Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
I cannot find any reviews or comments about webdomains4u. If you have any experience with them or with another host offering services like Cedant used to offer - i.e. the same control panel content -, please share it. Thank you.
As to webdomains4u, I sent an e-mail to their sales address. But after more than 36 hours, I have received no reply; the same is the case with dataneuron.com - no reply. So, although they have plans that I like, I can't very well add them to my possible hosts list.
check out the thread list to this forum, or do a site search for "hosting"
There are quite a few threads dealing with hosting experiences. Great info if you dig just a little bit.
And I got a reply from webdomains4u, but it did not answer my original question to them. I will check this host again in a few months.
Tracking down a good host is difficult, but from what I have seen, you can't trust anything in email, forums, or newsletters about webhosts. Next to viagra, it's the "spammiest" business there is. I'd have to know someone for quite awhile before I'd trust hosting recommendations. That's why we stay away from them here.
If 90% of the users of these forums are Web professionals, 10% of us are not. We did not create Web sites with the intention of becoming Webmasters. My site was on the Internet for years before bad-intentioned robots forced me to learn about .htaccess files ....
And my site was hosted for years without my having to learn about resellers and the rest of the hosting and domain name registration "business" of the Internet. But now I have to learn it. And if the members of these forums don't know the answers, then who on earth does! I have learned a tremendous lot in these forums already.
But, accepted, I won't ask for any more hosting recommendations.
By the way, however, while I like the services and support offered by WestHost, no one nowadays pays $49/2yr to have their domain name registered except through ignorance. And in my lists, that this host makes that offer puts a black mark beside its name. That's something objective.
In my day job, we've moved our major site a couple of times, and we finally found a good dedicated host. It's over $3,000 a month, though! But the site is rock solid, backed up and has disaster recovery.
Richard Lowe
I think we should end this. As our host said, no one here is going to give me a list of Alabanza resellers because it might mean directing me to their competitors.
And if you think I, whose hair is gray, should have known that, remember that there is an Internet that has nothing to do with profit -- and it's what naive people like me and my site belong to. And why ...
$3,000/month! Servers live better than I do. :-)
Another good reason to stay away from hosting is because things can change over time.
I was originally with a company using Alabanza leased boxes and switched to another because of the reseller option they had, since I handle hosting for some people as part of a monthly maintenance package. I was very satisfied with that host for a while and said so in a post, which was confirmed by another person in that same thread. At this point in time that is, however, misleading. Things changed.
In spite of still having some good features, there started to be far too much down time, it ended up with too many sites packed onto servers and there started to be very slow response times. One site was out of Google for an entire month because of it.
In addition, not only did response to tech support become seriously slow or non-existent, almost causing me to leave for that reason, there also started to come a steady flow of price increases with little notice, to where I was barely breaking even, even losing money by reselling. With one I was hosting for, I ended up paying $1 a month less than what I was charging the lady - minus PayPal charge. That didn't cover the time to send the bill out.
I moved sites away months ago, but anyone reading the old post will be reading something that is now inaccurate from my personal point of view for my needs, though there are no doubt others still satisfied with them.
Personally, I love Alabanza hosting, it's very full-featured, though I've been told it doesn't support mod_rewrite, which is unverified. I'm actually looking around for another one now.
I also just happen to be using dataneuron for some hosting at the moment, which could change. It all depends on what the individual's needs are and who the provider is, and what a given site needs - which can all change over time. And people's experience can vary too, no matter who it is.
So it's hard or impossible to make a long term statement about any hosting service, because you can't predict where the service is going to go. Two months, it seems, is "long term" where hosting services are concerned.
Maybe the only thing I really like about Alabanza is that its Control Panel offers the WebGlimpse site search engine. I can't imagine a better search engine than WebGlimpse.
And yes, about 1/5 of my visitors actually uses the search engine. But since my present host moved away from Alabanza (and no longer offers any site search engine), I am referring visitors to a Google search-my-site page, which probably only angers my visitors, because most of them found my site by searching Google.
What I don't like about Alabanza is Bulkregister.com (which is owned by Alabanza). BulkRegister looks great ... if you are a member ($79). But if your domain name is registered for you by your hosting service (which is of course a member), then -- even though you are listed as your domain name's administrator -- you must still go though your hosting service if you want to change any information on your record (e.g. your e-mail contact address).
I sent a pre-sales e-mail to one Alabanza reseller, and this is the reply I received:
"You will have to request SSH access to the server. This is just a matter of faxing a copy of your drivers license and the authorization for it."
So, I think that maybe whether or not mod_rewrite is supported may depend on which Alabanza reseller you ask.
I have not found very many Alabanza resellers, but I have found that the exact services each reseller offers vary. I imagine that it is this "value added" (and in some cases "value reduced" -- Alabanza wholesale sometimes offers services that an Alabanza reseller chooses not to offer its clients) factor that lets resellers distinguish themselves from each other.
<added>BTW, Alabanza has an example of its wholesale Control Panel on its homepage. So that you can check whether the reseller you are considering is offering you "value reduced".</added>
I found the following at www.hostopia.com/what.phtml
<quote> ...we are transparent to the end customer. To our Hostopian partners' customers, we do not exist. The hosting solution has our Hostopian partners' look, feel, colors and logo including the IP address that points to the Hostopian partner's website. This is a key advantage, helping our Hostopian partners to further anchor their customers to them and reduce their customer churn. </quote>
I read this to say: do you want to deceive your customers? Well, we can help you do that!
So, beware. Tomorrow I, who know nothing about business and as good as nothing about computer software and hardware, may be offering to host your site. Wholesalers and reselling-resellers are inviting me to do this every day.
"Experienced, expert hosting by Misosoph." What do you think? Will it fly?
What site are you running? Amazon.com?
