~ Why Bakkouz died yesterday: or how i learned to start worrying and loath my hosting company.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the digg effect, but what about the imdb effect? in short, imdb killed my website, shredded it to pieces, set it on fire, then scattered the ashes into the wind. and I’ll get to that in a bit…
But first, what is the most important thing you need to look for when buying web hosting? and how can you make sure you’re not making a huge mistake? Many hosting companies offer you fantastic plans, tons of storage, tons of bandwidth, unlimited domains, great prices.. etc.. etc.. but there is a catch. because all this means nothing, the most important thing to look for is the cpu and memory quote, how many processes you can run simultaneously, and finally, the tech support. this is the stuff that really matters when your website is put under the test.
I know this because i experienced it first hand with bluehost, before i bought my hosting plan from them i looked and looked and did my research well, and they seemed like a good credible reliable option so i went with them and all seems well at first.. but not until i re-gained the traffic rate i was getting, and the occasional influxes of traffic i sometimes receive, that i realized the truth, my website kept dying and my account got suspended very often, all because of their low cpu quota limit. it was intolerable..
which brings me back to yesterdays incident, yesterday some wise guy at imdb thought it was a good idea to post a link on the imdb front page to my top ten weirdest movies post, and as awesome as this might be (me getting featured on the front page of imdb!! Here is a screen shot), it was in fact the straw that broke the camel’s back.. the huge amount of traffic forced my account to get suspended all day long do to cpu quota over use, naturally I did have caching running on the blog but that had no effect in this case since it was not a bandwidth issue. (its worth mentioning also that i had had my account suspended due to cpu quote over limit with bluehost sometimes even without any traffic spikes, but under normal traffic rates).
These fine details is what one must look out for carefully when buying a web hosting, its not how much hard disk or how much bandwidth or how many IP’s, one must look past that and past the great price! its how much processes, cpu and ram quote you’re allowed. this is what distinguishes a really good host from a crappy one. I understand that all shared hosting plans offered by all companies probably have a cpu quota limit, but i feel that an important issue like that should have been specified clearly in the plan details.
website owners usually seek more traffic, but now, I fear it, and the sad thing is, there is nothing I can do about it. I am in no position to buy a dedicated server, and there is absolutely nothing bluehost are willing to do about it either. So, basically, I am trapped. Add to the above reason, their tech support is horrible, the help desk ticket i submitted yesterday is still not answered, i tried to try their live chat help, and all i got was a paragraph from the FAQ regarding the issue. but no live chat.
And this is how i learned first hand, how to start worrying and loath my hosting company.
Moral of the story: being popular is not always a good thing :) …. and bluehost sucks!
November 21st, 2007 at 8:21 am
first of all, el 7amdella 3al salameh..
I want to ask you…what is the meaning of this “Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi” ?
November 21st, 2007 at 8:30 am
7amdellah 3al salama ya Beko :mrgreen:
November 21st, 2007 at 8:43 am
I wondered what happened when I dropped in yesterday. But how cool that you were on imdb’s front page! Congratulations, I know a bona-fide celebrity form the pages of imdb…
November 21st, 2007 at 8:43 am
Gardenia: Allah iysallmek, and the phrase is Latin and it means: The deepest rivers flow with the least sound. (still waters run deep).
Chika: Allah iysallmek
November 21st, 2007 at 8:46 am
MommaBean: Thank you thank you ehem ehem
November 21st, 2007 at 8:52 am
Ya latif
…and congratulations for being in the front page of imdb…
November 21st, 2007 at 9:07 am
I feel ya bro!! completely!
I kept hearing about how fantastic this hosting company. And how fantastic that host company and the read deal is that they’re all CRAP! Full of it! Completely and utterly CRAP!
I send them a request, it turns to an argument! Do this, No you do that! WHAAAT!? You’re supposed to work for me assholes! Anyway
Salamtak!
And for IMDB! That’s awesome dude! Way to go man!
November 21st, 2007 at 9:19 am
Ah, the burden of fame. What shall we do? ;)
November 21st, 2007 at 9:29 am
Qwaider: I KNOW!! I mean, I’m paying them! they’re supposed to host my site, solve my problems, not crap all over me :???:
Dave: nothing really, just take it like men :razz:
November 21st, 2007 at 10:09 am
lah lah lah Bakkouz, 7amdela 3ala el salemeh man
November 21st, 2007 at 10:47 am
I am at Globat. Any idea if they are good or bad?
I only managed to host one website with them. I am paying for the whole package and not making good use of it. This makes me maaad! :evil:
[If you refer someone to Globat, you get a few months of free hosting. If you investigate about them and find they are better than your current hosting company, maybe it’s worth moving and getting a few referees for a few free months.
]
I’ll refer you to Globat!
November 21st, 2007 at 11:06 am
“low cpu quota limit.”
the only error i got :( MANY TIMES , but u know i try to make deal with them
to buy two package and let them join CPU quota , they say NO they cant ,
i did Research again and again so far didt find any shared host tell u the truth bout CPU, and if you are in shared , that mean
the 5TB per month a crap ,
November 21st, 2007 at 11:08 am
:idea:
November 21st, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Maioush: Allah iysallmek :grin:
Mira: wallah at this point i think the only real good solution would be to get a dedicated server, which costs much more, i honestly have lost trust in shared servers, I am sure it will also collapse under heavy stress, but we’ll see, inshallah khair
Qabbani: wallah like i said, the only good solution for a website that has lots of traffic is to get a dedicated server, otherwise you will be always under the mercy of the company and will never be able to take control of anything
November 21st, 2007 at 12:30 pm
How abouuuut, if you get your dedicated server, and we all host our websites at your place, and you become our tech support guy, and we pay you for that. :mrgreen:
Serious, think about it! I’d personally love to know I’ll be dealing with a human being, not a company.
November 21st, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Salamet 2albak w ma tshouf illa kil kheir … :)
Yesterday whenever I try to check your page I got “contact webmaster…” very grim message on a black page..
Don’t worry we will not let anything happen to you, we’ll find u loool
November 21st, 2007 at 7:13 pm
If I were you, I would pick up the phone and start screaming down the line. Although I don’t think it’ll make anything improve, it’ll let you blow off some steam!
November 21st, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Yikes I feel guilty recommending them to you, but I’m afraid that with my site’s humble traffic, I never hit those limits.
Besides when I was looking for a host, very few would advertise CPU/processes/RAM quotas if they have any.
November 21st, 2007 at 11:37 pm
I get this pretty frequently as well, till when I discovered the wp-supercache plugin.
I can now survive 1000’s of pageviews since the pages are served as static HTML instead of PHP. You should give it a shot or perhaps move over to a VPS instead (they are pretty cheap nowadays, prolly can get one for $15 or so, easily covered by advertising a bit here n there).
November 22nd, 2007 at 8:13 am
Noura: Tislami, allah yes3idek :grin:
Khaled: Wallah i wanted to do that, but after my failed experiene with tech support i knew i’d be just waisting my time, money and energy :neutral:
Hani: its alright dude, don’t worry about it, one lives and learns
bLuefRogX: i have superachce, and it can’t do anything in this case, since people were being denied access to the server all together, I am currently looking for other hosting options such as VPS. We’ll see what happens
November 24th, 2007 at 4:27 am
try dreamhost
March 15th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Bluehost is a pile of crap!