Why I’m changing web hosts

For several years, this blog and website have been hosted at FatCow.com. FatCow was recommended to me by a fellow blogger, and for a long time I was very happy with the service. I even recommended it to others.

No longer.

Customer “service”

There had been a few occasions when my interactions with customer service gave me the feeling that I was talking to a trainee. Phone help was better than Chat help, but even that began to decline.

Tech “support”

Then, when my site randomly disappeared a few months ago, and FatCow tech support suggested I had a plugin conflict (though my plugins had not changed in weeks), I started researching better options. I found a well-reviewed alternate, but I knew that making the switch would require a significant time investment, so I delayed making the switch.

But this past week saw me yelling at my laptop, waiting l-o-o-o-o-n-n-n-g minutes for a page to load anytime I tried to save a change in the post I was writing. Often I’d get a message saying my connection had been lost. When I asked tech support what was going on, he suggested that upgrading to a more expensive plan would solve the problem.

Cost

A host like FatCow specializes in appealing to low-traffic, low-budget sites like mine. I don’t have thousands of clients, and I don’t sell hundreds of products, so I’ve been able to make do with a low-cost host.

The problem with low-cost hosts is that they make their money by selling volume. The more people they cram onto their servers, the more profit they make. And the less attention and bandwidth each customer gets.

Moving to Inmotion

So my research led me to Inmotion Hosting, and I am ready to make the switch. I don’t know yet how long the transition will take or what the fall-out will be. (There’s always fall-out.) But I’m frustrated enough with FatCow to finally do it.

If you have any advice for me, please post a comment. Here’s hoping for minimal down-time!