What would you be willing to do to get free web hosting (including a free domain) paid for one full year at no cost to you, with companies like iPower, Powweb, HostGator, GoDaddy, and so on? I also posted a poll for anyone who wishes to participate.
I dislike Godaddy entirely, even for registration, so I'm not gonna vote for them I use HostGator so far for most my sites and, while they're far from perfect, the 8 years we spent 'together' were pretty OK.
Didn't know HG was bought by EIG. i seem to only keep up with news if it directly impacts my life in some way. HostGator has one of their offices here in the city I live. I see their billboards on the highways here. I can't say I'm a fan of HG, but perhaps one day that business relationship between me and them can be repaired. Hosting-wise I've not ever hosted with them; so can't say whether they are a good host or not. I have had clients whose sites I've troubleshooted that were at HG. But I don't have any personal experience with their hosting. Over the years, I've heard a lot of complaints on the business side of things, though. GoDaddy, I've not had any bad business dealings with, and have also troubleshooted websites on their servers. But I've not personally hosted any of my sites with them. I can say that iPower and Powweb uptime and support have been pretty darn good compared to the other places I've hosted. Perhaps because they are both owned by EIG. I don't know. But I am aware that with every business and individual, there were always be good and bad feedback. In other words, not every one person will have the same experience with any given product or service. Your experience will differ from the next even if by a tiny percent.
They have had a lot of outages here recently (EIG brands). They have almost all of their servers in the Provo datacenter (BlueHost)... And its not worked out that well it seems.
Well, that is definitely interesting. I suppose my sites with the EIG brand and my clients whose sites I troubleshoot and work have just been positively lucky. Not experienced any down time. How long were your sites down for? Which EIG brand do you host with?
I would not want to have my domains and hosting with one company. Nor would I want to use any of the companies you mentioned. Frankly, why in hell's name would I want free hosting with a domain name? At that price level, it is going to suck. It's worth spending extra on good hosting to ensure good response times, uptime, no issues with over-use of resources, and so on.
Your time, effort and intellect is worth so much more than your domain and hosting ever will be. If your time and intellect have quality and value wouldn't you want to ensure all the other components were of the same calibre?
hehe. What are you all babbling about free hosting as if I'm referring to free web hosting services like 000webhosting. None of the companies mentioned offer free hosting. All of them only offer paid hosting. So can we stick to the topic here: And for you, Ryan_UK and anyone who agreed to this post: You should start your own thread and see how many people agree with you that spending extra means, "It's worth spending extra on good hosting to ensure good response times, uptime, no issues with over-use of resources, and so on." Maybe you just attract all this negative attention for you to say such a ridiculous thing. Because I don't have that problem that you obviously do. Since you believe spending "extra" on something good would ensure all of this goodness you talked about, allow me to present a scenario for you: Would you pay $75 for a 42" Plasma TV or $1999 for the same exact TV from the same exact store? The only thing that changes is the price. Everything else is the exact same from the same exact store. Which of the same TV would you pick up to take the register: 1. The brand new 42" Plasma TV by Sony with the $75 price tag on it. 2. The brand new 42" Plasma TV by Sony with the $1999 price tag on it. Now before you answer, remember what you said above. So if we apply your logic, you should be picking #2 because at the $75 price range, according to you "at that price level, it is going to suck." Here is it people are enjoying the exact TV you paid $1999 for but only paid $75 for it. Who's the fool? You or those who paid $75 for it? I have seen stores do this. They put two different price tags on the same exact product. For example, I went to the convenient store and went to the cereal box items. Frosted Flakes was for $4.99 and the same box of Frosted Flakes behind it was for $3.99. I've seen this happen several days (perhaps the store owner is testing the customers -- a pretty good test from a business standpoint). I looked at the two boxes and saw no differences, except for the price. Even the expiration date was the same. They had a few other boxes like that, too. That store had done it for awhile and then stopped. So, which did I buy? Well, it was no-brainer to me: I bought the one with the $3.99 price tag. Duh!!! haha. But to people who think like you, Ryan, they'd probably buy the one for $4.99 thinking it was some trick or that you get something extra for paying more. haha. Wrong! The thing is, why do you think that if you pay "extra" that it means it will ensure you get good service and so on? Who told you that? I know the companies don't because they can't control people. People will behave however they want. Any company can fire someone for giving someone bad service; if it proves true, but that's not a guarantee. No company can offer you that kind of guarantee just because you decided all on your own to pay more for the same exact service/product it would cost someone who paid less or didn't pay anything. It is in my experience and through observation, that those who spend more are USUALLY the ones that complain the most and the loudest. That should tell you something all by itself.
If you don't want replies, don't start a thread. If you don't like my post, then report it. I wouldn't buy either. Plasma sucks and 42" would be a downgrade on my current one. Clearly your feelings have been hurt due to someone having a different view to you. You've degenerated into getting a bit personal (making some childish assumptions) as a result. Take some time to relax and be objective as your hurt feelings seem to be currently blinding you. When you invest in hosting for your website, which is your business, it needs to be operational 24x7. It needs to be responsive - no-one wants to wait around a long-time for a site to load. They will bounce. If someone visits your site and it's down, then that is a potentially lost customer. This kind of stuff is bad for business. Domains cost what - $9.99-14.99 per year? (Some more, some less depending on the registrar and TLD.) Decent hosting is not cheap and costs more than a domain. These "unlimited" hosting packages usually do actually have some kind of limit in resource usage, servers are overloaded and support is usually sub-par. For a business, this is not good. That might offend you, but look around and hosting that is $5/year, $1/month, etc, is typically inadequate for running a business from. Throughout the past 17 years I have used a lot of different hosts, including GoDaddy, Hostgator, Dreamhost, Servage, 1and1 and various other cheap/rubbish/overselling hosts. And a few good ones, too. So that (experience) is one sure way to tell the different between a cheap, over-selling host and one that sets sensible prices. Check out @matt_62's posts. He runs a hosting company and has made quite a few posts with his thoughts about cheap and free hosting.
hehe. Awwww....Ryan. Everything went right over your head. Why do you project your feelings onto others? How old are you? I'm not going to report your post just because I do not like it. Why would you even suggest it?! I thought the feature was for forum violators and thread hijackers. If I felt your posts were worth reporting, I would have reported it. But I did not. Why should I? Do you feel your posts are worth reporting?! Why would the thought even cross your mind? You must have reported people's posts just because you didn't like it. I have never done that. That's crazy, Ryan! That's like you telling me to go call the police because I don't like what my neighbor said to me. hehe. Sounds stupid, don't it?! But that's basically what you suggested a person should do if they don't like someone's post. Are you ok, Ryan??? And I never said I don't want replies. If I didn't want replies I would not have asked the question or started a thread. What is wrong with you, Ryan? Seriously. Did someone break your heart?! Did someone beat you up recently? You are off the mark -- completely. And this statement you made is generic, predictable, immature, and usually comes from people who try to downplay something in a facetious way when they lack understanding (it's a cover-up): "I wouldn't buy either. Plasma sucks and 42" would be a downgrade on my current one." Good grief! And the thing about me mentioning you should start your own thread -- you seriously took that the wrong way for whatever reason. Really, how old are you, Ryan? It was not my intent to hurt your feelings, Ryan. I'm a grown adult and your responses so far have been really silly. We are having a discussion about hosting and business concepts. I am a business-minded, conceptual thinker with over 17 years of business, finance, and web development experience for and with people in my country (USA) and those in different countries (some from this forum). That would include years of experience with a variety of web hosting companies and domain registrars. Maybe you're not used to conceptual thinkers. Maybe you're not used to people disagreeing with you. But I will not agree with silly statements, and I'll point them out when I see them -- as part of the discussion. But it's not to offend you. It's there to say hey that's not right and here's why it's not right. That kind of thing. I'm just having a discussion here and feel if you are bold enough to say something stupid, then you ought to be bold enough to handle a person who disagrees with you. People will disagree with you, Ryan. Period. I will disagree with you and you will disagree with me. So what! It happens. I need you to re-read what I typed starting from the very first post because you completely missed it. So I won't comment on anything else you stated below because you ran with what you wrongfully thought I was saying. Right now you've veered off the original path, and you should find your way back if you want to continue to have a discussion with me about this topic. The path that you've veered off onto, is not the original path. Hint: Check the first post for the original path.
I am going to comment this as a bystander. I don't know Ryan, nor CU, so it will be easy for me to be objective. Now, CU, for someone that so fiercely wants to emphasize that they are an adult, you do seem to be the one hurt and going into personal assumptions. All those questions about sanity and age just goes to show that indeed you took it personally (I know because I've fallen in the exact same situations). So what if he is 17? And you are 40 lets say...does this make you more knowledgeable and experienced? Maybe, but not necessarily so. I know a lot of people, quite younger than me, that can amaze both of us with deep business insights. Leave those arguments as they are really pointless. Lets see the topic at hand. Now you are boasting about 17 years of experience and many of them with webhosting companies, yet your thread is somewhat puzzling. First of all I can't seem to grasp the idea of the question. Are you offering to host for free with those companies, seeing that you are very touchy on the subject of defending them? Or do you have the opportunity to do it yourself and are researching? Because for a person with so much experience you seem to have pointed 4 of the most well-known problematic and crappy hosts worldwide, unaware that almost all of them are owned by one big brand. Sure, I get that you personally have not had problems with them but its not like their issues are hidden in the shadows - any decent hosting related forum will tell you the same. Try posting the same thread in WebHostingTalk for example - almost all the people there will laugh and make jokes about those companies. Because their procedures and management really turned into a joke. Sadly the joke is on their customers... One other thing you have to consider is that many forums (sadly, this one is often among them) are really flooded with affiliates of those companies, which are easy to spot, but still irritating as they spam threads with their blatant advertising and nothing to back it up. I don't think you are such a person, as a matter of fact I am pretty sure you're not, but you have to consider that some might view you as such and give you a somewhat negative response. That is completely normal, as long as it doesn't turn into an exchange of personal insults, which I don't believe is the case here. I, myself, have worked and currently work for a webhosting company. I have a total of no more than 7 years experience in the industry, but had the pleasure to work for people that really turned their attention to training their staff and making them more knowledgeable. When I started lurking in the forums I was amazed of how many professionals, with 10-20 years of hosting experience, even managing a hosting company, had huge gaps in their knowledge. So yeah, to such people I am more than proud to say how young I am. Technology is a field DOMINATED by young people, so what you have in your head is what matters, not how many candles you have on your birthday cake. Back ontopic again I would be really interested to know where your question is coming from and if you add a 5th option in the poll "none of the above" I would certainly put my vote to contribute
If you are interested in answering the question, please post your answer to the question. If you are not interested in answering the question, please PM me your personal comments or start your own thread. DP does not allow polls to edited. Thanks.
Answer: To get web hosting with Powweb paid for one full year, I would be willing to send one tweet of one thing I like about Powweb to my 5K+ twitter followers who are mostly web developers/masters. I already mentioned I'm not a fan of HostGator. Not sure about the other two -- maybe the same thing. Now your turn...
My problem with things like that is you are talking through a hole in your head. Until you've had 12 months of hosting you really have no idea about how good they are.
Well I'm glad you said that because I am a current customer of Powweb. I've been a customer for several years. Don't get me wrong, I'm not their biggest fan. I'm just a satisfied customer (nothing more and nothing less). And I do host my personal sites and clients' sites at different web hosting companies. It just depends on the project. But of course, I wouldn't be one of those people as you described as "talking through a hole in your head". I would obviously be coming strictly from personal experience because I have it. I like Powweb for some of my projects (not all). It truly depends on the project at hand. But that's me, based on my own personal experience over the years. So what about you -- mind sharing your answer based on your own experience? If not, then that's cool, too. Just thought I'd ask: