I Have Made A Decision

Before I say anything else, I have to give a big thanks to all the people who offered suggestions and support, both on the blog and through email. I spent several hours stressing about how I was going to keep the blog going and whether it was worth it or not.

Through a good friend and some money manipulation, I'm going to be moving the blog to another U.S.-based host. I'm not going to mention which one because everyone has a favorite and this one probably isn't it. I do know that they host hundreds of websites without any of the problems or incidents like I've been dealing with lately.

This time, I plan to have everything backed up and moved to the new server before the DNS propagation goes into full swing. I'm looking to be moved by Monday, possibly sooner.

May 3rd, 2007 By RT Cunningham | Categories: Internet | Tags: services, web hosting |

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goldcoaster on May 3rd, 2007 at 9:21 am (Reply)

How does this work money wise - do you get a refund from the old hosts or just go ahead and pay for a new one, get it transfered and write the old ones off as a bad experience.?

http://goldcoaster.wordpress.com
Peter on May 3rd, 2007 at 9:51 am (Reply)

Good luck on the move
RT Cunningham on May 3rd, 2007 at 10:06 am (Reply)

Write the old one off as a bad experience, at least here. I would have a snowball's chance of getting anything back if they won't even answer email messages.
hari on May 3rd, 2007 at 10:09 am (Reply)

Actually I wonder whether you could go to their office in person and find out. But I don't know much about the Philipines so if they're in another city, it might cost you more to travel there than the amount that is due to you making the exercise futile.
RT Cunningham on May 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 am (Reply)

Your thought was right, Hari, the cost of gas and the hassle of driving for 3 hours just to get there wouldn't be worth the trouble.

I just received an email from them. They claimed to have put my bandwidth increase in on April 30. Funny, though, how it didn't appear until after midnight last night. They also advised me to check my junk filters (which I already had been doing). It seems they didn't do what they say they did and now they're back-pedaling to keep me as a customer.

But that's okay, because as soon as the switch takes place, I'm canceling that account, which is within the 30-day guarantee window. If I remember their TOS correctly (and I'll go back and read it again), I should expect a refund. I doubt that I'll get it because they'll probably claim something else that isn't true.
hari on May 3rd, 2007 at 11:06 am (Reply)

I'm not surprised.

I agree with you. The hassle might not be worth it.

How about if this was a US provider? Would they be very responsive and customer-friendly?
RT Cunningham on May 3rd, 2007 at 11:55 am (Reply)

Most U.S. providers are responsive and friendly. Heck, even Dotster was responsive and friendly… they were just expanding faster than their resources could handle. There was too much downtime with them.
hari on May 3rd, 2007 at 12:12 pm (Reply)

Hope you get these issues fixed soon and get back to your regular blogging routine. I miss the drive-bys. I'm getting addicted to them more than I imagined.

In the meantime, I'm going through your old archives. You sure know how to keep readership, although i'm surprised at how few comments you've got in the past.
RT Cunningham on May 3rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm (Reply)

A lot of people read, but lurk instead of commenting. Comments increase during the natural progression of audience reach. My reach didn't start increasing until the last couple of months.
hari on May 3rd, 2007 at 12:39 pm (Reply)

Well I have no problems commenting either. Looks like I'm now among your top 3 commenters.
lyndonmaxewell on May 3rd, 2007 at 1:11 pm (Reply)

Seems like everything's okay for you now? Great!
mattsofi on May 3rd, 2007 at 3:09 pm (Reply)

Good to hear that Richard. I think you have made the right move. Good Luck.
Chris on May 3rd, 2007 at 5:21 pm (Reply)

Definitely the right choice RT. If the new hosts turn out to be good, let us know who they are, I think I'll be changing sooner rather than later as well.
Community Building Blog on May 3rd, 2007 at 8:27 pm (Reply)

Good luck with the move - I hope it all works out and there is minimal downtime!

- Martin Reed
goldcoaster on May 6th, 2007 at 11:52 am (Reply)

Can I ask how much bandwidth you use, just for an estimate on what a blog goes through.
Looking at different hosts they all offer something slightly different and I wouldn't know if the cheap deal thats on offer is actually OK or not.

eg is what is on offer for Bluehost good? http://www.bluehost.com/tell_me_more.html

300 Gigabyte Hosting Space
Host UNLIMITED Domains
2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
3,000 GIGS of Transfer
SSH (Secure Shell), SSL, FTP, Stats
CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
2000/2002/2003 Front Page Extensions
Free Domain Forever!
Free Site Builder (NEW)
24/7 Superb/Responsive Sales/Support

http://goldcoaster.wordpress.com
RT Cunningham on May 6th, 2007 at 2:00 pm (Reply)

Almost all of the hosts based in the U.S. have good deals on size and bandwidth. I've heard good things about Bluehost. The one I chose was not for just what they offered but their customer service reputation. It doesn't do any good to have oodles of everything if they don't respond when something breaks. I had that problem with Dotster and with Philhosting. Both had horrible customer service.

Also, be aware that some of what they offer is misleading. Sure, you can get 300 GB for bandwidth, but are they going to shut you down when Digg, Reddit, or StumbleUpon decide to target your blog because it takes up too much of their CPU? These are the questions you have to have answered before you sign up.

I was able to get set up with a host in Florida from here in the Philippines within a couple of hours. Their customer support was awesome. They even checked to make sure I wasn't trying to steal a domain in my domain transfer. An IP of PH as opposed to an IP of US arouses suspicion.

If you really need to know who I went with, send me an email. I'll tell you and tell you how to get 50% off.
MrCorey on May 6th, 2007 at 9:29 pm (Reply)

That's one way…