If you commented in the last few days — and think I censored you cuz it’s still not showing up — take this as a lesson not to sign up with Sustainable Websites, my current web host.
The story: On 4/24 I notice my site isn’t loading. So I email the tech people (There’s no phone service, unless I wanna bug Ivan, the guy who got me to sign up, directly) cuz a weird “Index of /” page comes up when I try to go to greenlagirl.com. Plus, there’s a red [!] sign next to my feed on bloglines, showing me something’s not working right.
Of course, The tech people write back right after the prob gets fixed, saying my site’s loading now. “Please clear your browser cache and try again,” they write, never acknowledging a prob occured.
I don’t wanna stress, but the comments that’ve been posted in the meantime come through via email but aren’t posting on the site — so I write back asking about that.
The email back, 5 hours later: “There have not been any downtime of the server recently.” (sic)
A while later, I get another, unrelated and general email from Sustainable Websites:
As of this morning, we have completed moving your sites to a new upgraded server (at no charge). Please hold off on any major updates to your sites for six hours – this will give the DNS information time to propigate across the internet.
Clearly, the probs I’ve had’re due to this “moving your sites to a new upgraded server” deal. But I’m just told there’s been no downtime. And now, I’m told — with no advance warning — that I can’t update my site for 6 hours. This 6 hours goes from 9:30 am on, which basically wipes out my whole blog day. No warning, no apologies.
I write tech again asking when exactly I can start posting again. 14 hours later, they finally respond, saying I can start posting.
Then I get an email from SiteUptime, an independent monitor, that lets me know that my site went down again late afternoon yesterday when luckily, I wasn’t at my computer (thanks, groby, for advising me to sign up with SiteUptime).
I so miss the days I was with BlueHost, when I had polite, informative, 24-hour phone customer-service support.
And as readers have pointed out, Sustainable Websites’ claim to green just means it’s bought offsets. Considering how much more Sustainable Websites charges me than BlueHost, I could just buy my own damn offsets with the diff. Idiotically, I didn’t realize this when I signed up for a year-long contract with Sustainable Websites.
So that’s why your comment’s lost forever in the digital world. Lemme know in the comments if you feel I’m being too harsh — if this sort of treatment is just par for the course for web hosting services. And I apologize for your lost comment.
Update, 6/5/07: I switched hosts to Aiso.com!
No hosting is quiet good. Use http://www.blacknight.ie/ to host my main posting site http://irishelection.com/and have to say they are nothing but legendary
Comment by simon — April 27, 2007 @ 2:47 am
Did you receive a Service Level Agreement (SLA) when you signed up? If they do not meet their SLA’s, you should be compensated/credited a certain amount from your monthly bill. This is pretty standard in the hosting and colocation industry, especially for customers with businesses that are dependent on this.
Comment by jason — April 27, 2007 @ 7:11 am
Sorry to hear your problems, Siel. Have you looked into Thinkhost.com? I am thinking of switching to them, they are 100% powered by alternative energy. I use Dreamhost now and would NOT recommend them to anyone, as my sites have been down daily for weeks. They say they have gone “green”, but honestly, I would rather see my money first spent on making things work, THEN on being green.
Comment by david — April 27, 2007 @ 9:09 am
Nope, not harsh at all! I’m a person who will not deal with a company who does not offer Superior Customer Service in appreciation for my hard earned money! Move on, sister!
Comment by Tammi — April 27, 2007 @ 9:32 am
No, you are not too harsh, that is sucky treatment, the kind you might expect from a Verizon or a Capitol one. I think you could lobby to have them let you out of your contract pretty easily given that you have a desirable amount of online presence.
Comment by toddy walters — April 27, 2007 @ 12:08 pm
Hi Siel, I’m from ThinkHost, Inc – thanks for the mention David! I came across this post while searching Google on green hosting related terms.
Siel and other readers – if you decide you’d like to give ThinkHost a whirl; here’s a coupon code for free setup and your first 3 months free:
THD99999TREEM3A
Aside from being renewable energy powered, we also recently kicked off a Tree Planting program and we sponsor quite a few environmental groups. Green and social change issues are a passion for us, not just a marketing angle – and our hosting is pretty good too ;).
But of course, I’m somewhat biased – try us out obligation free; we hope to welcome you soon!
http://www.thinkhost.com
http://www.thinkhost.com/socialchange/
Comment by Michael Bloch — May 1, 2007 @ 9:15 pm
I’m too deflated to look into switching AGAIN right this second, but thanks for the info, everyone — mid month, I’ll start looking into alternatives. Maybe I can get out of this contract — who knows –
Comment by Siel — May 2, 2007 @ 8:21 pm
I wouldnt sign up with Thinkhost, Sustainable Websites or any of the others, both of them have had my site down and their support is bad, I have been with them all. I have since moved my site over with AISO.Net and they have never been down once, plus they get back to you for support and you can even call them!…give them a look at http://www.aiso.net…i recommend them, plus they are solar powered too.
Comment by Lucy — May 5, 2007 @ 12:09 am
Also just a note, if you think im lying, take a look at this web site http://www.thinkhost-sucks.com
Comment by Lucy — May 5, 2007 @ 12:29 am
Lucy, I’m very sorry to hear you weren’t impressed with ThinkHost – if you’d like to contact me via mbloch@thinkhost.com; I’d really like to understand more of what disappointed you and the circumstances behind the downtime you experienced.
Unfortunately you haven’t left your URL in your post, so I couldn’t look into this immediately and contact you. GreenLAGirl, I hope you don’t mind me addressing Lucy’s post in this thread.
As for the ThinkHost-Sucks.com site; I notice it’s one page written anonymously :). Most high-profile hosts and other companies you’ll find will have a companion “sucks” site – we’ve been aware of the existence of this one for quite a while. It just takes one upset person with a few bucks for domain registration to create something like that. Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing and something we actively support :).
But, with all due respect, that anonymous site is hardly proof of our general quality. Do we experience downtime? Sure, all hosts do; but our average uptime is pretty impressive and if we mess up, we do try to learn from the experience and apply those lessons. For instance, given our substantial growth in recent times, we’ve added more staff and better coverage to further decrease support response times.
Even in this age of high technology and regardless of our sincere commitment to and passion for a greener, more just world and being the best host we can possibly be – we are human and yes, we make mistakes from time to time.
Running a web host service is quite a challenge; technology is constantly evolving, demands and expectations are constantly increasing accompanied by pressure to maintain pricing points that folks can afford. It can get rather intense behind the scenes of a web hosting company, but thanks to a strong team of passionate people, we’ve been meeting the challenges since 1999 – whereas *many* others have fallen by the wayside. We’re in this for the long haul.
Again, I’m certainly not suggesting that you didn’t experience downtime or that we didn’t handle a situation as well as we could have, but if you’d like to write to me about your experiences at the email address I mentioned, I would be most appreciative as you could probably provide me with some valuable feedback to act on.
Comment by Michael Bloch — May 5, 2007 @ 1:49 am
I am sorry to hear about the issue you had with Sustainable. Check out hosting at http://www.aiso.net as they are up all the time. Check out their testimonial page to see what clients think of them as I am on there too. I have been with them for many years and they are extremely helpful. They are the only hosting company 100% powered by their own on site solar system. Support is fantastic and they always treat me like I am their only client. They actually answer the phone and support email is excellent. I can’t remember in the years I have been with them of my site ever being down. Usually the problems are self induced and they are quick to help solve my issues when I create them. Check out their live solar cam they have on the front of their site it is really cool. I am just so happy to be with the best hosting service around and I am proud to say my site is powered by real 100% solar energy and not green credits.
Comment by Heapmaster — May 5, 2007 @ 8:43 am
Hey greenlagirl…I came across this when doing a search about how you talked about getting green credits for yourself and I thought this might be something I could do too for myself…you might find this interesting…this post about how green credits don’t help the environment as much as everyone thinks they do…. http://www.tomrafteryit.net/a-carbon-neutral-data-centre#comment-105472
Comment by Lucy — May 7, 2007 @ 10:16 am
Bah! I’m never going back to Thinkhost. My current hosting service might be burning coal tar in the hollowed-out skulls of baby whales, for all I know, but their uptime is far superior to Thinkhost.
Bah, I say!
Comment by The Cubelodyte — February 11, 2008 @ 5:40 pm
Thinkhost has done it again, I lost two hosting customers this weekend! Hooray!
Comment by xxx — February 25, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
The thinkhost-sucks.com is my site.
I stand by absolutely everything on it. My experience there was absolutely awful, probably the least competent service I have seen in any business in my entire life.
But that was a year or two ago now…maybe they’ve improved…possibly.
As for their love of free speech, you should have seen the whiny, vaguely threatening letters they sent me. Hah!
I have had reasonably good experience with HostGator, but they were quick, but not helpful. I had great service from orcwebhosting.com, but there was a time zone difference, and I needed 24×7 support for some customers, so I moved to Innohosting, which has been phenomenal.
I’m raw-vegan, work at home, drive a metro, recycle fiendishly, and support the Arbor Day Foundation. Like at least one other poster, I would rather have hosting that works, and hug trees and worship dirt on my own time and dime.
If you want to be green, go vegan. You’ll save way more resources than worrying about a couple of KW for your fraction of a server per year. Seriously…there are lots of carbon calculators on the ‘net.
Best of Luck, everybody!
Ken
Comment by Ken Lyle — October 10, 2008 @ 4:21 pm
We too had a website on Thinkhost 2 or 3 years ago, and their support was pathetic. We did not mind waiting for 24-48 hours for a reply, but enough is enough. It was never their fault even if we had a very “static” website. Their servers were down too often. And then, when we really were having problems, the threatening words started as we were quite furious with all their downtime.
Comment by zzz — December 10, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
Odd that this comment stream’s become so much about Thinkhost, who I’ve never been a client of and thus have nothing much to say about….
In any case — I’ve been with the solar-powered Aiso.net now for 1.5 years, and despite occasional downtimes, have been overall v. happy with the service.
Comment by Siel — December 10, 2008 @ 3:19 pm