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Hostgator issues causing loss of traffic

by markus3000
36 replies
I wanted to throw this out there due to frustration. I am having issues with hostgator that I just found out about yesterday as I only checkup on my sites once a week due to a busy schedule. I noticed that my traffic has been cut in half due to some faulty issue on hostgators side that they cant seem to figure out, it seems to be blocking certian ips from different countries or so. A ticket has been issued and it supposedly is being worked on. My traffic has been cut in half and in the past week i have lost close to a $1000.

My question is if anybody knows if I can hold Hostgator resposible for this loss. It was a problem on thier end not mine.
#causing #hostgator #issues #loss #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    I doubt it - I think if you look at terms of service potential interruptions are covered by the contract. If ips are blocked, it may not be hostgator blocking them.
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    • Profile picture of the author markus3000
      any idea what could cause something like that. I have over 25 sites and when I run access from different ips around the globe, some ips cant seem to access the sites. Mainly some in the US. I cant from my ip here in PA but I cant from an ip in Florida. So bizzare. I ran the ips from the internetsupervision.cxom site and show the same issue....some ips just cant access the sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    No, HG does not suck at all.

    I'm not convinced this is a hosting issue - where do these IPs originate? If they are known for allowing piracy sites, etc - they may be blocked by entities other than HG.

    If the ips are in the US to begin with - I don't have a clue what's going on:p
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    • Profile picture of the author markus3000
      Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

      No, HG does not suck at all.

      I'm not convinced this is a hosting issue - where do these IPs originate? If they are known for allowing piracy sites, etc - they may be blocked by entities other than HG.

      If the ips are in the US to begin with - I don't have a clue what's going on:p

      Sorry, not sure what your question meant but I am just randomly trying to access my sites from various points around the globe. mainly in the US. I have friends in other cities so I am testing out various points. I am finding that for what every reason some have access to the sites and some dont. I dont in my area. Just have no clue what would cause this. My traffic is mainly from the US.

      As far as the hosting i am paying for 10 a month. Thats not the problem. I dont generate enought traffic to spend for dedicated hosting which is why i am using shared. I dont need alot of bandwidth.



      At this point I am also wondering if it is something within my wordpress files causing this...dont want to take the problem to the next hosting. But it would be strange that all 25 site would be equally effected as they dont use the same plugings.

      I am in the process of calling 1Page. Anyone have experence with them?
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      • Profile picture of the author Norma Holt
        My account with Hostgator meant nothing to them when, after 3 years, they failed to register my domain name and it went to someone else. Now I can't get my money back as they just don't answer my request. The domain I have there now is useless unless I use another domain name, which I am not prepared to do. I would not have anything more to do with them if I were you. Losing someone's domain name through their negligence is one thing but being treated with silence due to their fault is beyond a joke.

        My main host is ixwebhosting and in the 12 or so years I have been with them I have never had a dispute. They are helpful and more than willing to sort out problems if and when they arise. My suggestion to you is to switch hosts and forget Hostgator as it obviously has too many accounts to worry about the odd few they sabotage.
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        • Profile picture of the author edlewis
          Sorry to be the guy to say it, but I don't get the logic here.

          You say these hosting problems alone were responsible for you losing $1,000...but you don't want to foot the bill for dedicated hosting?

          Why not?

          For $50 a month you could go to a hosting company like WiredTree and have a managed VPS.

          Sure it may cost you about $500 more over the course of a year...but you will never have to worry about losing $1,000 in a week like you just did with HostGator.

          I learned my lessons trying to save on hosting...it's not fun to watch your $25/month reseller hosting CRASH for 4 hours in the middle of a promotion or right after you send out an offer to your list, etc....

          I can honestly say that moving to WiredTree has been one of the smartest things I've ever done. I don't worry about hosting issues or downtime or waiting hours for an answer to a support question.

          No, I don't really need the bandwidth and everything else they offer...but I always have it if I need it.

          If you are at the point where a hosting issue like this can cost you $1,000 or more in a week, then it's probably time to find REAL hosting company. Just sayin'...
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      • Profile picture of the author Farish
        Originally Posted by markus3000 View Post

        Sorry, not sure what your question meant but I am just randomly trying to access my sites from various points around the globe. mainly in the US. I have friends in other cities so I am testing out various points. I am finding that for what every reason some have access to the sites and some dont. I dont in my area. Just have no clue what would cause this. My traffic is mainly from the US.

        As far as the hosting i am paying for 10 a month. Thats not the problem. I dont generate enought traffic to spend for dedicated hosting which is why i am using shared. I dont need alot of bandwidth.



        At this point I am also wondering if it is something within my wordpress files causing this...dont want to take the problem to the next hosting. But it would be strange that all 25 site would be equally effected as they dont use the same plugings.

        I am in the process of calling 1Page. Anyone have experence with them?

        So much wrong with your bandwidth line.

        You are using a shared host, that means that you are basically at the mercy of what other people do with their websites on the same server.

        When you move to your new host and buy your shared hosting plan again, you will still be at the mercy of whoever else is on that same server.

        And here is what bothers me the most about this.

        You say you lost 1000 dollars in the last week, but you aren't willing spend the extra 100 dollars or so to prevent this from happening.

        If your site is generating 4000 dollars a month you are stating that spending 2.5 percent on hosting is not worth it.
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  • Profile picture of the author DubDubDubDot
    Originally Posted by markus3000 View Post

    My question is if anybody knows if I can hold Hostgator resposible for this loss. It was a problem on thier end not mine.
    Assuming it's their problem...... HostGator is a low budget host for very small websites. If you are losing so much money that you are asking about holding them liable, then you should spring for a host that costs more than five bucks a month.

    But it could be your problem..... have you installed a rogue WordPress plugin that is skimming certain traffic? Try to access a page from the suspected blocked countries using a domain without WP installed. If that loads fine it'll narrow things down a bit.
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  • Profile picture of the author kpmedia
    For some ridiculous reason, people think hosting should cost less than a sandwich.
    That's why.
    I don't get it either.
    Lunch costs me more, and that's if I eat cheap fast food..

    Or they think they need "unlimited".
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    • Profile picture of the author GlenH
      Hosting is the crux of your whole online presence, so it's the last thing you should be 'cheap-skating"

      For the life of me I can never understand why people do that.

      Cut some other costs, but get the best hosting possible.

      I've had a dedicated server with HostGator for 4 years, and I can't fault them one bit.
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      • Profile picture of the author WillR
        Originally Posted by GlenH View Post

        I've had a dedicated server with HostGator for 4 years, and I can't fault them one bit.
        Same here.

        Don't listen to others bad mouthing them because of a bad experience they have had. The reality is there are a ton of people using Hostgator with no issues at all. I am 8+ years with them now and wouldn't change a thing.

        It's kind of like the bad rap Paypal get. If you listened to the very small minority that come into this forum and complain when their accounts get locked for not following their terms of service, then you would never use Paypal. The reality is that 99% of the people using Paypal correctly have no issues with them whatsoever. But it's only the small few who have issues that come in here and make a scene about them. You never hear from the 99% of people who have no issues whatsoever.

        If you have had an issue with Hostgator that is 100% their fault, I'd love to know about it. But in most cases you will find people's issues with companies such as Hostgator or Paypal actually stem from things they didn't do or should have done also.

        I mean here in this very thread we have a guy bad mouthing Hostgator yet he still doesn't know if the issue is caused by them or not.
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        • Profile picture of the author kpmedia
          Originally Posted by WillR View Post

          The reality is there are a ton of people using Hostgator with no issues at all.
          The reality is most people don't pay any attention.
          I monitor all servers and hosts every 3 minutes from 3 locations.
          Do that, and I'll bet you'll change your mind.
          A slow server will make uptime monitors go nuts.
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        • Profile picture of the author Winlin
          Originally Posted by WillR View Post

          .... If you have had an issue with Hostgator that is 100% their fault, I'd love to know about it. But in most cases you will find people's issues with companies such as Hostgator or Paypal actually stem from things they didn't do or should have done also.

          I mean here in this very thread we have a guy bad mouthing Hostgator yet he still doesn't know if the issue is caused by them or not.

          Here, here ... so perfectly articulated.
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        • Profile picture of the author Kingfish85
          Originally Posted by WillR View Post

          I mean here in this very thread we have a guy bad mouthing Hostgator yet he still doesn't know if the issue is caused by them or not.
          And here in this very thread we have a bunch of posts basically stating "No, you're the problem and HostGator is the best company known in existence of the internet."

          Unfortunately, KPMedia has hit the nail on the head when it comes to the reality of people don't pay enough attention.

          The other problem is, people who have no clue about requirements just start spouting off to use a dedicated server.

          The other reality fact is that 90% of the people on this forum that say "oh, use this company, they're the best ever" have never used another company since the affiliate link they followed most likely has them locked into a year service or similar to get the cheapest price possible.

          Should the OP increase the budget & find a provider that doesn't specialize in cheap bargain basement quality services, sure, maybe. Why does the fact that they are making $2K/month have anything to do with anything? It doesn't. There are people making FAR MORE than $2K using regular shared hosting.

          So, with that being said, see my original post below as it seems extremely fitting for a scenario of the problems at hand.

          What cities/locations are being blocked? Are you using CloudFlare? If the majority or the locations blocked are in the same netblock or similar netblocks, its possible that those netblocks may have been blacklisted for failed login attemps, port scanning etc..

          For example if one of our servers starts getting hammered with failed logins and they start going up the line of ip addresses trying from different ones in the same block, we may choose to block the entire netblock for security reasons.
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          • Profile picture of the author Farish
            Originally Posted by Kingfish85 View Post


            Should the OP increase the budget & find a provider that doesn't specialize in cheap bargain basement quality services, sure, maybe. Why does the fact that they are making $2K/month have anything to do with anything? It doesn't. There are people making FAR MORE than $2K using regular shared hosting.
            Why does Stablehost, HawkHost, or Your Company limit how much you can do with basic hosting?

            To guarantee the stability of the service.

            Does Liquilayer give better guarantees on a vps service versus shared hosting?

            I am going to assume you do. When you have a site generating revenue, I would look for a better guarantee or a better host.

            I have Hawkhost and I use to have StableHost, I would trust them more than any unlimited bandwidth shared hosting provider.
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            • Profile picture of the author kpmedia
              Originally Posted by Farish View Post

              Why does Stablehost, HawkHost, or Your Company limit how much you can do with basic hosting?
              To guarantee the stability of the service.
              I have Hawkhost and I use to have StableHost, I would trust them more than any unlimited bandwidth shared hosting provider.
              There's actually several factors at play.

              1. Big hosts like Hostgator are overloading the server to maximize profit. Instead of putting hundreds of customers on a server (or a couple thousand, depending on the power of the server), they put many thousands on a server. To counteract their own overloading, they throttle to make it work, as well as have tiny resource limits. Stablehosyt is the only host I know of that has been honest about their server density, and does not overload. I wrote a two-part guide on overselling vs. overloading a while back.

              2. The host is promising unlimited bandwidth or space, but that doesn't really matter in 2013. Sites need CPU and RAM. Bandwidth is not really an issue in 2013, for 99.9% of shared sites.

              3. Hosts promise "unlimited space" and then heavily limit how it can be used. If you're not really using it, you're unaware of this. Which brings us to the last point...

              4. Most people that suggest something like Hostgator or Bluehost (both EIG brands) have probably been duped by "top 10" lists, have small traffic-less sites, and don't understand how support/servers should perform. Some are folks that made an honest mistake, some are stubborn about it. When the sites starts to actually need anything -- space, CPU, RAM, whatever -- they're suspended and/or the victim of upselling. They're probably not seasoned server admins (ie, NOT monitoring sites/servers), have no experience with typical sites, and are unaware of the real hosting industry outside of the fake affiliate "reviews".

              But you're close.

              And those are good hosts: Hawkhost and Stablehost.
              I'll sign up with LiquiLayer soon, but I have little doubt it's going to be good too.
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              • Profile picture of the author wisdomoto
                I have to agree with kpmedia here. My best friend runs a data center services company and I've done a bit of work with him / for him.

                People who are not aware of the more technical side of servers don't really understand that it's not always a great thing when a company offers cheap 'unlimited' plans to everyone and puts a thousand people on one physical machine to maximize dollars.

                I like your point about server density. I think that is the real issue here.

                When I got into IM I was very surprised by the amount of people recommending Hostgator. I thought they must be the absolute gold standard in well priced shared hosting.

                I have had dedicated and VPS hosting previously (not related to IM work).
                I'm with Hostgator myself for a couple of websites. They are not too bad, I have had only one minor issue but I would like to try Stablehost in the future.

                Just want to say I can't agree with you more here kpmedia.
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              • Profile picture of the author BIG Mike
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                • Profile picture of the author Kingfish85
                  Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

                  I've probably been administering servers longer than most members here (going back to the early 80's) and I've got considerable expertise in this area.

                  All hosting services overload to some extent on shared servers - anytime the account holder cannot access 100% of CPU cycles/memory in favor of sharing it with other users, then the server is overloaded.

                  That's not the issue and never has been - the issue is that people fail to scale up their back office resources commensurate with their business activities.

                  I fail to understand why you think someone paying $3 a month for shared hosting is a victim when they can't use the server as if it were dedicated.

                  HostGator rocks!
                  Completely false. A lot of companies "oversell" not "overload". There's a BIG difference.

                  A company that sets limits for lets say, 500 accounts per server vs the EIG norm of 2-3-4-5,000+ accounts per server is very, very different.

                  Why, why does a smaller website need to access 100% of the CPU cycles? It doesn't and it never will, not even on a dedicated server.

                  The problem being explained here in the thread has absolutely nothing to do with CPU/Memory consumption either.
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                  • Profile picture of the author BIG Mike
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                    • Profile picture of the author Kingfish85
                      Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

                      It has everything to do with it - whether oversold (which, duh, leads to overloading) or not, shared hosting ALWAYS has limits on the number of resources that can be used on a given account.

                      CPU/Memory consumption AND bandwidth restraints cause many people to end up with sites that are suspended, regardless of the hosting service.

                      The point in this thread isn't to piss and moan about not being able to run a business for $10 a month, but rather managing a business effectively.
                      CPU/Memory have absolutely nothing to do with specific geographic locations not being able to access the site.

                      The OP's site is not down, suspended or any of that. The OP stated "it seems to be blocking certain ips from different countries or so."
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                      • Profile picture of the author kpmedia
                        Originally Posted by Kingfish85 View Post

                        CPU/Memory have absolutely nothing to do with specific geographic locations not being able to access the site.
                        The OP's site is not down, suspended or any of that. The OP stated "it seems to be blocking certain ips from different countries or so."
                        In this case, it's about control. When you have shared hosting, you have to do what the server admin wants. In the case of larger hosts, they're not as flexible as smaller ones, and you'll be upsold to a VPS or dedi. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, upgrading, but I'd sure not do it at an "unlimited" host. Find a specialized VPS company like Media Temple or EuroVPS.

                        @Big Mike: I don't think you got the gist of my last post. You're saying things that I did not.
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  • Profile picture of the author salegurus
    Originally Posted by markus3000 View Post

    My traffic has been cut in half and in the past week i have lost close to a $1000.
    You are making $4000 month minimum and you can't shell out for a top line host or a more expensive plan?
    Sorry, either you are bull shitting about your income or you are skimping on business expenses...
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  • Profile picture of the author Kingfish85
    What cities/locations are being blocked? Are you using CloudFlare? If the majority or the locations blocked are in the same netblock or similar netblocks, its possible that those netblocks may have been blacklisted for failed login attemps, port scanning etc..

    For example if one of our servers starts getting hammered with failed logins and they start going up the line of ip addresses trying from different ones in the same block, we may choose to block the entire netblock for security reasons.
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  • Profile picture of the author nitesh
    Hostgator is among the best hosting services provider. There have some problems with Hostgator that I have also faced previously but not faced this type of problem and I don't think you can do anything to hold hostgator responsible for this.
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  • Profile picture of the author icemonkey9
    Welcome to my world about seven months ago. I got a nice spike in traffic, was really doing some neat things finally with monetizing my site and hostgator pulled the rug out from under me. Sure, free unlimited bandwidth, but NOT free unlimited resources on the server. I had a lightweight wordpress site... so I learned the real trick the hard way.

    I felt like you did, ripped off and upset. But they were very nice about the whole thing and frankly a site getting 10k visitors a day shouldn't get by paying $4 a month for hosting so I understood. They did point out their terms and conditions so from a legal perspective, it really wasn't worth pursuing.

    The best thing to do is just get on a better host. If you have a WP site, look specifically into reliable WP hosting services. There are two or three big names and any of them are amazing.

    Originally Posted by markus3000 View Post

    I wanted to throw this out there due to frustration. I am having issues with hostgator that I just found out about yesterday as I only checkup on my sites once a week due to a busy schedule. I noticed that my traffic has been cut in half due to some faulty issue on hostgators side that they cant seem to figure out, it seems to be blocking certian ips from different countries or so. A ticket has been issued and it supposedly is being worked on. My traffic has been cut in half and in the past week i have lost close to a $1000.

    My question is if anybody knows if I can hold Hostgator resposible for this loss. It was a problem on thier end not mine.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    could this be a domain dns propagation issue. I know when you register a new domain or point it to a new server, its not uncommon at all for different areas to get access to the domain content at different times.

    I wonder if something might be going on there. completely blocking seemingly random ip's for no reason just seems very very unlikely.

    hell, i would even be looking at log files to make sure i am still seeing about the right number of different browser percentages or something.

    I have been doing this a long time and never ran across a host blocking random ip's. I am just about 100% certain there is more to this story or that you have not identified your issue correctly.

    its also not uncommon for isp's to block sites or ip address so their users cant access them. This is more commonly seen with file sharing type sites who are distributing illegal content. Some isp's actually block some torrent sites so their users cant get to them in an attempt to remove themselves from the liability loop. Its also much more commonly done by USA isp's because the threat of litigation is usually higher here in the USA than in many other countries.
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  • Profile picture of the author KuhNoodle
    You're a good one man, if I wee you and I lost 1,000 due to a host I'd get a VPS quick. If it's host gators fault see if they will give you a free upgrade or some free time. They are a good company. They typically try to look out for their people.
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  • Profile picture of the author MartinPlatt
    Only if you have a service level agreement, which usually doesn't happen with shared hosting. If you went with business hosting you might be able to.

    I would explain to them what has happened, and ask them what they are going to do about the loss of earnings.

    Hostgator have been brilliant, so really sorry to hear about your troubles.
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    • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
      Originally Posted by MartinPlatt View Post

      Only if you have a service level agreement, which usually doesn't happen with shared hosting. If you went with business hosting you might be able to.

      I would explain to them what has happened, and ask them what they are going to do about the loss of earnings.

      Hostgator have been brilliant, so really sorry to hear about your troubles.
      An SLA isn't going to replace 'lost income.' Nothing will, no matter who the host is. Hosts don't assume liability for your business revenues.
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  • Profile picture of the author georgedinmore
    If your on a shared hosting plan, then there are multiple possibilities. Because other people on the same server must be getting the same problem. Because one person, or a few others might be at the point of migrating to bigger servers, because their capacity is not enough. It can happen, and some people do not understand that they can migrate to bigger space.

    If i were you, i would migrate to a dedicated server. Then you will not have any further problems, unless you out do your capacity, then i would advise a bigger server.

    Personally though, regardless of income. I wouldn't just move from shared hosting, because this is happening. Shared hosting is probably enough for what websites he uses. For example, your probably just using this hosting just for squeeze pages, and yet, they don't take up much space at all. Probably not even 1% of the capacity of the server. If you have a forum or blog, then that would be different matter altogether.

    Just my 2 cents...

    But what do i know...
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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    I have to agree with Big Mike on this. Although its is a little off topic from the OPs original issue, but it is a much needed discussion all the same.

    Any server with more than 1 person on it can be oversold. I could easily stay within the storage and bandwidth allotments of almost any hosting company yet tie up a huge percentage of the server...if nothing else, a bit of bad coding will do that.

    Yes, the big boys put more folks on a server than the little guys. They also seem to manage it pretty well all things considered. HG has over 9 mil domains under management and over 1 mil. customers last i saw the numbers.

    You dont get that big by pissing off the majority of your customers or by consistently providing subpar service. The fact is, the vast majority of HG customers are quite happy with their service.

    The few that are not happy are usually fairly uneducated about how hosting works and they cling to the "$10 for unlimited everything" line rather than taking responsibility for their business and upgrading to a more suitable host/plan as their business grows.

    Just like in this case. I am certain we dont know the whole story. And if i were a betting man, i would bet that he has misdiagnosed his problem. I just dont think HG is blocking random ip's for no reason....something is missing here.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kingfish85
      Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

      In that respect, it's still about managing one's business effectively. The OP already stated he's too busy to check his sites more than once a week, so he wants to hold HostGator financially responsible for his own failure.

      CPU/Memory have everything to do with the points others were trying to make. If I go to the hosting in your sig and get a shared account, are you going to let me consume 100% of the server's resources if I want to?

      Well, you are right as far as what others are chiming in about. My point was though that it's not directly related to the OP's issue at hand & hopefully it doesn't confuse people who don't understand.

      As far as consuming 100% of the servers resources, no, it is shared hosting. Resources are shared equally among all accounts. Limiting the number of accounts per server and running at 60%-70% or so capacity allows for usage spikes here and there without affecting the stability of the servers. This is something the large providers do not do since the ability to extremely maximize profits per server is not possible with this scenario.

      Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

      I have to agree with Big Mike on this. Although its is a little off topic from the OPs original issue, but it is a much needed discussion all the same.

      Any server with more than 1 person on it can be oversold. I could easily stay within the storage and bandwidth allotments of almost any hosting company yet tie up a huge percentage of the server...if nothing else, a bit of bad coding will do that.

      Yes, the big boys put more folks on a server than the little guys. They also seem to manage it pretty well all things considered. HG has over 9 mil domains under management and over 1 mil. customers last i saw the numbers.

      You dont get that big by pissing off the majority of your customers or by consistently providing subpar service. The fact is, the vast majority of HG customers are quite happy with their service.

      The few that are not happy are usually fairly uneducated about how hosting works and they cling to the "$10 for unlimited everything" line rather than taking responsibility for their business and upgrading to a more suitable host/plan.

      Just like the OP, I am certain we dont know the whole story. And if i were a betting man, i would bet that he has misdiagnosed his problem. I just dont think HG is blocking random ip's for no reason....something is missing here.
      True however, where do you think HG would be today without the affiliate program they have, or, any of the other large bargain hosts for that matter?

      It would be nice if the OP would update the thread and let us know what happened.
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  • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
    A lot of the comments so far do not address what you can do NOW!

    I have had success resolving two issues with HostGator using the live chat. In both cases the source of the problem was at my end and not theirs. They went out of their way to help me get my sites back online. They were technically justified in actually charging me a fee for their services but they did not.

    The reason I like the live chat for things like this is the customer service rep has a vested interest in getting your issue resolved as soon as possible. If they get stuck they consult a higher level tech to get help.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    Well, Selling a bad product over more than a decade is not easy...i don't care how you market it. lol.

    Also, that affiliate program has been around for a long time. It pays up to $125 per sale. With that average sale being less than $15. That means if they dont retain customers they lose their ass and would promptly adjust the affiliate program payouts.

    So they are doing something right when it comes to serving the majority of their customers otherwise their "pay up front" affiliate program would be costing them money.... I know for a fact its not costing them money btw.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kingfish85
      Originally Posted by David Keith View Post

      Well, Selling a bad product over more than a decade is not easy...i don't care how you market it. lol.

      Also, that affiliate program has been around for a long time. It pays up to $125 per sale. With that average sale being less than $15. That means if they dont retain customers they lose their ass and would promptly adjust the affiliate program payouts.

      So they are doing something right when it comes to serving the majority of their customers otherwise their "pay up front" affiliate program would be costing them money.... I know for a fact its not costing them money btw.
      No no, I'm not saying they're providing a "bad" service per se. We've already talked a few times before in a couple other threads (not recently), I was actually a customer of HostGator back right after the Design Gator days. Up until the last 4 years or so, I'd say HG was in fact one of the best out there. I won't go into bashing them or any of that, but things are not what they were 5 years ago. Unfortunately, given EIG's history, I can only see the future being pushed towards maximizing profits only. The same complaints that are coming to light about the other EIG companies, are starting to surface with HG, which is unfortunate.
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      • Profile picture of the author David Keith
        Originally Posted by Kingfish85 View Post

        No no, I'm not saying they're providing a "bad" service per se. We've already talked a few times before in a couple other threads (not recently), I was actually a customer of HostGator back right after the Design Gator days. Up until the last 4 years or so, I'd say HG was in fact one of the best out there. I won't go into bashing them or any of that, but things are not what they were 5 years ago. Unfortunately, given EIG's history, I can only see the future being pushed towards maximizing profits only. The same complaints that are coming to light about the other EIG companies, are starting to surface with HG, which is unfortunate.
        I agree mostly. I still keep a vps with HG for playing around with and for developers to screw up on...lol. I was actually one of Brents first customers many moons ago when he was still a college student. And most here know that i have/had a business relationship with HG.

        That being said, i have also met with the EIG guys several times. Their overall view is that they are not really the guys for the mid to high level business hosting needs. Sure they offer dedicateds and such.

        But truthfully, there are other companies that are better at providing that service than HG. Unless what you are looking for is dedicated server power with near shared hosting lvl management. Which is honestly something that guys like Will and other smallish time "one man show operations" are looking for. I expect EIG will continue to provide that service pretty well.

        Groups like mediatemple have built their business on almost the exact opposite ideology. They work with clients much more closely to provide the best service possible...but it comes at a cost.
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