Website / e-mail hosting - recommendations? [Archive] - SV650.org

Cazza

16-02-07, 05:54 PM

My website and e-mail has been hosted for the last 12 months by UKHost4U - as chosen and sorted by the guy who designed and runs my website.

However, hotmail has recently started rejecting e-mails sent from my account (I guess it's suspecting me of spam) - and though the last time I complained of this to UKHost4U it got sorted, it's started happening again.

My main problem though is UKHost4U's complete disregard for customer care. I have e-mailed them 3 or 4 times in the last couple of weeks about this, and an accounts matter, and they've not replied to a single one of my e-mails. Neither will anyone answer the phone on their 'customer helpline' number.

Unfortunately I've just forked out £46 for the next 12 months' hosting - and I can't see me getting a refund on this.

But can anyone recommend a good web-hosting company?

Thanks!

Jelster

16-02-07, 06:04 PM

Caroline,

Pipex seem to be doing a great deal in recruiting a huge number of Customer Services people. Technically they're great, but their customer service "was" a bit poor. Seems like they're trying to turn the corner, but I don't know what they charge.

Obviously, Greg would be a good guide on this.

My website and e-mail has been hosted for the last 12 months by UKHost4U - as chosen and sorted by the guy who designed and runs my website.

However, hotmail has recently started rejecting e-mails sent from my account (I guess it's suspecting me of spam) - and though the last time I complained of this to UKHost4U it got sorted, it's started happening again.

My main problem though is UKHost4U's complete disregard for customer care. I have e-mailed them 3 or 4 times in the last couple of weeks about this, and an accounts matter, and they've not replied to a single one of my e-mails. Neither will anyone answer the phone on their 'customer helpline' number.

Unfortunately I've just forked out £46 for the next 12 months' hosting - and I can't see me getting a refund on this.

But can anyone recommend a good web-hosting company?

Thanks!

16-02-07, 09:35 PM

About a year ago I dealt with a company called tagish Limited - I did the webhost agreement with them for a district council in Cheshire. I've no idea about technical performance but their business approach was impressive, no messing about, and we did the deal in no time.

CheekyLemon

17-02-07, 12:01 AM

If they seem to be messing you about, and you will not get your money back, I may be able to help. Not get your money back as such, but provide you with a hosting package free for a year or something. Usual price is £49.99 + VAT PA.

If you're interested just drop me a PM. You could then leave your domain where it is, and change the nameservers, which (should) help you avoid any transfer fees.

With regards to the spam/hotmail issue, maybe your current host has had an IP range blacklisted with Spamhaus or similar? Worth asking when they eventually answer the phone!

Demonz

17-02-07, 12:30 AM

I have been with Simply.com for the last few years and never had serious issues which has been suprising looking back over that time. Any tech problems (usually from me making changes to domains or playing with software) have been quickly resolved and ph support has always been curtious and quick to sort out. They also made it dead easy for someone that didnt have much experience in these types of things.

CheekyLemon

17-02-07, 11:00 AM

I work for Namesco, which is the company that bought Simply.com a few years back. I've been there 6 years, and head the customer services team. Glad to hear you are pretty happy with us gmonsta :D

Demonz

17-02-07, 11:13 AM

I work for Namesco, which is the company that bought Simply.com a few years back. I've been there 6 years, and head the customer services team. Glad to hear you are pretty happy with us gmonsta :D

:thumbsup: Good work CheekyLemon.

CheekyLemon

17-02-07, 11:14 AM

Let me know if you ever need any help with anything. (should support not pull their weight!!). I'll give them a kick.

Cazza

17-02-07, 12:58 PM

Just dashing away for the weekend... but just wanted to say a quick thanks for the replies, will let you know what happens. Any other recommendations appreciated in the meantime...

Spiderman

17-02-07, 06:06 PM

We recently had the same issue at work Caz. After a fair bit of reseach we went with these guys. www.fasthosts.co.uk as they were cheap, easy to set up and from the few times ive had to call technical support to get advice, quite helpful.

Well worth a try hun as you can add on features to the basic package as you go if you feel you need them.
hth

Oh and both JB & TSM reccomended them to me

Jabba

17-02-07, 07:53 PM

........ www.fasthosts.co.uk (http://www.fasthosts.co.uk) .........Oh and both JB & TSM reccomended them to me

They recommended them to me, too.

I have a domain registered (but not hosted) with easily.co.uk and they do hosting too. Customer support seems good but I've rarely troubled them.

I also have a "Value" account with supanames.co.uk - something cheap like £17pa - but I'm having issues at the moment. The server seems to get a hiccough every 20mins and it isn't the fastest. Shame I'd just paid up until 2009 and then discovered the issue.

Supanames tech support have been excellent in every other respect, but they are cold-shouldering me over the server unavailability issue.

Having just got my new MySQL database-driven website online, I really don't want to change but I might have to :smt013

northwind

18-02-07, 03:13 AM

I get on pretty well with Force 9. A while back I had the dreaded broadband line break- you know the drill, BT blame the ISP, the ISP blames BT, everyone blames your router and you need to listen to twenty different technical support people asking if it's plugged in. Right? Nah, very first guy says "Look, it's a BT problem, but they'll pass the buck. Call them up, get the name of the person who tells you to speak to us, and I'll call him and sort it out". And he did.

Luckypants

18-02-07, 11:43 AM

DoubleD

18-02-07, 02:30 PM

www.1and1.co.uk (http://www.1and1.co.uk) I have used them for the past year now and not had any problems.

DoubleD

Iansv

19-02-07, 03:12 PM

Used www.fasthosts.co.uk (http://www.fasthosts.co.uk) before, never had any problems and i'd recommend them.

Heard a few horror stories about 1and1 from a guy I know who hosts some sites with them but have so personal experience of them

Carsick

19-02-07, 03:29 PM

We use fasthosts for work, though we mostly have dedicated boxes (I think 7 and counting) They're not the cheapest in the world and their tech support can be a bit slow if something properly breaks.

I use web-mania.com but I don't host anything substantial, so not sure how they'd cope with any real load. Very cheap though.

northwind

19-02-07, 07:47 PM

Now that is what you need from Tech. Support!

I was well impressed. They're not particularily cheap, and they can be a wee bit unstable, but I'll forgive them... Having said that, maybe next time I call them up I'll get someone who only speaks urdu, you never know.

DoubleD

19-02-07, 08:39 PM

Heard a few horror stories about 1and1 from a guy I know who hosts some sites with them but have so personal experience of them

do I need to worry??

Baph

19-02-07, 08:58 PM

www.1and1.co.uk (http://www.1and1.co.uk) I have used them for the past year now and not had any problems.

DoubleD

Heard a few horror stories about 1and1 from a guy I know who hosts some sites with them but have so personal experience of them

do I need to worry??

A few of the servers I run are with 1&1. It's not my choice, and if I had a say, they wouldn't be.

1&1 can be very very stupidly pathetic at customer service. But that's usually when things go badly wrong. Most of the time they're barable.

If you get any major problems with them, give me a shout, I deal with their CS team quite a bit, so I know their system etc.

timwilky

19-02-07, 09:30 PM

I am the project manager for my companies UK hosting centre. We have about 170 servers, SDH loop connections to two internet service providers giving resilience by being connected to 4 exchanges, with total segregation of routing. 3 bastian firewalls giving failover between the service providers and further resilient firewalls between presentation and application servers etc. Our application servers run on Websphere clusters, Oracle databases are run on redundant clusters. load balancing takes place on the presention servers. SSL is implimented on dedicated encryption hardware etc.

Power is provided from motorgens to ensure that the reserve diesels can fire up before a brownout. We have two seperate rooms and fail between them. Data storage is on EMC storage arrays. This whole setup cost a small fortune, even more annoying is that I am not even allowed to run my own private server from in there.

What this does for me is education. I firmly believe that nobody can give the level of service I now expect from a professional hosting at the sort of hobbiest prices I see quoted

shao

20-02-07, 11:48 AM

I register and sort hosting for a fair few companies in my work, and we normally use http://123-reg.co.uk for registration, as they are cheap as chips (although i've contacted support on 3 occasions, and have yet to receive a single response from them, luckily none of the issues have required their intervention to get sorted...), and http://bigbluehost.com (via http://www.bigbluehost.com/five3.html?cifmh=1049206 for better package deals) for hosting ($20/year for 1GB space, 20GB/month transfer, unlimited pop3, mysql) and have found their support to be top-notch, even in UK Daytime i rarely had to wait more than an hour or 2 for emails to be answered, and even when i've broken stuff myself they've been more than happy to sort it. Just my experiences, and tbh i'd be reluctant to recommended 123-reg to anyone not happy sorting DNS etc for themselves due to the complete lack of any response at all from their support staff.

DoubleD

20-02-07, 03:36 PM

A few of the servers I run are with 1&1. It's not my choice, and if I had a say, they wouldn't be.

1&1 can be very very stupidly pathetic at customer service. But that's usually when things go badly wrong. Most of the time they're barable.

If you get any major problems with them, give me a shout, I deal with their CS team quite a bit, so I know their system etc.

Baph

I must have put a hex on it by saying "I've had no problems with them!"

Just GREAT! My site has been down twice that I know off since I said that!

Cazza

08-03-07, 12:48 PM

Big thanks to Cheeky Lemon :thumright: for sorting me out with new hosting - very fast, efficient service - and hotmail are no longer bouncing e-mails back to me thinking I'm a spammer.

Names.co.uk are my new favourite hosting people!

Boo hiss to UKHost4U - I'd love to tell them how sh*te I think they are - but they probably wouldn't reply to me or even pick up the phone, so I won't waste my time.

Thanks for everyone else's input and advice too.