Let's post some drawbacks of good hosts, or what keeps you from going with a well-known host with a good reputation. Note: these are not reviews. Anyhow, here's mine...

1. Pair - their own homemade control panel is too limited, and their rules are too stringent, at least for resellers

2. Superb - limited generic control panel

3. VO - does not guarantee backups

4. Verio - high price (though prices usually don't concern me that much) and they also use a limited homemade control panel

Anybody care to expand with some other reputable hosts, and the one or two things that keep you from going with them? Something in their TOS you don't like, etc.

Verio iserver is pretty nice, at a decent price. Fast, too.

Do stay on topic. :D

C1Host - Banned ;)

(Of course with 1 = I.)

Originally posted by chrisb
1. Pair - their own homemade control panel is too limited, and their rules are too stringent, at least for resellers


I know I just mentioned this in an adjacent thread, but I welcome a discussion of the shortcomings so we can improve on the software. Hopefully there's something more than "the other guys have skins on their control panels, kewl!" ;)

Thanks,
Kevin

I imagine vo dont guarantee backups just to protect them incase anything ever happened and all data was lost. I would imagine that they do backups though.

Originally posted by chrisb
Let's post some drawbacks of good hosts, or what keeps you from going with a well-known host with a good reputation. Note: these are not reviews. Anyhow, here's mine...

1. Pair - their own homemade control panel is too limited, and their rules are too stringent, at least for resellers

2. Superb - limited generic control panel

3. VO - does not guarantee backups

4. Verio - high price (though prices usually don't concern me that much) and they also use a limited homemade control panel

Anybody care to expand with some other reputable hosts, and the one or two things that keep you from going with them? Something in their TOS you don't like, etc.


Pair - rules are a good thing and you know where you stand, it's their way or the highway. Their main web site needs revamping and updating as to the features offered.
Superb - a year ago they didn't have a contol panel. They provide refunds if you drop service and paid in advance, That is good fairness and honesty.
VO - no guarantee of backups? they should emphasize that they do them. thing is with a good (secure) host maybe you will not need backups.
Verio - control panel is not that bad. I like the choice of stats programs they offer (I picked Urchin), the zone edit and mail set ups are decent, so is the invoice payment feature.

Seems like the rules of good hosting is limit trouble calls. If you don't have all the bells and whistles to offer, clients will not have trouble calls. These hosts seem to follow the KISS method of hosting and focus on uptime and quality of service


.Spoke to soon on VO..they just got hacked on a server. Now we get to see if they have those backups!

Well said, intellec. :D

Originally posted by intellec
Pair - rules are a good thing and you know where you stand, it's their way or the highway.
"Some" rules are a good thing; "other" rules are not. For one, they insist that all of their resellers be clear about their use of Pair; and many resellers don't want to do that. I think that one rule is outrageous. THAT should be left up to the reseller.
To Pair (Kevin): With all due respect, I don't think anyone should have to suggest what is needed to improve your control panel; and yes, I'm talking about more than just skins. There are plenty of control panels out there, and if you do the research, you should be able to see that for yourself.


Superb - a year ago they didn't have a control panel. They provide refunds if you drop service and paid in advance, That is good fairness and honesty.

That IS impressive and good to know.



VO - no guarantee of backups? they should emphasize that they do them. thing is with a good (secure) host maybe you will not need backups.

Backups are ALWAYS needed. No matter how good the host is things can and do happen. Also, the person running a site could make an error and accidentally delete important files. Even seasoned linux administrators make mistakes.

Seems like the rules of good hosting is limit trouble calls. If you don't have all the bells and whistles to offer, clients will not have trouble calls. These hosts seem to follow the KISS method of hosting and focus on uptime and quality of service.

Hmmm... I respectfully disagree with your "intellec" on that one. :) If a host really thinks this way, I think they are in trouble. Fewer bells and whistles could mean less trouble tickets; but it could also mean less clients. People like bells and whistles.

Now, can we move on to some other hosts instead of just discussing just 3 or 4? :)

Originally posted by chrisb
"Some" rules are a good thing; "other" rules are not. For one, they insist that all of their resellers be clear about their use of Pair; and many resellers don't want to do that. I think that one rule is outrageous. THAT should be left up to the reseller.


I agree 100%. You would be more of a sales person / advertising company for them. But then again a reseller is a reseller.

What!? CRAZY thread!
LOL!! EVERYONE has rules and TERMS OF SERVICE to follow!
We are not resellers...We lease dedicated servers.
OUR NOCS do have TOS, as I hope most do!!

How in the world would anyone think that a reseller anywhere, does NOT have to follow TOS.

YOUR ISP has a TOS (terms of service) that YOU as a CLIENT/CUSTOMER have to follow.
:rolleyes: :confused:

Originally posted by chrisb

"Some" rules are a good thing; "other" rules are not. For one, they insist that all of their resellers be clear about their use of Pair; and many resellers don't want to do that. I think that one rule is outrageous. THAT should be left up to the reseller.


And of course it is left up to the reseller! If a reseller prefers a business model where they mislead their customers about who is providing the technical hosting service, then there are only about a million other hosts they can use. You can use various analogies in either direction, but because our experience showed that misinformed customers are unhappy customers, and resellers who have no value-added proposition are of little benefit to anyone, we chose to avoid being involved in such a situation.

I'm sure it's fine for many other providers, and good for them. We aren't comfortable with it, so we discourage it for our resellers, and provide no assistance in misleading customers. Maybe it's our loss, maybe not. But we're not trying to force that approach on anyone else. Resellers are free to use any host they wish.


To Pair (Kevin): With all due respect, I don't think anyone should have to suggest what is needed to improve your control panel; and yes, I'm talking about more than just skins. There are plenty of control panels out there, and if you do the research, you should be able to see that for yourself.


Do you really think we didn't do a comprehensive survey of competitor's interfaces before embarking on the interface aspect of pair2000? Of course we did. We try to do things right.

Certainly we're not asking anyone to do market research for us. But when comments like this are made, clearly someone has something in mind, and we would appreciate knowing about it. Sometimes it takes a second set of eyes to see things differently.

To reiterate, no offense intended to anyone with our position on value-added resellers. And if a reseller is reselling from a provider who doesn't do shared hosting themselves, then really that's a value-add, so good for them. It also means they could feel safer letting their customer know who provides the technical service, since there's no issue of competing.

Thanks,
Kevin

Thanks, Kevin for your poignant response.

Yes we do do backups and are in the middle of going to all off site tape backups.

We dont guarantee backups because nothing is fail proof anything can happen like a Natural Disaster and our old backups system that we are moving away from wile still effective just dose not allow us to guarantee data however 99.9% of the time we have the data needed and restore it for free.

We do offer services for backups that have a 100% guarantee but not many people are willing to pay the price for such a service.

With any host if your data is critcal you need to back it up yourself or pay for such a service but I would still recomend that you do a local backup even if you buy a good backup service.

Thanks, Paul. I stand corrected. It's good to know that you DO offer backup guarantees, if people are willing to pay extra for it.

No poblem just dident want people to think we dont do any backups at all :)

Interesting. I don't view any of the items listed thus far as drawbacks per se. Hosts tailor their offerings for the market at large and with an eye toward future development (one could hope) and continual, steady expansion while not bankrupting themselves in the process. Like anyone else, the larger hosts are there to be contracted or not, based on the particular needs of a potential customer - whether it's space or transfer or money or support. I tend to view drawbacks as something in the nature of the company (like bad support or getting themselves blacklisted) that has little to do with the terms of service they require or the control panel they offer. Of course, talk of that type of drawback to various hosting companies could go on all day long. :)

Originally posted by Annette
Interesting. I don't view any of the items listed thus far as drawbacks per se. Hosts tailor their offerings for the market at large and with an eye toward future development (one could hope) and continual, steady expansion while not bankrupting themselves in the process. Like anyone else, the larger hosts are there to be contracted or not, based on the particular needs of a potential customer - whether it's space or transfer or money or support. I tend to view drawbacks as something in the nature of the company (like bad support or getting themselves blacklisted) that has little to do with the terms of service they require or the control panel they offer. Of course, talk of that type of drawback to various hosting companies could go on all day long. :)

These are the real drawbacks http://www.webhostingratings.com/gotchas.html and they don't match the features of good hosting. If you don't have the Gotchas, then you are a reasonably good host.

I think one cannot be the best in every thing. Yes as you mentioned my friend, nearly all the top hosts do have some drawbacks but thing is to stick with those who do give you the care you deserve as a customer.

:D

Originally posted by intellec


These are the real drawbacks http://www.webhostingratings.com/gotchas.html and they don't match the features of good hosting. If you don't have the Gotchas, then you are a reasonably good host.

Interesting list, though in my mind there is a difference between something inherent in the company's service or lack of it (which seems to cover most of the list there - no support on weekends, claims of "unlimited" bw, and so on) and the things Chris posited at the beginning of this thread. I suppose part of the issue that any particular thing someone might list as a drawback (basic control panel) is not thought of that way by someone else perfectly happy with what is offered.