Credit: http://www.emailgoodies.faketrix.com/

Every so often, our firm advocates on behalf of clients with their hosting companies.  Its not that the hosting companies are doing anything wrong or unfair; its that the clients just aren’t getting anywhere no matter what they say or do.  And its genuinely frustrating to feel as though your concerns are being dismissed!  And last week, there were three times where we had to get answers from web hosting companies that our clients were frustrated with. So here are some tips to getting the answers you need from a web hosting company support person.

Be clear about the problem

State clearly what the problem is.  ”My site is down” is not nearly clear enough.  You need to give the support desk more details.  Be clear about your site address, any error messages,  and what you were doing at the time of the error.  Also include how long you’ve been seeing the error.  These examples will work:

My site was down when I logged on this afternoon.  I don’t know how long its been down for.  I, nor any of my administration team was logged on at the time.  The last time it was working fine that I know of was last night when I went to bed at 11PM EST.  When I try to go to my site, www.mysite.com, this is the error that I get:  ”500 cannot connect to database”.  

I was in the middle of typing my post, and all the sudden my browser (FireFox) crashed.  When I put it back up, I cannot get to my site(www.mysite.com) any longer.  I can get to Google and other sites just fine.  I can check my email.  Its been down for 30 minutes.  The error message I get is: …. 

I’ve been getting emails all day that my site is down.  I was seeing it just fine.  But now I can’t.  When I go to my site – www.mysite.com – I get this error:  ….  I’ve been seeing this error for 10 minutes now.  I can view other sites and my email just fine.  I’ve rebooted my computer.  I’ve rebooted my browser (Chrome) and there are no other problems on my end.  

Describe your software and general use

When you have a website, you install files onto the server to show to the world – that is known as your website.  And there are hundreds of programs that put files on servers.  Some programs reside on the servers themselves, while other programs reside on your computer at home.  It will be immensely helpful when speaking to your host’s support person if you describe what software your website uses.  For us, it is WordPress, with a theme, and various plugins.

It is also helpful to tell them how your site is used.  For example,

I get roughly 2,000 unique visitors a day.  I have an e-commerce site from which I make my living.  It is imperative that it be up and running soon.  

My site is a simple brochure site which gets 1000 plus visitors per day.  I have a conference coming this weekend, and I MUST have that site back up and running immediately!  

My site is on a VPS and I get 7,000+ visitors a day.  I have mostly text, some images, and I post a video every day on the blog.  It is my full-time income and every moment its down, means I’m loosing money.

Help yourself

Have you ever contacted support, and been told to refresh your screen?  Unfortunately there’s a very good reason for this.  Most of the requests for support can be avoided by making a few simple checks before you call:

• have you tried another browser
• refreshed your screen
• waited 2 minutes and refreshed
• cleared the browser cache
• Checked a site like: http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
• checked your internet connection – can you get to a friend’s website?  Check your email?
• rebooted your computer

Make sure to let the host support person know what you’ve already done to try and solve the problem on your own.

More relevant details

It is really important to include any and all other relevant details in your first contact – let them know you are serious about solving this and have done everything you can first.  Other things to include in your support request:

• have you installed any new software, plugins, themes recently? (this includes advertising widgets or other javascripts)
• recently changed anything about your site at all
• is your software up to date
• are your plugins up to date
• has the traffic or use of your site changed

Approach with caution

Remember, Support Desk personnel spend all day answering support requests.  If you want yours to get attention quickly, state why it is urgent and be polite!  They deal with cranky people all day long.  Be the one that is reasonable and polite and curious.  You will find a resolution faster if you are working together instead of at odds.

If you’ve had a particularly great experience or particularly bad experience with your host’s support desk, I’d love to hear about it!

We have increased the limits and value for our two most popular packages!   Now you can get world-reknown hosting, reseller prices, and our very popular service for the same price as before!

Basic WordPress Package:

• 1 WordPress installation
• 1 year of access to the Members Center
• **60% more than before** 1 Gb of storage
• 6 Gb monthly bandwidth
• unlimited subdomains
• unlimited ftp accounts
• ***19 more than before*** 20 parked domains
• custom control panel
• ***19 more than before*** 20 databases with phpmyadmin access
• ***19 more than before*** 20 configured email address

————————— $36/year

WordPress Package PLUS:

• 2 WordPress installations
• 1 year of access to the Members Center
• ***50% more*** 2 Gb of storage
• ***500mb more *** 20 Gb monthly bandwidth
• unlimited subdomains
• unlimited ftp accounts
• ***18 more*** 20 parked domains
• custom control panel
• ***18 more*** 20 databases with phpmyadmin access
• ***17 more*** 20 configured email address

——————————– $57.60/year

WordPress Package for the Entrepreneur: (the same great deal)

• 6 WordPress installations
• 1 year of access to the Members Center
• 6 GB of storage
• 90 GB monthly bandwidth
• unlimited subdomains
• custom control panel
• unlimited databases with phpmyadmin access
• unlimited configured email address

——————————– $12.99/month

As always, our domains are very competitive at $10.50 per domain and only $9.00 for legally hiding your personal information.

Read more about our values, green-hosting, or our giving-back initiatives.

I have personally spoken to nearly all of you about your hosting account. (If you have a question – please just ask!) For 95% of you, you are seeking a website, and the web hosting is merely one of the tools you must purchase to get that website functional.   But, did you know that your web-hosting package comes with more?

For example, our initial service usually consists of setting you up with cpanel access, a custom email address, and a WordPress installation. But there’s more! You can also do hundreds of other things to make your website better, more secure, more efficient, etc. Here’s a small run-down.

Peer Referral Directory – meet your fellow hostees, find services & products you’re looking for (Submit Your site HERE)

Did you know that your web-hosting package comes with more?

MORE Downloads – we have partnered with trade-pub to offer you 100′s of free white papers, newsletters and magazines on technical and small biz topics

Exclusive Client Forums – (still in its infancy) – get your questions answered quickly

Video Tutorials – basic WordPress how-to’s

Big Kahuna of Video Tutorials – this is everything your geeky side ever dreamed about  - Cpanel, Phpmyadmin, SQL, webmail, subdomain, site builder, file transfer, paypal, etc.

Ticket Support System - submit a ticket and get a response within hours from anyone on my team

Knowledge Base – hundreds of new articles added last month on everything from checking email to banning a spammer from your site

Is there something else you’d like to see?  I’m all about added value – just let me know!!

All the Best,

Cathy Tibbles

Did you know that the average server produces the same emissions as a 15 mpg SUV?

HostGator hosts over 1,800,000 websites on its shared and reseller servers. That means a lot of servers, and a lot of carbon emissions. So we asked ourselves, What can we do to be part of the climate change solution? We took steps to minimize our environmental impact at the office, but still we weren’t satisfied. We then switched to 36% more efficient servers, but still we weren’t satisfied!

All of our shared and reseller servers are now 130% wind powered!

That’s right! 130%!

We’re not just neutralizing our environmental impact, we’re reversing it!

HostGator has purchased certified Renewable Energy Credits representing 130% of the electricity used to both power and cool every last one of our shared and reseller servers!

Just how big a dent in climate change does that make?  It’s the equivalent of:

1. Removing 444 cars from the road for a year, or
2. Powering 321 homes with clean energy for a year, or
3. Saving 5,654 barrels of oil, or
4. Protecting 551 acres of forest for a year

Click here to see our Green Tag purchase certificate!

Investing in wind power close to home!

All of HostGator’s wind credits are generated here in our home state of Texas! While we can’t build a wind farm here in downtown Houston, we’re doing the next best thing and investing in renewable energy close to home!

Green-e Certified RECs

All of HostGators REC’s have been registered, verified, and retired from the market.