FYI-Very important to know about a host

[integrity]

I was wondering if it would be possible to have a host review on this forum?

There are some hosts who are really bad and shouldn't be allowed to host. We have been with SiteTurn for 8 months and it has been terrible. Our site goes down a lot. In January our site was down for over 24 ours. Yesterday our site went down around 7pm and it is still down. Just wanted to warn anyone in case they were considering going to SiteTurn.

Thank you for letting me speak a peace.

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

Since MIVA maintains partnerships with many hosting companies, it would not be in their best interests to host such a review site.

They could be seen as favoring one host over another or facilitating negative feedback about some of their partners.

This is why independent reviews need to be used.



I was wondering if it would be possible to have a host review on this forum?

There are some hosts who are really bad and shouldn't be allowed to host. We have been with SiteTurn for 8 months and it has been terrible. Our site goes down a lot. In January our site was down for over 24 ours. Yesterday our site went down around 7pm and it is still down. Just wanted to warn anyone in case they were considering going to SiteTurn.

Thank you for letting me speak a peace.

[integrity]

Oh...ok that makes sense. Thank you Vic. :)

[ILoveHostasaurus]

I strongly recommend hosting with Hostasaurus, I've heard good things about them. :)

[dreamingdigital]

I strongly recommend hosting with Hostasaurus, I've heard good things about them. :)

I second that.

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

I must say that the buzz about WolfPaw is rather awsome too!

Highly recommended!

[chucklasker]

Okay guys - I'll confirm that in both cases - Wolfpaw and Hostasaurus - there is quite the high recommendations floating about, including mine. I throw in Cyberhost and WebNet Hosting (see my home page at www.doubleplus.com at the bottom for links).

[nordicwolf]

Okay guys - I'll confirm that in both cases - Wolfpaw and Hostasaurus - there is quite the high recommendations floating about, including mine. I throw in Cyberhost and WebNet Hosting (see my home page at www.doubleplus.com (http://www.doubleplus.com) at the bottom for links).
hey i just wanted to get my host's plug right.... its not cyberhost but "cybrhost" careful with the spelling.. hmm and who said the domain name you select isnt important to gettng your customers back to your site..???ofcourse you should be buying several versions if you can and direct all to one primary.

[DesignExtend-MSI]

I was wondering if it would be possible to have a host review on this forum?

There are some hosts who are really bad and shouldn't be allowed to host. We have been with SiteTurn for 8 months and it has been terrible. Our site goes down a lot. In January our site was down for over 24 ours. Yesterday our site went down around 7pm and it is still down. Just wanted to warn anyone in case they were considering going to SiteTurn.

Thank you for letting me speak a peace.

Hi:

As a note, most host review sites don't work because results are skewed by hosts and their own buddies doing all they can to ram up the ratings. And most of the "legitimate" ones have been shut down by threats of suits from hosts.

The best thing you can do is talk to others and get their recommendations. There are a good handful of MIVA Merchant hosts - some listed here and some not listed. I always recommend locating a few clients of the host and check with them and also use search engines to look up any commentary.

Then, once you find a great host, don't leave them for anything. :) Too many people change hosts to save a few bucks, then later come to regret the decision.

In your case, I find the actions (or lack thereof) completely unacceptable.

[chucklasker]

To clarify, Pamela, when you say, "In your case, I find the actions (or lack thereof) completely unacceptable." you mean the HOST'S actions, right, not the posters? I had to read it a couple times to realize what you meant... :)

Oh - and Cybrhost, Cybrhost, Cybrhost - I'll train my hands eventually!

[nordicwolf]

another note regarding hosts// as an internet marketer I have always held the belief that the search engines know who your host is and if you are hosted with a budget host with a bunch of come and go nobodies or even worse **** sites on your server - especially if you dont have a static IP - you could be asking for real SEO problems.... and that isnt to even mention performance.. host with a reputable company and good connection and good support and pay the extra bucks - this is your business isnt it?? why jeopardize if for 30$ a month

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

Chuck,

I'm quite certainly she was referring to the downtime and lack of response from the host in that poster's particular situation.

[DesignExtend-MSI]

To clarify, Pamela, when you say, "In your case, I find the actions (or lack thereof) completely unacceptable." you mean the HOST'S actions, right, not the posters? I had to read it a couple times to realize what you meant... :)

Yes, I was referring to the initial post, which was a referral to the host.

[chucklasker]

Yeah, that's what I figured. I just wanted to be sure someone's feelings didn't get hurt by a misunderstanding. Well, except the host, who is probably not reading these forums anyway...

[kain821]

personally I am sticking with mediatemple, their client includes starbucks, loreal, sony, disel, nike, abc news, blitz... etc . You don't get big clients for no reason right?

you can read their 10 reason as to why to go with them: http://www.mediatemple.net/whymt/10_reasons.htm

that said... I noticed wolfpaw computer and hostaruous are VERY active on this message board. Obviously customer relation is very important to them. Plus they are very knowledge in miva merchant.

[Dan - Kemper Strategic]

personally I am sticking with mediatemple, their client includes starbucks, loreal, sony, disel, nike, abc news, blitz... etc . You don't get big clients for no reason right?
Ask MediaTemple's tech support to create a database for you, install a forum or add a second MIVA store and you will see the gears come to a screeching halt.

[kain821]

what do you mean? I have 1 vbulletin running and 2 miva store on the same account. Why does everyone here dislike mediatemple so much?

[Dan - Kemper Strategic]

I just asked them to install a MM5 store along side a MM4 store for one of my clients and it took them 3 days to respond with "our MIVA person is not here right now, but they will contact you soon".

If that was Hostasaurus, that MM5 store would have been up within a few hours.

[kain821]

I realize that, then again they are not premier hosting partner for miva.

I was on their ss, then gs server but the mysql server has a limitation on how many connection you can have at any given time so now we're going into the dv server.

I've considered going with wolfpaw or hostarursarus but all the information I have is right over here... on this forum. As long as I have root access, I don't need any permission related assistance.


Maybe it is the loyalty talking but I been with them for a little over 3 years now. Never had complaints, never had un-announced down time. Never had an idiot or rude tech support.

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

How many of those sites you just named run Merchant? I'll bet not a one of them.

Any host can host even large client sites that use ASP and PHP. However, when it comes to Merchant - as pointed out earlier, configuring a server to specifically handle the unique load requirements Empresa and Merchant require, requires more knowledge than most hosts have.

Support on the other hand - if they do not have a MIVA Specialist on staff available 24/7, then what good is their 24/7 support if you have to wait for 'the guy' to come in tomorrow or monday?

And you are right - we excell in customer service and support. Besides our superior server performance and expert MIVA knowledge, our customer service is fabulous.


personally I am sticking with mediatemple, their client includes starbucks, loreal, sony, disel, nike, abc news, blitz... etc . You don't get big clients for no reason right?

you can read their 10 reason as to why to go with them: http://www.mediatemple.net/whymt/10_reasons.htm

that said... I noticed wolfpaw computer and hostaruous are VERY active on this message board. Obviously customer relation is very important to them. Plus they are very knowledge in miva merchant.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

personally I am sticking with mediatemple, their client includes starbucks, loreal, sony, disel, nike, abc news, blitz... etc . You don't get big clients for no reason right?


Not to nitpick but only Diesel is hosted by them and while Diesel is trendy, I doubt they do a large amount of traffic since they don't sell through their site. You have to be careful with the marketing material hosts might give you. Fine print runs rampant at large hosts too, especially for hidden charges which typically revolve around things that require employee time. For example, Media Temple's backups of your site data include the following options:

1) Back it up yourself to your computer when you feel like it:

http://kb.mediatemple.net/article.php?id=078

2) Your server has redundant drives so you don't really need a backup:

http://kb.mediatemple.net/article.php?id=093

3) Pay $125 per hour for the work involved to restore from their real backups which are only taken once per week and may or may not actually be what you want; their page even states "No guarantees are made that the data that is restored is the most current data that the customer desires. Whatever is the most recent in the archive is what (mt) Media Temple has to offer."

http://kb.mediatemple.net/article.php?id=093



With us, for comparison, we back all customers' data up nightly to tape, not disks or other servers, the data is retained for two months and we don't charge anything for restores of data going back through those two months to get exactly what the customer wants restored. It's not uncommon for us to get restore requests for data from four weeks ago before a module was installed that began to cause problems that were not immediately noticed. With Media Temple, now you can't even afford to go on vacation for a week because if the server dies Saturday and you haven't been backing it up yourself all week, you've just lost every order for the week.

[DesignExtend-MSI]

I'm a firm believer that if you really do love your host, you probably shouldn't move unless they give you good reason to. However, backups are crucial in a hosted environment and anyone running a business site (ecommerce or not) should be having backups run at least every 24 hours, with quick access to those files.

[kain821]

for me, back up is 2ndary. Redundancy is the primary

[chucklasker]

Dino backups have saved my clients' butts many a time. Even with redundancy, more often than not a client (or me, early on) does something that kills data, screws up a template, etc., and the backup is there to fix the mistake. Hostasaurus has come through - restoring exactly what data is needed, over and over. Redundant screwed up data does me no good, especially if it's 3 days later and I can call Hostasaurus and say, "I need a restore from 4 nights ago of the product databases..."

[DesignExtend-MSI]

for me, back up is 2ndary. Redundancy is the primary

Sorry, but both these issues should be primary. Backups are just as important as redundancy for many reasons.

[Brandon MUS]

I still remember last year when i was new w/ Miva that I accidentally deleted our customer details for our frequent buyer program (dumb delete button in admin :(). I called Hostasaurus and within minutes David walked me through how to undelete the rows in the database (And our store was down for minutes tops...)

[40besos]

Just and fyi. I have been with host my site (hostmysite.com) and they are fantastic. no down time. they answer every call, sometimes on the very first ring. you will not be disappointed. support is great.

[Cymbeline]

Putting in my 2 cents...

I'm with Hostasaurus and am very very happy. A couple of weeks ago, I inadvertantly nuked my site when messing about with a database (in hindsight, something way beyond my scope). I sent a "critical" page to David and within minutes he had my site back up (I do mean minutes...this is not an exaggeration).

As well, Vic (Wolfpaw) is extremely generous with his time and knowledge in this forum. I've gleaned a tremendous amount of information from his postings.

Both David and Vic are very customer-supportive and Miva-knowledgeable. That's what I would want (and need) in a host.

Cym

[Unknowing]

Well, I'm going to throw my 2cents in ( and it's worth just less than that). I bought a web program call Site Spinner, with it came a year of free hosting from Jumpline.com

Jumpline has great phone support with everything issue I've called about except Miva 5. ( I would rate this support at a 6 or 7 out of 10)

I don't know much about Hosting but I'm very happy with their service so far, but I'm real new to this.

Jumpline offers Miva 5 through there site for $100 bucks which I thought was fantastic. But most importantly to me is I can pick up the phone (mon-fri) and get a living person that speaks english as their first language.

John

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

Except MIVA 5? So what's the point of having support if they cant handle supporting your store?

You'd have got MM5 free with our hosting.

Mon-Fri? What happens when your store crashes at 9pm on Friday night? You have to lose sales all weekend until someone shows up to work on Monday?

Keep in mind, your store operates 24/7, if they cannot provide support for your store 24/7 - how much will you lose before you can get help?


Well, I'm going to throw my 2cents in ( and it's worth just less than that). I bought a web program call Site Spinner, with it came a year of free hosting from Jumpline.com

Jumpline has great phone support with everything issue I've called about except Miva 5. ( I would rate this support at a 6 or 7 out of 10)

I don't know much about Hosting but I'm very happy with their service so far, but I'm real new to this.

Jumpline offers Miva 5 through there site for $100 bucks which I thought was fantastic. But most importantly to me is I can pick up the phone (mon-fri) and get a living person that speaks english as their first language.

John

[chucklasker]

Rating a host's support as 6 or 7 out of 10 is like rating your film projector as 6 or 7 out of 10 in properly projecting movies at your movie theater. This is your store! This is your entire presence to all online customers! If you don't rate your host's support at 10, you need a new host, or you need to forget the Web. Aren't your customers worth providing the best possible hosting experience, which implies available support? I'd hate to eat at a restaurant that has a cleaning crew that rates 6 or 7 out of 10...

[Dan - Kemper Strategic]

I'd hate to eat at a restaurant that has a cleaning crew that rates 6 or 7 out of 10...
I've eaten at a few of those restaurants...:eek:

[Unknowing]

Let's begin again. As I understand the issues and problems I have with Miva are based upon me not knowing how to use Miva5.

At some point I will subscribe to a service that will support my particular needs with my store/miva but at this time I am not paying for that support, and am not supprised at not getting.

Maybe I expect too little, but I believe at the very best you get what you pay for.

Now how do I sift through companys that offer Miva 5 service and support? I guess that's another thread.

[Dan - Kemper Strategic]

Let's begin again. As I understand the issues and problems I have with Miva are based upon me not knowing how to use Miva5.

At some point I will subscribe to a service that will support my particular needs with my store/miva but at this time I am not paying for that support, and am not supprised at not getting.

Maybe I expect too little, but I believe at the very best you get what you pay for.

Now how do I sift through companys that offer Miva 5 service and support? I guess that's another thread.
This thread is directed more towards the good, the bad and the ugly of MIVA Merchant hosting, which is a very important piece to your new projects success. Make sure you have a good "MIVA" host!

As to your particular situation, I highly recommend that you sit down and develop a list of goals and objectives for your new project. Try to answer the following questions and then submit your project information to developers for estimates:

1. Who is your target customer?
2. How do you want your store to look?
3. What capabilities do you want your store to have?
4. Who is your competition?
5. What features have you seen on other sites that seem to work well?
6. What sites have you looked at that don't work?
7. What information will your customers need to make a purchase?
8. What functionality will your store require in order to reach your online goals and objectives?
9. Is there a deadline or desired completion date for this project?
10. What is the overall budget for this project?

Plan out your project and provide potential developers with as much information as possible on your project and the process will go a lot smoother for you.

I cannot emphasize how important proper planning is to the success of any online project. (that and it will save you a lot of time, effort and money in the end)

[Unknowing]

Thank you Kemper Stratiegic, point taken. I will do this, at the very least.

[Dan - Kemper Strategic]

Thank you Kemper Stratiegic, point taken. I will do this, at the very least.

There are plenty of quality MIVA Developers on this forum, and anyone of them would be more than happy to help you with your project, we just need to get some details from you first. ;)

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

Many of the developers here also have a presence at http://www.developerwanted.com, which is a great place to post your project for bids.

[MaritimeLobsterExpress]

"There are some hosts who are really bad and shouldn't be allowed to host. We have been with SiteTurn for 8 months and it has been terrible. Our site goes down a lot. In January our site was down for over 24 ours. Yesterday our site went down around 7pm and it is still down. Just wanted to warn anyone in case they were considering going to SiteTurn"

I was in the exact same positon as you are a few months back. I had been hosting with my previous host for a couple of years. They were fine until I set up a MIVA store. Even though the host was a MIVA hosting partner they didn`t have a clue. I installed an update put out by MIVA which caused my site not to work properly and all they could tell me was restore to before the update instead of trying to figure out the problem. I turned to this discussion board for help and it was resolved within a half an hour. Turns out it was a bug in the update. So just because a host advertises that they are a hosting partner does not mean anything either.

I also turned to this discussion board to help me make my decison regarding a new host. I was hesitant because I am in Canada and it was new to me to host with a US host but now I clearly see that location is irrelevent.

I choose Wolfpaw Computers and the experience has been great. They transferred my site without a glitch and the support has been wonderful. I will be hosting a second Miva Store with them soon. Having said that, there are also a lot of other great hosts here on the board that I would highly recommend as well. My suggestion is to scroll through the posts to see which ones are active and you will soon gain the confidence that they know what they are talking about.

[MaritimeLobsterExpress]

Can someone please tell me how I get my quote to show in a box??

[MaritimeLobsterExpress]

Just answered my own question. Can`t believe I didn`t see that before.

[DesignExtend-MSI]

Let's begin again. As I understand the issues and problems I have with Miva are based upon me not knowing how to use Miva5.

At some point I will subscribe to a service that will support my particular needs with my store/miva but at this time I am not paying for that support, and am not supprised at not getting.

Maybe I expect too little, but I believe at the very best you get what you pay for.

Now how do I sift through companys that offer Miva 5 service and support? I guess that's another thread.

This is good, because many users think the host should be the sole repository for questions, and that should never be the case.

Yes, you should rely on your host for the stability of your store as far as the server is concerned, but not always for fixing your own mistakes (though a good MIVA host will know enough basics to at least give you an idea of where to seek help).

It's great that there are good MIVA hosts who know MIVA Merchant inside and out, but there's a downside to customers using the host for every single little issue, and coming from a different angle (though we host some sites, they're all selective clients), I appreciate that you realize that there should be a line of separation between what's the fault of your host, and what's the fault of something or someone else.

[DesignExtend-MSI]

Many of the developers here also have a presence at http://www.developerwanted.com, which is a great place to post your project for bids.

And many don't. Most developers don't want their initial correspondence/responses viewed publicly.

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

You always have the option to respond privately.

And many don't. Most developers don't want their initial correspondence/responses viewed publicly.

[chucklasker]

Most of the responses are "Please contact us for a more detailed quote" type of thing at developerwanted.com, anyway, but at least it gets the word out about needs... Maybe someone could come up with a list of developers that participate in this forum? Or maybe there should be a thread: Requests for Quotes.

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

The problem is, most people do not know how to put together a request for quote.

Often vital details of the project are left out.

"I need someone to redesign my site" leaves a lot open to interpretation.

[DesignExtend-MSI]

Most of the responses are "Please contact us for a more detailed quote" type of thing at developerwanted.com, anyway, but at least it gets the word out about needs... Maybe someone could come up with a list of developers that participate in this forum? Or maybe there should be a thread: Requests for Quotes.

There's a list of developer partners right at MIVA's site, I thought...

Anyway, I rarely get notified of any requests at that other site, and I've never gotten a response back from someone either.

[DesignExtend-MSI]

The problem is, most people do not know how to put together a request for quote.

Often vital details of the project are left out.

"I need someone to redesign my site" leaves a lot open to interpretation.

That's not the user's fault... Most new to the world of e-commerce feel so alienated they don't know what to ask.

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

I'm just saying that is why many of us ask to be emailed for detailed quotes...so we can obtain the vital information needed to provide an accurate quote.

[chucklasker]

A list of Miva partners - people who paid a few hundred bucks to be listed. This is a long way from a good list of active, knowledgable consultants. There are many who are capable, who just don't pay the Miva fee to be listed. I've been a full time MIVA consultant for over 4 years and I'm not listed there because I didn't like the agreement I'd have to sign.

I do understand not listing with DeveloperWanted.com as it's run by a competitor, and it's possible he has access to the "private" info submitted, though. I don't know... Anyway - we're off topic.

[sebenza]

As the owner of DeveloperWanted.com... the site pretty much runs itself and we could care less about looking at the private messages and etc. We always heard the scenario that a store owner called several developers... and they all said they were too busy. The system was put in place to hopefully help store owners find "available" developers. The site will soon be expanded to other areas and not just Miva. This is great benefit for those who dabble in other areas too.

[chucklasker]

Thanks, Scott - I appreciate the clarification, as I have heard this is a fear.

I just submitted a sort of non-Miva project myself, actually - looking for someone with ProStores knowledge... I certainly appreciate the free system you created.

[chmatt]

hey i just wanted to get my host's plug right.... its not cyberhost but "cybrhost" careful with the spelling.. hmm and who said the domain name you select isnt important to gettng your customers back to your site..???ofcourse you should be buying several versions if you can and direct all to one primary.

Tell me about it... :)

Matt Whitted
Hosting Manager

[copperlab]

I just switched from ValueWeb (left because they are no longer supporting MIVA). I chose Hostmysite.com and they have been simply terrific. Site speed is fast and their tech support can't be beat. I would highly recommend. Oh, and BTW they are very inexpensive.