ArcticLlama Freelancing Blog

As regular readers are aware, I’ve been evaluating web hosts after having some trouble with my current host, Dreamhost. Yesterday, all six of my sites hosted on Dreamhost were down again. While waiting for technical support to get back to me about my help desk ticket, I tried my best to get them back online, because some of them make money for me and I don’t want to be losing dollars, or visitors while they are down.

In a desperation move, I used the Dreamhost control panel to restore the mySQL database that powers the WordPress installation on one of my websites.  When that worked, I did the same thing for all six sites and was able to get them back online.

Tech support responded to my ticket by saying that they “suspected that the database permissions needed to be reset.” It went on to say that restoring the databases does that, and since I already did that it looked like everything was fine.

This is pretty poor support to say the least.

First, I specifically noted in my ticket that this was not the first time this had happened. Apparently, no one cares that I KEEP having problems, all they care about is that it is up for right now. That isn’t good enough.

Second, this is the third different answer I have gotten to the exact same issue, namely that my WordPress blogs seem to be going offline for no real reason. So far, I’ve been told that someone else was using too much resources and that took my sites down. Then, I was told that I was using too much resources and that is what took my sites down. And, now, I’ve been told that my database permissions probably needed reset. No word on how all six of my sites got junked up permissions in the first place.

I’m now officially very unhappy. I have signed up for Dreamhost’s Private Server offering, which is an extra upgrade to the regular highly advertised price that their site claims is good enough for most websites except those that get high traffic, which mine do not. This is not really acceptable, because I should not have to sign up for Dreamhost PS based upon my sites and their traffic, but it is better than losing my Pagerank, or new visitors, or losing more money.

The Private Server cost is variable depending upon how much resources like RAM, or memory, you use and how much processor you use. I am most definitely NOT a Dreamhost customer for long, depending upon how my evaluation of other webhosting services goes. As soon as I find a better home, I am gone.

I only signed up with the Private Server plan because it is free for the first week, and because as a PS customer I get access to a graph with my memory and processor usage so that I can see if tech support is just feeding me a line when they say it is my fault that my sites are going down. More specifically, I bet that the first thing that Dreamhost technical support checks is what kind of hosting plan you have. With Private Server, they can’t blame me, because I am allowed to use up to 2300 MB of RAM during my trial period, which I know I will never hit, so that excuse is out.

Now, they will either have to keep my websites up and running, or at least come up with better excuses. If I get really lucky, maybe one of their administrators will actually do their job and look into my issues instead of just clearing my ticket as quickly as possible, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’m trying out HostGator right now. It comes recommended from several in the blogging community, so we’ll see how it goes. Right now, I’m setting up a couple of new sites and will be moving one of my Dreamhost sites today. If things run better, faster, or smoother over there, that will be ONE of my new hosts.

I’m getting ready to launch a major web development and site creation project that I hope to use to build up some pretty solid income, and I know better than to put all my eggs in one basket. No matter how this move goes, I will have at least two web hosts, and maybe more soon.

Thankfully, I was smart and did not register my domain names with the same company that does my webhosting (except for the free domain name they gave me when I signed up). That makes transferring to a new host so much easier.

If any of you have suggestions for web hosts that you like, I would love to hear them. But, please don’t just put I use So-and-So and have been happy with them. I’ve already read that a thousand times about a hundred different webhosting companies. If you can say WHY you like them, or what they give you that you don’t get elsewhere, that would be helpful.

Wish me luck.

Not long ago, I started to try and help out other freelance writers by giving them some pointers to the good webhosting sites out there for writers to use. As I mentioned then, I don’t have a lot of experience with too many hosts, but the way web hosting companies hand out huge commissions for incoming links that convert to sales, there are just too many websites out there listing the “Top Web Hosts” or “Top Web Hosting Companies” that actually couldn’t care less about who you go with for web hosting as long as you do it through one of their affiliate links so they can make some money.

ArcticLlama, and some of my other websites including a parenting skills by Dad site are hosted with Dreamhost on one of their basic types of accounts.

Recently, all of my sites were down. This is a big problem, and a good way to see how good of a host Dreamhost really is.

I filled out a support ticket as soon as I noticed the problem and got a response within a couple of hours.

That first response said that someone else was doing something that was eating up a bunch of memory and that the admin had killed those processes and laid some smack down on the other user. The response also said to contact him if I had any further trouble. However, there was no email address or other contact method provided.

Whatever was done fixed all but two of my websites. Having no other way to contact the same tech support person, I submitted another ticket. This time, I was told that it was MY processes that were causing the problem and that they were being automatically killed because they were using too much RAM. He then provided a couple of links to help ME figure out what the problems were.  These links involved running some unfamiliar shell commands to see if I could eventually spot what the trouble was. He also recommended that I keep my WordPress installs and plug-ins upgraded to their latest versions.

He also said that perhaps I should upgrade to a Dreamhost Private Server account.

Here is why I am now cannot recommend using Dreamhost for a professional writer website, although I don’t feel ready to recommend against anyone using them yet either.

1. I asked in a follow up message if there was a monitor I could set up to notify me if there were problems like these on my sites again. I was told no. That doesn’t seem right.
2. The “solution” to figure out what the problem processes were involves a whole layer of stuff I know nothing about, including setting up shell access, running Unix commands, and then sorting through a bunch of gibberish looking for the trouble process. The kicker is that according to the article, I may or may not see what the problem is right away, so I’ll have to keep looking. If the server is killing my processes, shouldn’t it log what it is killing and shouldn’t I be able to see that log? Then I wouldn’t have to jump through all these other hoops.
3. The recommendation for a Private Server upgrade really rubs me the wrong way. Read through every word of Dreamhost’s site about what you get with their regular web hosting, and I dare you to point out even one sentence that suggests that a couple of small-time websites will be too much for regular hosting. I run just 6 WordPress blogs, none of which gets even a thousand hits. The plug-ins I run are all well known, widely used plug-ins.  I didn’t find any unusual WordPress plug-ins on my own. Every single one of the plug-ins I’m running I found recommended by a large, well respected WordPress site. So, I’m not sure just how little power I am actually allowed to use on my account.
4. For all the talk about disk space, transfer rate, bandwidth, and so on, I never once have seen anything about what my memory limit is. In fact, no one has still told me what my maximum memory usage is. Is it so low that it would be embarrassing, or does no one know? Based on which sites I have hosted on Dreamhost, it would seem that the limiting factor in their plan is the maximum amount of allowable memory usage, and there is no way to monitor it. Not that it would matter, since they don’t tell you what the amount is you have to stay beneath.

It all adds up to me wondering if I am not getting good hosting from Dreamhost.  However, without trying another web hosting provider, I don’t feel right about condemning Dreamhost for what might just be standard business practices and my own ignorance.

I have signed up with another web host provider and will be moving some of my sites there to see what it is like. If they play nicer and provide more, or better service, then I will switch away and let you know who to avoid and who to try out for the best writer website web hosts.