Hmm..

[Phenom]

I havent read the story yet but I will after this post..

1and1 sent me a warning stating my website was using up way to much server resources and took my site down causing massive traffic loss for almost a week, I was pissed! shortly after this occurrence I noticed my site came to a screeching halt in load times...

I've cleared up my site's resource problem (turns out it was a mysql problem with the CMS I was using) but 1and1 is left a bad taste in my mouth ever since they told me my website was using up way to many resources especially when all my data quotas were BELOW 1/10th what they offered

I added you to my msn list btw

[Canadian*Sniper]

@Rampage's link to the rant: That's one of the main reasons I dislike having another company hosting servers. You have very limited control over your box. For all you know it could be in a kid's basement.

[Solecord]

Solecord, that was kind of weird.. and sad..

Umm, what?

If you compare the price/benefits.. The BEST plan available on ixwebhosting is Unlimited Pro for 12.95 a month, and that has 16 domains, 4,000 GB Data Transfer, and whats this? UNLIMITED SPACE.. not 300 gb of web space for 19 dollars..
and thats ONLy the 12.95 deal..
if you look at the 3.95 Expert Plan it offers 2 domains, 300 GB web space, 3000 GB data transfer. 24/7 customer support thats STILL better than what you have now

There's no such thing as "UNLIMITED SPACE" - when you can show me an "UNLIMITED" sized hard drive then I'll believe you.

I know you said you've been "in the business" since February; I've been dealing with the business for over 12 years. The truth about hosts such as IXWebhosting is that they OVERSELL. Oversell basically means they have a dedicated server sitting whereever they have all their servers and they stick as many customers as they can on the server. So if the server has a 500 GB harddrive (theorhetical) and their hosting plan offers 1 GB of space per plan, they'll stick 1000 accounts on the server. That's overselling. IXWebhosting has a history of overselling, offering shitty support, and poor customer service.

If you are seriously looking for a web host, don't buy into these "UNLIMITED" deals, especially if you're going to start running a professional site. If you just have some hobby site that no one goes to, whatever. If you're running a business or an important site that will receive any decent amount of traffic, these cheap, "UNLIMITED" hosts are not for you. The overselling of servers leads to crowding on a server, which in turn leads to server resources being drained. Lots of times you'll have thousands of sites using up server resources which can lead to your website running super slow.

The best resource for looking at web hosting companies I have found is www.webhostingtalk.com - it's a FREE message board without spam referral links with people inside the industry and just plain consumers giving reviews and help to those with questions.

BTW Rampage, if you do a search for ixwebhosting on webhostingtalk.com you'll see a ton of reviews with people having nothing good to say about that company. Most of the complaints are poor customer service and overselling/overcrowded servers.

[Baker]

Solecord has a great deal of experience running web servers professionally. I listen to everything he says.

My thoughts on 1and1.com:

1and1.com does offer inexpensive hosting and it is fairly high quality for what you receive, but for $3.99 it is not going to be top notch service.

A truly high quality hosting account will cost $30/mo. at a small company or $100+/mo. with a large company. A company is not going to bend over backwards for $3.99 a month, you have to expect going in that a $3.99 account is going to be self-help with limited support.

[Rampage]

Solecord has a great deal of experience running web servers professionally. I listen to everything he says.

My thoughts on 1and1.com:

1and1.com does offer inexpensive hosting and it is fairly high quality for what you receive, but for $3.99 it is not going to be top notch service.

A truly high quality hosting account will cost $30/mo. at a small company or $100+/mo. with a large company. A company is not going to bend over backwards for $3.99 a month, you have to expect going in that a $3.99 account is going to be self-help with limited support.

That's completely untrue.

How are you to know this? have you been signed up with web hosting company we just discussed?

You're telling him he is receiving fairly high quality but clearly he just stated he is having problems with them. You said they are weak on service, in fact he is having quality problems, not with their service. His site is having terrible upload time, between 12-15 seconds.

You are incorrect about "high quality hosting accounts costing 30/mo". That's a sham, the industry can't have a shakeout because companies are always able to offer lower prices and still maintain high quality servers thats why online businesses are completely different.

Around here, people pay 29.99$/month, the company my dad works for paid 120/month and he had A LOT less benefits, his ticket time took hours, and their support was horrible this company was called Luke Hosting.


You're assuming that a company will give you better quality and better service based on their price range but that is illegitimate when it comes to web hosting companies. A company that has a good track record, is clearly offering a lot more services and benefits, and is able to produce a lower price can be plausible and authentic.

And Solecord, I dont care if you've been in the "in the industry for 12 years", all the evidence you've shown me is by word of mouth. You can find these complaints with almost any company. If you learned anything about the internet it's that people will never be happy. In fact many people's interest plays a role in how they downplay other companies to make people look for other web hosting companies. I dont buy into customer complaints until I see them for myself, and so far I know about 10 people who are signed up with ixwebhosting hosting professional business sites with massive traffic and are quite satisified. My website is one of them.
Show me some evidence as far as this "overselling" and how they've always been known for "overselling" and sticking everyone on one dedicated server and I'll believe you.

But for as many benefits as I'm getting at 3.95, and for a long time now no problems, I have zero complaints.

[Rampage]

and also next time don't say "The truth about hosts such as IXWebhosting is that they OVERSELL."

That's an Appeal to Authority, and is a major fallacy.
You've shown me nothing but your own word of mouth.

[Baker]

That's completely untrue.

How are you to know this? have you been signed up with web hosting company we just discussed?

I have an account at 1on1.com. I've had accounts with many different web hosts over the years.

You said they are weak on service, in fact he is having quality problems, not with their service. His site is having terrible upload time, between 12-15 seconds.

"I've cleared up my site's resource problem (turns out it was a mysql problem with the CMS I was using)"

I have 3 1and1.com accounts and have had them for 4 years. So has Bam. So has Gohan. So has Phenom.

In fact, most of the downloads on this site are hosted at 1and1.com.

[spooker]

Rampage you've also not offered any "evidence" except your own word of mouth. You're so clearly a salesman with a financial interest that any "advice" from you is completely worthless. Sole clearly knows how to run a good web site (since he runs this one), and because of that fact alone, if the 2 of you say contrasting things about the business, I will always believe him over you. I've worked in sales before and I've had smooth talking bosses who would say absolutely anything to screw people out of a couple dollars, and I'm not impressed. Customer complaints are valid evidence of poor service, and you've supposedly been in this business for 8 months--that is really no time at all.

[Phenom]

"I've cleared up my site's resource problem (turns out it was a mysql problem with the CMS I was using)"
I

I still have completly unsatisfactory page load times, I asked tech support if upgrading my package would help the problem, they said "No but we will elevate your issues to our admins" which they have told me almost every single time. I asked to communicate with the admin to discuss my problem, that wasn't going to happen.

I've been stuck with a hellish slow website, half-assed English tech support and the fear that my site might be turned off any second because my access logs are getting to big for their server.

My mysql database was at 64MB, the limit was 100MB, they gave me a warning by turning off my website(s) and sending me a message saying I have 5 days to correct this issue and all they said the problem was is a "rampid script is using up to many system resources" unfortunately I run Drupal CMS which is basically a bunch of scripts that controls all my content.

My website isn't one of those "Hey look at my personal website" that gets no hits. It gets on average 1,000 hits per day prior to the shutdown which really hurt and now is finally back up to 1,000 hits a day on average. It has a Google Page Rank of 4 which is 1 step above Quakeone.com in importance to Google, on average it received 35,000 page views per month. so its not just a site nobody visits.

1and1.com was awesome, quick to load pages, never had an issue except for the rare moments when my website(s) would just go offline for no reason heh, until one thing went wrong on my side then they acted almost in a hostile fashion towards me as if I was personally attacking them.

So they took my websites down with a readonly .htaccess redirecting to a black void, told me the problem is with a specific website of mine and thats it. It was up to me to backup, remove all my data and piece it back together one module at a time and when I think I finally figured out the issue I was having with them and I get my sites turned back on, it felt like they stuck me on the slowest possible server for angering them. My sites went from 5 second tops 2-3 on average page load times to 15 seconds! On top of that my mysql regularly times out on me and my website had suffered seriously from this.

1and1. com is crap in my eyes and I'm looking to get as far away as I can.

I have tried canceling some domains I don't use anymore and 1and1 made it so fucking hard and complicated to delete domains that I actually said "FUCK IT I'LL KEEP'EM!" because I canceled the domains, they said they would email me and I needed to put in a AUTH code which they provided when I pressed the cancel button, but no email.... the ONLY way to cancel a domain is by their online cancel.1and1.com website which is completely Bullshit. I get "Cannot connect to mysql database"/"mysql timed out" errors for every 10-15 pages I view on my site. This isn't how web hosting is supposed to work.

I've almost went to the lengths of turning my work PC on a 300KBs DSL modem into a apache web host so I could host my site from there because its faster then 1and1.com's severs!]

So in a nutshell. 1and1 is fine if you get lucky and they stick you on a decent server, just don't ever piss them off or complain or they will essentially rape your account/service and leave it for dead. I fixed the problem and they fucked me over for it!

[Baker]

I still have completly unsatisfactory page load times, I asked tech support if upgrading my package would help the problem, they said "No but we will elevate your issues to our admins" which they have told me almost every single time.

I'm not defending 1and1.com, I don't have any interest in them and I think their service sucks if you have a request. I only view them as inexpensive storage and bandwidth.

That being said, consider the following:

1. A lot of CMS systems are written like sh*t and can't handle many concurrent users because they are written very inefficiently.

It took a full-year to get QuakeOne.com because some of the different CMS systems would die if 8 or 9 users were on at the same time.

Have you considered the possibility that the CMS you are using is not well written?

A webhost can't help with that if this does happen to be the issue.

I asked to communicate with the admin to discuss my problem, that wasn't going to happen.

Their service sucks, but it is inexpensive. They are the largest web host provider by number of customers; the service is going to suck.

If you want personal service, the following company rocks:

http://www.korksoft.com/

They respond to inquiries very quickly, they are rather inexpensive and you can talk to real people. When you need to talk to someone, it is a server admin within 24 hours.

But remember, if it is your CMS that is a p.o.s., no server admin is going to be able to help you. Making sure your CMS can handle high volume and works efficiently is a different issue. There are a number of CMS systems that look nice but with glaring weaknesses they will not advertise.

Add: You can find out the answer for $10-$15; just sign up with another host that does month to month service and setup your CMS on it; either it works fine and it's 1and1.com's fault or it doesn't work and the CMS (and/or the settings you are using) is to blame.

[Rampage]

Rampage you've also not offered any "evidence" except your own word of mouth. You're so clearly a salesman with a financial interest that any "advice" from you is completely worthless. Sole clearly knows how to run a good web site (since he runs this one), and because of that fact alone, if the 2 of you say contrasting things about the business, I will always believe him over you. I've worked in sales before and I've had smooth talking bosses who would say absolutely anything to screw people out of a couple dollars, and I'm not impressed. Customer complaints are valid evidence of poor service, and you've supposedly been in this business for 8 months--that is really no time at all.

Offered evidence?
Are you reading properly?

I wasn't offering evidence, I was comparing packages for him.

Don't get involved in something that doesn't concern you. Customer complaints? he sent me to a hosting review website to see what people write.
How am I to know whether its a customer, or another web hosting affiliate trying to promote his own web hosting to a person who is having trouble finding good hosting?

"supposedly been in the business", why would I lie? and he is "supposedly" in the business for 12 years.
Give me a break.

Again
Learn to read all the details before you jump into conclusions as to what people are offering as evidence. I offered no such premise as to WHAT is the truth in web hosting, I did not act as an authority on a subject, I compared packages for him.

[Solecord]

and also next time don't say "The truth about hosts such as IXWebhosting is that they OVERSELL."

That's an Appeal to Authority, and is a major fallacy.
You've shown me nothing but your own word of mouth.

As spooker said, you've shown noting but your own word of mouth, and seeing as you're a reseller of their accounts it would be obvious you'd say they are a good host. You're trying to sell an account and make some money. I have no vested interest in IXwebhosting and I've posted a link to tons of customers who have had nothing but bad things to say about them. I completely agree that there's always people who complain about a service, especially online. However when there's a substantial amount of complaints with people who were customers of the company it's highly unlikely all the people are lying and making stuff up.

As for the overselling remark, if you are steadfast on believing they are not overselling their services then you obviously have just proven you have no knowledge of the hosting industry.

IXwebhosting sells their basic account at $3.95/mo. which comes with 300 Gigs of webspace and 3,000 GB of data transfer. How many sites do you think a high end server could handle pulling such traffic? It's obvious they oversell. If they only sold the exact number of accounts that could fit on a server with the specified package details they would be losing money based on the cost of the server itself and the bandwidth supplied to the server. Of course they oversell. It's these types of hosts that overcrowd a server which in turn lowers the amount of resources your web hosting account can use.

And again if my word of mouth opinion doesn't work for you, how about a hundred or so opinions?

http://www.webhostingjury.com/reviews/IXWebHosting

http://www.ixwebhostingreviews.com/

Every company will have good and bad reviews.. but when there's a majority of bad reviews out there usually that means something...

[Rampage]

Again, Word of mouth? Evidence?

I'm not TELLING him what to buy, I'm telling him what packages to look at in comparison to his own web hosting service.


Read what I just said to Spooker, the same applies to you.

It has nothing to do with your interest, you shouldn't act as an authority on a subject which you have no authority over but your own distinct opinion.
You tried to apply VALID facts to a web hosting service which YOU yourself have never been affiliated with.

[Solecord]

I offered no such premise as to WHAT is the truth in web hosting, I did not act as an authority on a subject, I compared packages for him.

Actually what you did was compare what he currently has with plans that you're reselling...

[Rampage]

You're going to tell me I have no knowledge of the industry when you APPLIED the word overselling without showing me any evidence.

I asked you to show me evidence, and all you've done is rebuttal by telling me "I am ignorant".

That is not sufficient.