Private name servers? UPDATED 8/21

[bigjim]

Hello Hostgator,

I'm a reseller at another company, and am contemplating a switch to gator.

1. I know you guys offer Private NS, but I have a question about webhostwelcome.com, which the reseller IP's resolve to. A whois gives the following "registration services by Hostgator"

Now I know that a determined user will be able to discover that the hosting is being resold, but removing this reference may add a bit more anonymity for resellers. Any chance of possibly changing this?

2. I've read that you guys are moving(ed) everything to The Planet. I've been at the planet for a bit, and for the most part its been good, but they have had their issues as well. Is this move permanent? If your old DC gets its act together in its new location, is their the possibility of setting up new servers there? Or is it The Planet from here on out?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

[GatorBrent]

A little less then a third of our boxes were being moved to theplanet. The rest have been there from birth . We have been VERY happy with them, and don't plan on moving elsewhere till things get ugly. We might one day offer boxes in multiple DC's but dont plan on doing so for a while.


It's impossible to hide all names, reason being a server can only have one name when sending out emails. If there isn't a name such as our websitewelcome.com name mail will bounce back, be blocked, and so on. That's why we have chosen websitewelcome.com
(very annonymous)

The "registartion provided by" part we are looking into getting removed. If there's anything else Let me know. Thanks!

[Stef]

Hi,
I posted a similar question in http://forum.hostgator.com/viewtopic.php?t=777.
Removing the "Registration Service Provided By" will not be sufficient though for die-hard customers trying to trace us. Since the contact name "Brent Oxley" is also displayed, and a Google search on it shows pages stating he's HostGator's president...

Stef.

[bigjim]

I agree, its probably impossible to hide all references to gator from the die hard customers.

But, as a reseller, you're probably not going to hook a die-hard customer anyway. If they are savvy enough to do a trace, they are probably well aware of re-seller, dedi, vps hosting etc and are after a better deal than we could provide.

I just thought it would be a good idea to remove any glaring references like "Registration Service Provided By: hostgator.com

[exRoadie]

Hello, I would be very interested in reselling your services. But resellers truly desire a fair amount of protection from our clients easily finding out who we resell for.

I fully agree with the post here by bigjim:

But, as a reseller, you're probably not going to hook a die-hard customer anyway. If they are savvy enough to do a trace, they are probably well aware of re-seller, dedi, vps hosting etc and are after a better deal than we could provide.

The die-hards are going to investigate anyway. And the smarter, more persistent ones may find out. But how about more protection for your resellers less web saavy clients?

It is very easy to get rid of the "Registration Services provided by Hostgator" situation. It's just an eNom thing.

All you need to do is create another reseller sub account and leave out the company name. Or just put in DN Services, or such for the company name. If you do enter a company name then you'll need to put in a title or role or position or whatever eNom calls it. In that case simply put in Admin. After you create the new sub account, then push all the server email domain names and nameserver names you wish to cloak into this new account. And don't ever use the sub account for any other purpose.

And further, eNom does not mind if you use a handle instead of your real name. So, instead of your name you can put something like DNS as the first name and Admin as the last name. eNom spells this out for you. I swear it's true (see the eNom agreements)!

Other hosting companies that cater to resellers do this all the time. Standard industry practice.

I have found that HostGator has an excellent reputation and I would like to start reselling with you. Would you be willing to take these extra measures? If you use eNom all the time, then you know it will take only a few minutes to do so. After a couple of days, the registries will be updated, and all will be good. Happier resellers!

Whaddya say??

[exRoadie]

Here , I found this in the eNom Support Center Q&A:

Question: "Do I have to put all registrant details in the domain contact fields? I don't want my information listed on whois."

Enom's Answer: "ICANN requires ALL data (name, address, phone, email) for admin and technical contact while only requiring name and address for registrant. We require ALL data for ALL contacts. Willful provision of false or misleading data is grounds for cancellation. That said, designation and use of a role contact for name, such as DNS admin, or FOR SALE, is not a material breach of the RA, and therefore acceptable as long as all other fields are in compliance."

Thought you would like to see this for yourself.

[GatorBrent]

I just tried calling enom with no luck, and have submitted an email to them requesting them to make this change on websitewelcome.com

Creating another reseller account I believe would work, but then our billing software would have problems since it doesn't support registering domains through 2 separate usernames.


Once enom hopefully makes the change we will also purchase the webid protect to hide the address and other names appearing.

[Stef]

Thanks, that would be great!
Nice to see Hostgator pays attention to these kind of suggestions from their clients. Proof of great service!

[exRoadie]

I have 3 eNom reseller account myself. Here's some more info if it will help:

As you probably know, the company name listed in the "My Info" section (when you are logged in to your eNom reseller account) is the company name that shows up as the name of the sender of the email whenever the eNom server sends out any mail to your clients (such as when they register a name, do a transfer, or request a lost password). And the return address comes from the "My Info" section also.

Of course, I don't know how you are using your domain name, websitewelcome.com, or any other names you may have registered. But when people register a name with you, HostGator, doesn't the email they get come from HostGator or HostGator Domains or something like that?

If the name websitewelcome.com is not the name of the domain selling branch of your company, then the method I outlined previously should be fine.

Incidentally, this is all something you can do yourself, unless there is something I don't know about in your case. If you research it and are still unsure about what to do exactly, then just let me know. I do pushes and transfers in and out of my enom reseller accounts and sub-accounts all the time. I have a PDQ site and a Rocket site also. You can get online, logged into your eNom account, and call me and I'll try and help you out. I would PM you my business phone number, if you ask.

I think I would like to resell with HostGator. It's come down to a choice between you and one other host. So yeah, there's something in it for me too. 8)

edited a little error

[JamesP]

Just reading through this thread, I thought of something else.

Check out this:

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%2...welcome.com%22

(second result).

HostGator, do you think you could make a small change to that page (privatenameservers.html) and use meta tags or a robots.txt to disallow crawling? Just another small element of protection.

[JamesP]

Or, just dynamically generate the "websitewelcome" bit with JavaScript on that page so that search engines's don't pick it up.

[GatorBrent]

Let me just say enom has been providing us horrible support! They don't even read what we send them and just keep emailing back canned responses. I'm going to attempt again to get them on the phone monday.


Once we got this enom thing straightened out with them well work on anything else people feel should be done.

[Stef]

Originally Posted by Gator_Support

I'm going to attempt again to get them on the phone monday.
Once we got this enom thing straightened out with them well work on anything else people feel should be done.

Hi Gators,
did you get any further info from Enom?
Will you keep us up-to-date about possible changes for the nameserver suggestions we made?

Thx,
Stef.

[JamesP]

Did anyone think/do anything about what I said? (the nameservers being listed at http://www.hostgator.com/privatenameservers.html and being picked up by google)

[MaraBlue]

Originally Posted by Gator_Support

Let me just say enom has been providing us horrible support! They don't even read what we send them and just keep emailing back canned responses. I'm going to attempt again to get them on the phone monday.


Once we got this enom thing straightened out with them well work on anything else people feel should be done.

Hi,

I know this is an old thread, but I'm new to HostGator, and trying to catch up on any issues that have been occuring. I've had the same experience with eNom through 2 other resellers, and almost didn't sign up with HG when I found out they were affiliated with eNom.

But I'm risking it, at least for now. Maybe. I didn't think I'd miss SSH access as much as I do, but I feel lost without it.

[Anonymous]

If you're considering going with HostGator, my opinion is that the service is fantastic and good value for money, but the support sucks. So if want any type of support with your hosting company...go elsewhere. (Sorry HostGator, I don't mean to be rude, but that's my view of your service)

[MaraBlue]

Originally Posted by Anonymous

If you're considering going with HostGator, my opinion is that the service is fantastic and good value for money, but the support sucks. So if want any type of support with your hosting company...go elsewhere. (Sorry HostGator, I don't mean to be rude, but that's my view of your service)

Well, IMO good value for the money would also include good service. I've traded emails with Brent a few times, and he seems to be very helpful and knowledgable. He seems to have an excellent atttude and good sense of humor, and that goes a long way with me. No one can know *everything*, and sometimes mistakes happen.

My experience so far with other staff members has neither been really outstanding nor really bad...so I really haven't been around long enough to form an opinion on the service.

I'm more concerned with being able to set up the accounts, etc. I've been doing this for 2 years now, have 2 Computer Science degrees, and I've NEVER felt so utterly BEWILDERED as I have trying to configure through cPanel.

I miss my httpd.conf. I miss SSH. I miss things making sense. I want my flippin command line back I know...that means finding another hosting company...and I'm not looking forward to that. I've been paying for the space since may but didn't start transferring over my domains until now due to time constraints. That certainly isn't anyone at HostGator's fault...I'm just very frustrated because this should be a fairly simple process, and it's been anything but.

[GatorJustin]

Originally Posted by MaraBlue

I've had the same experience with eNom through 2 other resellers, and almost didn't sign up with HG when I found out they were affiliated with eNom.

Hello, Mara.

I just wanted to clarify the fact that Hostgator is in no way affiliated with eNom. We simply have chosen to offer their services to our customers, but you are in no way obligated to use it. You are free to use any domain registration service you choose. I know plenty of people who use the Dotster reseller program and are more than happy with it.

[MaraBlue]

Originally Posted by Gator_Justin

Hello, Mara.

I just wanted to clarify the fact that Hostgator is in no way affiliated with eNom. We simply have chosen to offer their services to our customers, but you are in no way obligated to use it. You are free to use any domain registration service you choose. I know plenty of people who use the Dotster reseller program and are more than happy with it.

Hummm, ok, thanks for clarifying that. One of the reasons I came to Hostgator was because you offer reg services, and I wanted to have everything in one place. When I used the "Rocket Reg" link, it showed HG was a reseller for eNom.

[GatorJustin]

Yes, we use their services as well, but that does not mean we are affiliated with them. Similiar to our relationship with the developers of Cpanel, or PHP - we are not affiliated with them but we do make their respective technologies available to you.

[MaraBlue]

Originally Posted by Gator_Justin

Yes, we use their services as well, but that does not mean we are affiliated with them. Similiar to our relationship with the developers of Cpanel, or PHP - we are not affiliated with them but we do make their respective technologies available to you.

Gotcha! Thank you so much for clarifying that. Now...will you be around for the next hour or so, in case I have a support question?

If you hear screaming coming from the general direction of California...that'd be me :?

[GatorJustin]

It is 11:00pm here, and I probably won't get to bed for another 4 hours. If you need anything, just let me know.

[MaraBlue]

Originally Posted by Gator_Justin

It is 11:00pm here, and I probably won't get to bed for another 4 hours. If you need anything, just let me know.

Hey thanks, you rock

I'll read fast! lol

[Stef]

Hi Justin,

now that this thread is brought back up again:
did HG think about the problem mentioned in the original subject of this thread, ie the nameserver whois info and resolving? As you can see many resellers would like you to find a solution for this (see also http://forum.hostgator.com/viewtopic...ighlight=#3848)

Bye,
Stef.

[GatorJustin]

Stef, I will speak to Brent this weekend and get a response to this for you and everyone else. Also, maybe I can get to that PM I've been meaning to send you.