Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : HostSEO.org / T35 Hosting review

[tstivers]

Where to start...

I manage websites for a client of mine, we use multiple hosts, we have dedicated servers, the client has a lot of websites. We've been through a few bad hosts. Of all the bad hosts we've had, this one is the worst. They have VERY poor communication. In the email we received after sign up, and on the purchase page, it stated "20 Class-C IPs". Naturally, like anyone with half an ounce of common sense, our brain told us that means we have 20 ip addresses, the ips are separated into 5 addresses on each class. There is no way to manage the ip addresses yourself, instead, you have to contact them and have them set it up, something that is an extremely annoying task for someone who runs hundreds of websites. So upon requesting the ip's to be set up, we are told that we don't have 20 ip addresses, but instead have 100 ip addresses on 20 c-classes. We're also told we can only run one domain per ip, something that we weren't clearly informed of before paying for the service. Nice, so they don't know the difference between an ip address and a c-class. Ok, no problem, we can deal with that, so we send another request for the ip's to be set up, and start working on setting up the the websites for when the ip's are running. We're running wordpress on all of these websites. Upon attempting to install wordpress the first time, i get to the last step, click submit, and am greeted by a wordpress banner and nothing else. Upon viewing the website, i see a database connection error glaring at me. I look at phpmyadmin and the tables are set up, so it's not a problem with connection, or a problem with the username/password combination we used. No problem, must have been a hiccup, delete the wordpress files and the tables from the database and re-upload wordpress and try again. This time i'm greeted by the same banner with nothing else. Upon looking in the database, only 4 tables out of the 11 that are supposed to be created were created. Hmm, that's odd, it's as though the script died halfway through. Let's try again. Delete wordpress files, delete tables from database, re-upload, and retry. This time it installs, nice. 15 minutes after installing, i'm going through setting things up, and wordpress alerts me that there's a new version, 3.0.3. Sweet, let's update. Upon clicking update, it gets to "unpacking files", then the page stops loading and nothing else happens. I try again, and this time it gets to "updating database", and dies yet again. Looking at the website, it's still in maintenance mode. At this point i get ahold of the client and explain the issues i'm having to him, and he submits a support ticket, clearly stating that scripts are dying halfway through, without any error messages in the logs or on screen other than the ones caused by the script dying halfway through (database connection error upon viewing main site, still in maintenance mode after attempting to update, etc). He also states (per my request) that it seems to be a database issue, as it happens the most during database operations. The president of the company (who seems to be the only employee as every message is from him) replies, informs us that there are php execution limits of 20 seconds (the default php execution limit is 30 seconds, more on this part later), tells us they have a few demo wordpress installs and none come close to even 10 seconds of execution under any situation, and asks if we get anything in our error logs when the problems we describe happen, even though we clearly stated there were not any errors IN THE LOGS OR ON SCREEN. I decide to do some more research. I open WHM, and look at the server status, there are 10 cpus, presumably these would be xeon as they're the most popular for servers, and the current cpu load is 8.5. That explains the issue with scripts dying, the page should load within 10 seconds under NORMAL loads, which would be 7.0 or less, however once you're above 70% of your load, you get spikes, and things slow down significantly, thus we exceed our execution time, and the script gets killed. Makes sense now.

On a 1-10 scale i would give this host a 0, because it's absolutely useless for seo purposes. The president of the company, and presumably the owner, is Alex Melen, he owns t35.com, hostseo.org, along with a couple others. All of his hosts will say T35 Hosting somewhere on the page. I would stay clear of this host, I personally believe it is a scam. It looks good on paper, but after you pay, you realize you can't use it for much more than static content. I'm not sure what the "demo" wordpress sites that work so well consist of, but i hardly doubt it's much more than a default wordpress 1.0 install with a couple posts and no plugins. On the hostseo.org website, it states they've been in business for 13 years, and host over 1 million websites. On t35.com it states they currently host about 1,500,000 websites. HostSEO.org was registered in January 14th, 2010 according to whois records. T35.com was registered in 1999 according to whois records. This is a bit misleading i think, because seo hosting and free web hosting are two completely different markets with completely different requirements. You can't overload paid servers and put restrictive settings on them the same way you would do with a free web host.

Summary:

- The owner of this company himself doesn't want to make an effort to fix the problem, and doesn't bother to read support tickets fully.

- The company is essentially trying to put more websites on the server than it can handle by imposing limits that cripple your website, instead of upgrading the server, or getting another one.

- Plan details are misleading.

- No way to manage the IP addresses you use for your domains on your own.

- Server is under constant load (yes i checked multiple times over the course of the day), is slow, and has restrictive settings that case even more problems on top of that.

- The host doesn't know the difference between a C-Class and an IP Address.

[tstivers]

Also, his forum account name is "amelen" (without quotes of course) and he does have adverts in the offers section, that are also misleading.

[MikeDVB]

While I definitely appreciate your review, I'll be honest that all I read was the "summary". You really need to break your huge blocks of text up into smaller meaningful sets of text such as paragraphs for it to be easier to read.

For everything that you posted, it's in two huge blocks of text:
http://www.screen-shot.net/2010-12-09_1209.png

Beyond that, what is a domain that you hosted with them? It may be in your block of text, I did a cursory look for .com, .net, .org and didn't see anything... Yes - I do realize there are other TLD extensions.

[tstivers]

I apologize for the large blocks, I would fix it, however I don't see a way to edit the post. In my current position, where I manage websites for a client, I can't provide the domains we have hosted with them, as they aren't mine, and I don't know that the client wants them posted here.

[bruc]

Originally Posted by tstivers

I apologize for the large blocks, I would fix it, however I don't see a way to edit the post. In my current position, where I manage websites for a client, I can't provide the domains we have hosted with them, as they aren't mine, and I don't know that the client wants them posted here.

You can post the domain or domains to the moderators and it'll be private and not show up on the forum. Sorta helps keep everything legit, not saying you aren't.
Happy Holidays !

[tstivers]

How would i go about doing that?

[MikeDVB]

Originally Posted by tstivers

How would i go about doing that?

Do it here: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/report.php?p=7161177

[tstivers]

Attempted to connect to ftp a moment ago, and the connection kept timing out. Sure enough, logged into webhostmanager, and low and behold the load averages are 61.54, 69.14, 50.95 with a current average of 86.23. Screenshot is attached for proof, if you look at the bottom of the screenshot it shows the status bar (i moused over a link) to prove it is indeed on hostseo.org. There are 8 cpus now though, and there were 10 earlier and at one point 6, so it seems they have some sort of dynamic cluster. Alex tried telling my client there were only 4 cpus, and the load hadn't gone above 2 all day. I would love to know how this is the case when i'm showing averages above 50.95 for the past 15 minutes at least. If you also notice, in the screenshot, /var/tmp and /tmp are at 95% usage, and spamd is down.

[MikeDVB]

Very interesting, hard to argue with that sort of evidence

[tstivers]

this lasted about an hour and 30 minutes, we're back down to a load of 5, 11, 22, spamd came up within about 15 minutes, of me noticing the issue, /var/tmp went back to normal around the same time, and /tmp stayed at 95% usage until now. I'm not sure exactly how long this was going on before i noticed, but i know it was at least 15 minutes because of the load averages.

[amelen]

Although I disagree with most of what you are saying, I'm not going to start a debate on a public forum. I responded to your questions and comments in the helpdesk ticket as you were making them.

Yesterday's high load was due to some client abuse of a php exploit. We were upgrading to php 5.3 in the late afternoon which contributed to the high load and the /tmp folder issues. Since the upgrade, the load has been under 2.0 (with 8 cpu's). I have attached a screenshot of the current load average. I think you misunderstand what a server load means. A load of 8.5 with 10 cpu's means the server is greatly under capacity. Please take a look at the link I sent you in the helpdesk ticket yesterday explaining load values.

In addition, after my numerous request, you still haven't shown which of your scripts are timing out so that our tech's can investigate it. As I mentioned, nobody else seems to be having these issues.

I can provide you a one month credit if you want to test our services for another month to see that the load issue from yesterday has been resolved. I would need further information on the timing out issue (as I requested previously) to have our tech team investigate it though.

I'm also not sure about your comment on ip's?

In the email we received after sign up, and on the purchase page, it stated "20 Class-C IPs". Naturally, like anyone with half an ounce of common sense, our brain told us that means we have 20 ip addresses, the ips are separated into 5 addresses on each class. So upon requesting the ip's to be set up, we are told that we don't have 20 ip addresses, but instead have 100 ip addresses on 20 c-classes.

Your "brain told" you that you received 20 c-class's with 5 ip's on each, and that's exactly what you received. I am not sure what the issue is? You purchased 20 c-class's and received 20 c-class's? We offer 5 ip's on each c-class, so you received a total of 100 ip's Am I missing something here? Are you saying you received more c-class's than you purchased? The checkout page (and welcome email) clearly said 20 c-class's 100 Total Ip's.

I'm also not sure what your use of HostSEO has to do with T35 Hosting? Especially since the services aren't even housed in the same data center? As far as I can tell, you don't have any accounts with T35 Free or Paid Hosting. Maybe the moderators can consider changing the title of the post since it's a bit misleading as it is.

With all of that aside, please let me know if you want me to issue the month of credit. Also, please let me know if you notice any more load issues, although I'm pretty sure we have secured the exploit and the issues have been resolved.

[FernGullyGraphics]

Originally Posted by MikeDVB

While I definitely appreciate your review, I'll be honest that all I read was the "summary". You really need to break your huge blocks of text up into smaller meaningful sets of text such as paragraphs for it to be easier to read.

I second that opinion..

[plumsauce]

Originally Posted by FernGullyGraphics

I second that opinion..

and a third!

[tstivers]

I think you misunderstand what a server load is. A server load of 8.5 with 10 cpus means 85% of the server's total processing power is being used. If you look at the main page for HostSEO.org, right where the slider is located, it says the following. "How many Class C IP Addresses do you need?". This implies that if I move the slider over to 20, I'm getting 20 IP Addresses in total. The reality, is if I move the slider to 20, I'm getting 100 IP Addresses. I also find a bit of confusion in the fact that you advertise the ability to host "unlimited domains". While this is true, it is misleading. The main reason anyone would use the host, is so they can have multiple c-classes available. What you don't mention, is that you can only use one domain per IP address, once you run out of addresses, the rest of your domains go on the default IP address. Most people will want to host 3-5 sites per IP address. Overall my main complaint was the fact that there are major restrictions on the server that cause issues and don't need to be there. I will do a small comparison of the phpinfo on x10hosting.com which is a free host that doesn't force ads, and seohost.com, to further elaborate.

x10hosting.com: max_execution_time: 30
seohost.org: max_execution_time: 20

x10hosting.com: max_input_time: 60
seohost.org: max_input_time: 20

x10hosting.com: memory_limit: 64M
seohost.org: memory_limit: 42M

Putting the max_execution_time below 30 is what caused our issues. The server seems to always be under a pretty high load given the circumstances. This, plus the fact that max_execution_time is set to 20, causes a lot of the scripts we run to time out. As far as what scripts were having the issues, in the time I noticed the issues, it was every script, and I explained what exactly happened in the original post, however I will explain again. Upon installing wordpress, it took me 3 tries, while the server was at a load average of 8.5, and showed that there were 10 cpus. The first two times, the script died halfway through, and the database tables didn't get fully created/populated. After getting wordpress installed, an update came out, so I attempted to install it. This took 3 tries also before it worked. The first time, it got to unpacking files, and then the script died. The second time, it got to updating database, and then the script died. This all while the server was still under an average load of 8.5 (85% in this case). To be 100% honest, the fact that the loads later in the day were due to an exploit is even worse, especially considering this lasted at least an hour and 45 minutes before being resolved, during peak times in the est zone. The reason I included T35 Hosting in this review, is due to the customer support issues, and the fact that it's clearly stated on hostseo.org that you are a division of T35 Hosting. In most circumstances, hosting companies either get it right, or they get it wrong. It doesn't change from server to server. Either all your servers are working correctly, or they're all working horribly. While this isn't true in every case, I feel it's pretty accurate. The reason being, if you're putting too many users on one of your servers to try pulling more profit from it, you're most likely doing that on every server. If you have one server that is configured well, you generally stick with that configuration on your other servers, making minor changes where needed. Like I said, this doesn't apply to every case, but applies to most. I will agree the server loads are currently fine (0.9, 1.75, 3.47). However in the time I've monitored the load averages, I've noticed they spike frequently. These spikes cause issues. If the load spikes to 8.5 for 20 seconds for example, my script may not complete before the time limit is reached. That's where that extra 10 seconds of execution time most other hosts have makes a significant difference. As far as the 1 month credit, I'm not sure what my client is going to do at this point, but I will inform him of this.

I understand the original post is in a rather large block, that's why I put the summary in the post.

[amelen]

The slider is labeled "How many Class C IP Addresses do you need?" not "How many IP's do you need". If you move the slider to 20 c-class's, you're getting 20 c-class's. As a courtesy, we provide extra ip's on every c-class in case you need your own name servers. Still, if you pick 20 c-class's, you get 20 c-class (as was the case).

The execution and memory limits of SEO Hosting have different requirements than regular hosting sites. SEO Hosting customers are very wordpress & cron heavy and those requirements are needed to keep a single account from taking down the entire server.

From looking at the logs, it was hard to determine if your scripts were hitting these limits - that's why I asked for an example domain for our tech's to test, but you never provided that. If you provide the domain or site where you were experiencing those issues, our tech team could troubleshoot it and come up with a resolution. You were never willing to do that. As I stated, we couldn't replicate any of your issues on the demo accounts and needed a live account to investigate.

As I mentioned yesterday, the high loads were caused by a php exploit that was resolved. I'm attaching a live and current load stats update. The current load is still below 1.0.

I'm not sure why you think you can judge hosting on T35 Hosting without ever using it, but I'm not going to argue with you. You're entitled to your opinions. Although, I still think you should further look into load averages. A load average of 12 with 10 cpu's doesn't mean the server is crashing. Load averages don't represent percent of cpu use. Just for future knowledge, I recommend you read up on it.

Feel free to let me know if you want the month credit. Otherwise, good luck with you future hosting needs.