Way to keep customers online through the Reseller/Shared to dedicated upgrade

[joer80]

We both know that most people are not going to need a planed bandwith or hardrive plan upgrade. Most upgrades are going to need to be done after the customer is blindslided due to crossing the cpu usage line.

Please help us make it a smooth upgrade and give us a heads up when we are starting to out grow our shared hosting.

I was down for days when I out grew my resellers account while I was getting the upgrade approved, buying, paying for, waiting for, copying files over to, copying databases over to, and etc. my new dedicated account.

We need 30 days on an old server instead of being offline for this process. Especially for $25/m reseller accounts like mine.

My full suggestion can be found at this thread.

http://forums.hostgator.com/showthread.php?t=30659

[gwyneth]

This ties in with whatrevolution's suggestion, prompted by a similar situation.

As you wrote in the linked thread, the interim between suspension and move onto dedicated is really the critical time.

Maybe something like suspension insurance? Ten or fifteen extra bucks per month for, at normal point of suspension, auto-throw to alternate DNS for 48 hrs grace period and if you agree to a dedi at that point, they'll keep you up through switch.

Alternatively, perhaps GatorDave could devise a script that resellers could install to send them a warning when their account was nearing decision time.

[whatrevolution]

I added a list of similiar threads to my post, including this one.

The cpu suspension policy is just that, a policy; not a feature of the service. I see no justification for charging for that like its something special no one else does.

[crystak]

This really needs to be addressed and as you said, ALL of the customers exceeding the 25% CPU limit should get a warning before getting their account disabled.

And what's worse is that you don't even have CPANEL access to download all your files and MySQL databases that would allow you to move to another host. Instead, you have to wait for the slow responses and clueless support guys.

They call it SEO Hosting - Search Engine Optimized Hosting when they're not even aware of the fact that if the Googlebot visits a certain website while it's down/ suspended all the SEO that was done to that website = 0.

They either don't know or don't care. I see support guys and HG staff on these forums reading the threads and then logging off without any replies. On my tickets I've now waited over 6 hours and got no reply.

I've never come across such ignorance and lack of interest to keeping the clientele especially if one is going to pay $180 for a dedicated server.

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by crystak

This really needs to be addressed and as you said, ALL of the customers exceeding the 25% CPU limit should get a warning before getting their account disabled.

I disagree with this. Approaching 25%, sure, an alert is great. But if you're over 25% you should be suspended as soon as possible.

If your site was running *incredibly* slow because of one other member's site, and you complained to Hostgator about it, would you (as a member who stays within your resources) like your answer to be "we're just waiting on that customer to fix that site. May be a few more hours, but we want to give him a chance" or would you prefer they make the server work for everybody else on it as soon as possible?

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by whatrevolution

I see no justification for charging for that like its something special no one else does.

I've got to agree with slapshotw about getting the cpu-hog off the server, which is why my suggestion for paid "insurance" would remove that account to an alternate in lieu of suspension. If that alternate were for, say, a week that would give the accountholder time to find a new host or the HG dedi setup team to get one going.

The situation is not really parallel to the utility companies you site, because those terminations are for lack of payment, not overconsumption of resources shared with others.

[whatrevolution]

Originally Posted by slapshotw

I disagree with this. Approaching 25%, sure, an alert is great. But if you're over 25% you should be suspended as soon as possible.

Originally Posted by gwyneth

I've got to agree with slapshotw about getting the cpu-hog off the server, which is why my suggestion for paid "insurance" would remove that account to an alternate in lieu of suspension.

No. Move them and/or throttle them. It's that simple.

It is not the HG customer's fault that the CPU spiked. It's that customer's own readership which causes the problem. Punishing the HG customer without warning is childish. Treating this as "insurance" is extortion, just the same as pulling the plug and up-selling by force.

That's why I would simply move, no questions asked. I hate bullies.

In fact, I would switch to dedicated... I'd buy directly from The Planet.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by whatrevolution

It is not the HG customer's fault that the CPU spiked. It's that customer's own readership which causes the problem. Punishing the HG customer without warning is childish. Treating this as "insurance" is extortion, just the same as pulling the plug and up-selling by force.

It may not be the customer's "fault", but it is his/her responsibility.

A parallel might be roommates sharing an apartment, with the rent, power, phone, and water expenses divided evenly. What if one of the roommates had a girlfriend who was almost always there, took more showers than at least one of the other roommates, occupied the bathroom enough to be annoying, used the phone so much that it was chronically unavailable to the other roommates, and whose sculpture homework was always in the oven when another roommate wanted to use it?

Whose "fault" would the other roommates think it was--the guy whose name was on the lease with them or his girlfriend?

Part of the shared server's compact is that users agree that their consumption of resources shall not affect their neighbors.

Now, when sharing either a server or apartment, there's a big difference between the occasional and the constant. A girlfriend who visits once or twice a month, for instance, does not create the same situation as the hypothetical art student above.

IMO, thinking of HG's corrective action as "punishment" is emotive and prevents creative, logical thinking about the problem.

The roommate analogy may break down because the angry roommates (probably) wouldn't suddenly change the lock and place all the guy's stuff on the street with no warning.

[whatrevolution]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

It may not be the customer's "fault", but it is his/her responsibility.

I never said it wasn't.

Originally Posted by gwyneth

What if one of the roommates had a girlfriend who was almost always there [...]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

Whose "fault" would the other roommates think it was--the guy whose name was on the lease with them or his girlfriend?

Originally Posted by gwyneth

The roommate analogy may break down because the angry roommates (probably) wouldn't suddenly change the lock and place all the guy's stuff on the street with no warning.

The girlfriend. And that's right, the boyfriend roommate should not come home one day to find his possessions on the lawn, and the locks changed. The roommates WARN HIM. Perhaps more than once.

Originally Posted by gwyneth

Part of the shared server's compact is that users agree that their consumption of resources shall not affect their neighbors.

Yes, I agree. Again, I never stated that the policy should change. The execution of the policy is the problem.

Originally Posted by gwyneth

Now, when sharing either a server or apartment, there's a big difference between the occasional and the constant.

That's right. HG is pulling the plug first, and claiming that the email notification, "Your account is suspended, come talk to us about it", is enough. That's cheap.

Originally Posted by gwyneth

IMO, thinking of HG's corrective action as "punishment" is emotive and prevents creative, logical thinking about the problem.

Damaging the offensive customers' bandwidth would be equally emotive, with less negativity.

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by whatrevolution

Punishing the HG customer without warning is childish.

There's nothing bullyish about it. When you have 200+ customers on the server, the good of those other 199 has to come before the good of that one. Someone abusing the server really makes the status of those websites terrible and it must be stopped as soon as possible. Moving them to another server would be nice, but, if it were a shared server it would have the same problem. The only choice is a dedicated server-- and should hostgator really spend the money putting abusers (most of whom are paying $6/month) on dedicated servers for free for who knows how long?

In fact, I would switch to dedicated... I'd buy directly from The Planet.

Regardless of your feelings about the suspension policy, this is cutting off your nose to spite your face. The hostgator servers are only a small amount more expensive than similarly specced Planet servers, and they include the full management. Plus, on a dedicated, you'll never run the risk of getting suspended for overuse. You'd only be hurting yourself to prove the point.

[whatrevolution]

Originally Posted by slapshotw

There's nothing bullyish about it. When you have 200+ customers on the server, the good of those other 199 has to come before the good of that one.

You're still choosing to ignore my meaning. Protecting the 199 from the 1 over-user is not the problem. Pulling the plug and asking for more money in return for resumed access to your data is bullying. "We have your data, now what? Ready to talk about paying us more NOW, like you should have months ago?"

Originally Posted by slapshotw

Moving them to another server would be nice, but, if it were a shared server it would have the same problem.

It would be a server full of abusers. Of course it would have the same problem. That's the punishment. Do you not know that LunarPages and others do precisely what I'm suggesting?

Originally Posted by slapshotw

The only choice is a dedicated server-- and should hostgator really spend the money putting abusers (most of whom are paying $6/month) on dedicated servers for free for who knows how long?

That's not what I'm suggesting, at all.

Originally Posted by slapshotw

Plus, on a dedicated, you'll never run the risk of getting suspended for overuse. You'd only be hurting yourself to prove the point.

If I needed a managed dedicated, I could find one too. HG is a good company, but they aren't the only good company. Besides, I'm perfectly willing to risk damage to prove a point. That's the point of proving points... you risk sacrifice and pain. The alternative is cowardice.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by whatrevolution

The girlfriend.

No.

To whatever extent that this situation is a problem, it is a problem within the roommates' agreement with each other. In that scope, her behavior is, in effect, his: he could be taking seven showers a day, running the arc welder and using the oven and telephone round the clock, and the result would be the same imbalance of parity.

In this scope, the girlfriend's activities are not an independent entity; they could not exist except by agency of the roommate who is her boyfriend.

(While those same activities could well be a problem within the couple's relationship, and she could (and probably would) certainly be at fault there, this is a separate scope. Within that scope, her activities could not exist except through her own agency as well as his.)

Visitors* cannot use a site's CPU except by agency of the site holder; it is not their fault they are using what is offered.

*We aren't discussing intruders performing actions not authorized by the site holder.

[whatrevolution]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

her activities could not exist except through her own agency as well as his.

That isn't mutually excluding the girlfriend's fault. The roommates go to the boyfriend for resolution, just as HG goes to their customer, not the customer's site visitors. There, I think we agree. It's a matter of contract, and who signed on to that responsibility.

This still means that HG, as the landlord, on behalf of the roomates (the 199 other shared customers) is locking the door to both the girlfriend (the massive viewership the 1 shared user receives) and the boyfriend (the 1 customer) without notice.

Pretending that this analogy is real, for a moment; that's quite illegal for a landlord to do... regardless of what the contract says, they're required by law to give notice so the evictee can attempt to avoid sleeping on the street.

Back to reality and topic, we are actually talking about a much less volatile situation, and one much more easily solved. Simply devote a few machines to this, move the abusive site there, and issue your warnings. Let the abusive sites rot there with the rest of their kind for a month, and see what it feels like while they decide what to do about it. After a month in the throttle jail, and appropriate correspondence with the abusive customer; that's when you terminate them. Permanently. It's that simple.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by whatrevolution

That isn't mutually excluding the girlfriend's fault.

Well, the whole point was that it was two different problems in two different scopes, but in any case...

Originally Posted by whatrevolution

Let the abusive sites rot there with the rest of their kind for a month, and see what it feels like while they decide what to do about it. After a month in the throttle jail, and appropriate correspondence with the abusive customer; that's when you terminate them. Permanently. It's that simple.

A dog-waker!

The compost heap of servers. Or maybe more like 17th century French penal galley ships.

The hokey-pokey period might start with a letter like this:

"Dear customer,

As of midnight tonight, your account status will change to suspension-pending because it has become a menace to its neighbors on your current shared servers.

Your site(s) will be moved to a penal server where suspension-pending sites can affect only each other.

This will allow uninterrupted service during the next 30 days, but please note that we are not responsible for any performance issues your site may experience.

This period will allow you to make other arrangements, either with a dedicated server here or another hosting company that is more elastic about exceeding account limits.

Your new nameservers will be.... On ----, your account will be terminated unless you are continuing with us via a more suitable plan...."

Hmmm. I do think it would be fair to add five or ten bucks to the regular monthly fee for the hokey-pokey period (i.e., last month) to cover the work involved in moving the account IF it is mentioned in the signup agreement for new accounts.

[Rockoids]

This may come as a surprise, but HostGator is in business to make money. There is very little margin on a cheap shared account. Adding too many frills so a handful of server abusers can get away with it means that everyone will be saddled with higher prices.

On the other hand, I think shared hosting is far too cheap for what you get and expectations are way too high. But it's far too competitive for things to change unless all the major industry players acted in unison. And they won't.

[skeetr]

Lets see if I have my math correctly. Lets say hypothetically, you are putting 5 or 6 abusive sites on one server. Now each abusive site is using 25% cpu.....hmmmm I think that might crash the server and none of those sites would be accessible until an HG rep restarts the server. THEN it crashes again ultimately causing all those sites to be once again, unaccessible.

So if all those sites are continually causing the server to be inaccessible for anyone that is on it, what is the difference between that and just suspending the site right from the get go? Oh...one difference is that an HG rep wont have to keep restarting the server every couple of minutes saving HG money in the long run.

Here is my opinion on it.....please note, this is just MY opinion and noone else in the world is responsible for what I have to say at any time or any place.....

Have everyone that signs up for a shared hosting account whether it is a reseller or not, be totally responsible for the content and the visitors that may affect the server inadversely. Once the Terms of Service have been violated by any site, suspend that site so that it is in effect no longer causing anymore problems to the server or the other 199 customers that are not breaking the Terms of Service. Email the offending customer telling them that their site has been suspended due to breaking the Terms of Service and give them the option to move to a dedicated server or another host.

Wait a minute....thats the policy they already have in place. Moving an offending site to a shared server that is occupied by 3 or 4 other offending sites is going to do nothing but increase the cost to all of us who are using shared hosting without violating the Terms of Service. As I pointed out earlier....its no different having a suspension page show up than it is to not be able to get to the site because all the other offenders are using up all the CPU or whatever.....less headache for HG though and cheaper costs for everyone else.

[whatrevolution]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

The hokey-pokey period might start with a letter like this:

[...]
Hmmm. I do think it would be fair to add five or ten bucks to the regular monthly fee for the hokey-pokey period (i.e., last month) to cover the work involved in moving the account IF it is mentioned in the signup agreement for new accounts.

That would be perfect. In fact, I wouldn't mind them charging more than that for dealing with the BS.

Originally Posted by Rockoids

Adding too many frills so a handful of server abusers can get away with it means that everyone will be saddled with higher prices.

I don't consider this one a frill. Otherwise, I agree. Again, it's only the way this particular abuse is handled, which I take issue with. Honestly, I have not encountered one other thing HG does that makes me this angry. o_O

Originally Posted by skeetr

Lets say hypothetically, you are putting 5 or 6 abusive sites on one server. Now each abusive site is using 25% cpu...

That's why the servers have to be configured to heavily throttle and load-blance the sites they're hosting. This is hardly different than the way all the servers should be opperating, except that in this case they can intentionally not care if load times are horrible and timeouts and downtime are unreasonable. On such a system, a single user simply can not eat that much CPU. That's the punishment. Their only concern then would be, as you say, keeping the servers operational.

Originally Posted by skeetr

Moving an offending site to a shared server that is occupied by 3 or 4 other offending sites

Not 3 or 4. As many as is normal. You use the server software itself to prevent more requests than the server can handle. This is a job that HG can not only afford, but they should know exactly what I'm talking about even more than I do.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by Rockoids

Adding too many frills so a handful of server abusers can get away with it means that everyone will be saddled with higher prices.

Originally Posted by whatrevolution

I don't consider this one a frill...in this case they can intentionally not care if load times are horrible and timeouts and downtime are unreasonable. On such a system, a single user simply can not eat that much CPU. That's the punishment. Their only concern then would be, as you say, keeping the servers operational.
Not 3 or 4. As many as is normal. You use the server software itself to prevent more requests than the server can handle.

At $15, the hokey-pokey surcharge (i.e., fee tacked on to final monthly payment for move to penalty server) would probably cover HG costs and not be spread around to non-offenders.

To be sure that the miscreants are not incurring extra costs, there would probably also have to be a paragraph in the off-to-jail letter about reduced support--

"During this period, please understand that we cannot respond to support requests concerning server performance including but not limited to slow page loading, processing time, etc., and other side effects that may occur as a result of problems caused by excessive resource used by either your account or others on the penalty server."

We should remember that what makes HG a great host is not how much it lets accounts stretch the limits, but how much it does not.

[kmaw]

So as thoughts pop into my head... OK, so how can they just move the accounts to another server without changing the dns at the registrar?

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by kmaw

So as thoughts pop into my head... OK, so how can they just move the accounts to another server without changing the dns at the registrar?

The "off to Siberia at midnight" letter would give them the new nameservers.

[kmaw]

Well, that's all I could figure... so either way there's still downtime until the site owner gets the email, changes them and waits for the dns to propagate. Not really a great solution either...

[GvilleRick]

It would be possible to change the IP in the DNS Zone of the account using the same nameservers but that does add other possible problems from a support standpoint. Downtime is going to be inevitable and moving the account, waiting for the new IP to propagate, etc. could well result in more downtime than the current system.

I have been reading this thread with great interest.......

Ummmm what ever happened to this ???????

http://blog.hostgator.com/category/brent-oxley/


Selling Out
Written by Brent Oxley on October 6, 2007 – 1:14 am -

----------- This is my plan for becoming so scummy…

Anyone we find crashing a server will be moved onto a server with only twenty accounts on it for the same monthly hosting price, instead of being suspended. Twenty customers will be paying us just shy of $200 a month on a server which at our cost has a $1,200 setup and about $250 a month leasing fee. You heard me… We are going to be giving abusers hosting below our cost. I’m not even factoring in merchant fees, support costs, or server administration time! If this isn’t good enough for the less then .5% of customers that crash our servers then there just isn’t any pleasing them.

I guarantee if HostGator starts sucking it’s not going to have anything to do with the crazy plans we are offering. Our new offering is no different then the last due to the TOS limiting the CPU and memory which is what truly affects performance. The reason most hosting companies start going downhill after a plan increase is a result from sales skyrocketing and the lack of man power to keep up with growth. If HostGator starts having this problem I’ll switch the site back to the old plans in a heartbeat. There’s no way I’m going to risk everything we built in exchange for a few more sales.-------- (more)

Having read the entire blog entry when it was posted I had assumed it to be a statement of fact and that this system was in use.

[kmaw]

That's related to disk space -- not processor usage. If a customer was to use up the space alloted with the biggest plan at 1,000gb.. that's typically the capacity of one server, so that person would be moved to another server with few clients.

[whatrevolution]

It does show, however, that their eyes have been on the issue for a while; how could they not be? I have edited my original post in the other thread to include references to how other system administrators and other hosting companies are dealing with the same issue; to illustrate that this is not unreasonable, untenable, or ridiculously expensive.