Maybe you won't like seeing a post from someone without that many, which is why I generally just read and learn here, but I'm genuinely curious....
All I seem to find the Internet over are web hosts that charge an exorbitant amount for services that they sometimes are not even capable of offering. Then I see here that the problems go much deeper. Our fellow webhosters advertise on EBAY now? Some lie about what equipment/employees/services they have??? Are webhosts known as the misguiding whores of the Internet? What the hell is wrong with us? People are getting double charged, misled, ripped off, and flat out robbed from the posts I am reading. WHY? I know we are all capable of offering a Legitimate service without having to steal other's designs?, lie to customers?, promise services that are not possible to offer?...WHY DON'T WE?
The online community trusts us to keep the Internet going, without us...there wouldn't be any places to have these discussions, or get email, or.....

We are in a position now to advance an entire economy; we can build trust now with consumers that are sketchy about ecommerce that will last for decades to come. WE can raise the expectations people have about "Internet Companies". We can do all this. We don't need to be wretched to each other or lie to make money! This industry will make us all very rich if we treat customers like we should.

sorry if this post bothers anyone, I am just deeply disappointed after reading the posts about some hosting companies that will remain nameless.

As right as you are about some hosts, I don't believe it's fair to say this about the entire hosting community.

Your post bothers me because it has nothing good to say about the hosts out there that do treat their customers right implying there aren't any.

sorry, I'm just agitated. I do the best I can for all my customers, even when I lose money. I never understood the ethic behind "so what, I got your money". I am aware there are good hosts out there, hopefully one day, people will think that about me. Once again, sorry if I've disturbed anyone.

In all industries you have good and bad, honest and dishonest businesses. It's no surprise to find the same in the hosting field too.

As to ebay, I've seen the auctions too. I wouldn't buy my hosting from an ebay auction but I guess some do.

maybe one day, all bad hosts will just spontaneously burst into flames.:angry:

People (esp. americans) want it right now, for free, and you better offer immediate support. Dont even stop to have that heart attack (cuz you've been up 72hrs straight).

People bitch when they are told they have to pay $50/mo for hosting, and point to the $2/mo "unlimited" and argue price, not value.

People whine when they go with the $2 guy and he's not there at their immediate beck and call 24/7...never mind its a holiday, or his wifes in labor, of he just collapsed from exhaustion.

Hosts sign up with a reseller of a reseller of a reseller, slap the top teir nocs specs on their site and suddeny he'd not Marvin in the Bedroom, he's "SUPERNOC" with 4Gazillion OC900000 lines. (Never mind he dont take credit cards, has no support line and seems to be sales/support/admin/janitorial).

This industry is littered with the ransid remains of hundreds of dishonest hosts and thier customers.

If you want to get ahead, do this:
-Be Honest
-Reply to your emails ASAP.
-Be Honest
-Have a Clue about what you are selling. If You can't spell ASP, don't tell me its the best thing since sliced bread.

If you want to Fail do this:
-Lie
-sweet talk me now, but once I sign give me grief.
-Lie (See TrueHosting, etc for examples of how not to host)

I as a customer do not care if you have 1 line or 20. I dont care if you have armed guards, restricted access and a dragon in the moat. I don't care if you offer an alphabet soup of options if I a-don't understand em and b-don't need em. I want my site to be up, my email to flow, my data to be secure and my questions and concerns answered in a timely manor. Do that, you have my business.

As to the idiots who want to buy everything including the previously mentioned sliced bread thru e-bay, you get what you pay for....so, please ebayers, keep paying tons o cash for a URL, or an EMPTY PS2 box. I laugh everytime I hear that. :)

To those wanting real hosting, there are a hundred good hosts out there, check us out. But understand, you get what you pay for. If you want the handholding, the 24/7 support, the 99.99999% uptime, its going to cost you more than a few $ a month. Quality costs. Because we have to pay employees, an admin to be available to tackle that HD crash, or to block that crackers attack.

simply put, in a day when you can slap a $400 pc off a home DSL line and be a host, in a day when any moron can pick up Frontpage and call himself a designer (even though forms, and proper resizing of graphics is beyond them) WHY! do business with us? Because we have equipment (either directly or thru upline companies) that has what you don't. Experience, redundancy, reliability and no mommy bitching about her electric bill. Why do I regularly charge (and get) $75-$150 / hour to design sites when others do 10 pages for $25? Because I and my employees do damn good work. We use top of the line tools (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Lightwave, Maya) to optimize everything we can to make your site load fast, look good and be what you want, not some overthecounter, came with my pc amature paint program (ms paint?) or pointnsuck program (FP express, etc) to design your e-comm site.

If youre a designer and are insulted by what I just said, tough. Grow, expand your skills and keep learning. Frontpage is nice, but even Microsoft doesn't use it to do their site...think about it.

If youre a host and I've insulted you, again, tough. I'm sorry, but its nice you can have that big NOC (while working out of your bedroom, with no support staff) but your clients may eventually see thru that fasade, and leave. Be honest, give em great support and you'll do real good. Be a shmuck, and I guess you can go visit our old 'friends' from True Hosting, and other "bad" hosts.

You get what you pay for, mr consumer. You want the top o the line, don't expect to get it for nuthing.

Peace.

ahh, someone else feels my pain.:look:

hmm..upon further inspection...
I wonder if a few of us could get together and make a "black list" of hosts with many complaints/lies/etc..
and post it on the Web, advertise it from out sites..etc..
:uzi:
Would we get sued do you suppose?

1 word "disclaimer" :stickout

Problem with that, is you run the risk of libel. or not having all the information to be adjective.

Take Weinbar for example: Decent company that tries hard and until recently was very highly regarded here. Guy gets hit with a string of bad luck: New Kid, support team dropping the ball, some NOC issues and a few very vocal, impatient users that don't wait until the electrons on their email request cool to fire off an "they sucks" post. Did Weinbar (the company) drop the ball? Yes. Did Weinbar (the guy) bust his ass to try and make things right? yes. So, who do we believe? I don't know. I'm not pulling my sites from there, but I'm also not in a rush to snag a dedicated box there either.

Take Burst as another example: Seans on here alot, doing support and answering questions. Does he rub some folks the wrong way? yes. Does Burst as a whole drop the ball? Sometime yes, othertimes no. It all depends.

For every person who's here bitching, theres another one waving the flag for em. You'd have to try and do an rating system, let users enter in the details and let the public make their own decisions. At this point, you run the risk of a company spamming it to up their rating, or an irate user spamming to ruin a company. Its hard to keep it "honest". If ya can, more power to ya.

orpheus, i totally agree with you

i think the problem is two fold

1. anyone and their dog can become resellers. i'm not saying reselling is bad, but i'm saying the lack of any real barriers to entry is bad. it encourages anyone and anything that wants a quick buck and even quicker exit strategy to come aboard.

i think it akin to the good ol door to door salesmen who try to sell you little gadgets, etc... short term sales with no real long term plan in mind.

as you can imagine, this is not a good attitude when trying to develop a hosting company. until there are real barriers to entry, this problem will continue

2. lack of information. face it, some people just shouldn't be near a computer. they lack any real knowledge of what goes on.

that's a good argument for why frontpage designers exist. my favourite analogy (this is a pet peeve of mine, so excuse my rants... :) ) is cooking

everyone can cook, some people cook pretty well.

would you EVER consider selling your cooking to people? no! why not? because that's what professional chef's do, they get real jobs where they need real skills and have to prove themselves.

web designers pick up frontpage, do not know a thing about standards, cross-browser implementation, javascript and java are the same to them, FTP doesn't exist, graphics are 50k each, and HTML is a programming language.

yet they think this qualifies them to sell web design to corporations, handle e-commerce accounts, and set up secure web sites.

until people start understanding this, and knowing how to discern good web development from bad, and good host from bad, this will continue to happen.

it's easy for us to say xxx.com is a bad host, and yyy.com is a good one, because we are able to background check etc... most people don't even know what a WHOIS search is. until stuff like that is common knowledge, i think we will always have this problem.

the solution, i believe, is time and empowerment... teach your clients the basic of the internet, etc... dont' tell them that they can get rich quick on your reseller scheme, cause they can't, and they will just deliver awful service if they're not into it. their value added "design" service just weakens the already negative term of web designer.

(gasp) </rant>

hmm, maybe i'll only allow additions to the rating system through email....wait...:D

If you want to clean up your community it's simple:

Make a list with all the bad hosts.

Define a set of rules to be respected, put a logo on members sites and so on.

Best Reg

:D :D :D :D :D :D

Houston, the Nail HAS been Hit On the Head. We have liftoff.

;)

alright, should i ask for contributions to the list in this thread or begin a new one?

Amen, my brothers. You guys are preaching to the choir, here.

The time has come for a revolution. A cleansing of the industry, if you will. Web hosting should not be perceived as a way to 'get rich quick by fleecing the great gullible public' as some people who shall be nameless, <cough> tacid </cough> seem to think it is.

A group of us are on a planning committee, discussing how to do away with the fly-by-nighters, rip-off artists, hornswogglers, swindlers, bushwhackers, sidewinders, con artists, flimflam men, and milkers of the hosting world. Like every good revolutionary, I believe they should be lined up against the wall and shot. Other calmer heads are leaning towards trials and a ride in a tumbrel to Madame la Guillotine. Tarring and feathering is also an option.

If you believe that honesty IS the best policy and you are willing to volunteer your time and energy, then drop me an email and join the planning committee for the revolution. phoenix@xensei.com

Up the Revolution!

ucvhost.com

There is a thread on them started by me.

I have paid for a hosting package and nothing received in exchange (and 3 weeks is long).

If needed, proof of payment on May 21st can be supplied.

They are advertising now on google.

They are located in India and at least I proud for my contribution to the Indian GDP...

:uzi: ucvhost.com.....added.

Come on - What's next? I believe the Romans, Nazis, blah, blah, blah, all had the same intent -

A cleansing of the industry, if you will.

Who are you to be your brothers keeper? I agree 100% that the host you describe as -

fly-by-nighters, rip-off artists, hornswogglers, swindlers, bushwhackers, sidewinders, con artists, flimflam men, and milkers of the hosting world.

should be stopped. But to have a panel of your peers do so is wrong. I guarantee the time you get a customer like "nosepicker" that wants to fry you, you will be added to this list of bad host. Then what will you think? Phoenix, I always enjoy your post because they have wisdom and experience behind them. I am surprised by this one though. For two years we go untouched with complaints. Hard work and honesty kept us under the radar of negative publicity. Well one customer who can't get cgi's to work, tells us he has "templated" BBB, DA, and newsgroup complaints he will release unless we fix our so-called problem with cgi. We were held hostage by this guy who we finally canceled for non-stop rudeness and threats. Well he did have "templated" complaints. Flamed us. (Funny thing is we have monitored his site. He has moved 4 times in less then a few months.) Would we be on the list?

I believe these host come out in the wash. Bad service and integrity will lead to collapse. How can a *service* provider survive with bad service? (I guess we should ask Chris Faulkner ;) ) While the intent is honorable, how can you guys honestly govern this? Just because you wear a policeman's uniform, it doesn't make you a good cop. I will be interested to see where this leads.

There's a critical element that is being missed here: Good service=staying in business.

If a business does not perform to the customer's expectation, the customer(s) will leave. If the business is really "that" bad....they'll end up with zero customers and file bankruptcy.

Eventually, with enough patience....I think you'll see plenty of hosting companies fall by the wayside because their customer base has dwindled to nothing(as unfortunate as it is to say).

IMO, With enough dedication to one's own business, A good hosting company will see the benefits of providing a consistently sound service.

What do you propose in exchange?
It is quite easy to criticize but when you want to make a honest business you face your customer's reserve because of their previous bad experiences.

I think it is better to try something than doing nothing and expecting that something happens.

It is not about doing police business but proving which webhosting companies are misconducting their business and perhaps forcing them to improve.

It doesn't mean that if a comany has a bad customer service or are advertising more than they can offer they cannot improve. What's sure is that if nobody do nothing they have no interest for.. evolution.

Give me a break Toma1708. You just added "ucvhost.com" to this list. No jury, no trial, just execution. Look at your reason why.

ya, I guess I see where you guys are coming from. I'm sure I'll have an irritated customer in the future and I guess I would be pretty upset if I was added to my own list:(
If we could come up with a good system to filter out requests by people just trying to ruin a company....maybe...ah
what the hell...i guess i'll just do what i always do when i get flustered...
Back away from the keyboard slowly....
Stand up....
Pull my shirt over my head as to cover my eyes completely(this is important)
And run as fast as I can ...in any direction.
Usually clears things right up for me.

This type of site and/or committee thing has been discussed a few times. There are 'bad hosts' sites up, but there are problems with such lists and/or self-appointed groups attempting to save the world from these hosts.

Phoenix participated in this thread:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?&threadid=10656&highlight=grassroots

wow...a moderator comments on my thread...
I do feel welcome here now...thankyou...

sorry for the superfluous comment....i'll go back to the running blind thing again.

Nothing stinks more then when you lose a customer to another web host because they charge $.50/yr for unlimited hosting and you know they are dishonest and suck. You just have to have faith and wait until the customer gets burned and comes running back. I am sure many of you guys, like us, get customers apologizing for leaving and begging us to forgive them and host their site again.

No problem for the break.

My reason is very simple. I have paid for something and received nothing.

I am clever enough to make differences between offers but I like very much that people respect their promises.

If you consider you shouldn't do nothing in this direction it's OK for me.

Concerning the difficult customers I do not think they are difficult if you say them, for example:
- the response to your mail is within 6 or 12 or 24 hours
and you really do this.

And when you can't do it you are strong enough to apologize.

Another example:

everybody guarantees 99,99% uptime. Not everybody needs this, 95% or 90% is sometimes sufficient. The only thing to do is to invest some time in customer education. More educated the customer lees problems for you.

If, for example, instead of banning web hosting companies you draw a list of these bad companies and associate this with a consumer information site, it is likely that the people are more receptive because they are familiar with the quality standards.

everybody guarantees 99,99% uptime. Not everybody needs this, 95% or 90% is sometimes sufficient.

:confused: :confused: :confused: :eek: :eek: :eek: :cartman:

I'm still back and forth on the issue. Yes if clients get burned, the host will ultimately lose enough business to go out of business, however, I'm not sure that decent people deserve to get burned in the first place.

Hey man!

Do you really think that an average price hosting package goes for 99,99%. Be realistic ! I am not speaking about commercial sites.

I think these problems aren't unique to hosting. The same sorts of issues always arise in a new market -- and webhosting is really only about 6 years old as a serious business, 11 if you want to be technical.

What confounds the issue in cyberspace is that the explosive growth of the opportunity to start an online business and the relative ease and low cost of doing so have created an environment where dishonest and/or incompetent (however well-meaning) people can hang out a cyber-shingle and peddle their wares more easily.

Time and experience will root out the incompetent and the fraudulent in the business. Service will continue to improve and costs will continue to fall. Ten years from now, these issues will mostly be obsolete.

As a side note, customers will always want something for nothing as long as the irrational, consequence-free, self-esteem-based, freeloading national philosophy continues to pervade our nation .

UmBillyCord,

I'm very surprised by your harsh words, you are usually quite the voice of reason, but I think you got caught up in my purposely over the top hyperbole misundertood the message behind it.

I was not advocating the creation of a s**t list, that isn't peer review, it's a witch hunt. It has nothing to do with "policing" an industry, it is just a way of pointing fingers, and venting, but this sort of catharsis can be helpful, genuine problems often come to light during a witch hunt.

What most trade associations have in common is a form of peer review. This is nothing new or unusual.

Just because our businesses involve the Internet doesn't make them any different from any other businesses, or make our responsibilities to our customers and our industry any less.

The concept of being judged by a jury of our peers is an old one that's been around since another revolution founded this country.

And peer review goes back further to the middle ages when the guilds (who are what we now call trade associations) were founded to create professional and industry standards and enforce them among the newly emerging middle classes of merchants and craftsmen.

To sell cloth, you needed to be a member of the drapers guild (one among many), to make and sell jewelry, you needed to be a member of the goldsmiths' guild.

And if you were caught giving short measure, or selling gilded lead, the guild (of your peers) investigated it and decided whether or not the complaint was honest, and then the member was disciplined-and some of the punishments were either humiliating or deadly.

A lot of hosts out there are giving short measure to their customers and selling gold-plated lead as the real McCoy. If we who are giving our customers what they pay for don't do something about this problem, one of these days, the government is going to.

We fall under the aegis of the FCC, they thrive on generating a tremendous amount of paperwork, requiring permits for anything and everything, and it will be likely that only the larger hosting companies will be able to survive government regulation of our industry.

i don't see a quick fix solution.

time coupled with education will help speed things up.

if you are truly concerned as a host, perhaps spending some time developing some support documentation, etc... that explain the workings of the internet (like what DNS is, how domains work, how the internet is connected, why frontpage is bad... :) )

stuff like that, will help clients in the long run, as they need to understand their environment

It would have to be setup so that no one post could just go and enter some host and ad them to the list.. This would be very bad. You could make it though so you could recommend somebody and state your reasons. Reasons would have to have some proof, like emails with the company ect. then setup a point system much like the credit system. Basically all you can do is query it agains a host to check there points. You could never see the things they did wrong, only their number of points this would be the best way.

I think the key is open, un-censored discussion such as this that is the key. Sure you can form a commitee, or an organization. Sure you can create watch/warn lists. Sure you can do all this and more. The problem is, we all have opinions, and as one of my old mentors was fond of saying "opinions are like buttholes...everyone gots one, and everyone thinks theirs is the only one that dont stink." sadly, we are all right, and we are all wrong.

I think the key to alot of this is to do your homework first. Search here, and on the opther sites...ask questions, make calls, etc. Can you keep up with every irate user? I don't think so. But if you act mature, give good support and really work your business you should do ok.

educate your clients, and yourself. You'll go far.

Here's the question you should help your prospets answer " Why should they do business with me". Now, honestly answer it so that you shine, and help them see why you are better than the other guy. Do it -honestly-, accurately and speedily, and you'll have a good business. As to the other guys, who cares? Theres 10,000 hosting companies out there...set yourself apart from the 9,500 that suck and you'll be quite profitable. Open, MATURE!!! discourse on boards such as this will help.

Good luck. :cool:

I'm very surprised by your harsh words

I am sorry. I missed these. Can you please point them out. I have a hard time believing I would use "Harsh Words" to the all powerful Phoenix. The only other 'bird' on this forum with more power is a Chicken.

Phoenix, seems like history is your name, and word bending is your game. As a fellow history buff (my major in collage), I would like you to point out what those guilds really were. The governing bodies were always rich, had the most influence, and buried those who opposed by act of so called committee.

To sell cloth, you needed to be a member of the drapers guild

And to sell cloth you needed to be like them. And if they wanted to manipulate pricing, standards, etc.. you had better go with them. How would you like it if I said you need to be part of the "Windows Server Guild" to be a good host? It is hard to buy a plan that says be like us, and fit in. Be different and pay the price. Of course this is stretching it, I understand that. But the fundamentals are sound. Peers are hypocritical and tend to outcast those not following the norm - their norm.

I would also like to point out that there is a "Guild" for our community. www.whg.org. Seen their members? hhhmmm.....

In stead of post back and forth, I bow out. I wish you luck with this "Guild". I honestly think if there was a way to do it and be fair, not judgmental, I would join. I just don't have any ideas how.

It's still business. In business, as in most of life, you can't please all the people all the time. Sooner or later someone somewhere is going to take an exception to you. It's bound to happen.

Nobody anywhere in any industry has a 100% spotless record and totally happy every-single-one customer base. It's just that with the internet it's fast and easy for one person to get their opinion out to the masses.

There's an old saying in business: "A satisfied customer may tell one or two people, but a dissatisfied customer will tell everyone!"

Originally posted by Jaiem
There's an old saying in business: "A satisfied customer may tell one or two people, but a dissatisfied customer will tell everyone!"

And this is very true of this forum and of the hosting forums in general. I've seen messages posted here, and then look at the other forums and one by one they got hit with the 'STAY AWAY...' message, heh.

It is a hard biz. If things are going right, you generally won't hear anything, but the second you reboot the server, look for your name on a forum near you:

"My domain at BLAHhosting is DOWN!!!" :D

Its funny....AIT gets blasted a lot, but so far the box 3 of our clients are on there has been up for over 100days, with no downtime.

compare that to the accts we've got/had at at Ultraspeed/Web2010/VO/Weinbar...average 7-14 days between reboots.

"We now return you to your regularly schedualed downtime" :)

None of us is responsible for what others do, including others in the same industry. Most any field has people in it that are incompetent (except perhaps those where incompetence would make them a Darwin Award recipient). There are licensed doctors who shouldn't be allowed to treat animals, much less people. That doesn't even take into account those who masquerade as doctors and practice for years.

The Internet is unique in many ways. it is a crook's and incompetent's ideal medium. It allows a total disguise. People with no skills, using tools for dummies and reseller accounts, can create web sites and seem to be a hosting and design company. The relative anonymity of the Internet makes that possible. Children pretend to be hosts and so do many incompetents (including those who don't know they are incompetent). See http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html

I knew two diving companies that had sites created and hosted by the same guy. He used Front Page (and crudely at that) and charged them $750. montlhy for hosting simple sites with just a handful of pages and a few images, out of a $10.95 reseller account. That's right, seven hundred fifty dollars monthly. A friend and I set them straight and they moved to a reputable host.

None of that reflects on any of the rest of us and it is up to each consumer to educate themselves and know who they are dealing with. If they care to take the time, the Internet can make that possible as well. A well educated consumer is still the one least likely to be taken advantage of.

As to the separate though related matter of standards and an organization, the idea is flawed and has already proven ineffective. I offer two bits of advice. One is that any review is meaningless without knowing the expectations and experience of the reviewer. Keep that in mind.

The other is that one effective method is to educate consumers. I think a web site (and some already exist) that covers what they should reasonably expect from a host would be better than some futile organization setting standards. Perhaps those in this group would want to link to such a site. They could even create one and make it extensive. Good luck to you all.

Sounds like this is the great unionization debate.

Does *any* industry really need a guild or union? Why is there any such need? Presumably to ensure standards?

Good companies run by dedicated, driven, and competent people will make a name and reputation for themselves and will become successful. Their success becomes the standard by which hosting is judged.

Bad webhosting companies do not give the whole industry a bad name. Did you take the tires off your car last summer when it was reported that Firestone was manufacturing defective tires? It wouldn't make sense to think that all companies are alike in the quality of service they deliver, simply because they practice the same trade.

Good companies can be built. It just takes consistent action at a higher standard than your competition delivers. Let's not think that the bad apples are spoiling the whole barrel; they aren't. They're spoiling themselves. The good stay that way, even after the dust settles -- they just keep doing what they do best.

Originally posted by Duster
and charged them $750. montlhy for hosting simple sites with just a handful of pages and a few images, out of a $10.95 reseller account. That's right, seven hundred fifty dollars monthly. A friend and I set them straight and they moved to a reputable host.

Duster, can you please tell me where I can find those customers? Please, I want to become rich - fast!
:D

Originally posted by Kaith Sutai-Rustaz
Its funny....AIT gets blasted a lot, but so far the box 3 of our clients are on there has been up for over 100days, with no downtime.
Theres nothing unusual about that. Downtime isn't one of their particular problems. Their attitiude is. Wait until those customers have a problem.

Simple sites with a few pages and images aren't the ones likely to find the problems at many hosts. It's the one with greater needs, including using cgi programs, that are more likely to encounter them.

This is one reason why I said reviews of hosts are meaningless without knowing about the reviewer.

Duster - I was just noting it was interesting. I've seen your posts on AIT, had to deal with their incredibly anal attitude towards anything, etc and pretty much steer folks away from em myself. My point was that AIT gets nailed, yet seem to have the best uptime of any of the hosts any of our clients are on, including our own resold accts. I've recomended to 2 outta the 3 they move just so they can do more with their sites. E-comm on those domains is a royal PITA. >< I agree with ya...most reviews are meaningless, especially when you don't know the situation.

example - AIT - simple sites ok, but could you run WHT there? I don't think so.

its all opinion and perspective. Or shadows n dust? (Proximo - Gladiator. RIP-OR)

Peace.

A good friend of mine, who I referred to AIT (before I had any problems other than billing) stayed with them too long, well after I left and told him why he should. His site (and those of his customers) were down too much and too frequently. People were getting time outs when trying to access the sites. AIT told him it was natural, that the Internet always slows down in the afternoon (because of traffic).

There's only one thing wrong with AIT, the people.

Walter,

if I knew where to find customers like that, I'd tell them they could pay me $750 too,



every couple of years. :D

I agree 100% with UmBillyCord. I'm sure their is a better way we could bring up the industry standards. Maybe a real guild managed for consumers, and not advertising dollars. I'm sure this has been tried though, and not succeeded I think the best solution would be an information site. Hosts could contribute "inside" information to a professional, and official web hosting information, standards site.

Many of the problems, the industry has brought on them selves. With all the price wars, its no wonder customers expect everything for nothing, don't understand what it takes to run a real hosting company and so on. We also have had people run away for a few dollars less a month to only come running back.

Then because company A offers more then it possible can for say $8/month, company b, c and d to the same thing to try and still be competitive, throwing out any ridicules claims it can to match its peers, as the bottom line is really what’s important for many companies.. And here we are, with an industry that has hugely devalued its own worth and reputation. I don’t blame the consumers, its only a product of what information has been given them. I think if a group of companies and consumers put real facts out on the web, knowledge would be the best tool.

There is an organization in the works that will one day be the regulatory agency for webhosts. If you believe you have something to bring to this organization. Contact Phoenix, he will give you more information.

There is an organization in the works that will one day be the regulatory agency for webhosts.
Hopefully not ever, especially with that kind of presumptuous attitude.

CWI, you said "I think the best solution would be an information site." So do I. No organization can change an incompetent or unethical host. All they can hope to do is educate consumers.

Personally, and professionally I'll avoid such an organization. I think having been involved with a variety of such things in the last 10 yrs, that eventually, the majority of them either break apart due to personallity clashes, break up over the internal politics, turn into elitist snob cliques or flat out over-control things.

Is it a good idea? sure...but maybe more in the way of the BBB rather than the UN. <G>

I mean, what would most of us do if all the members declare ya have to have a full head of hair to join? Most of us wouldn't be allowed to play. <G> (You may laugh but I really did see that happen in 1 trade group...it was scary) :eek:

Anyhoo....good luck n such.

Originally posted by Orpheus1539
There is an organization in the works that will one day be the regulatory agency for webhosts.No, it will not. The term "regulatory agency" implies governmental authority, which this proposed organization won't have. What it will be is a group of businesspeople attempting to convince the universe of consumers that the business methods of the group's members are better than or preferable to the methods of any businesses that are not part of the group.

Will it be effective? Not likely. Look at the Web Host Guild; it was formed by a group of huge corporations, and counts such heavyweights as Digital Nation, Concentric and Sage among its members. It has a big budget (membership is $1000 per year and there are between 40 and 50 members). Do you think that not being a member hurts your business at all? Apparently not many hosts do, or more would be ponying up that $1000 per year (and $250 application fee) in order to get certified.

And VeriHost, same thing. That certification body was founded by the people at AIT. Essentially the mission is the same as that at WHG (in my opinion) -- to promote the idea that big hosting companies are preferable to small ones. A different agenda, certainly, than that of this proposed organization but the similarities remain: as long as the organization is founded and run by hosts, there will be a bias toward a certain type of business or business plan.

And in the end it doesn't really matter, because the number of hosting consumers who will see any value in a certification from an industry group will remain small enough to be irrelevant.

Hey everyone,

(My first post here so be nice) :blush:

Anyway... Just thought I'd share my thoughts on this one after spending a good deal of time reading everything. I agree with almost all of the opinions about resellers or hosts who don't keep up with their company and offer the services that they advertise.

But, what nobody's mentioned is that many of the companies today offer free trial periods or at least a 30-day money back guarantee. This would allow a customer to find out the truth about a company... does it seem like they're reselling... how reliable is their support... is the server stable, etc.

Even signing up for only 1 month at a time (Hardly anyone charges setup fees anymore) can solve many of the problems that people are having. Of course dedicated servers are a completely different situation, but I chose not to focus on that. :)

And you also have the "Good host gone bad" scenario, but that's already been discusses by Kaith... no need to say more there.

Let me know what you think. :D

I think that is a good point. However many host still do charge setup fees. Also I think the main reason not many offer longer, say 60 day free trials, is they don't want to attract the "non serious" people that have no real intentions to buy your service regardless of the quality. You will have spent time and money of these looking for a temporary free ride. This is just one reason I think you do not see that many extended free trials offered.


Welcome to the board by the way.

Thanks! :)

Yeah, I agree with you on the free sign-up deal.

Personally we only offer a money back guarantee for Master Sites (no free trial) and that has worked well so far. The only customers that we've had leave were because they assumed we had certain features like unlimited subdomains for example which we didn't have at the time.

And if people make an honest mistake like that and realize it within the first 30 days, then no harm done to either party in my opinion.