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One caller on the live stream recently wanted to know which web host they should choose. I honestly hate being asked that question. The answer is that there is no GOOD answer. Every web host – in my humble opinion – sucks, and here’s why: their skin isn’t on the line. They still make money if your site is down. They still make money if you configure something incorrectly. They still make their dollars – no matter what. If their own skin and bottom line were out there along with yours, I feel that web hosting would be a much different environment.

I’ve been through a lot of different web hosting companies in my days online. I’ve struggled with uptime issues. I’ve dealt with poor customer service. I’ve had to wind my way through the maze of service problems and back again on more occasions than I would like to count. Each company I’ve worked with has had their strong points – and their weaknesses.

Right now, I’m pretty happy with Atlas Networks here in Seattle. They respond quickly to any downtime issues, and there have been very few of them. However, they aren’t perfect. That’s the problem, folks… none of these companies are perfect. When your livelihood depends on your website working properly and always being “up,” the company hosting it has to be perfect.

I’m not sure we will ever find the right hosting company. When the day comes that a business will throw their money where their mouths are, then I will be more than willing to work with them. If I have downtime – I shouldn’t be getting charged! If I have an issue – it should be responded to at any time of the day or night. It’s that simple, folks.

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Best and Worst Web Hosting

As far as Web hosts go, I have to admit that MediaTemple is one of the better ones I’ve dealt with. I was anxious to sign up for their Grid service. Despite encountering a few hiccups, I’ve stuck with them as a host – but have since moved onto a Dedicated Virtual server for my blog and other assorted sites under my command. And if you think they’re hiding from their Grid platform problems, think again. They detailed their experience in a blog post today:

In just 3 months the system has become home to over 40,000 domains and a plethora of amazing applications that simply were not sustainable with old Shared Hosting and competing hosting solutions. The GRID however has not been without its trials and has produced several reported bugs and issues of temporary downtime.

Seems as though MySQL is to blame for a lot of it – which isn’t necessarily MySQL’s problem. Kudos to them for being so transparent about the snafus.

The (mt) (gs) Report