SEOhosting (Hostgator) Wants Your Money, But Not Your Business
Update: This issue was resolved, and further information is here.
Cue Soundtrack: Take the Money and Run by the Steve Miller Band.
When I acquired the Directory Network, I put the directories on 31 separate C class IP’s to improve their appeal. I ordered 35 C classes from SEOHosting.com, a Hostgator company. More recently, I’ve also been trying to build a blog network, so I wanted more C class IPs (4 wasn’t enough). I contacted SEOHosting and ordered the extra 15 C classes, and made a prorated payment for the rest of this month. I paid on Thursday evening, and I still have yet to receive my additional 15 C classes. Here’s the chat transcript from their online support tonight (Saturday, ~11:30 PM, EST):
Operator: Welcome to HostGator, how may I assist you?
Me: hi, how long does it take to increase the number of c classes on an existing plan?
Me: For example, if I were to go from 35 to 50?
Operator: You would need to e-mail sales@seohosting.com about this question.
Me: what if I were to call the number?
Operator: Unfortunately, the one person who would know about this is Chad Bean, and he’s not in the office tonight.
Me: I made a payment to increase my account from 35 to 50 on Thursday of this week
Me: hasn’t been done yet
Me: sent an email to sale today, has gone unanswered
Operator: As I said, I don’t have any access to any information about the SEO hosting part of our business.
Me: someone will be in in the morning?
Operator: Perhaps.
Me: perhaps?
Operator: I honestly don’t know when Chad will be in the office.
Operator: He will assuredly be here on Monday.
Me: ugh
Operator: I’m sorry I can’t be of more assistance.
Operator: Ok, take care and have a great day!
Operator: Thank you for using HostGator Live Chat. Your opinion is very important to us. When closing the chat, please take a minute to fill out the brief survey that pops up so that we may continue to improve our customer service and support.
Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.
Well, isn’t that nice? If you can’t tell from the transcript, I emailed sales (as instructed) much earlier in the day, and hadn’t heard back from them. I had actually chatted with a support person LAST night, too, and they said then it would be activated within an hour. That was 24 hours ago.
This isn’t the first time they’ve been less than stellar. When I moved my directories to different IP’s (choosing from the list of IP’s in WHM), 8 of the sites ended up pointing to nothing or other peoples’ sites. Several of my directories sent traffic to skin care sites for 2 days. When I was assigning IPs to use up my remaining 4 IP’s, it happened again, even though I was assured it was fixed beforehand.
I’ve even chatted with an obvious noob who wasn’t all that helpful. I’ll admit I’m a noob, but nobody’s paying me to be otherwise.
However, it looks like Hostgator is pretty pleased with their chat statistics/feedback.
I’m not sure how much this is a deal breaker. I seriously don’t think I’ll be moving the directory network, but I may be looking to work with someone else for the rest of my business.
</soundtrack>
I just tried to respond to a message I got after submitting my site, but the message bounced:
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 10:03 PM
To: chris
Subject: Returned mail: delivery problems encountered
A message was received at 24 Jul 2007 3:03:18 +0000.
The following addresses had delivery problems:
Permanent Failure: 550-”The_recipient_cannot_be_verified.__Please_check_all_recipients_of_this
Delivery last attempted at Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:03:18 -0000
Please contact me so I can get the message to you, ok?
Thanks!
I got your forwarded message. Look for an email.
STILL haven’t got my additional accounts on SEOhosting….
Hostgator support does stink. It used to be good, but lately…I’ve been disconnected when I’m on the phone. I had to go through 5 people to get one problem solved. When I use the livechat, the support people disappear or disconnect me if I’m not there after waiting for 5-10 minutes. It’s extremely frustrating.
This is nice enough, i have also some “GOOD” experience like this with them. I have a major issue and they just simply reply that it is not possible. Shit i’ll have to switch to another company i think.
Indeed Hostgator went down the tubes, support is crap, my site is much slower in the past month than in the past, today they go ahead and remove one of my databases without notifying me due to high volume by scanalert.com, I had to wait over 2 hours after submitting a support ticket to find this out, and now I am still waiting for them to resolve it.
I will most likely be moving hosts soon, anyone have any recommendations ? price is not the issue, I am looking for good service.
I wonder is anyone here with good experience about SEOHosting.com ?
Thanks
Not good. I thought they are a good company.
My issues with SEOhosting.com have pretty much stabilized. I’ve even added more C classes since I wrote this post. I seem to be getting a better response from online chat now when I contact them.
> (Allen) I will most likely be moving hosts soon, anyone have any recommendations ?
I haven’t found any hosts that have flawless reputations. Even the good ones that people seem to recommend you can find complaints. FWIW, my shared hosting with GoDaddy has been A+ since I’ve had it (as well as their phone support), but it doesn’t sound like shared hosting is what you’re looking for. Besides, I’ve seen plenty of complaints (to match the compliments) about GoDaddy hosting.
What is amusing to me is that shortly after they decided to start offering “SEO hosting” they contacted us. The conversation went something along the lines of, “we acknowledge that you guys are the leader in this niche. What tips can you give us for marketing it?”
I suggested signing up for our affiliate program and we would take care of it for them.
I find it amazing that they feel sharing IP’s is good SEO.