Just in today... this is from a client using another web host:
"The whole website has been deleted when I attempted to switch primary name and alias with the "help" of XO. Host company XO is trying to restore the files. I may be seriously screwed here. Stay tuned."
(Update 12/11/12: The client is telling us that their host lost their database and the website cannot be re-created.)
We've seen this happen with GoDaddy when switching things like SSL, too (the whole website goes down for 24 hours or more). There was another client of ours who had separate hosting and they lost their entire website because their host's hard drive failed. Everything was completely gone.
People lose their entire websites. It's not fun. In fact, it's a huge headache that you were of course not planning for. We don't want this to happen to any of our clients - if they host with us or not.
We don't require that anyone that wants to work with Webstix host with us. You can host wherever you want. If you do, then your hosting is out of our control and you'll be responsible for it and be the in-between person when dealing with issues. Most people just don't want to be in that position because they don't understand the technical aspect of website hosting - they want to run their own business instead. They have enough to do.
With Webstix hosting, we're small. We're not a huge company that loses websites. If you call, you get a human and we'll help you. We have backups and your website can be restored.
We're not the cheapest host around but you get what you pay for. Our website hosting is comparable to a gated community (we like to say) because we know every website on our servers, we know what they're doing and we watch things. With other hosting, you don't get that and you have no idea who is living next door. They could be causing trouble, which could cause trouble for you and your website (your business).
Our servers aren't in the back room, sitting on milk crates. We use one of the top hosts in the country, Rackspace. They have a huge datacenter with redundant networks, redundant power and so on. We've got backups and our servers have RAID drives where if one drive fails, everything keeps running. Hard drives will fail and we're ready for it. We have 24x7x365 monitoring and have had relatively few problems.
If you host with us, doing maintenance on your website is a bit easier. We don't have to bother you for FTP access or database or control panel access (which can delay things days some times) - we can get right to work and get things done quickly.
If you are interested in our website hosting, give us a call. We just offer Linux hosting, which is good for most websites and those using PHP.
-Tony
