I was looking today on http://www.archive.org for sites who the owners said has been in bussines for X years, I was surprised to see, that mostly them are lying, because they have the domain for X years, but they start offering hosting a few month ago, you can check their sites there, and you'll some "under construction" page for 2 years, other where the site is alive, but not mentioning webhosting at all.

Why do you people do this? do you think that the average people is that idiot or ignorant?

I wont name them, because I don't want to start a flame war, but I guess that would be healty to the customers or potential customers to check there before take a decision.

I think you need to do more research.

We for example havent used the brand "UnitedHosting" since 1998, but we have been hosting since 1998. You need to dig a little deeper I think...

Again using us as an example, you would see that UnitedHosting is a trading name of Datatechnics UK Limited - This is our registered company and you can find out from Companies house that it was registered as a company in August 1998.

It would be a bit risky to start naming them without knowing their complete history. :)

Some folks may have been running under different domain names previously. The best place for a potential client to start would be by asking the providers themselves.

Cheers

Gary

I see you were messing around with a bit of Access in 2001 Matt. ;)

Gary

Hello Matt

I wasen't talking about you, but since you take your case here.


Again using us as an example, you would see that UnitedHosting is a trading name of Datatechnics UK Limited - This is our registered company and you can find out from Companies house that it was registered as a company in August 1998
What this has to be with webhosting? for what I see in datatechnics.co.uk "Our services cover just about every area of IT. Whether you're looking for a new PC system, maintenance, an upgrade to an existing PC or just friendly computer related advice please give us a call today"

I saw too that www.datatechnics.co.uk started to be as it now sometime in 2002 before that I saw a legend saying "This website is unavailable"


Also, Now that I see, you had for 2 years just one page on UnitedHosting.co.uk saying "This site is currently down for maintenance

Domains from £6 per year / Hosting from £2 per month
" The price changed I have to admit from Jul 2001 to Jun 2002.


As I said, I wasen't talking about you when I started this thread, but since you mentioned your case....

Gary, I wont name any company even if I'm sure, I'm not trying to start fingering them, it was just some kind of advise to both parts, to host doing it (again, before you take as an attack to you Matt, I wasen't thinking about UH when I started this thread) and to customers who believe whatever the hosts say here.

I recall another thread where this came up in some detail. It is extremely difficult to prove the operation of a successful Hosting company without information you just won't get.

I'm going to pick on you Matt...;)

Just the fact you have a registered business name does not necessarily mean you actually operated this business since 1998. The only way that fact can actually be verified is with tax returns or corporate filings. You could own a registered business name for years before you actually start trying to turn a profit with it. Some folks plan ahead and register business names for projects that won't go public for years.

I would not choose a host based exclusively on the number of years they have been in business. I would base it on plans. pricing. datacenter location, clients, hardware, and all the other normal variables. A Host that has been in business for only a few months I might avoid initially but one claiming they have been around for 5 years won't cause me to run over and sign up.

<disclaimer> I was just using Matt as an example and not implying a thing as to the longevity of his business</disclaimer>

To clarify my point, this thread started when I saw somebody asking for a host with X years on bussines, and some people started to put their domain to be search in a whois to see when the domain has been registered.

It's a good topic nonetheless. The whole archive.org thing. I just picked up a particular image I was after that I would have had to look through dozens of archive CDs to find! :)

Gary

We are in computers business since APR 1997.
In hosting - since FEB 2001.
I sold 2 hosting plans in 1996 under pair.com

Main question - "How many years have we been in business?"

btw, cool idea - I will place this link with hosting rates http://web.archive.org/web/19970412072845/rfe-online.com/hosting.htm on our site ... and tell that we are 6 years in hosting business :cool: :cool:

Jedito: that "wayback machine" (provided by Alexa) isn't exactly the most accurate program in the world for that sort of thing. I've seen sites that were established in 1999 that never even showed up until last year on there. And a lot of the sites that did show up on there were sites where I know the host had changed and for some reason the host hadn't deleted the site at the old IP address, which would be how the Wayback Machine finds sites until info is sufficiently updated.

As far as making claims that don't jive with the information provided, that's entirely possible as well. I have been doing web design since 1999 but never bothered to register my .com or .ca until last year simply because I started out small and approached local businesses. It wasn't until 2002 that I felt the need to do so in order to expand my operations. (I was also doing it on a part-time basis instead of a full-time basis.)

It's usually pretty obvious who is telling the truth and who isn't by the behaviour of the individual making the claims. If an individual gets belligerent, or defensive, or starts trying to counteraccuse the person asking the questions, those are usually good signs that the individual making the claims is lying. I also do look up information such as when the domain was registered, and if it's fairly recent, I will ask why it is. I would expect the same thing to be done for me.

Things aren't always what they appear to be online, and the best way to determine the truth is to use all (not one) of the resources available and ask as many pertinent questions as possible.

. . . and then there are hosts that have been in business for several years, but recently started selling domains, and /or moved theirs, making the whois reflect when the domain was moved, and not when it was actually first registered by that company.
I hate that wayback machine!
Our site sucked a few years ago! The hosting was always good though.

Jedito: that "wayback machine" (provided by Alexa) isn't exactly the most accurate program in the world for that sort of thing. I've seen sites that were established in 1999 that never even showed up until last year on there. And a lot of the sites that did show up on there were sites where I know the host had changed and for some reason the host hadn't deleted the site at the old IP address, which would be how the Wayback Machine finds sites until info is sufficiently updated.

As you may read, what I said is sites who are listed in archive.org, but their contents show that they weren't offering webhosting at all, or that they just have a blank page.
I know that archive.org only list page parsed by Alexa. I'm not saying otherwise.

Also, if you read my last post, what I meaned is that some people show their domain registration as a proof of how much time they have been in bussines, and when you go to archive.org you see that their domains were empty sites or just sites offering something else.

As example, althrough VO say the true, that they started to offer hosting on 2001, venturesonline.com was registered on 1996 if I'm not wrong, and online, but offering other services than hosting.
I hope this make sense, because I'm a bit rush, and I didn't had the time to re-read my post :)

Originally posted by UH-Matt
I think you need to do more research.

We for example havent used the brand "UnitedHosting" since 1998, but we have been hosting since 1998. You need to dig a little deeper I think...Yes. Another example: we started doing business as VoilaWeb. However, turns out most people are utterly unable to spell "voila" correctly, so for non-specific hosting we have created 'hostinggroup.com'. So anyone who would check how many years hg has been in business would be mistaken if trusting the whois database.

I dont think they're really trying to hide anything but if you check out this page, VO who has been in business since 1997 on their site recommended you host with Virtualis as of Dec. 2000.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010126003200/www.venturesonline.com/html/web_site_hosting.html

Theyre pretty straight forward in their about us page that they were a different type of company then but its still kinda funny to see something like that.

-Brendan

Hello Brendan, I give the example of VO as the opossite :)
they had the domain venturesonline.com working for a long time ago, but they started in webhosting at the 2001 if I'm not wrong, but they said that.

Some others, started doing another things with the domain (or nothing), and then moved to webhosting, but they said that they were doing hosting since the domain registration. I don't know if you get my point.

No i understood you I just thought that particular example was funny.

-Brendan

Damn I miss the subscribe to thread on quick replies feature :)

All I was saying above is looking at Whois and archive.org does not create a case against anyone. Its very limited in what it actually tells you about a company.

I know this thread wasnt about us, but I was just using us as an example because we have nothing to hide :)

We are a bricks and mortor company at heart, so websites were not our first priority, we started in 1998 with local companies being 100% of our clientel, no need for a real web presence. We actually hosted as resellers from before 1998, but we formed the company then so dont count anything before that.

Anyway I think we can stop using us as an example now. :)

I would assume that some peeps may have a domain for X amount of years w/o doing ne thing w/it for awhile,that may explain some things........(In regard to Jedito's opening post on this thread)

The Dude :)