Hosting woes

[Barclay]

Hi,

Not sure where to put this, so chatterbox seemed like the best spot

My registrar and hosting is done via GoDaddy, and I've been looking into my site performance recently. I use wordpress and have tried different plugins to reduce load time, and was able to reduce it by a few seconds via a caching plugins. The main culprit here seems to be that my first-byte time is extremely high - 3+ seconds. It varies as high as 6 seconds from some tests I've done which I know isn't normal. After a few e-mail exchanges with them they insist that everything is running OK and I should check my ISP, which doesn't make much sense to me; these tests use differnet servers from around the world to test. I've been using http://www.webpagetest.org/ mainly to perform these tests.

Does anyone here use GoDaddy's hosting? Do you have normal load times? I have two websites online with them right now - GamblersDen and another site which currently has 0 content - both of them are getting this delay leading me to believe it is their end, but they refuse to acknowledge this.

I've done some research on good, cheap hosting and came across InMotion as being very good - if anyone has experience with them (or othe good hosting) I would appreciate if you could share you experiences.

[matted]

For inexpensive shared hosting I used bluehost for a litle while before going to a VPS solution... I'd recommend them although my experience was only about 3 months about 3 years ago.

[tryme]

GoDaddy are notoriously bad for hosting. Some alternatives (based on budget): www.wiredree.com (managed dedicated servers), www.hostgator (cheap USA hosting), www.flump.net (good quality UK shared hosting)

[WinYourWayKyle]

I use hostgator as well.
They are based out of Houston, TX.
Their 24/7 live chat support is second to none.
Their prices are more than reasonable.
I would not use anyone else.
www.hostgator.com

[Barclay]

Thanks for everyones input - I've been banging my head on the wall with what their support is telling me. I've sent them three times proof thatmy site is loading slow when testing it from servers around the world and three times they tell me check with my ISP which doesn't sound too relevant since I care about the loadtime concerning visitors, not specifically when I visit the site. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think so.

I'll look into hostgater - thanks for the recommendation. I have a question though since I am new to this whole world; if I run between 2-3 sites what kind of hosting should I get? The dedicated server seems really expensive and I'm not sure what the difference is between each of the different types.

Thanks again.

[Jamie - RateMyCasino]

I would start off with Host Gators plan for 9.95 you can host unlimited domains under the one account and when your sites get bigger and bring in the $$$ then look into VPS or Dedicated plans. You wont go wrong with host gator they are great and you can have the first month hosting for only 0.01 cent to try them out.

Use coupon code: 404page to receive that offer

[brean78]

Another hostgator advocate here. For the price you can't go wrong.

• Easy to use interface
• Minimal downtime
• Quick and efficient support

[Barclay]

Just wanted to update in case anyone else signed up for GoDaddy hosting and is less than impressed at their site loading speed - there has been a noticeable improvement in the past 2 days, according to at least 20 tests run by me at different times of the day and from different locations.

After playing e-mail ping pong where they were giving me what seemed like filler answers I got fed up and told them (politely) that I am about ready to give up and will be switching to HostGator as many of the kind souls suggested in this thread.

Their response as usual was the same stuff as always but they suggested that it is due ot the nature of the shared environment, which makes sense but shouldn't give me a first byte time of 3 seconds..

Anyway, this is when I started doing a few last tests before biting the bullet (and my remaining 18 months of hosting) and looking into HostGator when miraculously things changed for the better. My site still isn't 100% optimized, but first byte time is now averaging 0.4-0.6s, with the occasional spike of up to 1.5s. I guess they finally realized that I wasn't going to give up

[WinYourWayKyle]

I would start off with Host Gators plan for 9.95 you can host unlimited domains under the one account and when your sites get bigger and bring in the $$$ then look into VPS or Dedicated plans. You wont go wrong with host gator they are great and you can have the first month hosting for only 0.01 cent to try them out.

Use coupon code: 404page to receive that offer

This would be The Baby Plan at HostGator. As well, another feature that is nice is that they do not make you sign a 1,2,3 year agreement for your hosting. You can pay month to month, and you only pay $1-2 dollars more a month. You have the options to sign up for a longer term, and you do save a few bucks... I find this to be a nice feature as well, to have the option.

[baldidiot]

I use UK2.net for shared hosting. Not the cheapest but I've been impressed with them so far.

[Simmo!]

I use several and Hostgator are among them. They are very good BUT

1) watch out for one thing: if your site DNS ever goes down or there are any issues reaching the site they divert all your traffic to PPC pages! Twice I've had this and at first it was like, "wtf, I've been hijacked". Thankfully Google didnt come by while that was happening! FYI I have their reseller package.

2) I had a system using/creating a big database. The site got quite busy and without any warning they simply disabled the script and the database totally. I was asleep so for 8 hours my site was broken plus they rendered the script/database unusable (using permissions) so I couldn't get things running again quickly. Had to create a whole new system of delivering content, meanwhile the site was inoperable.

A totally dedicated server would be the answer I guess. In my naivity I thought that was what a reseller package was initially but it's not, it's shared hosting.

[mobilejackpots]

I'd definitely suggest staying away from godaddy hosting too, they are clearly targeting people who aren't too clued up about web hosting.

But Time To First Byte issues can also be caused by issues with your actual website. I see you are using wordpress, which is fine. I would also double check that the plugins you are using are reputable.

You can also test if something in your Wordpress theme is causing the problem by temporarily activating a standard theme and testing the page load times then too.

The same can be done by temporarily de-activating all of your plugins and re-testing the load times.

And finally, a dedicated server is only a serious consideration when you have either a high traffic website (thousands a day) or a very profitable website that you can afford to spend the money on to give users the best possible load times.

I remember how confusing I found hosting issues when I first started out so I hope this helps!

[bonusbeast]

I have had good luck with 1and1.com, and they are fairly low priced.

[manuelinbmw]

I have nothing but good things to say about hostgator. When I started out i didnt know what i was doing and they kindly resolved my issues many times in a speedy and professional manner.



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