| Richard Lowe, who is the webmaster of Internet | | | | access to his site, copied all database, and switched |
| Tips and Secrets, has reasons for changing his web | | | | to another web hosting. Saying "everything is going |
| hosts half a dozen times in past one year. He is very | | | | slow because we upgraded" is not acceptable - the |
| clear that a series of behaviors cause these | | | | host should know ALL side effects of any upgrade |
| web-hosting companies to lose customers and gain | | | | from actual difficult long before any change, |
| poor reputations. | | | | however, small, is made to a production system. |
| Web hosting needs to act fairly. As long as they are | | | | "Do what you say you are going to do"- he also |
| ethical towards their business and customers, they | | | | remembers hosting a company called Bizland. They |
| prosper. When they become unethical, they fail. | | | | were good most of the time except for (a) |
| Business web hosting companies needs to be ethic if | | | | excessive downtime, and (b) they didn't deliver on |
| they want to stay in business for a long term. Every | | | | their promises. They kept saying CGI would be |
| feature offered by a web site hosting company | | | | released in April, then May, then June and finally |
| needs to be working properly. A small amount of | | | | ended up in changing the site. |
| downtime is tolerable, but more than that is not. | | | | Cheap web hosting companies seem to have a bad |
| To make it even worse, sites which are down for a | | | | habit of using production systems as test beds. This |
| significant length of time have side effects. Web rings | | | | is one of the strong downsides to using cheap web |
| owners often ensure for broken rings using | | | | hosting - they really don't care if your site is up or |
| automatic code - down sites will activate delays. | | | | not, as long as the advertisements are displayed. |
| Don't overload your servers though jamming as | | | | One web hosting company that I was with for quite |
| many sites on a server maximize your profits. | | | | a long time was What rise out in my mind is every |
| Sometimes servers do crash and once in a while, | | | | single message that I sent got acknowledged by a |
| they require maintenance. | | | | human being. |
| Once he had a host (Host rocket) which performed a | | | | To contrast, another hosting company (Host rocket |
| hostile act. In addition, he got "forbidden" error, | | | | again), had a mean habit of just closing tickets. He |
| though he sent off a quick mail he received a mail | | | | would ask for questions and would never get a |
| only after 18 hours that his site was closed down | | | | response, and then check to see that the ticket was |
| because of the script and he almost wasted a day to | | | | marked "closed". This is not the way to keep a |
| figure out what was wrong. However, he regained | | | | customer happy. |