The Host With the Most

There have been some major changes behind the scenes at The Sleaze although, hopefully, they shouldn't be apparent to visitors to the site. You might recall that a few weeks ago the site was off line for several hours due to the idiocy of my web host, who apparently couldn't tell the difference between a surge in traffic due to the popularity of a new story and 'suspicious activity'. As this had come within a couple of weeks of someone hacking my site, apparently by using my login details, which were known only to me and my host, (and I didn't share them), I had been left feeling that there had been a fundamental break down in trust between myself and the hosting company. With the renewal date for the hosting account looming, I embarked on a search for a new host and, last week, I transferred The Sleaze to a new home. When I say 'I' transferred it, I really mean that the new hosting company did the transfer for me as part of their excellent service. I know it has only been a week and is therefore a little early to be making judgements, so far I've been very pleasantly surprised by the new web host. Of course, the real test will be to see if I still feel as satisfied after six months or a year, but so far, so good.

Indeed, even over the course of a week or so, the contrast between the two hosts is very noticeable. For one thing, the new host's server status page isn't lit up like a Christmas tree with servers down or experiencing time outs. Another major difference is the swiftness and effectiveness of the technical support. With the new guys, nothing seems like too much trouble - the migration of the site, for instance, was effected, within an hour after raising a single ticket, which was responded to in less than ten minutes. Actually, on the subject of technical support, I and several other customers of the old hosting company had long suspected that, despite being a UK registered company and advertising themselves as a UK based web host, the technical support was actually based in India. The giveaway was the names they used on support tickets - 'Albert Kent', for instance, sounds like the sort of name a foreigner might think sounds English, but patently isn't. By contrast, my site migration was handled by someone called 'Darren', which is a far more convincing name for a UK-based IT support person. I really believed in 'Darren', in a way I never could in 'Albert'. Best of all, the new host didn't suspend my account when, earlier this week, a new story - The Abdication of Queen Elizabeth II - proved incredibly popular (can't think why). So, if you are looking for a new web host, you could do a lot worse than Vidahost, (with whom I have no connection, other than being a satisfied customer).