In Case You Noticed Downtime Today

I finally had it with my previous host.

Now, before I start sounding like the typical disgruntled hosting customer who switches companies at the drop of a hat, I’d like to say I used the same dedicated server vendors for more than 7 years when I was running a hosting business.

I know what tends to go wrong and what needs to be done to resolve the issue. I know when tech support has a clue and when they’re just trying to shut me up.

I think my previous host’s technician didn’t have a clue. Now, I have to hand it to them that they were very nice and polite, even when I canceled. If I had not had any issues, then I would have been very happy with them.

However, we’ve had three separate problems with them.

1. AWstats didn’t work when I first moved my site over. Now, this is NOT a dealbreaker. Apparently, their server framework is setup differently than mine was and so they just needed to make some changes. Problem solved, no big deal.

2. But then I decided I wanted to add a second site to my hosting account. I logged into cPanel, setup an Addon Domain and then headed to Enom to change my nameservers to the hosting company’s. The next day, my domain name still wasn’t pointing to the server. I changed their sparse FAQ and found no resolution, so submitted a ticket. Come to find out, you have to request permission to use their nameservers for a domain name. And not only that, but if you want an Addon Domain, you have to pay $5 per month extra. And you can’t even add it yourself. You have to fill out a form on their support site and they’ll setup the domain for you.

Not happy with that, but I did it.

3. And finally, my email arrived inconsistently. My email is setup so that it flows through the server to my Gmail account. I had no issues with this while running my own hosting company. When I moved through, my domain-based email stopped arriving. This is not a deal breaker. What got me though is when the technician told me that I needed to have a POP email account setup with the email forwarder. I know from many years experience that this will cause some mail to forward and some to sit on the server. When I told the technician about this, he told me that he’d been told a POP account was needed for a forwarder and that he knew of several sites setup this way.

But, since I knew their server was setup differently, I thought perhaps this was true in their case. So I let the technician setup the POP account. Guess what? I checked the server a few days later and, sure enough, some of my email was sitting in the POP account. It had not been forwarded to my Gmail account.

So, being told to setup my email incorrectly, instead of having a technician fix the initial problem, and having to pay extra for an Addon Domain is what made me decide to move elsewhere.

Naturally, the move did not go 100 percent smoothly. LOL!

After I ordered the new hosting account, had tech move my site over and I changed the nameservers, I canceled the old hosting account. That’s when we discovered a problem with the routing of this domain name. I reported to my new hosting company, their datacenter technicians spent a better part of the day working on it and now my site is up and running properly. Woohoo!