiosk as it was – the autoresponder service has been completely revamped and the new EresponderPro can really now be considered a rival to the big services like GetResponse and Aweber with far more features and user friendliness than the trusty old Supersponders we had at Kiosk. The whole look of the company is far more in tune with the 21st century and for both visitors and customers the website experience is far more pleasant and less frustrating to use.

I have no doubt that many of the eager beavers who signed up, tempted by the siren song of money for nothing will reduce in numbers as the months go by – there will always be this kind of fallout after a big MLM focused launch. Those that came primarily for a good hosting plan with a great suite of marketing tools will appreciate the value and savings and stick around if the service does not fall short.

So, how has the service been amidst all the marketing hoopla of recent months? Well, unfortunately there have been some problems and some of them quite severe, others just annoying. The blame for some of them can be laid firmly at the door of the company but others cannot. A few examples of recent issues experienced by this webmaster are:

1) A DDOS attack on this domain – by no means the fault of the hosting company. However, the new support staff in India were very disappointing and it took three weeks to even get to a tech support person who would acknowledge the problem and do something about it – that was effectively three weeks of downtime simply because nobody would listen to what I was telling them, preferring to insist it was all being caused by my WordPress installation. This was the first big fail I had ever experienced with the company. It took several more weeks to get things sorted out.

2) A failure of the new cloud technology provided to GVO by Dell led to another spell of downtime for many Kiosk.ws customers but to be fair to GVO, it was totally beyond their control and they worked like madmen to get everything up and running as quickly as they could. Their only real failing during this crisis was a lack of communication with customers – several of us ended up manning the support room ourselves over the weekend!

3) Server security became a burning issue over a period of a few weeks recently with constant hacking of the shared server on which we reside – finally an I-Frame attack exploiting outdated Worpdress blog installations resulted in all sites being moved yet again to a new server. Since then things have been OK.

On this occasion however I was very disappointed once again with the company who moved my domain without any notification beforehand and in doing so lost a fair chunk of data. To make things worse, the cavalier response from support was that it was my responsibility to keep offsite backups (agreed, it is) but worse, their refusal to admit that they had made an error and to apologize for their mistake. I think in all the years I have been with the company, this was a first and I know it would not have been allowed to happen back in the days of the Canadian data center. I was not a happy customer at that point.

However, when all is said and done, and with all my years of experience of hosting companies, you could do a lot lot worse than GVO. Joel is a genuine and honest guy with a team who, for the most part, always have their customers’ interests at heart. They have never refused to enable a server setting for me or to refuse to host a particular script. For the money you pay you get a very comprehensive set of webmaster and marketing tools which would cost you considerably more were you to buy them all separately.

Since writing this post a lot has changed at GVO and we left for pastures new some time ago.

Having said “I shall be sticking with GVO for the foreseeable future and if you are looking for a great package in terms of hosting and building a business online, I think they are definitely worthy of serious consideration” when I originally wrote this review, the service, support and reliability issues became a huge problem. Based on our experiences we have to withdraw our recommendation of GVO following all the changes, many of which were detrimental to the core business in favour of network marketing hype.

If you want decent hosting at affordable prices we recommend two hosting companies over all others – Hostgator and Knownhost

Forget GVO and pay less for superior features, service, support and reliability, it’s that simple. Their marketing tools just aren’t worth the additional cost anymore. If you run WordPress and need an autoresponder you can get a free or premium plugin for all your sites at the Free WordPress Autoresponder Plugin.

It seems that Globat are just another dishonest company who do not do business in an ethical way. Our complaint is with the affiliate program, but having looked around on the web there seem to be an overly large number of complaints about their hosting as well.

Our involvement with the affiliate program just seems to back up the complaints about unauthorized credit card charges, lack of support and difficulty in canceling accounts. None of these things are good whether you are an affiliate or a paying customer.

We earned commissions with Globat prior to them changing their affiliate program software and systems and assumed that we would still be paid for accounts referred under the original program but after some time with no payment forthcoming we submitted a ticket to enquire when we were going to be paid.

Their response was quite astounding, and I quote -

“Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting support. Commissions on the old platform are no longer being paid out upon. These sales where on the old platform.

Please let us know if you are still experiencing problems, or if we can help you in any other way.

Ken S.
Reseller Technical Support”

So, in short, just because they change their affiliate systems, any money you rightfully earned and is due, is not going to be paid. This is disgusting behavior and dishonest in the extreme. In view of this, our official stance is to advise potential affiliates and customers to go elsewhere. If they are prepared to treat affiliates in this way, it calls their whole operation into question and we will certainly no longer promote their services.

Shared hosting is a good thing and has enabled far more people to get their fledgling sites up and running with minimum outlay but the market is swamped with shared hosting providers, making that first purchase decision a very difficult one. Information overload is also a very real problem when it comes to researching shared web hosting, particularly for those just starting out.

You will for instance find huge amounts of conflicting opinion about almost every hosting company out there. Just when you find a few positive comments about a particular company you will be confronted with others saying that they are to be avoided at all costs and citing a truckload of bad experiences. The tough thing for customers is knowing who and what to believe.

So, what can you do to maximize your chances of finding a good shared hosting plan that meets your needs?

The hosting companies themselves will woo you with all kinds of wonderful sounding facts, figures and statistics but finding impartial advice about web hosting is what you really need and it is not easy for the reasons mentioned above. Many of the hosting review sites are little more than paid advertising boards and the forums can be an intimidating and confusing place for first time buyers.

You need to consider several different things when shopping for shared hosting so we are going to give you a few useful pointers.

There is no such thing as the best hosting package – what you ideally want to find is the best shared hosting plan for YOU and this can be affected by many different things. For example, if you are planning a WordPress blog, some people will advise you to choose a host that is reputedly a specialist such as Bluehost, but that if you are setting up an ecommerce site, they may not be the best choice. Then again, others will tell you to avoid them because of their own experiences. You see how confusing it can get? Most people who provide good or bad feedback on a host are speaking entirely from their own perspective and your needs may be completely different making that bad host for one person a perfectly good one for another.

Photo Credit : Jaxmac on Flickr

So, it is important to know what you are intending to build. Once you have established that, there is no harm in visiting some of the hosting forums and asking for some recommendations from others. Having said that, just use this for making a shortlist and remember that some of those giving the advice may not be as impartial as they might appear.

Do your own research. This is a pain, but you will probably be glad you spent a little time on it in the long run.

Let’s say you have narrowed down your choice to three or four hosting companies based on the monthly cost and the features they provide which seem to fit what you need quite nicely and seem to be reasonably well thought of by the majority of customers. One of the companies is Hostgator and you’ve visited the site and like what you see. You might want to try contacting the company to ask them some probing questions that you have prepared in advance. This will give you some idea of a) How quickly they respond and b) how knowledgeable they seem to be. Of course, new business departments may be a whole different ballgame compared to services provided for existing customers because, after all, they want to sell you their services. However it does no harm to test the waters in this way and to repeat the exercise for each of your shortlisted companies.

Having run this little exercise you may or may not feel you have narrowed your choices down even further. As you are going to be sharing a server with others, wouldn’t it be nice to have some idea of how many other customers will be on the same “box”? Of course, you could make this one of your questions to ask them, but you can get a good idea of just how many other tenants there might be by using the neighborhood IP lookup service. All you need is to find a site hosted by one of your chosen companies and enter the URL. You will then be presented with a list of all the sites hosted on that server. (You can find out who hosts a website using a service such as WhoIsHostingThis)

Whilst this is not 100% accurate or cast iron proof of anything it will give you a good idea of how many other sites are likely to be on the same server as yours. The lower the number the better because although not all servers are the same in terms of capacity, memory etc. the law of averages says that less neighbors means less likelihood of your site being affected by problems arising from those other sites. Simplistic but true. You might be surprised by the results too.

If you run this site through that test you will see that we share server space with around seventy sites but it is not uncommon to see 200 or more on some shared plans. We host with Kiosk/GVO who have always provided excellent reliability and uptime. They cost a little more, but when you look at their services and know that they do not overcrowd their servers, it becomes a little less expensive looking. Even firms like LiquidWeb who have a good reputation will often have a lot more sites on one box. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because the hardware involved can be very different but  it’s just interesting to know. If you see a host offering “unlimited everything” on their sales page boasts however and find that they are cramming 500 customers onto one box, you might well be seeing evidence of “overselling” and want to be a little circumspect. (Note – if you use the IP Lookup service and it shows only one site or a handful of sites, you are probably looking at a dedicated server, i.e a server that belong exclusively to one webmaster, which is not what you need for comparison purposes)

So, deciding on a host because of price is often not a reliable way of doing things. You often get what you pay for and a plan costing $1.99 is not going to be as good as one costing $12.99 as a general rule of thumb. Do your research and know exactly what you are getting for the price.

If you follow these simple steps you will be more likely to find a good deal that fits your needs and your budget from the outset. Anyone who has a bad experience will tell you that moving hosts after you find out you’ve made a bad choice can be a real hassle, even though it really shouldn’t be. It’s much nicer to find a good company from the get go and to be able to grow with them.

I hope that you find this article useful in your search for shared web hosting and as always your comments are welcomed.

TCH

D9 Hosting have announced some big changes and the major points are listed below:-

New Hosting Packages From D9 Hosting

The core package now offers all the disk space and bandwidth you will need for your home and small business sites, whilst new reseller accounts allow you to sell hosting services to your own clients, under your own brand. You even get a free domain name reseller account so you have access to domain names at wholesale prices.

For clients that need more power, there are now VPS (virtual Private Servers), Hybrid and Dedicated Plans. So, no matter what your hosting needs are, D9 Hosting can accommodate you and your customers.

New Server Locations

No longer do your sites have to be situated in the US. For customers that need quick response times to Europe, D9 Hosting announce that they can now provide you with VPS, Hybrid, and Dedicated plans located in the UK.

New Customer Rewards (subject to change)

As an existing customer of D9 Hosting a new range of special offers is being introduced and at the time of writing you can now take advantage of the following:-

UK VPS Special – 10 GB extra Disk Space, 50% Extra RAM, 10% Discount

Minisite & Graphic Design – 10% Discount For All Customers

These will be updated every few weeks so it’s important that you keep checking back to make sure you don’t miss anything!

Cheaper Domain Names

This part of the D9 Hosting update process was actually implemented as a test a couple of months ago, and you’ll be pleased to know they are sticking with the new cheaper domain name prices.

You can now register, renew, and transfer domains through D9 Hosting for only £6.99 per year (.com pricing, other TLD’s may vary), this is one of the cheapest prices on the net so you may want to consider using them as your domain registrar.

You can find out all about D9 Hosting’s plans and prices by clicking on the graphic and visiting their new website.

With .tel you can now publish, store, update and manage ALL of your contact information, instantly and in one place. It allows businesses and individuals to manage important contact information directly on the Internet. The convenient page layout lets you control how your information is displayed and who sees it. Plus, your listing is included in the Telpage global directory where customers can search by name or keywords to find you.

To find out about these new domains, and just what they can do for you, click below for all the details:

Tell Me More About .TEL Domain Names

Sometimes I get things wrong and this post has come about for that exact reason. Free web hosting with 000.Webhost.com can very possibly cause you nothing but problems, particularly if you complain or refuse to upgrade to a paid hosting account.

A short while ago I wrote a post entitled “Free Hosting With MySQL PHP Cpanel and Fantastico” where I explained how you could set up a WordPress blog on a free hosting service, either with your own domain or a subdomain provided by 000Webhosting.com. (The post is still live but all links to the company have been removed).

I expressed the view that this would be a far better option than using the free WordPress.com service, largely because you would have far greater control over what you could display on your site. WordPress.com does not allow any kind of affiliate marketing content, nor do they permit things like javascript (for security reasons) and it was my contention (and still is) that this is too restrictive for anyone trying to monetize a WordPress blog.

However, having put my “money” where my mouth is I now admit to having made a rather horrible recommendation. As part of the example I set up a WP blog on the free host and was reasonably impressed with what you got for your free membership. However, time has proved that all in the free hosting garden (certainly in this particular one) is very far from rosy.

I set up monitoring of the site with a free service and very soon noticed rather frequent emails in my inbox notifying me that the site was on error. Sometimes the notification that the site was back up came quite quickly, but others, the downtime was quite extended (hours or even days rather than minutes). Having returned home to Cayman, I decided to do a little more work on the blog as it seemed a shame to waste it. I had even secured the first advertising revenue on the site so I figured that I should pursue its development.

At around the same time the monthly downtime report landed in my inbox. Horror of horrors, 116 hours of it at the tail end of February. Sure enough, I was unable to connect to wp-admin and when I tried to view the site all I got was timeouts, except on one occasion when I got the header and sidebar but no content. As I had made no changes to the blog for about 2 months I was puzzled.

(Click For Full Size Image)

(Click For Full Size Image)

I decided to put the support desk to the test at this point and explained the problem. My conversations with them have been documented through email and screenshots, because here is where things get a little nasty. In their favor, they responded very quickly, but the positives ended there.

The first response was that they could access my site fine and suggested clearing cache, restarting my internet connection (!!)  and if that didn’t work, to try connecting through a proxy server. Not very helpful, particularly to the non technical who probably wouldn’t even know what a proxy is. I did try proxies in both the US and Europe to no avail and without too much surprise.

They then suggested that I use the “fix file permissions” in my cpanel. OK, I tried it, even though the problem was obviously with the server and not my site. It made no difference. The other piece of advice was to use the “cancel/delete account function and recreate the same account again”!! What???

By now I realized I was just getting stock emails from a menu of stock emails being punted out by a non tech support person.  The next one was a killer, advising me that they could not help me with setting up my website and stating “we focus on getting our servers up and running”. Erm, yeah, right. To add insult to injury they then try to upsell me on a paid hosting account. Great marketing tactic (not).

I am sarcastic when I reply, I admit it. I point out that the problem is with their server, not with my site. I tell them that a monitoring service confirms this and that I am not asking for help with my website which was fine and has had no changes made to it in weeks in any case.

In response I am told that they cannot give me a resolution to my ticket as it would take too much administration time. Yep, that’s what they said before trying to sell me a paid hosting plan again. This last mail was badly written by someone for whom English was certainly not a first language. They apologized and thanked me for my understanding. WTF?

I shot back a rather heated email saying that I didn’t understand at all and suggesting that the free service was nothing more than a loss leader (one that they couldn’t even run properly at that)  as a prelude to selling someone a hosting plan. Who in their right mind would pay after seeing these clowns in action I wondered aloud.  They respond…

“The server is working fine, there is problem with your site only. I’m afraid but we do not provide any assistance building website”

Nice. Irrelevant, but really nice. I put it to them that they had said there was no problem with my site and yet now, in a complete reversal they say that there is! I’m laughing now because these people are clueless and obviously assume that their customers, free or otherwise, are clueless too.

I Googled the subdomain in question and sure enough, could not connect to a single site. I told them this and accused them of incompetence if not downright lying. It was, I pointed out, hardly the way to do business or win hearts and minds. I get another totally useless response – “we have opened your site and it shows a blank page, have you tried connecting via proxy?” I want to suggest where they put their fixation with proxies but restrain myself. I’ve had my “fun” but am hugely relieved I don’t rely on 000Webhost.com to provide my real hosting.

Finally they tell me that their data center is blocking access from some countries and that they are looking into it! Blocking access from Nigeria I could understand, but the U.S. and UK? Hardly a believable excuse methinks. Then, they close the ticket, just like that. I’m amazed and no, the site is still not accessible even after another 48 hours. I can’t access my admin area, so I can’t even begin to try and figure out what they screwed up.

I asked my followers in twitter to try and access the site yesterday – unsurprisingly everyone who tried came up empty. The server was down and connecting to the site from any ISP in any country was impossible.

This morning I received a notification that the site has come off error after over 159 hours of downtime!! Unfortunately the reason for this soon became apparent when I tried to visit my site – redirected to a page saying that the site does not exist. I try to log in to my cpanel to receive the message that “this account has been closed. Please read our terms and conditions”. Now I’m pretty p****d because I failed to notice the section in those terms that specified “do not complain, or, if you do, pay us some money and all will be OK. If we fail to resolve your problem and you continue to request any kind of service we will close your account and delete all your files without having to give any reason whatsoever”. Silly me.

So, I log into my affiliate account and sure enough it is marked as “canceled_abuse”. I have seen many of these inside my affiliate area so here is the next warning to would be affiliates for 000webhosting.com. Don’t bother. You are extremely unlikely to make enough sales to reach their $100 minimum payout because the bottom line is that they really are not interested in providing free hosting and, it would seem,  will find reasons to cancel accounts if they cannot convert free customers to paying ones but I concede that could just be me taking a cynical view. Having said that, reports of sharp business practices are scattered all over the web from disgruntled affiliates if you care to look.

Click To Enlarge Image

By supporting and promoting their services I feel cheated in a multitude of ways. If you are doing the same, or are thinking about participating in their affiliate program, I would urge you to think again. Tarnishing your reputation obviously does not concern them and tarnishing it is a very real possibility. I am deeply apologetic to those I have referred to the services of 000Webhosting.com because it was a bad recommendation. Luckily my site was really only an experiment just to put the service to the test and initially things looked hopeful. Imagine, however ,if it was your site and something you were serious about. You could lose hours and hours, days, of your valuable time, lose money and damage your online reputation by dealing with such a company. It does not matter what kind of site you are running, 000Webhosting.com have clearly demonstrated in this case that they do not offer reliability, service or customer care in any meaningful way.

So, take this as a lesson. Do not rely on 000WebHost.com to provide any kind of reliable service or support. In short, they suck and, in my opinion, the free service is nothing more than a lure to convert users into paying customers by any means necessary. Anyone who gives these people money in the face of such overwhelming evidence of their incompetence would be very foolish indeed, in my humble opinion. Take a look at their terms where they basically say “we can cancel your account at any time for ANY reason”. This should have been a big red flag at the outset and I admit to not paying it the attention I should have.

As one commenter on the original post said, never entrust anything remotely mission critical to a free hosting provider. I made the same recommendation but now, after such a fiasco, I wouldn’t recommend you host anything but a kid’s party with them (the clowns are entertaining). Even a personal website or blog would be hard pushed to survive such terrible uptime and lack of knowledgeable support. It’s a lesson learned and I apologize again to anyone who signed up to the service through my recommendation.

My recommendation to anyone using their services is to back up all your files and find a reliable hosting company to transfer your site to as soon as possible. That’s how strongly I feel about this kind of thing.

Below are the screenshots of my dealings with 000Webhost.com “support”. You can judge for yourself. Click on an image to view full size.

Needless to say I have cancelled my affiliate account and forfeited all earned commissions earned to date. All links to the company will now be redirected or removed from this domain.

Do not be fooled by stories of how great the service is. This review offers genuine proof of what you can expect and is backed with hard evidence. Incidentally, the site in question was a blog on the very innocuous subject of the Cayman Islands and any suggestion that it fell foul of their usage policies in any way shape or form would be false.

The web is becoming littered with disgruntled users and affiliates  regarding 000Webhosting, so don’t just take my word for it. As time passes, I guarantee that these will outnumber those talking the company up.

Luckily, my experiment was purely that, but hopefully this will prevent some potential customers from making what could be a costly mistake.

TCH

So, how do you go about finding that elusive “just right” domain name for your online business? Well, others have been pondering this for some time and one recently launched service could save you a lot of time and help you to track down the best name for your next online venture, taking the pain out of searching for that elusive perfect domain and even making it a little fun into the bargain.

The service, provided by blogger ‘Lord Matt’, can hook you into a large inventory of premium domain names and is searchable by adding pertinent information such as keywords, your name or business name, your location and more. The site will then go off and hunt for domain names that are relevant to who you are and what you are doing. With a simple and clean interface, finding the right domain name is made a lot easier with “Lord Matt’s Domain Names“.

If you would like to give this free service a try, just head over to the site and start playing with the options. You will probably get some suggestions that you would never have thought of on your own and maybe find your ideal partner Take note of the useful tips just below the search box for some good ideas too.

Lord Matt himself says that there are many reasons for buying a domain name through his new service:
* Free contact privacy! (most domains/TLDs)
* Free easy-to-use domain manager!
* Select from a large inventory of premium names!
* Free easy to use DNS!
* The attention and interest of Lord Matt – super geek
* Bob Parsons (GoDaddy) does not get a penny
* If we can make it free we keep it free
* Easy to use, fun to use and safe to use
* Help when you need it how you need it

Matt is a knowledgeable and helpful guy too and here at the CaymanHost we are happy to give his new service some exposure as we know it will be well run and that customer satisfaction will be a top priority for the owner.

So, head on over and start entering your details to see what you can find, all we ask is that when you find that perfect domain name, you tell Lord Matt that we sent you

Before I go any further, check out this video. For some this will be an eye opener whilst for others it is probably old news. However, before refuting any claims or arguing the case for web hosting review sites I think it highlights some very important facts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1dlIO1DKJU

Interesting huh? But hang on you’re saying to yourself, why would a web hosting directory site want to highlight such alleged rottenness in the hosting review game? Well, I think it is important for people to understand the pitfalls, misdirection and even dishonesty that is sometimes associated with review sites of all kinds. Review is often synonymous with “selling” on the internet and the way some sites go about this, unfortunately reflects badly on some of the decent operators out there.

The video illustrates quite clearly that some sites sell rankings to hosting companies, at at quite a considerable premium. The examples given are quite staggering to a small website owner like myself. $2000 per month for a top spot is a pretty lucrative slice of real estate and proves just how much money and competition exists in the hosting sector. Make no mistake, it is very big business. Is it wrong for the review sites to operate in this way? Some would say emphatically “YES”, others would agree that it is certainly misleading and some would perhaps shrug and say, “that’s business”.

Personally I think that if you profess to be a review site, you should endeavor to provide impartial comments and critiques from people who have had first hand experience as a customer.

The other aspect the video focuses on is affiliate links, and this is where I often find myself taking issue with the anti advertising brigade. If you read my disclosure policy, it is made perfectly clear where I stand on this point. My website is commercial in nature and I see no reason to be ashamed of trying to earn a living. This site is designed to earn affiliate commissions, and it is done openly and honestly but it is also designed to give people a forum for discussing and rating the companies we feature. Comments, both negative and positive are given an airing on this site and it is my hope that these will help others when they are trying to make a purchase decision. Hopefully the service provided will encourage them to buy through one of my links, but that is entirely their choice.

Interestingly, reviews are very thin on the ground to date. We are not one of the big boys with huge budgets to spend on advertising and design, but I do hope that the site provides a platform for people to have their say. I have only ever declined one comment regarding a hosting company as it had obviously been written by a very angry customer and publishing it could have been damaging to all concerned. It is only on occasions such as that when I consider editing or removing feedback.

The producer of the video alleges cases where any positive reviews of competing companies (i.e. those competing with their paying advertisers) were being deleted. This sort of practice is really a thorn in the side of sites that try to offer genuine customer feedback and is sad that it goes on, but I have no doubt that it does, just as I have no doubt that some reviews are posted by representatives of hosting companies as a form of shady marketing.

I suppose I have made this post in defence of my own humble site. I do not have the clout to pull in huge advertising checks from anyone and am like many small time affiliates attempting to make money by providing a useful service and platform for webmasters, bloggers and hosting customers. To this end, there is no table of top hosting companies. I do not believe any hosting company can be in “the top ten” or twenty or whatever, because every person buying hosting has uniquely individual needs.

There are no fake reviews or comments posted here and I am often surprised by the large number of reviews some sites manage to pull in. I’m sure that in some cases the ability to leave a review on a high ranking site is abused by those with an interest in tooting their own horn but then again maybe I’m just a tad too cynical! I myself have only written one review from first hand experience of my own hosting company who, I am pleased to say, have always performed admirably and never given me cause to shop elsewhere.

My recommendation for anyone shopping for hosting is to do your homework. We have links to many of the top forums as well, so you can ask your questions about particular companies and other people’s experiences. Be warned though – like all forums they can be populated by trolls, snake oil salesmen and cheerleaders and you shouldn’t assume that all advice received in forums is either impartial or sometimes even very accurate.

If you have found this post useful, please leave us your own thoughts and comments, and if you have something to say about any of the companies promoted on our pages, we’d love to hear from you.

UPDATE January 2010 – It appears that Hostazar has major issues with failing servers, poor or non existent support and broken links and bouncing email accounts and we cannot in good conscience recommend them at this time. If a Hostazar representative would like to add anything or offer some explanations we welcome a response.

Links to the site have been removed from this page as of  January 18 2010. Customer complaints below suggest that Hostazar has, to all intents and purposes closed its doors and left its customers hanging.  It seems likely that the website will eventually disappear altogether! (See links and comments below).

After discovering the connections to a man named Rob Benwell we did a quick check online and the following sites may be helpful to visitors although not good news at all if you have paid money for hosting services.

Rob Benwell – scammer or entrepreneur?

Rob Benwell – scamming to the bank at Scam.com

Rob Benwell – RipOffReport.com

Hostazar is part of the R5 Ltd group of websites based in the Digital Media Centre in South Yorkshire, UK, although it has servers based in data-centres around the world.