WordPress › Support » Bluehost is RUDE! Please recommend other hosting.

adiant
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

@wmvyr - I would recommend http://www.hostingzoom.com/web/web-hosting.html for most people, at $8.95 a month pre-paid for a year for Failover Shared Hosting, to save $1 a month and avoid the Setup fee. Use their 30 day money-back guarantee to eliminate the fear of being locked in for a year.

They had Fantastico updated in less than a week (I only checked after a week and it was already there) for WordPress Version 2.7. And I have two production WordPress sites running for a client, and three other test WordPress sites there, too.
wmvyr
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

@whooami: Ah, I was asked where you work for so that maybe you could give me recommendations maybe about your host. Sorry, my bad. This should have been discrete. Disregard that question in this thread.

Resume thread:
So I've been searching and I'm really surprised at the recent increase in Bluehost complaints. Are the rankings about wordpress hosting here reliable?

Bluehost is my biggest waste of money and I sorely regret this.

I'm so scared to type even the word sh!t lest my site gets taken down by Bluehost without warning.
scormeny
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

No idea which hosts are great. I intensely dislike Dreamhost, having had almost universally bad support experiences with them and finding their company blog noxious.

I use site5.com for my clients, which has good pricing and which provides adequate though far from world-class tech support. They've just had a change of ownership, which I hope is a good sign that some of the timeout problems I've had over the past several months will soon be less frequent. Those problems were at the time written off by tech support as "the nature of shared hosting" and which I would call "the nature of overburdening your shared servers, and since you web hosts mint money you could try adding capacity!"

I think that in general, pair.com is a pretty good shared host and even has phone support (OMG!!!!), though it's more expensive than many others.

I'll tell you -- shared web hosting in general is a pretty low quality industry, particularly in the customer-support arena. But also, customers are unrealistic -- if your website is performing a crucial business function and you'd be lost if it were down for several days, why are you trusting it to someone who charges you well under $500 per year? These $4.95 per month services are fine for hobbyists but they're also going to be a pain in the behind for a real businessperson at one time or another.

My feeling is that shared hosting is inadequate for anybody who really needs their website to be up all the time; their support questions answered promptly, directly and accurately; and apparently according to this particular thread, anybody who cusses. A dedicated host and some part-time technical support are your better choice there -- although, if you can find that part-time technical support to help you troubleshoot any issues and ensure your host computer is up-to-date and properly secured, you're doing far better than I've managed to do in this industry. It's just a tough marketplace for the very small businessperson.

Best of luck!
Ipstenu
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

FWIW, I get 24/7 live phone support, questions answered promptly, directly and accurately, without cussing. My site has 24/7 uptime and has for 6 years. When there are unplanned outages, I'm contacted ASAP. When there are planned ones, they tell me a week+ in advance and remind me the day before. When my site was /.ed, they CALLED me to tell me I was being hammered and that was why, and stayed with me on the phone as we sorted out not killing the server.

And I'm on shared hosting.

So y'know, it can be found out there.

(I sent them a fruitbasket after the /.ing.)
scormeny
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

Lovely to hear, lpstenu, perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell us all who is providing that awesome shared hosting? I'm always looking to provide the best services to my clients!
Ipstenu
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

liquidweb.com
figaro
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

+1 for liquidweb.

I've had a dedicated with them for years. If you look at their shared hosting plans you will see they are a bit more expensive than others and don't offer things like "unlimited storage space and bandwidth"...what that tells you is that they are not overselling their servers like most shared host do.
wmvyr
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

Wow! Thank for the suggestion Ipstenu and for your experience feedback. I'll check it out.

Anyway, as for update, one of the worst things that I've read about Bluehost is when they will hold on to your domain name.

...as of this morning, it happened to me. They won't let go of my domain name that expired and I didn't pay for. I was planning on using GoDaddy to renew it.

When I talked to Bluehost customer support before, they said that they will hold the domain for around 60 or 90 days then after that they will let it go and it's up to someone on the web to snatch it up. I thought some reseller took it a while ago only to find out that Bluehost held on to my domain and it's client transfer prohibited.

This is the worst investment I've ever made in my life. I sorely regret not learning about these things in the past.
adiant
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

It's been a while since I looked seriously at this, but my recollection is that domain name registration slips out of the hands of the "retailer" as soon as your domain name expires. And goes back to TUCOWS or whoever the retailer actually registers it with. My understanding is that the retailer has to pay several hundred dollars to register an expired domain name during that 90 day transition period. After that, of course, it is a free for all. So, I'm not sure you can blame BlueHost for this situation, unless they misled you.

DreamHost (mentioned above) has me worried, too, as they recently offered unlimited resources (space, bandwidth, domain names) for life, if you signed up for 10 YEARS of service with them. That is an unsustainable business model, and I would steer clear of anyone who promises anything like that.

LiquidWeb looks interesting, but wouldn't work for me as they appear to offer only 2-3 domain names fully hosted. Not to mention the fact that I'd be paying about 3 times as much for just the amount of Web space and bandwidth that I am presently USING, let alone have included in my current account (that I share with a business partner, and his clients).
Ipstenu
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

I registered my domain separately from getting my webhost. Call me crazy, but I like a little separation between church and state ;)

And yeah, you pay more for LiquidWeb but frankly, you get exactly what you pay for. It sounds like you're (essentially) reselling server space, and if you're doing that, I would suggest a VPS. Yes, it's $60/month minimum at LiquidWeb. I know it's expensive. If you need that much bandwidth/cpu, then you really do need a bigger, better, more butch server.

Never economize on luxury or webservers, to quote my granny! ;)
figaro
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

I registered my domain separately from getting my webhost. Call me crazy...

As I'm sure you know, that is the smartest thing one can do. I would never let a host register my domain name for me...well, actually I did once years ago and that's when I learned my lesson the hard way ;-)

Godaddy gets a lot of bad reviews for it hosting service, but they are very good for domain name registration. I have no hosting with them, but I have all my domain names registered there.
scormeny
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

I agree with figaro and lpstenu. I keep my domain hosting for myself and my clients with godaddy, and then I have more flexibility when it comes to web hosting based on our needs. It seems so convenient when you get started, to keep hosting and domain registration together with one company, but it does usually bite you in the end.

I also recommend that anybody who buys a domain name, pay for registration for the next 8 years. At godaddy with a .com domain name, the cost is only about $70, and I think it saves the hassle of worrying about it annually. Worst-case scenario is that you stop using the domain name after a couple of years, and I just don't think it's a waste of money at those prices to have it registered long term.

Happy holidays!
adiant
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

My business partner and I have been buying web hosting and domain name registration services for over 10 years now, and have found that it does not have to be an issue having both with the same company. The problem is when both are tied together. For example, the web hosting account that comes with one free domain name registration. That kind of offer has Trouble written all over it.

We've been very successful having both hosting and registration with the Zoom companies mentioned above. And, until Service went down the toilet several years ago, with local Tera-Byte. It has been especially convenient with Zoom as they have a single billing system for both hosting and registration. They are currently working on Single-SignOn to overcome their multiple ID/password situation between their Registration, Billing, Help Ticket, Forum and other systems.
adiant
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

As for multi-year buys, in general, I disagree. Web Hosting is more likely to become unacceptable than Domain Name Registration, but I've seen both go bad. Right now, you've got the additional risk of bankruptcy, given the current woes in the Financial World.

Historically, Domain Name Registrations have gotten a lot cheaper, but that probably won't continue. But the multi-year discount reminds me of all the people who paid $35/year for 10 years back in the days when one year was $70! $10 is the norm these days for .com domains.

I would NEVER advise anyone to buy more than a year of web hosting, unless it was a huge savings. My partner and I have lost count of how many different web hosting companies we've been through in the last 10 years. At least a half dozen, I would guess. We are actually quite loyal to our vendors, but there have been bankruptcies, abrupt declines in service levels because of a Labour Shortage, and takeovers. But the most common problem has been Web Hosts that have not kept up with pricing in the marketplace. Ten years ago, my business partner was paying about $35 a month per Web site for very little web space and bandwidth. Today, we host 25 web sites for $8.95 per month, with more web space and bandwidth than we ever see ourselves using.

As for "Overselling" web hosting, there is nothing magical about it. Having been matching workload against computer hardware upgrades since 1974, it is easy to see the flaws in the arguments. Even if I can handle the sum total of all the monthly bandwidths I've sold to my customers, everything will grind to a halt if every customer used their full monthly bandwidth. Why? Because bandwidth usage is never evenly spread across every minute of the month. 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays are the typical peaks for business. Personal web site usage is more spread out, but still peaks. And the overnight period is pretty much of a lull.

Not overselling web space is just plain silly. If you've rapid access to more disk arrays, when you need them, and some space management software that keeps individual disk drives from getting full, there is nothing wrong with having only 25% more disk than your customers are actually using, as opposed to (summing up) their maximum allowed disk space. Even the 25% extra figure may be unnecessary, but is based on the maximum 80% usage per drive that cPanel alarms on. IBM mainframes have been running near 100% processor and hard drive usage for decades, with less frequently used files being pushed out to robotic tape libraries.

On the other hand, stay away from any web host that promises you unlimited web space, bandwidth or even web sites (domain names). Zoom got caught when they first started, with one customer on a $4.95 a month budget account, who had 2000 web sites running. He had offered free web hosting to "the world".

My point is that there is a happy medium between No Overselling and No Limits web hosting. You have to choose based on how tolerant you are of slowdowns (response time), how much money you can afford, and, most important, how well managed the web hosting company is regarding Server Performance. Better managed will always beat the guys with too much hardware and not enough brains.
Ipstenu
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

Not overselling web space is just plain silly.

That used to be what they said about overbooking airline flights. ;)

But honestly I see a difference between EDUCATED overselling and load balancing multiple accounts on multiple servers so that the users NEVER see a difference, and what some sites do, which is to jam them on all and never look back. So ... I agree with you there ;)

Better management is key to it all!
figaro
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

which is to jam them on all and never look back.

Or even worse, jam them all on with promises of unlimited space and bandwidth, then when you use a little too much of the server processing power because you actually use your site for something more than hosting a few static pages, you get booted.
dpaule
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

HostGator deserves mentioning. They have ALWAYS been great with support. I've had mediocre experience with Bluehost. Support has been rude several times with different folks.
jdkwebconsulting.com
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

I privately host only wordpress and wordpress mu sites. I custom fit packages to the users needs.

You can contact me through my website which is listed in my profile here.
whooami
Member
Posted 11 months ago #

I privately host only wordpress and wordpress mu sites. I custom fit packages to the users needs.

On a vps at liquidweb, for anyone that might wonder.
wmvyr
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

Guys, thank you very much for all your input and opinions.

To sum it up:

1. Register your domain name separately from your hosting, most recommendations, Godaddy. (I learned that after buying the Bluehost package. Damn. Thanks Bluehost for misleading me and making sure that I couldn't get one of my domains back from you. :)

2. I need a host that is wordpress friendly.

3. I need a host that wouldn't censor me or my commenters for cuss words like "shit, hell, what the f*ck, or "vulgar" words like sex(even if you are referring to gender, etc...) and wouldn't shut down the site without prior warning.

4. I need a host that wouldn't shut down the site without prior warning and doesn't spam your email.

5. I need a host that wouldn't shut down your site or block it if they decide that some words go against "their morals". Such as suddenly deciding that "poker" is a banned word even if when you signed up, it wasn't in the TOS yet.

6. I need a host that doesn't promise so much features only to find out that when you really use these features they will shut down your account without warning...such as using up the XXXX GB of space or bandwidth promised to you. (As for space, Bluehost said they will only give me the current offered space only when I use up the previous space alloted to me when I signed up for the account. I'm afraid of what would happen when I finally ask for that "automatic upgrade" from what people have been saying in their experiences.)

7. I need a host that has good customer service support only at the beginning of your subscription to them. In other words, a host that doesn't have declining customer "service".

8. I need a host that doesn't have too many downtime.

I've read all the suggestions but it would help to have a summary or a list now.

Please suggest shared hosting and/or dedicated servers. For beginners and for future expansion of wordpress blog/s. It would be great if you share your experiences.

Thank you!
crazypenguin
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

Bluehost is one of the worst companies I have used for web hosting. You can read about the quality of service they provided me here.

I have Wordpress blogs hosted on both Downtownhost and A2Hosting. And both of these companies offer excellent service and support.
StrangeAttractor
Member
Posted 10 months ago #

I stand by my recommendation of Hostgator. Great customer service, cheap, and as far as I know, they do not censor your website for any of the kind of things you are talking about (I *believe* -- not sure -- they even allow pr0n websites, within certain guidelines). They have cPanel and Fantastico, both of which make it easy to install WP.

Not saying that HG is better or worse than any other recommendations here. But my personal experience with them has been very good. It continues to surprise me, since they are quite cheap and hugely popular, and that would normally lead me to expect poor service, but in fact they've been great in my experience.

EDIT: PS Just read through Bluehost's ToS... pretty crappy, if you ask me. I would guess that there are a LOT of hosting services you can go to with much better ToS. Looking around, I see there are a lot of complaints about this hosting service, and kind of wonder why they are recommended at all...
samboll
moderator
Posted 10 months ago #

hasn't this progressed to the end?