Bluehost – My Experience

[Reichling]

I have been with Bluehost now for some time. I must say that I am very impressed with the dedication of their whole entire team. They work hard to keep their resources up and running as much as they possibly can despite the problems they run into. Their customer service reps are around 24/7 to help you. When you call up you always get a very short wait time. Then someone picks up who is there to help you and knows what they are doing. Not some outsourced foreigner who can barley speak English let alone read their tech support script since they no nothing of the product they are working on. Now what most of the people who post on this forum don’t understand because they have never been exposed to corporate network management. You all sit at home with your two computers and a router and think, I never have a problem with my network why is Bluehost having problems with theirs? Well it just doesn’t work like that. Bluehost is running a giant network of Linux servers all with very complex apps and networking. It is nothing like your home network. Then think about this, take the problems you run into on your one or two computers and multiply that by hundreds and then add in the factor of the complex network and apps. Seem so easy to just work now? Now also notice this, the people who are spamming the forums with the server problems, notice how they are all on the same couple boxes. Every huge network has it few bad apples and that’s what you guys are running into. Now some of you say well I have never had this with other hosts. Well those other hosts don’t have forums where people can talk about it, so the few “bad apples” aren’t known about on a wide scale. Now a lot of you keep talking about the power outage. You think they wanted that and/or could control that? Nope. Now luckly for me I was on the majority of the servers that were unaffected by the outage so I was unaware of the problems at first. I was working on my site and called up the tech support to get some help on a totally unrelated issue. When the support tech picked up I found out that the power was out and instead of the techs just calling it a day because their network was down and was unable to make changes to people’s account, the guy said that he couldn’t fix it now but he would write it down and set it up as soon as they had power. He followed through with the promise. If that isn’t dedication and caring about clients needs I don’t know what is. I am sorry that some of you are running into bad apples but please don’t even start to think that you know anything about how bluehost's networks work, nor try to think that its only this host because others don’t have forums where you can hear about the problem servers. Bluehosts team is one of the best I have ever worked with and I am happy to host with them. If you do leave Bluehost because of these problems, you leave in ignorance.

-Matt Reichling

[Reichling]

One last comment. Those of you who are complaining about the Mods deleting threads, Their doing the right thing. I myself run several forums and if some kid comes in and instead of going here is my problem, please help. They go “this all your fault, you suck, **** you, screw you, I am going to end you, I am going to post on other forums about how much you suck” guess what, their posts get deleted. I would be shocked and dissatisfied with Bluehost’s mods if they were not doing this.

-Matt Reichling

[Silverado05]

AMEN, I couldn't agree more with what you said. I myself am getting sick of the petty belly aching going on in here. If you think their is a perfect host where they don't have downtime then let me know and I will pay for your hosting for as long as you own your site. Things happen that are out of these guys powers. They do the best they can and instead of some patients and understanding you trash them. I mean some of you people are expecting them to squeeze water out of a rock. Lighten up some guys. When your site goes down, wait an hr. If it hasn't come back up then kindly ask if thier is an issue on box XXX. Don't come in acting all immature about it. Treat others as you would want to be treated. I mean people who come on here to actually get support with a problem they are having can't get it as thier thread gets shuffled many pages back because of all the whinning threads. If you really are that unhappy then leave. I promise you, you'll be back. If support or customer service was rude to you. I am sure their is a vaild reason, because if some of you people act like you do on here to them on the phone or email. Then thier behavior is completely warranted. Theirs 2 sides to every story just remember that.

[dvessel]

Theirs 2 sides to every story just remember that.

That's all we have to remember. Once you take a side prematurely then you haven't heard the other side. And not acting like a baby is good. :)

And do you guys mind breaking up your sentences? Makes for some hard reading.

[redsox9]

...not acting like a baby is good. :)

I second that statement! :D

[mrorange002]

I'm sure you'll be complaining and switching as soon as your site is down for over 30 hours without an explanation for over 24 hours.
:mad:

[1darkangel]

I'm sure you'll be complaining and switching as soon as your site is down for over 30 hours without an explanation for over 24 hours.
:mad:
I have been on bluehost about 1 year now and I have nothing but praise for them. Yes my site has been down and I have had problems but they have been mostly minor. What most people don't get is the fact that just because one box went down does not mean all went down. Therefore an outage for some does not mean they are doing a bad job over all. Your site can have downtime and bluehost can still normally have 99% uptime overall.

People always forget the pain bluehost feels when something goes wrong. Believe me you are not the only one that gets frusterated when downtime happens. Imagine being in their shoes and having a ton of yelling and screaming customers coming at your trough email and phone calls and none of them are taking the time out to consider that you are trying the best you can to get them up and running again.

Another note is the fact that just because you or someone else can not get to your site does not always make it bluehosts fault. There are times your site can go down due to a break in the lines along the way and it have NOTHING to do with bluehost. I ALWAYS run a tracert on my site when it goes down so I can be sure if it is infact bluehost or some other middleman along the way.

And if you think 24 hours is bad I can top that from my last host. The website went down 1 time every month for at least a week or two! They always claimed it was due to the fact they changed IP's on everyone once a month and it took time to point them to the correct url. The last straw was when my site was down for a whole MONTH! They gave the same ol' song and dance that whole time stating that it was not them it was who they worked through. Well I figured if my site was down every IP change and would be gone at least 1-2 weeks that would make a site being there at all pointless so I ran with my tail firmly tucked to someone else. I did research and came over to bluehost and I am happy I did.

As I said I have had downtime here but it is normally not for that long of a time at once. Support has been great everytime I needed to ask them what was going on. Of course the key is I kindly ask, I don't blame. The street goes both ways and they have it just as rough as anyone else when things go wrong or even more so.


:/ That went on longer then I intended.

[dvessel]

It's not weather you post a complaint or not, it's how you do it. When you have a real complaint I hope you post it. The mods deleting them is another story. But hey, it's their board.

btw, some posts on praises can be equally pointless. Not saying who, what, where.. but it's out there.

[redsox9]

I'm sure you'll be complaining and switching as soon as your site is down for over 30 hours without an explanation for over 24 hours.
:mad:

I don't know if I would, to be honest...

I've posted on other threads regarding this topic and, while I don't blame someone for getting worked up over such an extensive loss of service, especially if it means lost business, this sort of thing happens. If it was really a huge problem, BH would be bleeding customers left and right and the CEO would be back to scrubbing toilets at the local Burger King. :D

[redsox9]

btw, some posts on praises can be equally pointless. Not saying who, what, where.. but it's out there.

Good point... touché. :cool:

[alligosh]

...and the CEO would be back to scrubbing toilets at the local Burger King.

Ok, I must admit that I find that quite funny. The image of Matt scrubbing toilets for a living is completely at odds with his personality. In fact, I am not sure if he has ever actually scrubbed a toilet, much less the plural form.

I'll have to ask him.

[redsox9]

Ok, I must admit that I find that quite funny. The image of Matt scrubbing toilets for a living is completely at odds with his personality. In fact, I am not sure if he has ever actually scrubbed a toilet, much less the plural form.

I'll have to ask him.

Scrubbing toilets can be a great way to stay inspired to find work other than scrubbing toilets. I had that wonderous job a few times in my younger days and, believe me, it ain't pretty! :eek: