Back in 2005, the braintrust at Godaddy decided to save on bandwidth by blocking Google’s spiders from their servers.
Of course, the result was that thousands of websites hosted with Godaddy were dropped from Google’s index, and web site owners money by the truckload. On a positive note, although the website owners did lose money, Godaddy saved money by not having to serve pages to Googlebot and thereby saving bandwidth.
Godaddy did this without telling any of their customers, but the story broke when Google announced that Godaddy was blocking Googlebot. (Damn, if only Google would have kept their big mouths shut!)
The result was an exodus of customers from Godaddy and Godaddy admitting to their unethical ways and pledging to work with Google to fix the issue.
Skip forward a couple years to the present day.
Again they appear to be unresponsive to Google’s spider.
Playing it on the cheap led me down the wrong path when I selected a web directory to use. I’m not going to mention exactly who I was with out of politeness, but the main thing that wasted my valuable time was renting space instead of just buying it outright. Recently I’ve straighted things out by plonking down less than fifty bucks to sign up with Web Directory 7.
With so many websites fighting over the same turf you really need someone solid at your side to help you navigate through the mess. V7 has really got its act together in organizing their directory. It took me about three months to get out of the routine of renting web directory space and switching over to purchasing a stable spot with Web Directory 7, but now that I’ve done so I can’t recommend it enough.
There’s obvious increased traffic on my blogs since I’ve gone over to using the new directory. V7 appears to have an inside scoop on how to chart new waters in the rocky seas of the SEO biz and I feel confident in counting on them to up my unique visitors this coming year.
Hat tip to John Scott
If you take the time to peruse the many complaints relating to poor web hosting that abound across the Internet, you’ll quickly notice a piece of reoccurring sage advice: If something goes kerplooey with your web hosting, do not sit around and wait for the host to do something about it. Victims of outright scams involving reselling of hosting and sufferers of more mundane ills like plain shoddy organization of billing and payments agree web hosting customers must be proactive in dealing with service troubles.
If the worst occurs, and your host goes down on you, those with bitter experience with this nightmare are in unanimous agreement as to what you moves you should make. Besides the obvious first step of attempting to contact your web server directly, veterans of battles with dubious web hosts insist you maintain a healthy amount of skepticism if problems with your web host arise. Search webhosting talk forums to get the straight dope on the situation. When a problem drops in your lap, sometimes a complete stranger’s advice assumes an unexpected value.
If you don’t get clear answers within 24 hours, find another web host. Sad to say, the posts of dejected web hosting customers who recount sitting around and waiting for unforthcoming service calls and information updates are manifold. Just like in gym class, in the world of web hosting it seems nice guys finish last.
cPanel is proprietary software that simplifies the administration of websites through the use of a graphical, web-based user interface. It is far and away the most popular control panel solution used by web hosts, and runs off a number of RPM-based Linux distributions. Other control panels out there include Plesk, Zpanel, DirectAdmin, Cube Panel, and a number of other homegrown solutions. It’s ease of use and reliable features make it my favorite control panel solution, and the most preferred control panel by many others.
For more experienced webmasters, using cPanel simplifies many routine tasks, leaving extra time to tackle more pressing matters. And for inexperienced or new webmasters, cPanel allows them the opportunity to get up and running right off, without having to spend inordinate amounts of time learning new procedures. Switching web hosts is also a much less stressful situation when you know that you can switch from one host with cPanel, to another one with cPanel and not have to deal with a new control panel.
While cPanel is pretty straightforward, those who are new to web hosting and operating a website might benefit from taking a look at cPanel tutorials. You’ll learn the basic operations and procedures, and eventually, some more advanced settings and procedures.
If you run your sites off a Windows-based server, then sadly you’re out of luck because cPanel doesn’t work with Windows. If you’re looking to dump Windows and switch to a new host, find one with a good Linux server and cPanel. A Linux-based server will typically run cheaper than a Windows one, and works great for the many popular open source software and web applications that are commonly used today. You can even test out a demo version of cPanel at the cPanel website, and I am sure that once you try it, you’ll love it too.
While looking into which hosts have bad reputations so I can keep my readers up to date one name keeps coming up again and again and again, MCHost. Complaints range from sudden server changes which leave sites broken, double, triple even quintuple billing which goes on and on coupled with refusals to reimburse customers. (more…)
Have you been lured to GoDaddy by their cheap domain name registration? So have I, but my excitement quickly faded while wading through the pages and pages of extra features they try and trick you into signing up for. There are many, many complaints about GoDaddy which can be found all over the net like this one and this one and this one for starters. (more…)
Welcome to the up and coming news site about web hosts!
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