I love hosting companies because they do what the small business shouldn’t do … host a website. It takes up-to-date hardware, on-site technical talent, and a safe, clean environment to operate a server. HOWEVER, there are several things that hosting companies do that are annoyances.
Bad Answers. There’s nothing more annoying than calling customer service and getting a “bad” answer to a technical question. Bad answers force additional phone calls to get “good” answers. I spent two weeks going back and forth with one hosting company when email wouldn’t send through an on-site form. I could get the same form to work on another site and a different hosting account (with the same company) which means it worked on a different server. They told me it was a configuration error. When I finally got hold of an interested rep who escalated the problem the found that there was a server problem on their end that had been causing the problem all along. It shouldn’t take ten phone calls to work through a question.
The 72 Hour Wait. This really is a bad answer but it deserves a category of it’s own. Remember when you were told by a hosting company to sit back and wait 24 hours for something to propagate? Then it went to 36 hours and now it’s 72 hours!
Server Installed Plugins. For WordPress users this can be a nightmare. I’ve had hosting companies who install plugins and the site will only work with them and if a client inadvertently deletes the plugin the hosting company has no means of re-installing the plugin. The latest issue is a plugin installed by a large hosting company on their WordPress hosting that requires the client to “flush the cache” every time they post to their blog. If they don’t, then the post isn’t seen on all devices.
“Due to High Call Volume…” This message every time you call a hosting company should be a red flag. If call volume is that high all the time… then hire more people!
Old PHP. The script and plugins that run WordPress require up-to-date PHP. Why would a hosting company offer a product specifically called WordPress hosting that doesn’t have options to update to the latest version of PHP? I’ve seen hosting companies charge client to move their entire site to a new server with up-to-date PHP rather than update their current server. Other hosting companies offer no option at all to upgrade or move to a current version of PHP.
I remain an independent consultant. I’m not an affiliate nor have I ever been one for any hosting company. If you need help getting your WordPress site launched and you want to start off with the right hosting. Give me a call and let’s work through your options.
