I run my website with Hostgator for many a year until about 6 months ago when i started to notice more and more downtime.
They suggested to me it was short term while they made server changes but things seemed to get worse and not better. I did some research and spoke to many different hosting companies and in the end decided to go with a UK company - eUKhost.
They are awful! Everytime i speak to them they seem clueless - I have had issues on a weekly basis with them.
Its getting to the stage where i am losing all hope with web host companies. Can anyone recommend any decent priced reliable companies?
Yes, it was awful. It was okay at first but got worse over time as more accounts were stuffed onto the server. Search for “godaddy slow” using your favorite search engine and see how many people complain about slow loading websites. The reason? Massive server overloading. Sell hosting cheap and cram 2,000 customers on a server and see what happens. You get what you pay for. You pay for crap, chances are that is what you will get.
Godaddy - Unbearably Slow Hosting
Guys I am pulling my hair out with Godaddy, I have a few websites hosted with them and over the last two weeks their shared hosting is grinding to a halt!
I have raised a number of tickets and followed their advice about disabling plugins and installing W3 Total Cache all to no avail.
The last email admitted they had speed issues and thanked me for my patience but their hosting is still chronic!
GoDaddy Hosting super slow - Is it me or them?
I have four WordPress sites on a GoDaddy grid hosting plan. I had slow/performance issues from day one so they switched me to the grid hosting plan. It worked well for a few months… Now, my sites intermittently do not load or take minutes to load. Sometimes they pop right up. Sometimes it times out and I get an Apache Port 80 error. I’ve spent hours on the phone with GoDaddy but they tell me it’s a WordPress issue (shocker). I find that hard to believe since another one of my sites with them–a simplistic CSS site–would also not load several times this week. They say it is a “scripting issue” that I will have no matter where I move my site. Error logs say that the scripts are timing out.
I’ve got all the performance plugins installed on all 4 sites (super-cache, offload) and even disabled all my plugins to no avail.
You can find thousands of complaints like that about GD.
There is no such thing as unlimited web hosting. Problem is that some customers do not realize that and try to use the server for all it is worth. And if the host does not quickly suspend the abusive accounts, the result is poor server performance. I have seen it time and time again. I have never had that problem at my host.
For several years, I’ve been hosting with WebHostingBuzz on their US servers. Their service and support have been exemplary as is their hardware and software (worth every penny and a good deal more). Because they also have a server data center in the UK, I’d recommend that you give them a good look-see at http://webhostingbuzz.co.uk.
Aside from that, I’d recommend that you establish a search method for a new host like (from an earlier post):
Establish your requirements, i.e., Linux, Apache 2.4+, PHP 5.2+, MySQL 5+, the preferred control panel (e.g., cPanel) and storage and bandwidth requirements. Remember to allocate for log files, databases, e-mail (attachments) and growth.
If you’re looking for a VPS or dedicated server, remember to ask what the host’s managed services provide. Remember, a non-managed host must be monitored by you 24/7/365!
Know what control panels you are willing to use, i.e., WHM/cPanel. cPanel is the standard bearer for Linux systems and Plesk for Windows systems.
Know how much CPU time/RAM you need. If you need a lot of processing power (like Zoomla and other CMS’s), this will be a major factor. These, however, are usually specified only for VPS/dedicated accounts and automatically throttled for shared/reseller accounts.
Know your target (the Internet is fast but some latency could hurt so the closer your server to your target audience the better) location and try to host as close to your target as possible.
SEARCH (using the above parameters) recording each feasible host as well how well it satisfies your requirements and budget. Spreadsheets are good for this as you can assign weighting to the different requirements and how well they were met to generate numerical scores.
Create a shortlist based on the database you’ve created in step 5 then SEARCH for comments about the host (avoiding obvious shills and websites which advertise for that host).
(from EastCoast) “Eliminate anonymous companies - if a hosting company doesn’t have a full office address and company registration details visible on their site, it’s often down to the amateur status of the operator, which is unlikely to be consistent with longevity and reliability.”
(from EastCoast) “Eliminate new companies - hosting has a very high fail rate because of the low barriers to entry. If a company makes it through it’s first 5 years then it’s likely it’s jumped a few hurdles and knows what it’s doing sufficiently to have made a viable business. Not all new companies are cowboys, but the percentage is high enough that it’s not worth the risk of being the one to find out the hard way, when there are plenty other options.”
Eliminate companies which do not tell you exactly what you’re getting for your money, i.e., the Control Panel, the storage, the bandwidth (traffic), the versions of the main daemons (Apache, PHP and MySQL), the SSL and dedicated IP charges, etc. That’s where knowing your requirements comes in strongly!
The last step (other than selection) is to contact each shortlisted host with a question (I’ve used .htaccess and mod_rewrite availability, which services are managed by the host, the availability of IP addresses - you will require one for each SSL you use - or ask to test proprietary control panels - they may make life too difficult for you) and record the response time and your level of satisfaction with the response.
Finally, you’ll have enough information to make an intelligent selection: “Just Do It!”
Thanks for this! Will take your points on board. I spent hours last night going through various hosts.
The issue with me is my website is a hobby and not a business so I dont want to pay to much for hosting If i can help it. Problem is my website is around 20GB in size.
I’m glad that you’ve taken the time to contact the WHB staff as they are what really thrills me about them (even moreso than their hardware and software). They respond to tickets very quickly, are super efficient at correcting any problem (even of my creation) and are always exceptionally polite.
If you are as pleased as I have been, drop MDRussell (WHB’s CEO) a PM and let him know. He did frequent these boards in his “copious free time.”
Wow 20gb is a lot, unless you have a large amount of larger files of course! For that amount of storage it will be expensive so I’d suggest looking at the hosts that have been suggested and asking them to see if they can work out a deal for you. Another option would be to use a CDN/cloud storage to store the bulk of your data files, of course the CDN you’d still have to pay for but you could probably host the site itself on a pretty standard affordable hosting plan.
It appears that shared hosting is no longer an option - my site keeps coming up with resource limit issues which the host claim is down to the site using to much ram.
So i was told to go to racksrv.com and they quoted me £72 a month for the following:
Equal share of 4 Xeon CPUs
Guaranteed 2048MB DDR3 ECC RAM
50GB of fast RAID10 SAS Storage
2000GB transfer allowance /month
Inclusive of DirectAdmin / cPanel
Inclusive of server management
Inclusive of pro-active availability monitoring
Inclusive of inbound migration
And how much RAM are you using? You could stick PHP’s memory_get_peak_usage() function in your Wordpress them’s footer and get an idea.
So i was told to go to racksrv.com and they quoted me £72 a month for the following:
Equal share of 4 Xeon CPUs
Equal share of how many shares total?
How many page views are you getting per day? It sounds like that is much more than you need and more money than you need to spend. The amount of page views you are getting is important to know. For $30 a month you can get a 2 core VPS with 2 GB of RAM, 30 GB of disk space, fully manged with cPanel. Depending on the number of page views, you might be able to get by with a business class shared hosting. £72 (British Pounds) is $118 United States dollars. A $30 VPS is much cheaper and is managed and has cPanel.
HostPresto seems to be cheaper - but I’ve never used their VPS service. I’ve always found their customer support extremely helpful, so you might want to talk to them before making a decision.
Because I have changed host a few times recently I cant be exact on hits but i would say I average anything around 100k Uniques a month, and 800k-1M hits a month.
