I'm hoping to get some opinions since some of you probably are lawyers or own a web hosting company of some kind. Any information would be appreciated. I will be getting up with an attorney next week to see if I should go further on this. Last month, I noticed all the sites on my dedicated server were lagging very bad. I called my hosting company and asked them if they noticed anything odd. The tech mentioned that there was an IP that was hitting one of my sites very hard causing hundreds of connections at once. I asked him to look further into it and see if he could find out a little more about this IP. He mentioned that I could be receiving a DOS attack. I was very concerned at this point and told him to please try and solve the problem since I had other clients on the server that were being affected by this apparent "DOS attack". The tech contacts me an hour later and says that he solved the problem and things were back to normal. He also sent my ticket to the security team to review the IP's to make sure they were not known spammers. I was relieved to hear the good news, but later I find out that this was something that would later ruin my business. It comes to find out that the tech blocked a range of Google and Yahoo crawler IPs. This took all the websites on my server completely off of Google and Yahoo. A few of the sites completely rely on google for their business and now they are wiped clean from the search engine. The amount of loss ranges somewhere in the 15-20k range for just this year. There is no telling if my sites will regain their position after years of work and dedication to their page rank. Two of my hosting clients are furious and have already mentioned they were going to switch providers and I'm also going to lose future business due to the bad publicity of this. I'm not a lawyer, so i don't know what type of case this falls into. Obviously, the hosting company is to blame for not doing their due diligence on the lag issue. They should not be blocking any IP's without really knowing what they are blocking. Google gets 75% of the search traffic and most businesses cannot function without it. If the Google IP was causing the issue, I could have done many things to solve this issue such as reducing the crawl rate on webmaster tools. Google is the biggest company on the internet so how can they not know which IP is the google crawler? This company is not near the size of Godaddy, but they are big enough to have some type of protocol on these issues which they should follow. I'm relying on their expertise and experience to keep my business running and they have completely failed and could put me out of business. My question to everyone is if I have a legitimate case? Is it worth my time pursuing? I'm in a tough spot because if I don't regain my traffic for these sites fast enough, I can risk losing my entire business since I won't be able to pay my bills. Any assistance would be appreciated.
You need to review the terms of service/contract you entered into when you acquired the server. Most hosting companies have wording that gives them broad protection and limits their liability - and it might also have wording on how litigation is handled. If you sue them, you'll spend a lot more than you lost in legal fees. Almost everyone who has had a number of websites for years has experienced some sort of screw up or serious down time. Read the contract and then speak with an attorney if you still want to pursue it. Hosting companies are sometimes willing to give some sort of consideration in the form of free hosting if it was their fault - but I know that isn't what you are looking for. I would not get your hopes up on getting your losses covered from what you have posted.
most , almost all d.c's are covered very well on very possible legal case scenario in their TOS . the security of the server is your issue infact not theirs , advanced d.c's have a automated DOS protection in which case the server if taken offline in case of a massive attack . in your case you don't have a case as this is a 0S related issue not a hard ware fault for which the d.c will compensate . if look look more carefully when submitting a ticket in fine print i am sure you would see something like ' any loss of data or anything if not their responsibility' by clicking submit you have just made them free from any legal hassles . i have seen people lock themselves out of their own servers by playing around with iptables and firewalls and then come complaining to d.c . in mot cases they told that d.c is not a sysops, in some cases d.c's charge them for to fix it and give you get a nice tech then you would get it done for free. consider to learn how to manage your server better in future by changing ssh ports , disable root logins and sprinkle some fail2ban on top if on a linux server. this will take care of 99% attacks. EDIT just to tell you that in most cases of spamming and hitting sites the hackers now spoof ips and come in as google or yahoo bots so most likely the tech had to no idea who hs was blocking , he blocked the attacks which you asked him to do the side effect the real bots were also blocked ,which you can unblock anytime.
That is the crux of the matter. You asked them to take action to stop the traffic from these IPs as it was causing a performance problem on the server, and that's what they did. They were acting on your instructions and it was up to you to check what IPs were causing the problem and to make a decision on the matter. If anyone has failed any due diligence or duty of care it is - unfortunately - you. I can absolutely understand your frustration but you are unlkely to win anything by suing the hosting company (be prepared for them to give you notice to quit if you do which will compound the problem), legal action is time-consuming and nerve-wracking and it is time you probably can't afford as you should be concertrating on re-gaining your rankings not lashing out over a mistake that you made in not being thorough enough.
Ya my thoughts exactly. The due diligence wasn't on the host. They addressed your concerns and you're unhappy with their resolve (but you never guided them with your expectations and you certainly did double checked their findings. You also chose to assume they were equally knowledgeable about search engine bots... but that falls under your profession not theirs. Passing the buck is great if you can get away with it. Be mindful it could be much worse.
That wouldn't matter. If it was unmanaged then they didn't charge for the work and he got that support for free, if it was managed then they were still acting on his instructions.
i think you should talk to your attorney regarding this matter.and how did you find out that they had blocked google and yahoo ips?
As you gave the instructions to solve the issue, which they did, then I honestly do not think you have a leg to stand on. I use a server management team for things like this, and I have found that I have to be very specific when instucting them what to do. If it goes wrong then its on my head as I told them what I wanted done.
You have no recourse in this matter. They solved the issue when notified. Covered under their terms of service.
I agree with the others who have said that you probably have no recourse at all, but even if you did have a claim, it is almost a certainty that the terms of the hosting agreement contain a limitation of liability section to the effect that the hosting company's liability is limited to the amount of the fees you have paid. Furthermore, the agreement likely says that the host is not liable for any consequential damages (such as lost profits), which are exactly what you are claiming. In other words, even if you are correct that the employee of the hosting company was negligent in blocking the particular IPs, the amount you could recover as your damages would be so low that it is not worth pursuing.
If I even see the numbers, 66.249, I immediately think Google. The host would've easily found that after tracing the ip's or even searching the IP's there would be something suspicious. And the day that Google DOS attacks a site because it's just so good... that'd be awesome. It's kind of a mixed blame, but I'd say most of it lies on the hoster.