Creation Of Hosting Service

luke.p said:
excuse me. I actually am running a successful hosting company, I am professional, I may not match up to those big ones, but I think I'm doing a decent job

No you're not. You're running a crap Web Hosting establishment - you're not a business at all. Talk to Fergal, he'll talk to you all day long about what a business is. You don't have employees, you don't record finances, in fact you're not even a registered company. And to add to that, you're not even successful - I did a check and found there are just 15 sites on your server. Since when was 15 sites on a Web Host successful?

Seeing as the formalities are out of the way, let's take a look at your website. When I first saw it my eyes started burning, the website looks hideous. firstly the animated favicon looks like it was made by a 3 year old, the banner looks like it was made by somebody with the graphic skills of a one-armed monkey and the navbar is just, plain crap. I'd possibly be lenient in my review of your site, although you made it using a lame Site Builder and then had the cheek to put your own copyright on the bottom. Just like the time you ripped FP's Website and put your copyright on the bottom. Oh, and when I confronted you about it you were like "Who the f put that there?!?", blah blah blah...and then you said "yea right. now get fucked. and stay out of my area51" - real professional.

So, seeing as you're a professional let's have a look at your "professional" home page. Well for a start aside from the lame banner and navigation I've already talked about, the site is plastered full of ads. A few ads here and there would be okay, but on a site that allegedly makes revenue, showing this many ads is pure greed and looks incredibly tacky. As for the actual content it's not even written in "professional" English. For example: "HostU Web Hosting is a non-profit business and we spend all the money we get on servers advantages such as Cpanel add-ons, server upgrades, more ram and more disk space, and much more.". How many times do you want to write "and" in the same sentence?

I decided to check out your client area and help desk, and what a surprise - absolutely no effort has been put into making them blend with your site. You haven't even changed the logo on the client area. One of the biggest problems here is consistency, if you were really a professional the site would be consistent, you would have paid an experienced coder to integrate the helpdesk and client area into your crappy generated website and then perhaps it wouldn't look so bad. The same thing can be said for your hosting plans. The actual hosting plans page is poor, and hardly informative. The information isn't clearly laid out, can't be viewed at a glance...and that being said there aren't even prices on the plans page. So I clicked the link to order (A fancy order button or something would of been nice, but no the user has to click a tacky link that doesn't even have anchor text)...and when the page loaded I find a facebook-wannabe styled script that again - doesn't match your site.

Exploring other areas of your site, and I find "Shoutcast login". My first thoughts are "wtf is shoutcast, and how is it relevent to a hosting site". Turns out shoutcast is some kind of internet radio, which definitely isn't needed on a hosting site. Just another example of young teenages trying to run a big site and offer loads of features nobody needs, or wants. Then I come across your terms of service and find the first rule of being hosted by you is to "have an active website" - Ironic seeing as your website itself is hugely inactive.

Finally, your forums. Running a nulled vBulletin using a crap banner and free skin. What I can't get is how you can allegedly offer VDS server and a vBulletin forum, yet can't afford a decent website design. What more can be said, you get something like 10 posts a day 60% of which are made by staff members and VIPs talking to each other - yet you claim to be the "Finest Host on the Web". And just as the cherry on the cake, whilst browsing the announcements I find your "Good and "reliable" staff" (in this case your co-founder?!" 'taking a break from 2hu' -> http://2hostu.net/community/showthread.php?t=551 . Again, real professional and real reliable.

Face it, your host is utter crap. Have you sold any premium memberships? probably not? if yes, who? I wouldn't pay fresh air to be hosted by you. Your site is an abysmal failure and I sincerely hope the lack of professionalism clearly demonstrated so far continues.
 
Murder he Wrote said:
luke.p said:
excuse me. I actually am running a successful hosting company, I am professional, I may not match up to those big ones, but I think I'm doing a decent job

No you're not. You're running a crap Web Hosting establishment - you're not a business at all. Talk to Fergal, he'll talk to you all day long about what a business is. You don't have employees, you don't record finances, in fact you're not even a registered company. And to add to that, you're not even successful - I did a check and found there are just 15 sites on your server. Since when was 15 sites on a Web Host successful?

Seeing as the formalities are out of the way, let's take a look at your website. When I first saw it my eyes started burning, the website looks hideous. firstly the animated favicon looks like it was made by a 3 year old, the banner looks like it was made by somebody with the graphic skills of a one-armed monkey and the navbar is just, plain crap. I'd possibly be lenient in my review of your site, although you made it using a lame Site Builder and then had the cheek to put your own copyright on the bottom. Just like the time you ripped FP's Website and put your copyright on the bottom. Oh, and when I confronted you about it you were like "Who the f put that there?!?", blah blah blah...and then you said "yea right. now get f****d. and stay out of my area51" - real professional.

So, seeing as you're a professional let's have a look at your "professional" home page. Well for a start aside from the lame banner and navigation I've already talked about, the site is plastered full of ads. A few ads here and there would be okay, but on a site that allegedly makes revenue, showing this many ads is pure greed and looks incredibly tacky. As for the actual content it's not even written in "professional" English. For example: "HostU Web Hosting is a non-profit business and we spend all the money we get on servers advantages such as Cpanel add-ons, server upgrades, more ram and more disk space, and much more.". How many times do you want to write "and" in the same sentence?

I decided to check out your client area and help desk, and what a surprise - absolutely no effort has been put into making them blend with your site. You haven't even changed the logo on the client area. One of the biggest problems here is consistency, if you were really a professional the site would be consistent, you would have paid an experienced coder to integrate the helpdesk and client area into your crappy generated website and then perhaps it wouldn't look so bad. The same thing can be said for your hosting plans. The actual hosting plans page is poor, and very informative. The information isn't clearly laid out, can't be viewed at a glance...and that being said there aren't even prices on the plans page. So I clicked the link to order (A fancy order button or something would of been nice, but no the user has to click a tacky link that doesn't even have anchor text)...and when the page loaded I find a facebook-wannabe styled script that again - doesn't match your site.

Exploring other areas of your site, and I find "Shoutcast login". My first thoughts are "wtf is shoutcast, and how is it relevent to a hosting site". Turns out shoutcast is some kind of internet radio, which definitely isn't needed on a hosting site. Just another example of young teenages trying to run a big site and offer loads of features nobody needs, or wants. Then I come across your terms of service and find the first rule of being hosted by you is to "have an active website" - Ironic seeing as your website itself is hugely inactive.

Finally, your forums. Running a nulled vBulletin using a crap banner and free skin. What I can't get is how you can allegedly offer VDS server and a vBulletin forum, yet can't afford a decent website design. What more can be said, you get something like 10 posts a day 60%+ of which are made by staff members and VIPs talking to each other - yet you claim to be the "Finest Host on the Web". And just as the cherry on the cake, whilst browsing the announcements I find your "Good and "reliable" staff" (in this case your co-founder?!" 'taking a break from 2hu' -> http://2hostu.net/community/showthread.php?t=551 . Again, real professional and real reliable.

Face it, your host is utter crap. Have you sold any premium memberships? probably not? if yes, who? I wouldn't pay fresh air to be hosted by you. Your site is an abysmal failure and I sincerely hope the lack of professionalism clearly demonstrated so far continues.
I don't agree with Christian very often, but he hit the nail on the head. Your forum's banner looks like cooltext. I'm not very good at graphics, but I manage to find good ones. You can't expect people to seriously pay for hosting with a banner like that. The live support icon adds to the :suicide: worthy banner area on the forum.

Looking though your member's list you have one (1) "paid client", who may as well have been stoned when he put his credit card info in. One of the styles is called "testing", which is quite professional. Checking XHTML validity you have:
36 Errors
28 Errors
13 errors

Adding to the professionalism, you have coupon codes ON YOUR WEBSITE?! Not to mention the staff applications are based on posts, a typical move for one of the kiddie forums. "Whoever can spam the most, gets a staff position."
 
Kirisute Gomen, what's wrong with coupon codes on his site? Hosts such as hawkhost (FP uses them) have coupon codes on their site, does it make them a shit host?

Although I do agree with Christian on most points.
 
Murder he Wrote said:
luke.p said:
excuse me. I actually am running a successful hosting company, I am professional, I may not match up to those big ones, but I think I'm doing a decent job

No you're not. You're running a crap Web Hosting establishment - you're not a business at all. Talk to Fergal, he'll talk to you all day long about what a business is. You don't have employees, you don't record finances, in fact you're not even a registered company. And to add to that, you're not even successful - I did a check and found there are just 15 sites on your server. Since when was 15 sites on a Web Host successful?

Seeing as the formalities are out of the way, let's take a look at your website. When I first saw it my eyes started burning, the website looks hideous. firstly the animated favicon looks like it was made by a 3 year old, the banner looks like it was made by somebody with the graphic skills of a one-armed monkey and the navbar is just, plain crap. I'd possibly be lenient in my review of your site, although you made it using a lame Site Builder and then had the cheek to put your own copyright on the bottom. Just like the time you ripped FP's Website and put your copyright on the bottom. Oh, and when I confronted you about it you were like "Who the f put that there?!?", blah blah blah...and then you said "yea right. now get f****d. and stay out of my area51" - real professional.

So, seeing as you're a professional let's have a look at your "professional" home page. Well for a start aside from the lame banner and navigation I've already talked about, the site is plastered full of ads. A few ads here and there would be okay, but on a site that allegedly makes revenue, showing this many ads is pure greed and looks incredibly tacky. As for the actual content it's not even written in "professional" English. For example: "HostU Web Hosting is a non-profit business and we spend all the money we get on servers advantages such as Cpanel add-ons, server upgrades, more ram and more disk space, and much more.". How many times do you want to write "and" in the same sentence?

I decided to check out your client area and help desk, and what a surprise - absolutely no effort has been put into making them blend with your site. You haven't even changed the logo on the client area. One of the biggest problems here is consistency, if you were really a professional the site would be consistent, you would have paid an experienced coder to integrate the helpdesk and client area into your crappy generated website and then perhaps it wouldn't look so bad. The same thing can be said for your hosting plans. The actual hosting plans page is poor, and very informative. The information isn't clearly laid out, can't be viewed at a glance...and that being said there aren't even prices on the plans page. So I clicked the link to order (A fancy order button or something would of been nice, but no the user has to click a tacky link that doesn't even have anchor text)...and when the page loaded I find a facebook-wannabe styled script that again - doesn't match your site.

Exploring other areas of your site, and I find "Shoutcast login". My first thoughts are "wtf is shoutcast, and how is it relevent to a hosting site". Turns out shoutcast is some kind of internet radio, which definitely isn't needed on a hosting site. Just another example of young teenages trying to run a big site and offer loads of features nobody needs, or wants. Then I come across your terms of service and find the first rule of being hosted by you is to "have an active website" - Ironic seeing as your website itself is hugely inactive.

Finally, your forums. Running a nulled vBulletin using a crap banner and free skin. What I can't get is how you can allegedly offer VDS server and a vBulletin forum, yet can't afford a decent website design. What more can be said, you get something like 10 posts a day 60%+ of which are made by staff members and VIPs talking to each other - yet you claim to be the "Finest Host on the Web". And just as the cherry on the cake, whilst browsing the announcements I find your "Good and "reliable" staff" (in this case your co-founder?!" 'taking a break from 2hu' -> http://2hostu.net/community/showthread.php?t=551 . Again, real professional and real reliable.

Face it, your host is utter crap. Have you sold any premium memberships? probably not? if yes, who? I wouldn't pay fresh air to be hosted by you. Your site is an abysmal failure and I sincerely hope the lack of professionalism clearly demonstrated so far continues.

Oh snap :shock:
 
Murder he Wrote said:
luke.p said:
Exploring other areas of your site, and I find "Shoutcast login". My first thoughts are "wtf is shoutcast, and how is it relevent to a hosting site". Turns out shoutcast is some kind of internet radio, which definitely isn't needed on a hosting site. Just another example of young teenages trying to run a big site and offer loads of features nobody needs, or wants.
You're wrong. I've been looking for a host for Shoutcast as I wanna transmit my radio to friends without port forwarding. Not going with host2u because, as you've so politely pointed out, it's not a great host.
 
Nathan said:
Kirisute Gomen, what's wrong with coupon codes on his site? Hosts such as hawkhost (FP uses them) have coupon codes on their site, does it make them a **** host?

Although I do agree with Christian on most points.
I have no problem with coupon codes, but the coupon codes are posted right on his site. Usually these would be posted on other sites. I know of no other sites that do this.
 
darthmaul™ said:
guys, you don't have to be so harsh.
i have hosting friends, they're helping me.
also, yes i am 12. I appreciate the advice guys, i am still doing it.

Lemme ask you if I was to DDOS and or infect your servers with javascript injections from my own webhost when being a customer on you would you know how to fix it?
 
I'll tell you what if you offer VPS hosting I'll host my Runescape Private server on it 🙂
 
Raymond said:
I'll tell you what if you offer VPS hosting I'll host my Runescape Private server on it 🙂
VPS' sucks for servers. I'd suggest you get a cheap but fast dedi.
 
Kirisute Gomen said:
Adding to the professionalism, you have coupon codes ON YOUR WEBSITE?! Not to mention the staff applications are based on posts, a typical move for one of the kiddie forums. "Whoever can spam the most, gets a staff position."


Hello.
The applications are based on posts, but then they automatically get posted in the staff lounge so we can have a look on previous position and then PM the owner of the site they have been staff member with then we based their applications on that.
If they have hardly no experience. We ask them to prove they can give they if they can give great support.
 
Is appearance everything?

I have been using this 2hostU web hosting for awhile, and I can say that it is one of the best hosts I have been with.

Sure the site itself needs some work, but the actual server rep is very good. Whenever there is a problem, they get things fixed. You cant compare the staff of 2HostU to the usual little "12 year olds" trying to make it big over the internet.

And if you have not even used this service before, you really dont have any room to judge the host just by looking at the website/forum itself. It can be misleading at times, but in the end, you are only using the server. So it really shouldnt matter too much.

😉
 
darthmaul™ I admire your ambition and I wish you the very best of luck with your efforts. I'd advise you to not let other people stop you from following your dreams and that you continue to work towards your aim of owning a hosting business.

Saying that some of the warnings you received in this thread are legitimate and you do need to be conscious of the risks involved.

If I was in your shoes I'd consider an approach like this;

1. Get a hosting reseller account, somewhere like HostGator
2. Learn my way round WHM (Web Host Manager) and cPanel.
3. Specifically learn how to create hosting packages and hosting accounts for domain names.
4. Set up a webpage to offer hosting services - just something very basic
4. Offer free hosting accounts to friends & family initially and then to other people. Tell everyone that I offer hosting to - this is very important - that hosting is offered free of charge and is provided without warranty or guarantee of any kind. Also include that warning on the web page.
6. Post questions on forums to get the advice and help needed.

Following these steps could put you in the position where you are providing hosting. It wont be a business because you wont be making any money from it, but you will have made a good start and you will learn a lot on the way.

Once you have a hosting service you can then start working to improve it. For example, you might add a support forum, a billing system, improved services, etc.

After some time you will learn how to provide a professional hosting service and then you can consider charging for it.

Even if it fails, it will be a valuable IT and business learning experience that will stand to you for years to come.
 
Back
Top Bottom