Yesterday, I became so absolutely fed-up with the hosting provider I’ve had since 2002, PowWeb, that I decided to pack up and switch over to BlueHost. After a year of lousy customer service and even worse actual hosting services, it was time to call it quits. I still have some client sites with them, and will recommend they transfer as well once their contracts are up.
The primary reason for jumping ship was that, over the past few months, the database servers were slower than molasses during an arctic winter. This website is heavy on that end, of course, and at times it would take 30-60 seconds to load! That’s insane. On the new host it is instantaneous. I’ve noticed that static sites load a lot faster as well- even large photographs through Flash (FileReference) have a much higher delivery speed.
PowWeb was bought out by Endurance International last year and ever since then, things have been getting worse and worse. I feel a bit bad having to leave after so many years- but am very pleased with BlueHost so far. I heard lots of negative comments about the new owners during the takeover, but I like to be fair and give people the benefit of a doubt… bad choice, in this particular case.
Although the DNS propagation is ongoing, just about everything is in place. My ISP only has the updated DNS records for half of the domains- so I’m actually writing this update through VPN to my office machine.
Many thanks to those who recommended hosting providers after my initial rant. Very helpful information!