So Long, Hosting Matters
For the past few years, my sites have been hosted by Hosting Matters on a shared Linux server. Until a few weeks ago, I’d been a satisfied customer. However, for the past several weeks, we’ve experienced sporadic yet predictable delays — often over an hour and sometimes as long as nearly 5 hours — in email delivery. Correspondance with Hosting Matters support was not satisfactory, and the problem has not yet been resolved. As a result, I’m in the process of moving my sites to a new host.
I opted to try GoDaddy (yes, that GoDaddy). The process has been both easier and harder than I expected. For instance, moving my two WordPress blogs was easier than I thought it would be. Setting up e-mail accounts at multiple domains within the same hosting account has proven harder than I thought it would be. (In fact, right now it’s not just hard, it’s impossible.) And, after making a false start with one of my domains, I’ve been unable to finish setting it up. As a result, I’ve made three phone calls to technical support and had one contact by e-mail. The good news is that I’ve been generally satisfied with the responses, which already puts GoDaddy ahead of Hosting Matters.
However, one thing that bothers me is that each email account is limited to 250 outgoing emails per day. Now, mind you, I’ll never, ever send close to 250 emails in a day. But just having this limit somehow bugs me!
One other clear difference between GoDaddy and Hosting Matters is that GoDaddy is clearly a marketing company. At virtually every step of the site management process, I have the opportunity to see what else I can add to my sites and how little the enhancement would cost.
February 1st, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I find GoDaddy confusing and over-marketed. I use it for only one of the sites I have.
For years, I’ve used an Iowa-based company called Powersurge. Very easy to use, and it has an awesome control panel. Great support too.
Probably too late for you to switch, but thought I’d forward the info to you.
http://www.powersurge.net
They’re based out of Independence.
BTW: Thanks for the kind mention of me in your blog a while ago. A reader of my blog told me about it.
Greg alan
February 1st, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Hi Greg, thanks for the suggestion.
Some other friends that are leaving Hosting Matters are looking seriously at bluehost. VizaWeb has also been highly recommended to me.
One thing that definitely sets GoDaddy apart is the marketing angle for everything. I also agree that their management UI is definitely not as straight forward as others that seen. However, the technical support has been great. And I’m definitely gaining experiencing at moving my sites from one host to another!
P.S. I still miss your show.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:31 am
I take back everything positive I said about VizaWeb. I had pretty good experiences with them for a long time, but recently, they have shown themselves to be a somewhat unstable (and possibly disreputable) company.