Your First Web Hosting Experience

Artashes

Artashes

Administrator
Staff member
What company was your first web hosting experience with? Why THAT company and when? I would find it doubtful that the first was with your own hosting company (if so), because most people wouldn't venture in something without knowing what it is.

I will start:

My first web hosting company was: www.webhosting.com (now owned by SBC Internet Services).

Why? I just typed in web hosting on Yahoo! and that's what came on top. I thought that anyone with a domain like webhosting.com will be around for a while. In addition, they looked like a solid company. They have never been cheap. My UNIX shared plan ran me $240/year. Since then they have lowered their prices. However, still prices above competition. (And they are still around!!)

When? End of 1999 I believe...
 
My first paid hosting experience was with http://webspacedepot.net about 5 years ago. I chose them because i was a very active member on one of the owner's other sites and got to know him a bit and he cut me a good deal at the time. After a year or two, my hosting needs changed and i moved on to a dedicated server of my own.
 
If my memory serves me well, it was romedchim.com (a local company). There were few Romanian providers at the time, and this one felt like a better choice based on the little that I managed to find out about them. I didn't have a card at the time, so I couldn't go for any foreign companies.

The time was 2002. The server was in the US. This company was rather new at the time, and the server's performance quite unsatisfactory. I remember paying some 4 euros per month for hosting, which IMO was a respectable sum for a Romanian student. The package came with 500MB of data transfer, out of which I was using about 100. :)

After about 6 months I switched to using free hosting providers for a while, and actually ended up being more satisfied with the performance. :)
 
Last edited:
I honestly cannot even remember the name of my first provider. They were a smaller group selling off of ebay and they were a legitimate host. However, they sold out to a new owner and the problems started pretty much as soon as this person took control. They moved our accounts and I forever lost my first domain name to them and pretty much never heard from them again other than an invoice they sent me and said I needed to pay long before my account was due to expire. Basically, they wanted me to pay again for the hosting that I was currently using at their prices which were much higher.

That's when I decided to start learning and get into hosting myself. I guess part of the drive was because I was frustrated with what happened to me and the other half was that I love the potential that web hosting offered to both generate income and allow for people to have their own websites.

I committed a few of the hosting "no-no's" by buying from ebay and paying for a yearly account. I guess in a way it was probably much more of a good thing than a bad thing.
 
Wow! You are really making some of us think. I received my first hosting package April 28, 2001. It was with a web hosting company called worldsweb.... or something like that. Then followed by dr2.net that turned into netbunch.com, and then Sago Networks. I finally rested starting my company in Liquid Web, Inc.'s datacenter right here in Michigan.

The reason why I started at the company I did is because I was cheap at the age of 15. :) Now moving up on the age of twenty with many clients I am not so cheap anymore. We are paying $1,956.12 more each year then what I initially started out pyaing. Oh, that scares me now. :) Have a good day!
 
Why do you say that? What happened?
Click to expand...

It got me started in the hosting industry. I was so mad with what the new owner had done to me that when I came across this reseller hosting concept it gave me more of a motive to work harder and try to provide a better service where this wouldn't happen. I learned my lessons from my hosting sins and was able to learn not to make them again.
 
CrazyTech said:
It got me started in the hosting industry. I was so mad with what the new owner had done to me that when I came across this reseller hosting concept it gave me more of a motive to work harder and try to provide a better service where this wouldn't happen. I learned my lessons from my hosting sins and was able to learn not to make them again.
Click to expand...

CrazyTech,

Your not the first one to do that and have that problem. We ran in some back luck with www.worldwebhosters.com (remembered the name), followed by Mesopia.com and netbunch.com. All of these companies have now been bought out because financial they were doing something right. Over a year ago, I started out with a reseller account at Sago Networks, followed by a VPS at PowerVPS & Liquidweb, and now to servers. :)

When you are hit by either poort support or dumb mistakes it makes you care a little bit more for your customers and take a second look if they are having an issue. You realize how many big companies treat clients and you try to make it all better.

Some of us succeed and others make a quick buck and leave their clients just like they were left.
 
God, that was over 10 years ago, I can't even remember the company name, but I was paying over $20.00 permonth for like 25 megs of space. Times sure change. :kiss:
 
My first hosting account was with HalfPriceHosting.com back in 1997.
I was hosting a site for my restaurant in the Cayman Islands.
I went with them because it was Windows hosting, and not knowing anything at the time I assumed I would need windows hosting since I used windows at home.

They were great for a year or so but then they changed hands and service went down the tubes.
 
Blue said:
...not knowing anything at the time I assumed I would need windows hosting since I used windows at home.
Click to expand...
Michael, that is the funniest thing I've read today. :thumbsup:

I don't think you were laughing however when the service went awry.
 
Artashes said:
Michael, that is the funniest thing I've read today. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
I liked that part of his post as well, because of the odd thing called nostalgia. We were all beginners at some point, but in time we learned and here we are... still learning from each other. :)
 
My First Hosting was From Canaca.ca
I went with them becuase they were a local company in Toronto.
Why: They where advertising like crazy, everywhere i went i saw that banner.
When: August , 2005
 
I cn't remember the name of my first host but they weregreat and I found them on google after searching for ages.

They then got bought out by dot5 and things went downhill from there on so we switched to Hostgator and now have our own servers :)
 
My first web host company was our french leading company :

www.ovh.com

Well, plan was low price, but I did not like their interface. Too limited. FTP was problematic too, and could not get my domain to be fully accepted in the DNS, so it was a barely redirection. REsult : my site was not listed well in google for weeks. and even 1 or 2 months.

Im glad I quit them.
 
Mine was hostingmatters.com . Still I recommend them to many people. They had great support but its on the costlier side with limited space.
 
choosing is an option

hi

well,now i can say web hosting services has become competant enough,one is better than the other,but it is certainly upto us to choose the best in all way.

regards
shane richards
 
Oof...I'm going way back with this, but I believe it was with FortuneCity (or Geocities, or Tripod..I forget). Not much in the way of ads back then...it was a simple banner and that was it. No fancy standards or programming languages like today! I'm talking about 1995-96 here
 
The first hosting company I ordered space with is http://sitesfly.com they always come up with great service and are there to give you support or extra help with working your sites.
I started with 1 virtual account to host like 6 projects i made for clients (mostly online shops) Now I have mine 100mbit with them. Really fine support and fast bandwidth for the price i pay ... :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Supporters

Back
Top