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Hostgator Issues
February 17, 2007
Final Thoughts: Just wrapping up this post with my final thoughts. My transition to my new webhost is still underway, as the nameserver changes are still propagating. It's been a pretty smooth transition so far, given the circumstances (with the exception of one site, where I accidentally deleted some essential files that were not properly backed up).
I've been thinking about things a lot, and overall, even after this experience, I'd say that for the price and the quality of regular customer support that they offer, Hostgator is definitely well-worth considering as a webhost. You just need to know going in that if any of your sites are flagged as causing a high server load, that truly excellent customer support system will no longer be able to help you, and your only access to support will be via email to the Hostgator Abuse department, which is much, much slower to respond - you'll be measuring response time in terms hours, and it can definitely get painful.
Ultimately, you just have to make a risk/benefit analysis. I can definitely attest to the fact that Hostgator's regular support is excellent. I can also attest to the fact that support in abuse (high server load) situations is very slow.
Would I get another shared-hosting account with them? Actually, yes, I probably would if I needed another, smaller, account to house small, niche sites. I just wouldn't use their shared hosting plans for any sites that I expect to grow in terms of traffic, or that generate a high degree of income. For the price of their shared hosting services you do get reliable, good and very quick support, except when there's an emergency situation like the one I faced.
If you're with them, and find yourself with a Hostgator Abuse ticket, I do have a a tip. While the abuse department is very very slow to respond, If you desperately need to get their attention, you can still call regular support (I found wait times for telephone support to be very minimal), and even though they can't do anything to help fix the situation, they can flag your latest email to the abuse dept. and make sure someone reads your email sooner rather than later. You still have to wait for them to respond (and it's still going to be hours rather than minutes) but at least you'll know it's being looked after.
Brent from Hostgator tells me that a dedicated server with them comes with full support in all situations. I did some looking around at dedicated solutions at first, and Hostgator definitely offers some of the best prices. If they offer a consistent, full level of support, it's quite a deal.
There's also the fact that Brent, who is the CEO of Hostgator, stepped in to look into the situation for me, and provided me with more details than the abuse department gave me. That is commendable.
Rather than going with a dedicated server - I still don't think I'm ready for that yet - I've moved to another shared hosting account with a new webhost. I spent a bit of time following up all the recommendations given to me - thank you, everyone! - and my new webhost seems to also offer a high level of support. It's only via email, but they have an open forum which actually functions as their sales site. They are keeping an eye on the incoming traffic to my sites, and will help me brainstorm solutions if any of my sites have to go offline because of high server load. They also know that there may be a potential exploited script in there that I might have overlooked.
I've already had to use their support services a few times, during the setup phase, and they have been very quick to respond.
And finally, I've learned a few personal lessons from all of this. For the past 18 months, I've been trying to live life on a more relaxed, connected, level, with the knowledge that nothing is really such a big deal. I found that my ability to do this was truly put to the test these past few days. At times I had to walk away from the computer and focus my full intention on quieting my mind.
But I found that once I did that, when I came back there'd be a solution to something in an email - like when my new webhost told me that they would handle the transfer of my sites for me, for no additional fee. If you don't mind me getting new agey on you, it was the law of attraction at work, definitely.
I'm not as good at not getting stressed as I thought I was. But I also discovered that the stress reducing techniques that I've learned - deep breathing, focusing on nothingness - really do work.
Finally, I can definitely say that diversification is good. Throughout all of this, my other sites on other webhosting accounts have been doing fine. So have my Adwords campaigns. Life went on, like it always does. It wasn't the end of the world.
And that's my wrap-up. I've edited the title of the post, because the strikethrough wasn't showing up very well. Here's all the original stuff, with updates coming first.
Quick Update: While I did get a nice offer of a trial run on a dedicated server with Hostgator, for now I have decided to move my sites off of this account and over to a new webhost. (Well, actually, I didn't have to move my sites, thank goodness - the new webhost did it for me.) I'm a little bit exhausted by all of this, but hopefully things will get back to normal soon. I'm still not too sure exactly what happened with my account but it feels good to be focusing forward again.
Update: (Feb. 18) Hostgator has been working hard to try to get to the bottom of this matter for me. Brent from Hostgator has explained that the first priority with Hostgator is to get sites causing problems offline, and the troubleshooting comes later.
I definitely don't have a problem with having my sites offline in a situation like this - in fact, I changed all my nameservers for the sites on this account yesterday so that they would point to another webhost - I then uploaded a simple "technical difficulties" page for each site at the other host. I did not know what was wrong with my sites and this seemed the best route for me to take.
It's definitely a relief to be getting more information.
I was most definitely hacked, but it looks like I was successful in removing most of those suspicious htaccess and php files that were deposited into my sites, and Hostgator removed the ones that had permissions set so that I was unable to remove them.
The remaining issue right now is that one of my sites, that doesn't get a lot of physical traffic, seems to be getting a lot of traffic via its RSS feeds. I can only guess that it must be other sites republishing my feeds on their pages using RSS aggregators. My Statscounter account is certainly not showing a whole lot of unique visitors to this site (less than 100 uniques a day, on average), nor is it a very popular site (I wish).
As all of you who have been reading this blog regularly know, I have always thought highly of Hostgator's support. It sounds now like my situation was a complicated, unusual situation (hacked AND RSS traffic issues on a low-traffic site). I am now getting details about the remaining issue, and I am happy to report that Hostgator is providing me with more information about this.
My Original Post:
If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know that I absolutely adore Hostgator. They have a top-notch support system that is truly available, by mail, chat or phone, 24/7.
The last few days I have been experiencing so many problems with them. And now all my sites are offline and there is no way for me to get any information except via a very slow-to-respond Hostgator Abuse department.
In a nutshell, what happened was that one of my domains at Hostgator was hacked. As a result, it was causing a load on the server, and they had to suspend the domain.
It was very slow going, going back and forth with lags of an hour or two initially (and then even more - six or seven) between emails, and in answer to my questions, I received one-line replies that I cuoldn't decipher.
Luckily, Teli was able to help me out. I had found some suspicious files on my site, and she took a look at them and explained what had happened. I had been hacked, and any links to my site which brought up a 404 page were actually redirected to another page off my site. It was the script that was doing this that was causing the load on the server.
I deleted all the files I found, and there were ones that I couldn't find, so after a long delay, I was finally able to get the Hostgator abuse department to delete them for me. About 36 hours after the site went offline, it was put back online again.
Now I wake up this morning, and find all my sites on that particular Hostgator account (I have two accounts with them) are offline - "due to billing/support issues".
I called the phone support line, and the person I spoke with could not help me at all, because he had no access to any information about my account, other than that an email had been sent to me at 4:00 a.m.
I never received that email.
So he suggested I reply to the previous Hostgator Abuse emails with the old ticket number.
What is most frustrating about this is that at a time when I need help and technical support the most, the lines of communication have been narrowed down to one - email only - and it takes hours and hours to get anything resolved. Questions are not answered.
Top notch support is great, but wouldn't it be even better if it could be provided at a time when it was really needed?
I am feeling frustrated, and sad, because I have really enjoyed my time with Hostgator. Now I have to do the laborious work of finding another Webhost.
And who knows how long it will be before I get my sites back online again? I know it was not their fault that I got hacked - all I'm asking for is a better help and support system during what really is a site crisis time.
Edit: Hostgator's normal support is superb. But if you have server load problems - whether from hacking, or traffic, or a bad script, you should know that you will be routed to another department which is much slower to respond.
Update: I've decided I'm going to get a semi-dedicated or dedicated server with good support. If any of you have a recommendation, please leave me a comment or email me. I'd really appreciate it! Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone.
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Posted by BJ at 09:27 AM in Web Publisher's Life | Permalink
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Comments
Hi BJ,
I got so sick of hassles like this I went to a dedicated server, managed, and I went through HostGator. Other than one tech support issue that took too long to resolve (that was caused by me mucking around with my server in the place) I've been very happy.
Posted by: Lisa | Feb 17, 2007 11:31:00 AM
When I was thinking about going with a dedicated server previously, I thought of Hostgator, too. But I don't see the point in paying for a premium dedicated server only to end up not having any support in the event of something like this happening. I mean, I know now what will happen if I got hacked again - absolute silence, and barely existent support.
(Not that I am expecting that to happen again! But still, it's good to know you have a webhost that will come through for you in a crisis like that.)
So I think I will have to look elsewhere. Any other recommendations, anyone?
Posted by: BJ | Feb 17, 2007 11:38:03 AM
DON'T go to Yahoo.
I'm about to move my site to BlueHost, but since I haven't been hacked, I can't attest to their support under pressure. But thus far, I've been hosting my second blog over there and like 'em a whole bunch. Plus, they have a gazillion third-party programs pre-installed, which make putting up a big site much easier (probably not as much of a consideration for a wiz such as yourself!) ;)
Wendy
Posted by: Wendy Piersall :: eMom | Feb 17, 2007 1:15:48 PM
Thanks, Wendy. I'll check out Bluehost, but I am definitely going for a dedicated server. The good thing is, now I know what to ask: "what kind of support do you offer if something goes wacky with your sites?"
It's going to be a busy day today, that's for sure.
Posted by: BJ | Feb 17, 2007 1:35:06 PM
Hello,
I'm the owner of hostgator could you email me your ticket number? I'd love to get everything working for you ASAP, and I feel this ticket is definitely needing a review.
I'm currently in south america working on getting our company up and running here, but if you email me the ticket I should be able to figure out what's going very quickly for you. I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep your business. I'm also here for anyone that is having problems with regular support as you can read on http://hostgator.com/company.shtml
thanks!
Posted by: brent oxley | Feb 17, 2007 7:05:37 PM
Email sent, Brent.
Posted by: BJ | Feb 17, 2007 8:32:41 PM
Gotta love that response from Hostgator! :)
Posted by: Wendy Piersall :: eMom | Feb 18, 2007 5:42:30 PM
Wow, I believe this is the second time I've come across a blog entry about HostGator that I've seen Brent personally comment on.
To me, that speaks volumes about a company and we can only hope that everything works out well - considering I have more than a couple sites hosted there LOL.
Good luck, Belle. I'm sending some good vibes your way!
~ Teli
Posted by: Teli Adlam | Feb 18, 2007 6:58:18 PM
Hi BJ,
Thanks for this info. :)
Posted by: Work At Home Guide | Mar 4, 2007 8:39:36 PM
Hostgator is great, i have been hosting my account there, its certainly great.
Posted by: Utkarsh Kukreti | Jun 21, 2007 12:11:57 AM
