Peter via Dng said on 17 Sep 2025 09:54:41 -0700

>Hi,
>
>For several years I paid Island Hosting of southern Vancouver Island
>for Web hosting. https://madeinca.ca/web-hosting-island-hosting/
>To my understanding, it was a family business.
>
>Island Hosting sold out to Exact Hosting. This past Spring my
>account shifted there. https://exacthosting.com/
>
>Services are working with distracting difficulties.

Short answer: I use https://shockhosting.com/ and love them to death.

Long answer follows...

ROFLMAO this is an overused plot line that has played out a million
times with only slight differences:

* You have a great web host.

* Your web host gets sold.

* The new guys email everyone saying how much they respect the current
users and that they'll keep everything the same, continuing the
wonderful service that made everyone so happy.

* The new guys instantly replace all the old crew and start changing
everything.

* Minor hassles start appearing, and tech support is less than helpful.

* Users start emailing each other about problems.

* Problems get worse, with promises from the new guys that they'll fix
everything.

* You can't get your email or your website stops working.

* You have a few days to find a new web host, set up your website
there, switch your DNS, and iron out the kinks.

So Peter, your instinct is right on the mark, get out while the getting
is good. Great web hosts are a temporary thing. Some day my beloved
Shockhosting.Com will become garbage, but I see absolutely no move in
that direction now.

True story: On 4/19/2005, a Canadian company bought my (until then)
spectacular web host, Affordablehost.Com. I was instantly worried that
things would go bad. I didn't have to wait long to find out. The
following is an exerp of an email I wrote to the former owner of
Affordablehost.Com on 5/14/2005, less than 1 month after the new guys
took over:

================================================================
> Hi Tina,
>
> First, thank you for the 14 months of great hosting service.
>
> You might get a chuckle out of how long it took dotCanada to undo
> everything
> you built in 7 years. I learned of the sale 4/21. On 4/28 I stopped
> getting
> email, but didn't notice it til 4/30 (hey, I was busy :-). I
> submitted a troubleticket, but absolutely nothing happened. The next
> day I diagnosed the
> problem as cpanel wrongly adding 160MB to my account stats, thereby
> knocking
> me over my 200MB limit. I submitted a ticket.
>
> Finally on 5/2 they got back to me, saying they'd escalate it. Nothing
> happened except some customers called telling me my website was down.
> I sent
> a troubleticket suggesting they add 200MB to my quota until they
> could fix the root cause. The tech had to get approval from an
> "account manager", and
> that approval took 24 hours. By that time I was researching other web
> hosts.
> Meanwhile, AH recinded my ssh rights, turned my website into a single
> pixel,
> and had my mailing lists up and down. When they responded to
> troubletickets
> and I clicked on the link and put in the ticket key, I got an auth
> failure.
>
> It was like dealing with the Keystone Kops. It was slapstick comedy.
>
> Late May 4 I decided on Bluehost, bought a year's worth of hosting
> early May
> 5, and was totally back on the air May 6. Bluehost is just like AH
> was before
> 4/21/2005. Meanwhile, I've been trying to manage the transition so
> that those
> with slow DNS or browser caches pointing to the old location see a
> relevent
> message. Unfortunately, AH has been screwing up so much even this is
> impossible.
>
> I was mad the first couple days, but after that, it was so comedic
> that I appreciated the entertainment value, and I have really great
> stories to tell
> at geek and business gatherings.
>
> One thing I don't understand. Why would they pay good money for a
> business with a loyal customer base and a successful formula, and
> then come in and ruin they'd just bought. All they had to do was
> collect the money and they'd
> have done fine.
>
> Go figure.
>
> Steve
================================================================

That was AffordableHost. The same sort of thing happened when my
original web host, Pacificnet.net, got sold.

Right now, while you can, get a backup of everything essential on your
current web host. HTML, scripts, database, everything, because you're
going to need to recreate it elsewhere.    

Pave paradise, and put up a parking lot :-)

SteveT

Steve Litt

http://444domains.com