Web Hosting Recommendations

The time has come for us to move to another hosting company. We currently use shared Linux cPanel reseller hosting for hosting our clients websites who choose to host with us after we have designed their website.

I would like recommendations please.

Our current hosting company isn't the most helpful when it comes to any issues or just seeking guidance to rule out a server issue, in fact I try not to bother raising a ticket if possible. I would never use their white label support for my clients. My clients get personal 1-2-1 support from me and I see to all their issues, though rare, as they rarely login to their cpanel, site admin, etc. I look after most of the websites, hosting and site admin myself.

When raising a ticket, the first reply will always make you feel as if it's a problem at your end and I have to say all the things I have done and checked before they will consider it's worth looking into at their end. I do far more than this for my website clients when I provide hosting support, so why can't someone who is far more experienced and knowledgeable than me do even better?

They also continued to advertise R1Soft backup feature on their website even though they suddenly withdrew this feature last year, and without any notice to me. I only knew when I went to use it and couldn't find the icon and they told me they no longer offered it. However, I only notice today that the icon has miraculously re-appeared in cpanel accounts and must have been restored, although again not a word from them about it.

For the past few days and this morning in particular, hence writing this, we are suffering slow loading times when I have tried several of our sites including whm and cpanel pages. I had notice it was taking ages in past few days but am patient enough to let short spells pass without complaining, but I reckon I can get a better service elsewhere.

I want UK based server with a support person/team whose English is perfect so we can clealy understand each other when exchanging support tickets and must also be physically UK based.

Many hosting companies are based abroad, but using .co.uk and a virtual office (I should know!) and a UK voip landline number, giving the impression they are physically based in the UK when clearly, they are not. Gmail tells me their local time when they sent the email so when it's 5hrs+/- I know they are on another continent! Hello!!

I don't mind paying more, I am not looking for "the cheapest", however it needs to be reasonable and competitive as I buy 'value for money'.

There are 2 companies I do not wish to use who I have tried but I will not name them here publicly. One is the current one obviously, and one is the one I used before that. The one before that one (and our first) was okay generally, but had some serious downtime (1-2 days) and I lost a couple of customers because of that. A refund of a months hosting back then was of no use to me whatsoever. Those clients were worth to me, the cost I paid for the annual hosting with that provider.

The next company needs to have contingency plans that can restore services asap and IMO, at their own expense rather than at ours.

I pay 100% of my invoice on time each month; I therefore don't see why my service should be late (slow loading) or reduced in any way (poor service, removal of features). Am I asking too much?

I only want the same level of service I offer my customers, which might explain why I have 100% retention for all website clients. But I do have to make an effort when needed, to ensure that. Put another way, if my response was the same level as my provider gives me, or if my clients got those same responses via white label support, quite a few would have moved to another hosting provider before now, that much I do know.

The problem with hosting is that once an issue is fixed, you tend to just be glad it's all back to normal and then you forget, a bit like going to the dentist...until next time. But of course, it's another task to start moving so I wouldn't do it impulsively.

So, anyone you can recommend would be great.

But not someone who goes out of their way to get you as a customer but does nothing to keep you. A bit strange, but there you go!

Please, no self recommendations, affiliate links, or a first post claiming "I can recommend "xyz hosting" they've been great".

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indizine - Looking forward to seeing the replies you get as I'm disgruntled too about apparent repeated small downtimes on the server my site uses!! Best wishes, Linda

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Awww Sandra, my favourite topic

As I've burned through most of the big UK hosters over the years, can happily provide you with a "don't touch with a barge pole" list.

If you want bombproof hosting, with first class support, then in my opinion there is only one place to go at the moment.

Rackspace US owned, but worldwide, data centres, including 4 in the UK.

Maybe pricey, but they are very good. Very impressed with the techies, and serviced received.

If I stay outage free, then saving 24 hours of downtime in 12 months more than makes up for any savings I could have found with muppet and muppet hosting company.

Can only speak for their dedicated servers. Have also got some cloud stuff with them, but only small scale so not a big enough test to prove either way. But if you are a Cloud fan, then it is a very cheap alternative.

I'm just an old techie cynic, and yet to be convinced on anybodies implementation and version of "the cloud", other than places like cobweb which host our exchange email, which then makes perfect sense.

Don't start me on ropey VPS servers like this one

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Hmm, we are with Rackspace already, not sure what bloody cloud though it is a Linux Cloud!

I got a reply 3 and 3/4 hours later from my hosting ticket, saying "it's okay at our end" - lol well it would be, obviously the issue had resolved itself by then!

They wanted a tracert; not sure what that would have shown nearly 4 hours later that would be of any use to them?

it's just annoying, as are the replies I get..... "It MUST be you!!"

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Virtual Business Address - £90 per year + postage - nothing else to pay, just one fixed price. Includes a Mail Forwarding Service.

Garden Summer Houses | Oak Framed Log Cabins Scotland

Van Racking | Van Signwriting | Roof Racks for Vans

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Oh no!!!!! Don't tell me you're having problems with Rackspace! We're still at the warm and cosy stage!

I always use the Planet (now softlayer) as a base line, 3 years outage free hosting, which I couldn't dream of in the UK, and still use them for our US based stuff.

Hoping (praying) we are going to have the same experience with Rackspace.

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Steve

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If you're here to spam, then expect a ban Copy & Paste monkeys - we're watching you!