Hi All,

I finally got some time to work on a new project this last weekend, and I'd like some hosts here to help spin the tires a bit.

The project is called HostDig, and its yet another hosting directory. The idea is to keep it simple and clean, and at least have some basic quality requirements for hosts. Also, I've written a bid-for-placement system for showcase listings which I believe to be unique in the field. You can bid for position in each showcase, and change, add, and remove bids at any time.

Please note that this is just a test of the bidding code, which is in a very early state. The site is ugly and not all planned features are in place.

Anyway, give it a try at:

http://www.hostdig.com/

The hosts center, which you'll want to use to place your listings, is at:

http://www.hostdig.com/hosts/

Fill out the registration application, and once I verify your details, you'll have real-time bid access.

The site will go live soon, with a decent advertising push behind it. All hosts on board at that time who've provided useful feedback will receive a free credit to their account as thanks for helping out.

Postscript: We've all heard the concerns about hosting directories operated by web hosts. At least I'm honest about it. The pros and cons have been well hashed-out, so please no further discussion of it here.

That is a "Big, Ugly Test Banner." :eek2:

Good luck. :)

Hey, subtlety has never been my strong point. ;)

Well, I stopped the sign-up procedure after I received your confirmation e-mail.
Your e-mail states, "...please provide links to your Terms and Conditions, and your uptime guarantee."
And http://www.hostdig.com/hosts/requirements.php states, ". . . . Hosts Must: . . . . . . .guarantee at least 99% uptime, with recourse for clients if uptime guarantee is not met."

We have long taken a stand on abuse of Uptime Guarantees; and refuse to include them in our plans or on our pages.

But, I suppose, that's a different thread.

Again; Good luck.

To qualify for listing on HostDig, a host must:
...
have Terms and Conditions of service which strictly prohibit spam and illegal activity, and adult hosting on shared hosting accounts.
...

Why is that? I see the reasons why spam and illegal activities are in there, but adult hosting on shared hosting accounts?

The project is called HostDig, and its yet another hosting directory. The idea is to keep it simple and clean, and at least have some basic quality requirements for hosts. Also, I've written a bid-for-placement system for showcase listings which I believe to be unique in the field. You can bid for position in each showcase, and change, add, and remove bids at any time.
I like the requirements part, but what makes your bid-for-placement system "unique in the field?"

SoftwareRevue:

If you don't mind, I would certainly like to hear your comments on uptime guarantees. Via e-mail is fine if you don't want to go into it here.

allera:

Possibly your experience has been different than mine, but mine says that allowing adult accounts on shared hosting servers inevitably causes performance problems for the non-adult sites. Adult sites receive much "spikier" traffic in general, and it's harder to keep performance good during those spikes. I don't think very many hosts allow adult content on shared accounts, so I don't expect it to be much of an issue.

I'm not aware of any hosting directory that has a bid-for-placement system for the showcases. If you know of any, by all means, send me a link.

Originally posted by Travis
SoftwareRevue:

If you don't mind, I would certainly like to hear your comments on uptime guarantees. Via e-mail is fine if you don't want to go into it here. I'll look around the forum first for any threads from this year on the subject. If I don't find any, maybe I'll start one.

Originally posted by Travis
Possibly your experience has been different than mine, but mine says that allowing adult accounts on shared hosting servers inevitably causes performance problems for the non-adult sites. Adult sites receive much "spikier" traffic in general, and it's harder to keep performance good during those spikes. I don't think very many hosts allow adult content on shared accounts, so I don't expect it to be much of an issue.
You are making three assumptions:

1) All hosts who allow adult hosting place those adult sites on shared servers with non-adult sites.
2) Adult sites somehow thrash the server due to "traffic spikes."
3) Not many hosts allow adult content on shared accounts.

I find a large amount of hosts allow adult content (why wouldn't they?) and you will lose business on them due to your rules. Maybe add an "Adult Hosting" section and only allow them to list in there unless they offer shared hosting on seperate servers for adult and non-adult site, which then allows them to list in and out of the Adult Hosting section?


I'm not aware of any hosting directory that has a bid-for-placement system for the showcases. If you know of any, by all means, send me a link.
www.hostapproval.com is just one that comes right to mind. I've seen it elsewhere too, I just can't remember.

Your idea is great, we need more PPCs out there that work. With the 'unlimited' restrictions you have you rule out a lot of those big cows like ***** and Burlee. Good luck with it!

Thanks for your comments... you raise some good points; I'll put some thought into this.

Originally posted by Travis
SoftwareRevue:

If you don't mind, I would certainly like to hear your comments on uptime guarantees. Via e-mail is fine if you don't want to go into it here.

Well, If you are a host that leases dedicated servers, and you have no control over the network or the server in that fact, how can you guarantee something you have no direct control over?

I will be frank, I lease from Rackshack.net, when there was a simple issue it took 3 1/2 half hours to fix one little line in a configuration file, which was keeping the server from booting.
I can't physically access the server to do it myself, I had to wait on them.

My question is what is the percentage based on? Per Day, per Week, per month, per year, per decade?

99.9% per month is a lot different than 99.9% compared to a year.

I just think if you can't directly control your uptime (network/bankbone issues) you should not wasting time offering
something that you have to add a bunch TOS limitations to offer it.

That is strictly my opinion.

As there isn't a thread from this year on the subject; I'll add on the "Guarantee" thing.

As ljprevo eluded to. There are too many intangibles that prevent one, in good conscience, to "guarantee" that someone's site would always be accessable.

Sure; you can define your "Uptime Gurarantee" in your TOS or somewhere (maybe right next to the Unlimited Bandwidth explaination), but the normal surfer is going to interpret your Uptime Guarantee that's on your front page to mean that you guarantee to be up ###% of the time. Not as a, "We'll credit your account for the time we're down," or however you define it.

Hm - I guess it all depends on the quality of your suppliers.

We colocate equipment with a telco. They offer a network uptime guarantee which they've far exceeded. Since we own and operate the servers, the server uptime component is our deal. We guarantee 99.9% uptime, and have for four years. We calculate it quarterly, and have delivered it each and every quarter with one exception. We don't have any TOS limitations on it, and we have a graduated refund schedule for each hour downtime beyond allowable.

I would think if you were renting managed servers from someone, you would insist on an uptime guarantee with serious teeth. The point of the penalty is to make sure they act quickly on problems, because they know it will cost them money if they don't. Why would you pay for a service that doesn't come with any sort of performance guarantee?

Oh, well, to each their own.

Originally posted by Travis
Hm - I guess it all depends on the quality of your suppliers. . . . . .:rolleyes: No Comment. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Travis
. . . . . . . We don't have any TOS limitations on it, and we have a graduated refund schedule for each hour downtime beyond allowable. . . . . .Mind telling us what your "graduated refund schedule" is like?
I've seen hosts that, sure they refund you for the time they're down . . . . . . . but that's just it . . . . . for the time they are down.

What do you do differently?

That's something we can agree upon - a pro-rated refund just for the small fraction of time the service is down is worthless. For what it's worth, here is our uptime guarantee and refund policy:

http://www.qwk.net/help/fom/cache/51.html

BTW, I did not mean any offense with the "quality of suppliers" comment. It reflects a serious sentiment, though - I wouldn't deal with any suppliers that are critical to my operation who won't seriously guarantee the quality of their service.

As a hosting customer and not a provider, I think clearly stating uptime guarantee should be sufficient. Some smaller sites may not be as critical on uptime and they might just want better prices. I don't think that is a good idea, nor is the adult hosting rule. I think those two rules alone will cost you up to 40% of potential hosts to feature, which limits your site greatly. At least get rid of the adult host rule which would get most of those lost hosts back into it.

Okay, based on feedback, I am eliminating the uptime guarantee and "no adult content on shared hosting" requirements. We'll try it that way and see how it works.

As an extra bonus, the next 5 hosts to sign up and place listings (remember, it's FREE right now) will receive $20 cash via PayPal. The next 5 after that will receive $10. How many hosting directories PAY YOU to list, I ask you? :) (If you've already signed up, you still qualify for the deal if you go ahead and add a listing.)

Remember, you must still meet the revised qualifications...

Oh, I forgot to mention... first person to send me a 160x600 skyscraper banner gets the spot until I'm ready to do something else with it. E-mail it as an attachment to support@hostdig.com.

Originally posted by Travis
allera:

Possibly your experience has been different than mine, but mine says that allowing adult accounts on shared hosting servers inevitably causes performance problems for the non-adult sites. Adult sites receive much "spikier" traffic in general, and it's harder to keep performance good during those spikes. I don't think very many hosts allow adult content on shared accounts, so I don't expect it to be much of an issue.

I'm not aware of any hosting directory that has a bid-for-placement system for the showcases. If you know of any, by all means, send me a link.

I don't see why hosting adult accounts should be different from any other accounts. If they stay within the system enforced limits imposed on their account (disk/bandwidth) and keep with the TOS/AUP then there isn't a problem.

I've seen PHPBB/IkonBoard/VBulletin sites take way more resources than any adult sites. Any fast server can handle a lot of downloads at once. That's generally what you see on an adult site. Hell a 5 year old system can easily saturate a 10 or even 100mbit ethernet card with data transfers 24/7. That's easy, and non-resource intensive. (Remember, adult sites have to abide by the same bandwidth usage limits as regular accounts, so they won't be able to saturate your server's network transfer all the time. Eventually, they will run out of allowed transfer.)

Now, hitting a database or (gasp!) a file system hundreds of times to produce one page for one user, that's the hard work. Especially when there are 25, 50 or more users online at one time. I'd say that your server is going to have a whole lot more work to do to fulfill that request, than to fulfil an image download request.

Should we all ban bulletin board sites from Shared hosting as well? I think not. :-)

Take care,

Brian

Wait 'till the first time someone runs a password cracker against an adult site hosted on a shared server. ;)

Sure, just like the times that someone runs a DDOS attack on a site for god knows what reason. Its loads of fun, don't you know. :-) (Nothing like trying to SSH into a box with load somewhere in the 50's...) Its all part of the "fun" of being in the web hosting business.

All in all though, I've found in our experience that adult hosting customers are no more risky/dangerous than any other customers.

Just My $0.02 though...

Brian