For enhanced reliability, this web site now runs on TWO DIFFERENT web host companies! The two web host companies are in different states, so not even hurricanes, earthquakes, or volcanos will knock both of them out at the same time! When currently ACTIVE web host fails, the STANBY host will becomne ACITVE. All of your requests will be automatically switched to the working host.
Of course, the most likely problem is human failure. Web host companies can be great for a few years and then go to hell. There are several reasons, but being bought by another company seems to be common. Promising more than can be delivered is also common. (see History, below)
Note: this is NOT fully implemented, yet!
* Bookmark <==> Favorite - Two words browsers use for the same function
Because I use TWO different web hosts, the normal way you use your browser's Bookmark function may cause problems! For a detailed explanation please check my Bookmark Why page. If you follow the Bookmark procedure on the Bookmark Why page, everything will work just fine. Incorrectly created bookmarks will give the Malformed URL page, which will guide you to the correct URL.
I used Google to find "web host reviews" web sites. Not wanting to trust any particular rating site, I computed an overall score for each web host, based on the scores of all of the rating sites. This is the same strategy I had used a few years ago, to find my former web host. I was pleased to notice that the score of my former web host has dropped significantly, which matched my experience with them. I was disappointed to notice that they still scored very highly on some rating sites.
Two of the review sites I found this time, were setup quite differently than most of the others. They both pointed out that many of the web host review sites are just scams. The top 10 or 15 slots are bought and paid for by the very web host companies being reviewed! Several years ago, when I was looking for my ex-web host, I noticed that the top web host on some particular review site would not even appear in the top 10 or 20 of ANY of the other review sites! The rest of the reviews seemed to correlate fairly well with the other review sites. I began to suspect that some of the review sites were fronts promoting one particular web host, and that the other reviews on that site were basically legitimate. It never occurred to me that ALL of the top slots on MOST of the review sites, were scams! I eventually picked one web host recommended by each of the two review sites, below.
Web Host Reviews
WHReviews - Web
Host Reviews
I no longer use the two hosts I initially selected in early 2007: Host Monstor and Downtownhost. (see history for why)
If you go to the above two sites, you may notice that Hostmonster is not actually reviewed by either site! During my search, I noticed that Bluehost and Hostmonster actually had the exact same street address! They were both on my short list, so I sent an email to each company, and the replies I received, were both from the same individual! It turns out, that the two companies are owned by the same person, and the two companies, share nearly everything, including all of the employees! The only difference is the actual computer hardware that the web hosts run on. I assumed that the ratings of both companies would be extremely highly correlated. I picked the one that suited my needs a bit better.
AVOID iPowerWeb.com (AVOID iPower.com - another name they use)
AVOID HostMonster.com (AVOID BlueHost.com - nearly the same company, see above)
AVOID Downtownhost.com
I actually signed up for a one year Hosting Contract with the following hosts. During the money back time period (usually one month), it became apparent they could not meet my needs.
AVOID HostingMatters.com
AVOID WestHost.com
2008-Oct Hosting Matters - It took me less than a week to get scripts up and running. While setting up my web sites, I had noticed something rather odd. It became obvious that I would not be able to use all of the advertised 15 addon domains and 15 subdomains. Every domain I created used up a subdomain. It became clear to me that that the TOTAL addon domains plus subdomains was 15. The reduced amount was still more than I needed, but still, I felt compelled to point out the error on their web page. I figured it may have been an oversight and they would be happy to correct it. Their response seemed rather odd, to me! "It says quite clearly right in our knowledgebase that addons use a subdomain when created." As if everyone reads their entire knowledgebase, to find such obscure things, before signing up for an account. I know I didn't! I did read parts of their knowledgebase looking for things that were not obvious. It's pretty obvious to me that 15 + 15 = 30. "Anyone who has ever used cPanel knows this." Oddly, I had used cPanel on two different hosts for nearly two years and had not noticed this behavior. It turns out that I had created the subdomain first, and then I created the addon domain. So, everything seemed normal to me. Also, the other web hosts had an unlimited number of addon domains and subdomains, so however they counted them didn't matter. The subdomain with the same name as the addon domain turned out not to be particularly useful to me, so with a limited number of subdomains available, I decided not to create them.
They were rather upset that I said I felt deceived to discover that 15 + 15 = 15. "No, you absolutely were not deceived in any way, shape, or form." So, then they canceled my account, "I am terminating your account, effective immediately." I guess it's your call as to whether you consider this deception intentional or accidental.
2009-Mar West Host - The first web page I put up did not work correctly. SSI (Server Side Includes) were not enabled. The first tech that worked this problem created a simple test file: includestest.shtml, and said that it works. I examined his test file and replied, "Your test case has no SSI commands in it, it proves nothing." I modified his test case by adding an SSI command, and sent back two links, one on his host that failed and the other on different web host that worked. This time he enabled SSI by changing the apache configuration file. Some SSI commands now worked fine, others did not.
WARNING - Technical mumbo jumbo follows:
A brief exerpt from the support ticket describing the problem:
I have isolated the problem to some extent, but every time I change
the code, the symptoms change, sometimes working correctly. Here is
what I have determined:
The variable USER_NAME changes, even though my code ONLY TESTS it! The
WRONG value of USER_NAME appears to be getting some fragments of the
html page that is being processed. In other words, adding or removing
some html code to the web page will shift the value that USER_NAME
gets set to.
Here have several test cases:
These first two URLs run the EXACT SAME html code, and yet produce
different results. USER_NAME is corrupted DIFFERENTLY in these two
URLs.
http://x.uschold.us/
http://x.uschold.us/index.shtml
The second tech that worked on this ticket preceded to comment out some lines in the apache configuration file, and then claimed that SSI was now enabled and worked just fine. I pointed out that according to the Apache manual, the changes he made actually disabled SSI and the real problem has to do with the content of the variable USER_NAME changing when it is not being set, and therfore should stay the same.
The third tech, "I apologize on behalf of West Host for Kevin, he must not have read the ticket as well as he should have." He then preceded to tell me that if I removed this particular line of my code, everything worked as expected. Now I'm thinking, "Well, dude, you reading ability is not much better than Kevin's." Dear reader, hopefully your didn't miss it, but just a few paragraphs ago, I stated, "but every time I change the code, the symptoms change, sometimes working correctly." I really felt like letting them have it! I nearly told them, "I really don't have the patients to teach you how to read!" But, I'd already decided that they were too incompetent for my needs, so I just replied, "Please cancel my account and refund my money."
I actually signed up for a one year Hosting Contract with the following hosts. During the money back time period (usually one month), it became apparent they could not meet my needs.
2008-Oct Weberz - After about a week and a half, I had installed and tested all of my scripts and everything was working as I needed. Great! When I signed up, they mentioned that they would be upgrading all of their hosting plans and they assured me that I would be assigned the closest plan that had at least the same capabilities. A week or so later, the upgrade happened and some things stopped working! A minor glitch, I suspected! I pointed out several Unix utilities that no longer worked, and asked for them to be restored. They told me that these utilities were no longer available and would not be restored. Weberz may be suitable for you, if your scripting needs are minimal.
2009-Apr Host Nexus - It took several weeks to verify that my scripts worked as I needed. During the testing, I discovered several missing capabilites that I required. I explained my needs and Host Nexus added several Unix utilities to my account, that are normally disabled and changed a few other configurations to meet my needs. During the testing, I noticed that the response time often was rather sluggish. Shortly after I enabled my system monitor and discovered why. After only a weeks worth of monitoring, the reported down time exceeded that allowed to meet the 99.9% uptime guarantee for one month. This is exactly the reason I'm leaving my current web host. Host Nexus was gracious enough to move my account to a less busy server. The new server was much more responsive and the system monitor reported nary a glitch. On the other hand, Host Nexus refused to install, on the new server, all of the changes they had installed for me on the initial server. This quite surprised me, of course. I had to cancel my account as my scripts no longer worked. Host Nexus may be suitable for you, if you have more modest scripting needs.
2007-Jun: Many of you are aware that in December 2006 and January 2007, my web pages were down for a few days. But, even worse, my email was down for over ONE WEEK in December and nearly one week in January. I don't know about you, but that SUCKED for me! Having two web hosts about doubled the cost of running my web sites, but I think it's worth it!
Update 2008-Oct: In September, several of my users reported that my site was down. I checked and discovered that one of my current web hosts, Host Monster has failed to meet their uptime guarantee for 16 of the last 18 months! I deactivated them and activated Downtownhost, which had been and is currently working just fine. I am currently searching for a new web host to replace them.
Update 2009-Mar: While still trying to get my new host, ICDSoft configured and tested, Downtownhost, which had been very good, went completely out to lunch. Their support went from Awesome to Atrocious! I put in a support ticket Feb 25 to fix their expired shared SSL certificate. It is now Mar 19, and it is still broken! They did not respond ONCE to that ticket. Their computer system automatically closes tickets after no response for 48 hours. I kept reopening it, and asking them to fix the problem. I wrote several other tickets, relating to this one. I called their support phone number three times, no action. They did respond to one of the tickets, he apologized and said he was out of town for over a week and would get to it the next day. A week later and still nothing! I get bored sending tickets to a black hole!
Update 2009-Jun: I now have two different web hosts than I had when this year started. The new web hosts are ICDSoft and Host Gator. I hope they are more reliable than the last two. I also now have my own SSL certificates for these domains: "secure.uschold.us" and "secured.uschold.us". The SSL certificates allowed me to remove most of the dreaded "Malformed URL" error messages from my web site. Also, your browser's "Favorite" or "Bookmark" function works the way you expect for all but a few of my web pages.