Fatcow – The Reason Their Clients Moo About Them!
( The Best Web Hosting Service )- FatCow is another web hosting company that has more than a decade of outstanding service to its clients. Established in 1998, FatCow has already gained its rank among the top of the list of the most trusted hosting providers, with a unique twist.
On first look, you’d see their cool cow and farm-themed website. In fact, this is certainly an eye-catcher. In an interview with their marketing manager, Paul Bukhovko (see interview with Fatcow), this theme (and the name FatCow itself) is chosen to show the sense of being a company that will deliver “that simple, old-fashioned service and value”.
Being true to their word, FatCow indeed offers inexpensive hosting plans with great function and quality. In fact, their basic plan, the Original FatCow Plan, is now valued at $56/yr. This plan comes with unlimited disk space and bandwidth, Site Builder tools, Google Search and Webmaster Tools, and lots of advertising freebies such as Google AdWords and Facebook credits. Add up the 30-day money back guarantee and 24/7 customer support service.
FatCow also brings a green and environment-friendly service by providing 100% wind-powered servers, reducing carbon footprint. However, don’t you worry about compromised server reliability, as wind generators are very powerful source of energy. So far, there have been no issues with them being green, and in fact, it garnered praises and awards for its endeavour to do such.
FatCow also boasts largely of its great customer service. It does possess a live and updated “system notices board” that updates customers every time a maintenance or outage is happening. Clients won’t have to check their site or blog to know what is going on, and this lessens the chances of sending support tickets. But still their ticket system is great, and their staff answers in a timely manner. I have talked to them on a number of occasions. They treasure their clients greatly, thus they, as per their Heifercratic Oath, welcome them to FatCow by calling them within the first 7 days of their subscription.
User-friendliness is also a great feature of FatCow plans. Its cPanel is vDeck 4 which is fairly easier than the default cPanel. This control panel can support different kinds of scripts and programming codes such as MySQL, Python, PHP 4 and 5, as well as CGI directory. Their plan also offers a bit of SEO assistance, and it is efficiently managed in the vDeck platform. It also supports Drag and Drop system, which makes it very easy for beginners to fix their sites’ pages.
Another unique and latest server feature is the process called “load balance technology”. This process allows its clients to maximize their bandwidth, speed, and performance since it distributes workload across networks and clusters. This is basically why there have been no negative reports whatsoever about their server performance.
Aside from the Original FatCow Plan which is paid yearly, you can also opt to try their Mini Moo Plan, which is only for $5 a year. This comes with an email account and 35% off a domain name, just perfect to start your venture in online web pages.
As their webpage looks like, FatCow is committed to offering you a fun and simple but satisfying service and value, without lots of extra babbles. Please read my full Fatcow review to see what they can provide you with. They are great for when you want to start a website and do offer a one time payment (shared plan), a later date you can upgrade to an InMotion VPS or dedicated plan if you would like. (because FatCow doesn’t offer anything but shared plans)
Hostgator – Why Customers Love Them?
( The Best Web Hosting Service )- HostGator is an independent hosting company that offers different kinds of web hosting plans. These range from shared and reseller, VPS and dedicated, with either Windows or Linux as the operating system. It is already a decade-year-old provider ran by Brent Oxley and has achieved more than 25 awards due to their superb hosting. My Hostgator review defiantly praises them.
As you can see with its vast and long period of service, it is definitely a solidly stable company that you can try for whatever hosting plan you need. Now with more than 12,000 servers, HostGator boasts its outstanding hosting service with amazing customer service throughout 200 countries worldwide. This excellent service is what actually keeps it clients sticking to them.
Probably much has been said about HostGator being a great provider. But really what’s so great about them?
First, there goes reliability and uptime. HostGator offers 99% uptime guarantee. This is due to their efficient and fully-monitored datacenters and Cisco network that connects to 10 backbone and fiber providers. Top of the line technology is used on their datacenters in Dallas, Texas within The Planet’s facility.
HostGator also boasts its cool features such as eco-friendly web hosting service by means of using wind-powered generators, various hosting options depending on the plans needed, as well as ease of access using cPanel which supports Fantastico. This panel is also able to run different scripts such as Chilisoft ASP, Image Magick, and ZenCart. You can also get unlimited POP3 email accounts and unlimited MySQL databases with your plans.
Aside from their Hatchling and Baby shared hosting plans, they also offer a business hosting plan that comes with free private SSL, dedicated IP, and superb customer support. This shared hosting comes much cheaper just for you to start your business rather than starting off with a VPS or a dedicated server just yet.
Interestingly, they’ve got a long trial period, too. Unlike other providers, which only offer around 15 to 30 days of trial, HostGator offers up to 45 days of trial period. This is actually notable with the fact that HostGator will not offer this ability if they are not sure that they can deliver within a month and a half’s service to you.
Probably the most outstanding about their service is their customer support. In comparison to other online companies, it ranks on the top of the list, in my opinion. They’ve got a 24-hour support system either via phone, support tickets, or live chat. They don’t outsource their agents too, meaning these people got the right education and ability to help their customers with all their concerns. I have personally talked to them a number of times and run a handful of my websites with them. This is evident with lots of good feedback they are getting, even from widely-known institutions. They even got an A+ rating in Better Business Bureau. This means that majority of people would definitely have this rating for it.
HostGator definitely is one of the few hosting providers that would rank on the top of the most trusted hosting providers. Their webpage looks very simple on the outside, but they keep their service on an outstanding level on the inside.
Colorful History of InMotion Hosting
( The Best Web Hosting Service )There are only a selected few companies, who, at an early start, already attained success and after less than a decade, have already grab a spot on the positions of the elite. And in most cases, fewer of these few companies adapt to the challenges and changes and would continue to take the lead in their respective field.
In the field of Web Hosting, it is always important to have a bunch of working servers to maintain uptime of the hosting service. Every incident of downtime will always cut the number of your customers at about 10%, just like any other business. But, maintaining a near perfect record of 98% uptime is something that requires respect to that company. And so is InMotion Hosting. After a decade of being a Web Hosting Site, it still commands a huge slice of the market.
Hosting is an aspect or factor that you need to consider whenever you want your site to be viewed in the Web. And hosting as a factor has a number one important characteristics: uptime. Having a high percentage of uptime would determine the reliability of the site. With a poor hosting, expect that the recognition of your site will just burst like a bubble. In an instant, your site will crash down like an avalanche.
InMotion Hosting Inc. was created on February 15, 2001, and began operation immediately. They have been hosting sites from their offices in Los Angeles, CA and Virginia Beach, VA.
InMotion Hosting, through a dedicated service, currently has employees that average 4 years of experience in web hosting, and are under the backing of the staff that has an average of 11 years worth of experience. Such credentials of the workforce, which was nurtured over the span of 10 years, have made them a leader in their field.
And because of such credentials, they never outsource their support since the time the company was created. Their tech support agents are currently based in Virginia Beach office, which is operating on 24/7! Expect to call them at any time and they will patiently answer all your queries and issues, in season and out of season.
And because of a colorful history and experience, InMotion Hosting right now provides Linux servers at a decent price – a better price compared to its current competitors. And because of this experience, InMotion Hosting now offers shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers. They even provide web designing!
And because of the high rating of customer’s satisfaction, they proudly offer a 100% money-back guarantee to all its clients, showing the reputation they built in the past 10 years. And as a testament to their success, as of April 07, 2011 there are 162 new registered domains, and 150 domains gained from other servers. And starting last September 17, 2004 up to the present date, there are 165,791 registered domains that are still operating under InMotion Hosting. Such feat of strength is unbelievable, making them a leader in Web Hosting. They deserve a standing ovation for a job well done. To see why I love InMotion please see my full InMotion review.
An Insight on the History of HostGator
( The Best Web Hosting Service )A business can only be successful under two conditions: first, it should experienced failures; and second, a business should continue to improve and adapt to modern challenges. Remember that it is only through experiencing failures and disappointment, by learning such painful experience and adapting through it as a challenge in overcoming such obstacles a business will grow. And this hold true to all successful business, like Microsoft, Walmart, even Internet companies like HostGator.
HostGator started, like any business, as a small and promising enterprise. Yet, after achieving small amount of success, failures eventually arose and even cause the company to shut down. At that time, the founder, Brent Oxley, has was in high school and started his venture named The Freak Network (freakwebhosting.com). But being a one-man team, from handling customer support, even to being the CEO and the manager, a system administrator, and also working as a technical support agent, the business met with a bitter ending. Problems after problems, mostly technical issues, arose and after a couple of months, the business is in utter ruin. At that point, the first business venture ended.
But through such failure, a better lesson arose. And so on the second time around, Freak Web Hosting was reborn. But, because of a partner, who didn’t uphold the end of their agreement, wherein the said partner will be responsible in keeping the server up and running, problems like before arose. But, at this point in time, Mr. Oxley knew better. Instead of giving up, he break the partnership and continued the business by his own, by purchasing several servers, and even managed to find a dedicated system administrator. And like the legendary phoenix, thus born HostGator, from the fallen ashes of Freak Network.
As HostGator started trekking the road to success, Mr. Oxley isn’t keen on the idea of reselling, since it requires large amount of technical service, where Mr. Oxley is the only one to answer such service. But as years goes by, it’s easier to attract customers just by the idea of reselling, and in a span of few years, HostGator would eventually become the largest reseller hosting company.
But like the previous Freak Network, a barrage of problems stemming from technical issues still hound HostGator, but the company won’t stop growing. Because of the rapid growth, Mr. Oxley hired his first batch of full time employees, thereby removing some burdens he’s been carrying. Yet another failure arose from a bad decision making, which cause Mr. Oxley to hire his second batch of full time employee. He’s decision on hiring an Indian Outsourcing company gave him a lesson.
At that time, India was the only country providing outsourcing support jobs. Jobs for customer support weren’t well known in other countries, like the Philippines (currently being the best outsourcing nation in Asia and the Latin America). And with such scenario, poor customer support arose which contributed in a big loss of customers, broken reputation and massive loss of income. With such setback, HostGator decided to hire their second batch of employees, solely, for customer support, restoring back the lost reputation of the company. Alongside with such move, HostGator rented its first office in Boca Raton, Florida.
But business will never stop growing. Soon, more employees were being added to the growing enterprise, which resulted to a congested office, forcing HostGator to acquire the current office building of 30,000 square feet. And after years of moving into the new office, the whole building was filled up by HostGator.
With such a long and colorful history of HostGator, it isn’t a wonder why they are now among the elite of web hosting companies. To view my full Hostgator review please click here.
How Much Uptime Should You Expect For Your Web Hosting?
( The Best Web Hosting Service )People who subscribe to web hosting services expect that they would have an access to its remote server anytime of the day or anytime of the night, in short all 24 hours of it. Before we delve deeper into how much uptime is expected for web hosting let us first discuss what hosting uptime is all about. Hosting uptime according to Wikipedia is the percentage of the time that the host is accessible via the internet. A customer who is paying for hosting services expects that he/she will receive his maximum uptime value.
Uptime is always express as a percentage such as 99.99%. Uptime is use to measure how good a web hosting provider is in keeping all their systems functioning. The web host uptime dependability affects the running of the subscriber’s website. As long as the website is running its customers are happily browsing and accessing the functions that the website offers. A huge obstacle when grading your web host would be taking your web host word for what its worth that they have 99.99% uptime. The 1% make not be big in terms of number and percentage but when this translate to online business every little second counts.
Another way of viewing how uptime may affect your business is not just with minutes but lost in sales. Online customers are pickle minded if they think that your search engine does not work or is unreliable they will stop coming back to visit your web site and your ads or they will stop availing the services that you offer. When you are shopping for your Web Hosting provider do get those that are highly recommended or has good reviews with an guaranteed uptime of 99.5% or more.
When availing for Web Hosting services look for their terms in case there are unavoidable instances that there are unscheduled power outages. This can be called as server upgrade. Most hosts don’t take their sites down for more than 4 hours at a time, usually a lot less. Refunds for instances such as this will only be a couple of measly cents so be sure to keep a clear understanding that they will really refund you for the inconvenience. Some Web Hosting providers will only refund you during the time that you reported the power outage.
Ask your web host if they guarantee also your software uptime since in some cases the machine that runs your website us up and your website is still down. This will only be applicable if you are not the one doing the maintenance for your Web server software. Be sure that you have cover all of the inevitable when it comes to making arrangement with your Web Host provider since they would make many lame excuses so that you can’t claim reimbursement.
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