Finding a Good Web Host

Why is finding a good web host so hard to do? With thousands of hosting companies on the Internet, it should be easy right? Well I’m finding it’s anything but.

I have always hosted the vast majority of my sites at GoDaddy. I know. I know. Many people think hosting with GoDaddy is the equivalent of using dial-up AOL as your ISP — real Internet people just don’t do it. Well, for a basic, low-traffic site, I haven’t yet found anyone that beats them or comes anywhere close. You can get a Windows or Linux site with virtually limitless bandwidth and storage space, plus up to five databases, for just $3.95/month. Can’t beat it.

So why am I looking for a new host then? Well, for one reason, GoDaddy customer support is basically useless for anything that isn’t already in the FAQs. I had one issue last summer that was escalated two or three levels into their customer service hierarchy, and the people still had no clue. It got so bad that I literally felt like I might be on a TV show that was seeing how long I would actually keep trying.

Second, their setup is pretty straightforward. If you need to do some more advanced configuration (like have a subdomain point at your root directory), you can’t do it there. They do give you much more control than other hosts — a surprising level of control for $3.95, actually — but there’s a limit to it.

Finally, and most importantly, there’s definitely a limit to how much traffic you can drive through a database-driven site there. One of my sites get around 100,000 page views/month, and it’s really dragging. It’s a WordPress site, so it makes at least one database call on every page.

So, I went looking for a new host. Figured I could find one in a matter of days, but it has now been two and a half weeks and I’ve had acounts with three different hosts, and looked at several others, but I’ve yet to find a good one. Here’s a brief history of my search.

Looking for Advice

Whenever I need advice, I head over to the forums at High Rankings. I haven’t yet found a better source of free, accurate advice on topics like this one and more. I asked about web hosts, and the folks there were quick to answer as usual. From all the recommendations, I was most convinced of pair Networks. So that’s where I headed next.

pair Networks

pair Networks came highly recommended, so I assumed that my search was over before it really ever began. I signed up for a year of hosting, to get the 24% discount, and used the coupon code REFUGEE to get free setup. My account was ready to go very quickly, and I uploaded all my files. For some reason, though, they didn’t show up when I hit the site. Turns out, I had to upload them to a particular folder, which wasn’t specified in the setup instructions, and the folder was actually a logical link so it didn’t even show up as a folder. After uploading over 1MB of files, I then had to move them again. That was frustrating.

Then it was time to upload my two databases. After several minutes of searching, though, I couldn’t find their mySQL interface. Turns out they don’t have one. Customer service said that I could download phpMyAdmin and then upload it to my pair account, but that’s 10MB worth of files, and I’d have to do it twice since I have two databases. Not a good solution. I also didn’t want to have to figure out how to configure phpMyAdmin. I’m just used to it being there.

With so many things being different than I expected them to be I knew that I would continue to have issues, so I decided to try somewhere else. pair refunded my card in full very quickly and made it very easy to cancel my account. On that basis, and the fact that they came so highly recommended, I still would recommend them if the details above don’t turn you off.

Media Temple

Shaun Inman gave Media Temple good pub on his site, so I took a look at them. Very impressive all the way around, so I signed up.

A few hours later, I got a call from them. They sounded very suspicious of my ownership of the domain I was claiming and asked me lots of questions. Come to find out, of the thousands of web hosts I could have picked, I picked one that the former owner of the domain still had an account with. Not only that, his account was still live. Nevertheless, it looked like that wouldn’t be a problem.

Boy, was that ever wrong.

Turns out, their management software uses the domain name as part of the authorization credentials. When they set up a second account under the same domain name, neither I nor the former owner could login. I never could get him to change his account so that I could login, and MT insisted that they had to speak with him before they could give me control, so I ultimately decided to cancel that account as well. I couldn’t wait any longer.

That’s when the real trouble began.

Turns out, to cancel an account you must login and complete a form. See the problem there? If you did, you’re still several steps ahead of their customer service department. Not only did they send me a cancellation form that required me to login, when I emailed them back to let them know that I couldn’t login to complete the form, they responded with:

According to our files it does not seem that the form was submitted. I have re-sent the form please make sure to click on the “submit” button on the bottom of the form.

That’s right, another link to the form that required me to login. That was Thursday. I wrote them back immediately explaining the problem in more detail, but have yet to hear back from them.

Yahoo! Web Hosting

In the meantime, I went looking yet again. WordPress recommends Yahoo! very highly, so I went over and got set up with them. I was very impressed with the whole process — very clean, and their management center is very well organized. I was very hopeful.

Flash forward two-plus days. My site setup is still “in progress.” That’s unacceptable. More than two days to set up a site? I also notice that I can’t upload my .htaccess file, so I start poking around. Turns out, they don’t support .htaccess. Since I have an essential plug-in that requires entries in .htaccess, that’s a deal-breaker. So, I cancel my account. Unlike the other two hosts, though, they don’t refund the first month’s payment. Ridiculous. I definitely wouldn’t recommend Yahoo! Hosting. It’s Yahoo!, so I should have known better.

Back to GoDaddy

By now I was wondering if I could make GoDaddy work, so I upgraded to one of their larger shared plans. No go. It evidently just gave me more bandwidth and storage space (neither of which I needed), not the upgrade in performance I was looking for.

Back to the search.

MidPhase

This site is actually hosted with MidPhase. I had looked at them at the beginning, and several times since then, but “Unmetered Bandwidth” for just $7.95/month made me very uneasy. How can they possibly offer that without significantly sacrificing performance? Still, with all the trouble I’ve had, I went back and took another look. Their virtual dedicated plans looked promising, but they had no details on databases or dedicated IP addresses — two things that are critical for me. Their online help was no help, nor was their “Quick Answers Robot,” who evidently hadn’t been programmed very well. So, I tried the Live Chat.

Please wait for a site operator to respond.

I did. For more than 5 minutes. Any site that can’t respond to a potential customer any sooner than that via “live chat” was going to have real problems supporting customers. Thankfully, I didn’t have to actually cancel an account with them.

What Now?

Good question. I’m still looking (and still trying to get my Media Temple account closed and get my money back). I’m definitely open to suggestions. If you have someone you’re really happy with who hosts your high-traffic site, let me know!