My Dream Host
I’ve been following somewhat the trail of fury following TextDrive and Dreamhost around and I can’t help feeling two things: sadness for my friends who have depended on these hosts for so much that is important to them, and relief because I didn’t. There’s no way a person can know when they sign up with a host if they’re going to bomb on them, especially when the service is touted all over the web for its reliability by its customers, which both of these were.
Reading all about the host troubles, I realize I’ve been incredibly blessed to have the host I do. You’ve probably seen the eChristian Web Hosting banners on my site. That’s my host and I’m proud of them. I’ve now been with eCWH for about a year, which is about 11 months longer than any other hosts made it with me. I’m not incredibly picky, but if there’s downtime or a billing error in the first week, it’s not a good sign. And if when there is downtime and it takes days to fix it, you’re not my host anymore. So over the last 10 years that I’ve been hosting a website, I’ve been through a good number of hosts and I now know what my dream host is.
The early hosts had little to worry about because there just weren’t that many people hosting sites as compared to today, especially with blogs so handy to put up. Back then, the worst I had to worry about was them double billing me or “prorating up” – meaning they call it prorating when it’s actually stuffing the bill. Or back then there was the chance I could lose my domain name because the host usually took care of your domain name too which took all the power away from the end user.
Today we have to worry about overselling (which my host doesn’t do) on top of everything else. Like overbooking on airlines, it stinks when you run into that. But, it’s different for different customers. I personally don’t usually have somewhere I HAVE to be when I’m flying so getting bumped and getting a bump to first class tomorrow is cool. But, what if I’m Joe Businessman with a meeting in Los Angeles tomorrow morning and a million dollars depends on me being there? I’m screwed – and so is the airline because I’ll probably fly another one from now on and tell all my associates about it.
I’m just Natalie Jost, so I don’t need a mega host with pounds upon pounds of storage and bandwidth (though I do have a nice chunk of both), so a smaller host works great for me. If I were a big company and my whole business depended upon my website then I would have different needs. Although, many of my clients use the same host based on my recommendations, so that does put me in a tough spot if my host turns out bad. Even so, I can count on two fingers how many times my sites have been down, and each time they came back up by the time I called to report them – minutes, not days or even hours.
My dream host isn’t some big overselling giant. My dream host is a small friendly company with a guy I can call on personally for anything I need and who stops what he’s doing to help me. That’s not what I ask for, it’s just what I get. I love my host and I think you will too, obviously. ;) So take a look at smaller hosts – you may just find a perfect fit.
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5 Comments
I’ve been with Dreamhost for a couple years now and have never had the issues that I keep hearing about. I host a personal bunch of blogs (mennoboy.com and mennogirl.com) as well as my church’s site and haven’t had any downtime/issues.
But good to know about a good hosting company like eChristian Web Hosting.
while I am happy with my current host (I do some reseller hosting with them) I think you might be onto something with the “small” factor. I can’t help but lose sleep once in a great while over my host tanking.
I just read Mike’s post post on Dreamhost as well. I had a few issues with things being slow or not accessible but that was quite a while ago and never very long. Their service for me has always been quick and personable, not canned. Yes, I wish I could call them and speak with them on the phone, but the speed and skill is still good over email.
And I didn’t even notice the disaster of July 06. maybe because I was gone some, but I host about half a dozen clients through my account, and manage a few others’ and never heard complaints about anything being down.
I think that’s why I stick with Dreamhost right now, I manage about 20 websites (moving them over now) and to have everyone under one roof is so easy! None of my clients need more than a few dozen megs of space or transfer. It’s very simple..
That said, I will miss the one man hosting company I’ve been with for the past several years and his one-on-one support. And I will look at your host too.
Natalie ““ I haven’t posted here for a while, did you take away the URL field of the comments form or was it never here?
Hey, Philip. I’ve heard equally good things about DreamHost. I think their problem could be in having such high profile clients so that when one of those sites goes down, everyone knows about it and it IS a big pain. For the little guys like us, not so much.
And yes, I did get rid of the web input. Just like to see who’s here for real discussion and who just wants to see their link on my site. ;)
Hi, Natalie.(By the way, thanks again for the “brief lesson in shadows”.)
I have about ten clients’ sites (and three of my own) hosted with Dreamhost.
I’m happy with them, and always have been. For me, it’s the right combination of features, service and price. The unlimited databases, one-click installs, and the control panel in general are all big points for me, and the service has always been prompt and proficient.
As far as the “disaster,” it just wasn’t one, for me. Basically, I agree with Doug, Ron, Josh, Dan, and Mike .
As far as “overselling,” it’s a misnomer. Bits (and disk space) are essentially fungible, and every host offers a product having a set of features such that their supply will exceed aggregate demand.
An analogy is your bank: at any one time banks keep about 5% in cash on hand, available for withdrawals. The rest is invested, to make money and pay for things like salaries, and return things like interest. But no one calls banks dishonest for doing so””and the same should apply to web hosts.