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| BlueHost Review! |
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| Do you Recommend BlueHost? |
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| Total Votes : 4 |
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Message
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| Shawn |
 Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 6:39 pm Post subject: BlueHost Review! |
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Site Developer
Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 324
Location: Canada
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Bluehost
Owner: Hosting Solutions Inc.
Date Started: 1996
Based At: Utah
Phone Number: 1-888-401-4678
Type of Plans Offered: Shared Web Hosting
Support Offered: Phone and Email Ticket System
Bio: BlueHost was founded in 1996 and is known for their quality web hosting plans with a lot of great features! They use Cpanel + Fantastico with all their plans but also feature support for such emerging languages as Ruby on Rails. They focus on just shared web hosting.
50 Gigabyte Hosting Space
Host 6 Domains on 1 Account!!!
2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
999 GIGS of Transfer
SSH (Secure Shell), SSL, FTP, Stats
CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
2000/2002/2003 Front Page Extensions
Free Domain Forever!
Free Site Builder
24/7 Sales/Support
Now Bluehost has been around for a number of years and they do offer some great hosting packages, however what they don't tell you is the following!
Bluehost has a cap on CPU, this goes for all web hosting clients that our hosted with them. Any site that succeeds 20% of the CPU is placed on a suspended list until the usage returns to a normal level.
This includes dynamic sites that require a MySQL database to operate as well as page load images and emails.
Bluehost also caps the usage of emails, which means your only allowed to send 250 emails within a 24 hour period!
Now Bluehost is good for the small to medium sites, however if your running a site that has lots of subscribers or opt in email users its not recommended!
Its like their promotional sales state: host multiple domains on one account, which is great, however for most it can't be done as users that install CMS's or Blogs have to watch the amount of SQL quires and CPU usage to stay within their guidelines!
Now we have used Bluehost in the past for our domains http://www.invision-graphics.com and http://www.todays-woman.net They couldn't handle either of these domains traffic or server loads that were all on their own private accounts for each one.
We constantly were down and suspended until usage returned to their required levels!
Feel free to post your reviews, positive or negative!
Shawn |
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| webquest |
| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 1:47 am Post subject: SINGING THE BLUEHOST BLUES |
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New Member
Joined: Feb 06, 2007
Posts: 1
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SINGING THE BLUEHOST BLUES
You know, I've tried a few hosting companies. Bluehost offers a lot but do not do a good job delivering on all of it. The mail is horrible! I look at their ratings on the review sites. I have to wonder who's paying review sites for all the positive feedback. Can they be trusted. Are these the kind of reviews companies like Bluehost use to combat negative comments by disappointed and abused customers.
I'll just say, I didn't have a very positive experience with Bluehost. I first purchased web hosting from them about 9/05. I ended 2/6/07. I would have left sooner If I knew a web host with comparable prices and better service existed. If you wait on them to answer a ticket, you could wait 1-3 days. I found ways to get quicker support by opening a ticket and calling in. It could take 10-30 minutes before they answered but that's pretty good considering support service you get from some of he more expensive host providers I've tried. So, I liked the fact I could call in on a toll free number and get support relatively quick!
I did have problems with the quality of support. They were too dismissive and short on clarity many times. They ran me in circles trying to get my SSL up. They made me feel it was up properly though one of the verifiers read negative. The names didn't match. I found out later that it was not reading valid. I take some fault for part. I should have tested it further by filling out a form and seeing what anyone would see. It wasn't valid. Well here's a little to show how it went.
##################################>>>>
me:
I have followed the instruction and SSL Certificate not functioning properly. I believe you're suppose to install them from here. The old SSL Certificate shows up when I access https://mydomain/guestbook/xxxx/addguest.html.
At first 2 of the 3 verifiers were showing wrong on the certificate. Now "The security certificate has expired or is not yet valid" still has a problem. It's saying expired though the current one in on your server.
##################################>>>>
After phone call and them telling me to destroy the old certificate to get the new one to work.
Them:
Hi,
Do you still have a copy of your old certificate and key? That is the only way we can install it, as we do not keep backups of old copies.
##################################>>>>
One guy tells me to destroy the certificate with the information the next guy says is vital to getting the new one to work.
Later they tell me over the phone that it would be quicker to buy their SSL certificates since they are more familiar with how they work and had better access to all of the info. They said they'd get it up right away.
I called back after 2 hours wondering what happened. Turns out they have a guy they buy from and the order was not yet placed. They waited too long to place it that day! I got totally jerked around. I end up going back to Godaddy and buying one of theirs again. Finally, a night tech installed it properly. I was happy but blew my whole day!
Here's the stump that broke the camel's back. I called in about a weird email that had the first part of one of my emails and the @boxxx.bluehost.com. They told me it was associated with one of my email accounts. Turns out to be associated with my admin email account. It was email being sent from my email account that I didn't send! My first hacker incident! I brought it to Bluehost's attention. The first tech felt it was being sent through send mail and wanted to shut down scripts. I didn't understand and asked for an alternative because the forms and script were very important to running my business. He talked me into shutting down the email account the emails were being sent from. It was the catchall email account.
I ran into info on a script I was looking into for software. It said there would be problems with the auto responders if the catchall account is not available. I called back to have the catchall account restored by a second tech support guy. He told me, after some gentle interrogation by me, about security software through captcha.
I said great! Finally got a solution! Don't know why it's not lit up in every control panel to stop security breaches! It's the kind of image recognition banks use. Don't know why I wasn't told that in the first place. By then I was worn out and needed a nap before the Superbowl.
After the Superbowl, I get right to getting my forms secure so I can stop whoever was sending email from my account. They could get me in lots of trouble with spam regulators.
I FTP into my account and I had no public_html. I figured it was a problem with the computer uploading all files at startup. So, I restart the computer and FTP in again. Still no public_html! Now I ready to panic. I knew my backups were in the public_html folder. They were all gone. OK, I don't know why this happened. I could only guess Bluehost made a mistake and deleted it on restore email. I hadn't checked to see if the public_html folder was there when the first tech talked me into disabling the catchall email account. There was no reason to look. They were unrelated! I called and asked what happened. They had no answers. I asked for a back up. THEY SAID IT WAS UNLIKELY THEY HAD ONE BUT WOULD LOOK! TURNS OUT, THEY HAD NO BACKUP!!! SOMEONE DELETED MY public_html AND FAIL TO SECURE A BACKUP!!!
I had software that could not be replaced but for considerable expense. The guy who wrote the software sold his company to another company. They made an agreement to not include my software in the deal. It was older software that worked great and I knew it well enough to need no further support. The new guy wants $400 to give me the last upgraded version of what I had as a domain fee. Free upgrade but $400 to place it on my domain! Wow, things have really changed! At the same time, telling me no support will be available for it soon. I believe he said $200 for support for ever how long it would last. The new fully supported model for the future is $1000, he'd waive the domain fee to place it.
I asked Blue host to absorb the cost of the minimum package and negotiate a deal with the seller for a year support. They denied having deleted my public_html and refused to negotiate to get my website replicator/affiliate software back!!! They tell me they can't prove their techs had anything to do with the lost of my public_html!!! Imagine that!!! It looks like they're pointing the finger at the hacker who was content sending mail from my account!!! They don't give a crap that one of their techs may have destroyed it! I'm furious that public_html along with the backups to my software, database, and files that took a considerable time to setup, are gone! Like they say, it can't be proved. I don't see anyone else with motive and opportunity! The motive was to limit a risk to their system because of someone entering my email through a form. Yes, a hacker was pulling this stunt but why would he destroy my public_html when he was very content to keep sending email through my account? Nothing says the hacker had access to anything else. Bluehost makes that a point of doubt! So, now two possibilities exist. We can't prove either.
I'd like to know who you think did it! I think Bluehost did it as a quick fix for a security problem! They didn't ask me firmly or state what their policy is when security is breached. I would have removed all scripts and forms I wrote and asked Expert Exchange how to secure them. The replicator/affiliate software was very secure. Matt Wagner was travel around the world teaching programming. Nothing was sent due to his forms and scripts. A little investigation and questioning me would have told them which scripts to delete. They never said that under the circumstances they had to know which scripts and forms were being written from because they had to be deleted immediately! NEVER SAID THAT!!! I would have looked around and got the info for them. I would have let them know not to touch the affiliate software. I had already told them I wrote some scripts and didn't know any thing about securing them. They could have told me then that policy required they be taken off if since they were obviously not secure unless the script I had learned from put security in them. He obviously didn't. I can understand their concern. I wouldn't want to put their system at jeopardy. The first tech never told me anything about sources to secure scripts. The second tech did. I believe the first tech may have done it. I could be wrong. The orders to delete could have come from a higher up(big cheese) once he was notified. I consider that my be the standard process when any possible security breech is discovered. The first tech should have warned me!
It likely came down to a top administration decision to delete my public_html knowing all my backups were in there! Knowing they had no backups!!! Didn't warn me!!! In the end, needed software to run my business is gone, database gone, don't know where people were placed if they email in to complain. That can ruin your reputation! Time put into setting up a huge product website, gone. It's a lot of time and labor. All I asked of Bluehost was to restore my ability to get the affiliate software back. They REFUSED!!! Then showed me their rights!
##################################>>>>
THEIR RIGHTS
I apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced with the loss of your public_html folder. I have made every attempt to track down the source of the data loss and unfortunately could not ascertain how precisely this happened. I also unable to find a current backup of the information contained in the folder in question. If by chance you have a personal backup of your data, we would be happy to assist you in restoring the folder from your backup. Unfortunately, unless you have a backup on hand we will not be able to restore the files you are missing.
For the lost time and potential income I must refer to the Bluehost Terms of Service Agreement located at HTTP://www.bluehost.com/terms_of_service.html.
BLUEHOST SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR NONPERFORMANCE OR DELAY IN PERFORMANCE CAUSED BY ANY REASON, WHETHER WITHIN OR OUTSIDE OF ITS CONTROL. IN NO EVENT SHALL BLUEHOST BE LIABLE UNDER CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY OR ANY OTHER LEGAL OR EQUITABLE THEORY FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, EXEMPLARY OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOSS OF USE, LOST PROFITS, LOSS OF DATA OR INFORMATION OF ANY KIND OR LOSS OF BUSINESS GOODWILL OR OPPORTUNITY) WHETHER OR NOT BLUEHOST HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGES. BLUEHOST SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR THE COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS, SERVICES OR TECHNOLOGY. BLUEHOST’S ENTIRE LIABILITY AND YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY WITH RESPECT TO ANY USE OF THE SERVICES IS THE CANCELLATION OF YOUR ACCOUNT AS SET FORTH HEREIN. IN NO EVENT SHALL BLUEHOST LIABILITY TO YOU EXCEED THE GREATER OF ONE DOLLAR ($1.00) OR ANY AMOUNTS ACTUALLY PAID IN CASH BY YOU TO BLUEHOST FOR THE PRIOR ONE MONTH PERIOD. NO ACTION, REGARDLESS OF FORM, ARISING OUT OF THESE RULES OR OUT OF THE SERVICES MAY BE BROUGHT BY YOU OR BLUEHOST MORE THAN ONE YEAR AFTER THE EVENT WHICH GAVE RISE TO THE CAUSE OF ACTION HAS OCCURRED. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW A LIMITATION ON LIABILITY FOR NEGLIGENCE THAT CAUSES DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY AND, IN SUCH JURISDICTIONS, BLUEHOST’S LIABILITY SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE GREATEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
THEY NEVER TOLD ME I HAD TO KEEP A BACKUP OF THE WEBSITE. I DID ANYWAY. UNFORTUNATELY A WEEK PRIOR. I NEEDED TO REINSTALL WINDOWS BECAUSE OF SOFTWARE BEING UNINSTALLED AND DELETING FILES ON WINDOWS. WELL, WINDOWS XP SENT ME ALL THE WAY BACK TO PARTITION. SO I JUST USED MY LAST BACKUP. NO WEBSITE BACKUP WAS TO BE FOUND BECAUSE I FORGOT TO DO IT! YOU CAN SAY I'M TO BLAME FOR WHERE I AM BUT I'M NOT THE ONE WHO DELETED MY public_html FOLDER!!! I'D LOVE TO HEAR THEM TELL ME WHY THERE WAS NO BACKUP MADE WHEN THEY DID IT! BUT THEN, THE MOST LIKELY ONE WHO DID IT, WON'T ADMIT IT!
##################################>>>>
I responded:
With such terms, I believe someone was instructed to deliberately destroy my public_html and thus, my business, knowing the software was vital to it. This smells of a deliberate act to destroy a person knowing you did not provide a backup other than what was in the public_html. That's not considered negligent! That's deliberate! You can't expect to hide behind such terms. I will leave it to a lawyer as to what you owe me. You refused my offer to compensate me swiftly so I can get on with reconstructing. The cost I'm having to incur as a home business is crippling in terms of advertising I could be buying instead of buying software to replace what you destroyed. You don't seem to recognize the magnitude of what you've done. Settle this cost of getting me back up and running quickly by tomorrow or I will no longer be interested in settling out of court without a lawyer. .........etc.
MORE OF ME:
Ignore any request for compensation after I gave you an opportunity 2/05/07 to redeem yourself and compensate me for what you know you, and you alone, did! Stop trying to blame it on a hacker! I'm going to lawyer up and come to get all of what's mine along with lawyer's fees! ...etc
I was going to make a last plea without a lawyer. I've decided against it. I've asked to be compensated, respectfully, and you refused, topping it off with a show of your legal basis. It's a double slap in the face and open theft of my money, labor, and potential profits! My access to my software and database perished with the destruction of public_html. I had untold hours invested in putting that website up. I spent an untold amount of money getting those people signed up that were in my database. I no longer know where they were positioned. They are likely to talk and cause a bad reflection on me and my business because of what you did! I had to repurchase SSL after you guys told me it was properly installed in September 2006. I had the darnedest time getting you to give me the proper instructions to install it 1/007! You tried to charge me $45! Now this! You deserve what you get for your insolence! ...etc.
You shouldn't have touched the cgi-bin and software you know you didn't give with the hosting! You shouldn't have touched the backups without being sure you had backups! You did it! And you did it with a flagrant disregard for my business! Stop denying it and do what is right!
Yes, I accused them of destroying me. Like Bluehost says, by interpretation, I can't prove they did it! Besides, their agreement gives them the right to do it!
Word to the wise. Watch who you end up with as a web host. Your business depend on people who respect that you put a lot of money, time, and labor into your website. They need to respect that you may be operating software that is not replaceable. If replaceable, it cost an exorbitant amount more than it first cost several year ago! You deserve to have reliable backup from your web host when things go wrong for whatever the reason or whoever is to blame. We're singing the blues because Bluehost didn't respect my business enough to keep one crucial backup!!! No matter who is to blame! So, I'm singing the Bluehost blues.
BLUEHOST BLUES
My web host has dealt me,...a crushing blow.
They refused to compensate... and I ain't going back no mo!
I got the blues baby. I got the Bluehost blues!
I got the blues baby. And that's why I'm spread'n the news!
I haven't felt this bad since my dog has died!
At least then, I didn't have to hear no phony Bluehost alibis!
I got the blues baby. I got the Bluehost blues!
I got the blues baby. I been Bluehost misused!
After they denied the dirty deed, they showed me their legal rights.
It gives them the audacity to blow my business clean out of sight!
I got the blues baby. I got the Bluehost blues!
I got the blues baby. And that's why I'm spread'n the news!
I can't run my business without that affiliate software!
Bluehost refuse to be bothered and just don't really seem to care!
I got the blues baby. I got the Bluehost blues!
I got the blues baby. I been Bluehost misused!
And that's why I coo and cock-a-doodle-doo, that Bluehost deserves the booo ooh oohs!
Oh yeah baby, blue all over with the Bluehost blues.
##################################>>>>
This document can not determine who deleted the public_html folder. It can only assert that Bluehost should be required to backup everyone in their system. It's an example of why we need hosting better regulated! Bluehost should have had my back with backup!
Because I believe something to be true, don't make it so. That is all I am asserting here. I could be wrong about who did it and why, but I don't think so. I can't prove it, as Bluehost is quick to imply! So, all I got left is the Bluehost blues. |
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| Shawn |
| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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Site Developer
Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 324
Location: Canada
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Hello webquest 
Welcome to Bloggertalk.net!
I do sympathize with you, and I unfortunately can also relate all to well.
It was over a year ago that two of our primary domains where hosted with the dreaded BlueHost.com, when we started experiencing troubles…
Now both of our web sites are CMS Portals, and the countless problems that started arising was more then enough to warrant looking for another host or starting our own web hosting company! Which we decided to start our own web hosting and never looked back!
We constantly had issues with email, CPU usage and MySQL downtimes and yes our one domain also had its ‘public_html’ folder deleted, and not to mention that we were down 38% of the time, yet Bluehost.com guarantees 99.9% uptime – I would like to know where they get these numbers from!
We spent countless ours on the phone with technical support or their so called nit wits that really had no clue what was going on!
Now Bluehost.com doesn’t mention anywhere on their website that they have a cap on all clients email accounts that a user can only send 500 emails per day, which may be fine for small personal web sites but for websites that average 30 signups a day and an email OPT in list of over 500+ users, or any other type of Portal, High traffic Forum or eCommerce setup this is not possible…
Yet Bluehost.com also boast about hosting multiple domains and MySQL databases yet they fail to tell the user if you exceed 20% CPU your web site gets suspended until it returns to normal … which is what we faced countless times…
Now both our primary domains had their own separate account, yet they both faced the same issues, either over CPU or MySQL or email being down as we had hit our limit for the day!
I would call Bluehost.com numbers of times to run the SQL quires by them and they never seemed to have an answer, our websites are optimized and never use more then 50 SQL quires within any given time, so their tech support would always remove it and mention maybe it was CPU usage..Yet there was only one domain on that account, no other websites, no other MySQL accounts nuttin…
Then it happened to us, we had requested for shell access for the one domain, so BlueHost.com had me fax in my drivers license for ID and security purposes..
Six months later - I noticed the one website was gone, it had been deleted everything. I called them up to find out what had happened and they had no answers for me at all, I even received an email from the owner of Bluehost.com Mr. Matt Heaton apologizing for the problem; but he too still had no answers to what had happened to our domain!
I then started reviewing the logs and error logs to determine what may have happened wich I found a shell command line from Bluehost.com's own port.. I then forwarded this to Bluehost.com to have them investigate it internally, as it appeared as one of their own employees had run the command line… to delete the root public_html file client ID 81…
But none the less Bluehost.com never answered, the only fortunate thing was we always had backups of our websites; so we then cancelled both contracts with Bluehost.com and purchased our own server…
Bluehost.com never refunded for the damages or what we lost that took days to put back together, nothing!
So after we cancelled with Bluehost.com they refunded what was left of our contract which was about 7 months x 2 domains which was pro-rated back to us equaling $24.00 and some change…? When we paid Bluehost.com 100.00 x 2 = $200.00 US and had only used 4 months of our contract!!!
None the less we learned a valuable lesson, and webquest I do sympathize however I must point out on thing that’s important to remember, is all web host are not reliable for backups, that falls on the end users responsibility – it states this in almost all web hosts terms of service, so you should always schedule a backup once a week or month, to ensure your business is always backed up…After all its your business that will suffer and your reputation if you don’t, never leave it to a third party.
But Bluehost.com Sucks, as you found out, a little to late but now you know!
Shawn DesRochers 
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| gosfgiants |
| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: Nov 27, 2007
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| crazypenguin |
| Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:10 am Post subject: Bluehost Blues |
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New Member
Joined: Jan 09, 2008
Posts: 1
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Bluehost is one of the worst hosting companies on the planet. Email doesn't work, excessive downtime, and those damn annoying cpu suspend errors.
Check out my blog for more detailed information.
Never, never, never would I recommend anyone to use Bluehost. Bluehost is the most inept, incompetent hosting company that I have ever used.
I have used well over 20 hosting companies and Bluehost is the bottom of the barrel. |
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