ramblings of a {sys,net}admin…

Just wanted to give a heads-up to anyone looking for web hosting: avoid IX Web Hosting!

Let me rewind a bit…I used to purchase my web hosting from 1&1.  I was always completely satisfied with them but about a year ago, I purchased a VPS from VPSLink.  I decided I wanted “full control” of my web hosting environment and the ability to control everything about it. A big factor in my decision was that I wanted to customize my mail services as well (SpamAssassin, ClamAV, postfix, virtual domains, etc.), so I switched to the VPS. The VPS worked out quite well for me and I was happy with it. There were two instances of downtime (to move my VPS to another physical server) and both times I was made aware of it well in advance. The downtime was minimal.

A few months ago I moved my e-mail services to Google Apps and, for the last several weeks, was not using the mail services on my VPS. In fact, postfix was “turned off” quite a while ago. I finally decided that the VPS was overkill and I could save some money by getting rid of it (it was costing me $39.95 a month). Thus my search for a new web host began.

I came across IX Web Hosting’s site and began looking at their services. I was sucked in by “The CEO’s Promise” “30-Day 100% Money Back Guarantee“, “Any-Time Money Back Guarantee“, and “Uptime or Cash Guarantee“) and signed up a few moments later and paid $95.40 via credit card for a year’s worth of service. That was on November 17th.

Since my VPS was still active and hadn’t yet been cancelled, I wasn’t in any rush to move my websites over. I moved this blog over first and, two weeks later, happened to be doing some work on it when some “weird things” started happening. That lasted for a few moments until the entire site was unavailable and visitors instead received the infamous “Wordpress database errors” message. I waited about 20 minutes to see if it cleared itself up. When it didn’t, I created a support ticket.

Two hours later, the site started working again. I started messing with it some more. Ten minutes later, it was down again (note that it wasn’t me causing the issues!). After a bit, it was straightened out and everything was well. Remember that IX Web Hosting had a 99.9% uptime promise — they’d already ate up about half of their available downtime for the next year.

That little incident pissed me off and I was ready to cancel, but I stuck it out. Two weeks later, the same thing happened again; more problems with the mysql400.ixwebhosting.com MySQL server. I decided enough was enough, headed back to 1&1’s web site, and signed back up for their Business package. With their end-of-year special, I even got a lower price ($17.27 for three months, with a year agreement). I backed up my files from IX Web Hosting and copied my database once the MySQL server came back up and promptly created a ticket for account cancellation. This was on December 17th, exactly 30 days after I signed up (remember the “30-Day 100% Money Back Guarantee”?).

While creating the ticket for cancellation, I was asked to provide an explanation:

Please provide reason of cancellation? I’d be happy to. I was blindly suckered in by your outrageous claims regarding the quality of your service. In the last two weeks I have experienced no less than *THREE* outages due to database issues. I was going to cancel two weeks ago but when I realized you’ll keep half of the monies I already paid, I backed out. Well, not this time. I’m done. I’m going back — no, *RUNNING* back — to a former provider. They (1&1) provide better service, and at a better price to boot. Please terminate this account immediately. Monetarily, rape me for whatever your contract allows — I don’t care. At this point, I’d just about pay you to be done with you. Good riddance. Jeremy L. Gaddis

Yeah, I was a little pissed. =)

IX Web Hosting’s package came with two “free” domains, which I promptly registered. They were stupid domain names that I’ll probably never use, but hey, they were “free”, right? Uh, no. Of the $95.40 I paid to IX Web Hosting, they:

• credited me $57.45 “for unused but prepaid period of Business Plus”
• charged me $18.21 for the first domain
• charged me $18.21 for the second domain
• refunded me a grand total of $21.03

I don’t mind paying for the domains.  Well, I don’t mind paying reasonable rates for the domains. Everybody and their brother can register a domain for seven or eight bucks, so I know that the two domains didn’t cost them $18.21. Apparently “30-Day 100% Money Back Guarantee” doesn’t really mean that. Likewise, apparently CEO Fathi Said doesn’t keep his promises.

Fortunately, I had already went back to 1&1 by this point. Once again I’m happy with my web hosting and haven’t had any issues with them. Altogether, I’ve used them for a few years and I imagine I’ll just stick with them. With what I ended up paying IX Web Hosting for one month, I could’ve gotten nearly a year’s worth of hosting from 1&1.

In summary, I’d stay away from IX Web Hosting if I were you. Their service was unreliable, support tickets weren’t responded to in a timely manner, and they kept over 75% of the money I paid them. If you’re looking for a reliable web host, do consider 1&1.