Website Hosting Provider

[Xue Sheng99]

Who are the good ones?

Any recommendations?

I am big on and need security of site and little or no downtime and e-mail.

I am rather unhappy with my current providers tech support and if they do not fix things soon I will be changing

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Do you like the reliability and stability of MartialTalk?

I've got 2 options for you.

Kentropolis
Ken's the guy who took over my hosting business. I still maintain the servers for him, and they are secure and kept upto date.

Liquidweb
These are the guys we get our servers from. Support and reliability has been the best I've encountered in 10 years of hosting.

Either one will do you good IMO.

 

[clfsean]

I've used http://www.ipowerweb.com in the past before with no issues.

 

[dancingalone]

If you are OK with Linux servers, I suggest http://www.dathorn.com from personal experience.

The owner is fantastic. I've hosted with him for almost 5 years (a very long time in Internet time) and things have been uneventful which is exactly what you want in web hosting. He's had multiple opportunities to sell to a large company but he's turned down the offer each time.

I've been migrated twice to newer servers during this time and if I hadn't received notification about it, I'd never have known myself. I haven't had to update my name servers or anything else. My site although a small one uses MySQL and some PHP and Python, so there are multiple security concerns, and they are always patched in a timely fashion and done in a completely transparent fashion with little to no downtime.

The owner also offers a custom coded backup optional service which actually works unlike many hosts who are just talking about a generic feature offered in a hosting control panel like Cpanel. I generally test the backup once a year and I've successfully restored each time. This is fantastic and is well worth the small amount I pay for it.

 

[crushing]

I've heard good things about Squarespace from guests on Leo LaPorte's TWiT, plus they have a discount if you go to http://www.squarespace.com/twit. Using the codeword TWIT will get you 10% off the life of the account.

I was thinking about moving to Squarespace from Yahoo Hosting, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I'll have to look into the other suggestions in this thread.

 

[mmartist]

http://godaddy.com/ - great quality, low prices.

 

[Xue Sheng99]

Thanks everybody, I got one.... and thanks Bob, so far it is great...

Compared to who I had before a guy with a picture holding up a flashlight behind it would be better So what I now have is Awsome, faster and you know the page actually comes up whenever I want it to

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I just switched to ipage from bluehost. I think it should be OK, it's definitely cheapest I could find. I don't host much, so it's not like I am presenting a heavy load to the server. Depends on your needs, I guess.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

It's not so much what you do, as what everyone one else does. I can't recommend Godaddy as a host because they overload their servers with thousands of sites. (That plus they cost me a big ticket client a few years back due to mis-configuring their server). Alot of these cheap hosts do what's called 'overselling'. It's where you buy a 1,000 sqr foot building and lease space in 100 sqr ft blocks to 1,000 people hoping that most of them only use a tiny bit so no one notices. I always went with guaranteed space, which because you are actually blocking off space is more expensive. A 500 GB drive only has room on it for 500 1GB users. Not 'unlimited space'. The TOS usually addresses that idea in the fine print though.

 

[Steve]

I've been with hostmonster for years. They are very reliable, and you can talk to/chat with live people whenever you have an issue. The customer service has been terrific. I had a problem where I hosed up a database one time and the guys were awesome.

 

[Dansolo]

AVOID GODADDY. They supported SOPA! Also, I find their ads kind of trashy. They're the MySQL of registrars. They suck, but they're somehow popular.

www.hostgator.com and www.dreamhost.com for hosting
www.gkg.net for domains (been using them since 2001 myself)
On a related note, I use www.zoneedit.com for a free DNS service, though you don't have to use a third party for that if you don't want to (it provides more flexibility than the registrars themselves do).

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I use Godaddy for domain reg. Too much of a hassle to move, and never had a problem with their support.

I do have to plug Kentropolis again though, they're a sponsor.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I've been with hostmonster for years. They are very reliable, and you can talk to/chat with live people whenever you have an issue. The customer service has been terrific. I had a problem where I hosed up a database one time and the guys were awesome.

Just FYI, Hostmonster and Bluehost are the same company. I had a hosting account with both of them at the same time without knowing they were one and the same, and it led to certain problems; cpanel from one thought it was cpanel for another, and etc. And they were fine with support, except at one point one of my dormant websites got hacked (.htaccess overwritten) and I didn't know about that particular trick. Opened a ticket with Hostmonster/Bluehost and they told me there was nothing wrong, they could see no problems. I had to figure it out on my own. Removed the .htaccess file, left the directory empty; then it happened again a few days later. That's when I decided to just let my contract(s) lapse and moved to (cheaper) iPage. We'll see how that goes. Seriously, they could not figure out my .htaccess file had been hacked and was redirecting all incoming requests to foreign servers? I could tell that, I just didn't know why (at first). I am not supposed to be smarter than them about their own servers.

 

[Steve]

Just FYI, Hostmonster and Bluehost are the same company. I had a hosting account with both of them at the same time without knowing they were one and the same, and it led to certain problems; cpanel from one thought it was cpanel for another, and etc. And they were fine with support, except at one point one of my dormant websites got hacked (.htaccess overwritten) and I didn't know about that particular trick. Opened a ticket with Hostmonster/Bluehost and they told me there was nothing wrong, they could see no problems. I had to figure it out on my own. Removed the .htaccess file, left the directory empty; then it happened again a few days later. That's when I decided to just let my contract(s) lapse and moved to (cheaper) iPage. We'll see how that goes. Seriously, they could not figure out my .htaccess file had been hacked and was redirecting all incoming requests to foreign servers? I could tell that, I just didn't know why (at first). I am not supposed to be smarter than them about their own servers.

Hmm... that's odd, bill. The issues they helped me fix were .htaccess issues with my wordpress blog. They were great. Maybe you got the second string. The issue was fixed within a few minutes while chatting live with a server monkey.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I'm anal about server security. Too many hostiles out there just looking for a spot to use for spamming.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Hmm... that's odd, bill. The issues they helped me fix were .htaccess issues with my wordpress blog. They were great. Maybe you got the second string. The issue was fixed within a few minutes while chatting live with a server monkey.

Yeah, might have been:

This is an auto-generated copy of support request EAO-12239-804 that has been opened at BlueHost.com.
Please allow a minimum of 24 hours for a reply. Below is the contents of your support request:

IP: XXX

Hello,

I own the domain X which is hosted on Bluehost.  One of my subdomains is Y and it should be active, but it appears that it is being hijacked somehow.  When I got to X/Y, I get to my website.  But when I got to Y, I get redirected to a website in Russia:

*********************
Reported Attack Page!

This web page at network-teaser.ru has been reported as an attack page and has been blocked based on your security preferences.
Attack pages try to install programs that steal private information, use your computer to attack others, or damage your system.Some attack pages intentionally distribute harmful software, but many are compromised without the knowledge or permission of their owners.
*********************

I am then redirected to http://network-teaser.ru/getup/index.php

Can you give me any idea of what is happening?  Thanks!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Their reply:

Thank you for contacting support,

I am unable to duplicate your issue.

When I go to your site i get a page that says "I moved to a new place.
Your browser should automatically take you there in 10 seconds. If it doesn't please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/sets/"

There is no redirect on your index.php file. If your site has been hacked it must be at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/sets/

Thank you,
XXXNAMEXXX

BlueHost.com
888.401.4678 

Most questions can be answered by articles in our forum, knowledgebase, and video tutorials: 

Forum:               http://www.bluehostforum.com
Knowledgebase:       https://www.bluehost.com/cgi/help
Tutorials:           http://www.bluehost.com/tutorials/
Server Status:       http://serverstatus.bluehost.com/

When you have a new question or issue, please open a new support ticket.

When I received the reply, I was still having the issue. I researched the issue online, did some more investigation, and then discovered my .htaccess file upstream was riddled with redirects that I didn't put there. I deleted the file entirely; it was back again the next day. That's kind of a problem for me, so when renewal came up on both hosts (Bluehost and Hostmonster), I tossed them overboard.

Oh, and FYI, I got an invoice from them yesterday, informing me that my 'renewal' had been processed in the amount of $0.00, my credit card had been charged, and thanking me for my continued patronage.