I’m still considering running a monthly challenge giving away a year of web hosting. I want to try different ways to run contests and plus reward my daily readers with something to help kick start them into this business…or relieve some costs associated with running this business.
The only requirement ever will be to be subscribed to get updates by email (through the Aweber system, not FeedBurner) and to comment at least once throughout the month (subject to change). So if you are on the list, you won’t have to do anything, but comment once each month to be eligible. I’m going to try to make it pretty fun to participate with some cool challenges though to try and encourage participation.
I’m not 100% sure of the details yet, or if it’s even worth doing but I’d like some feedback from you so I can make a decision on what hosting provider to go with. I obviously haven’t tried every hosting provider out there, although I’ve been with quite a few. Comparing hosting packages side by side and their prices isn’t always the best way in my opinion because you aren’t really comparing apples to apples. The best comparison is someone’s experience with it, and what it is they are doing with it.
I’m currently with GoDaddy for hosting. I like the package that they offer where you are able to host multiple web sites with 1 low priced account. It’s dirt cheap…less than $80 USD for 1 year. I haven’t really had any problems with them to speak of. My biggest motivator to sign up was the price and because of the fact that I can test and run new web sites without having to buy a separate hosting package.
The shared hosting account from GoDaddy has survived the “Digg Effect” and the “John Chow Effect”. It’s been pretty solid for me. Granted, the tech support staff aren’t always the swiftest and lately they are quite pushy with sales but only after that have thoroughly solved your problem and they know you are happy. The affiliate staff, from my experience, aren’t the nicest to deal with. For the most part though, I’m happy as a customer and an affiliate.
I use my hosting account for a variety of sites. I run mostly, probably 95% WordPress Blog hybrids. I send a lot of traffic through PPC to my sites. I’m starting to get away from using the email server and getting more into Gmail. Web based email obviously has a convenience factor to it plus there are way less restrictions. GoDaddy has pretty tight reigns on spam, so much so that they have blocked valid emails before even getting to me….who knows how many.
Well…there you have it. My hosting story. I’d like to hear yours.
Make Money From This Post
I want to learn more about the options out there for hosting. Leave a comment on this post telling me about the hosting company that you are with. Use your affiliate link in the comment if you like.
Here’s what I’d like to know: (please)
- What you like AND dislike about the host
- The compelling features
- The price of the cheapest package that allows you host unlimited sites (if available)
- What you use the hosting for
- Anything else you want to share
- Add up to two links in the comment if you want and only discuss one host please…and don’t discuss it because it pays the highest commissions, but because you truly like the host that you are currently with
Thanks!
June 20, 2008 at 9:32 pm
IXWebhosting:
I was with them for the last two years, until a couple of weeks ago.
Pros: Overall I was pretty happy. The service was good, I only remember one time one of my sites ever being down, and even then I called them and they had it up and running in minutes. 24/7 help was very friendly and very good. * What you like AND dislike about the host.
Cons: There was really only one and unfortunately it was enough for me to need to change. The cost for unlimited domains was around $180 for a year; pushing 2 and a half times that of godaddy (where I switched to now). Cost is not always everything, so if I’m not happy at godaddy, I would go back.
June 20, 2008 at 9:52 pm
I’m with GoDaddy and am yet to try and promote them as an affiliate. I am happy with the shared hosting and will hopefully be using them soon for sites that I want to create and sell. Do you know if it is easy to tranfer a site from GoDaddy to a new owner?
Forests last blog post..TONs of prizes easily up for grabs with the Market Leverage Affiliate challenges
June 20, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Hey Forest…
Yeah, I s’pose it’s pretty easy. If it has a DB back end then you just have to export it then download the site files, then re-upload the files and import the DB. I guess that’s an easy enough way…and a pretty standard way that should work with all hosts.
I don’t think there is any quick transfer type of app built in though.
I remember asking a tech awhile back about transferring a site to someone else’s account and he said you have to give the whole account away with the site in it. You would have to delete your credit card info from the account and give the person your username and password.
June 21, 2008 at 12:59 am
Keith, I know you said discuss just one… but I’ve had a lot of hosting plans over a few years so here they are:
I’ve been with a lot of hosting providers in roughly 3 years. I started out with godaddy at their super cheap plan.
Dreamhost:
Then a friend shot me over to dreamhost – Amazing, the best hosting ever, unless you need unique IPs or dedicated servers then they are just too pricey. My sites have been down once in a bluemoon, email has been down once i believe in a year. For the price – i think i paid $130 for 2 years, with 2tb of bandwidth and 1000gb of storage. (this was on their old coupon plan).
I like that they have one-click-install on a lot of open source CMSs and allow you to have unlimited MySql, domains, subdomains, email accounts, on and on.
I don’t like – well there isn’t much to complain about. – I’ve dealt with support a lot and they have always been pretty quick and solved our problems (even if it was my fault).
ThePlanet:
For a while I ran a chain of proxies and had an unmanaged server at ThePlanet – the service sucked there, but hey that’s unmanaged, you get what you pay for.
It was like $300 a month – I hated plesk 8.0 for a server management platform – just plain hard to use. Only upside was the price.
HostGator:
Hostgator so far seems to work well, i’m on their lowest reseller plan. I was able to negotiate with them for buying bulk unique ips, however they do have a set up fee for security certificates. Support is helpful, but before signing up i would say call or email support and ask for a discount – if you dont have a referer. They are friendly, but sales may sometimes take a while to respond to you.
Overall I hope it works out well with them. They gave me the IPs at a steal and even discounted the cost for the cert setup.
Current status:
Right now I have 2 hosting accounts with dreamhost, and just set up another with hostgator. – long story 2 llcs and i need separate hosting for each + my private hosting.
Reason for bulk IPs. Currently I am moving to set up all my affiliate site – which iframe in an application form or other forms to secure sites. With namecheap offering free SSL certs with a domain purchase, its a real deal. Id say check it out, hope it boosts my conversion rate.
I am also very leary of GoDaddy, a few people i know have had their domains held hostage, so if you are doing anything even remotely blackhat or shady don’t mess with Go Daddy. (Dreamhost will ban you too)
Nick Reeses last blog post..Introducing One Minute Take-Aways
June 21, 2008 at 2:07 am
Yeah, HostGator seems to be a popular provider. I heard (by some person in the comments of a post on some blog a couple weeks ago) that they won’t allow you to use opt-in forms or squeeze pages for newsletters.
That’s ridiculous if that’s the case. I doubt that it’s fact…does anyone know??
I like the price of Dreamhost, I’ll have to check it out.
Appreciate the comments Nick.
July 2, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Hey guys!
I have very little experience with hosting plans since this year is the first time I have my own domain, but I thought I might share this link with you since you are interested in DreamHost: http://www.upstartblogger.com/why-dreamhost-sucks
I am hosted at DreamHost at the moment, but we have a lot of downtime, especially on the subdomains – very unfortunate. It does seem however that some people are really happy with DH while others like *upstartblogger* hate it. Guess there are many things that it will depend on.
nemos last blog post..Win A Premium WP Theme!
July 2, 2008 at 11:17 pm
…thanks for the info Nemo