Server Crashes… There Are Still Certainties In Life :-(

After one of my webhosting companies decided to change its plans (and raise its price), and the fact that they didn’t respond to my messages, I had purchased a hosting account from another company, recommended to me by a fellow marketer.  The transfer itself happened smoother than ever – I should have known it was too good to be true…

24 hours later, my pages were gone… This morning -  after 3 days of not knowing what had happened – there was a message in my mailbox telling me that the server had crashed and that everything was gone (including their own data).

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If you search this blog, you will find I’ve had my share of hosting trouble. In three years time, I’ve experienced 4 or 5 server crashes, I’ve had 2 hosting accounts that simply disappeared (???), my account has been unrightfully suspended at least 5 times and at one time, my IP got blocked by the server firewall (or something like that) and it took my webhost 2 months to figure out what the problem was…

I can’t even remember how many times I changed webhosts and re-created my sites…
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I’ve closed my account with the webhosting company and decided to stick with the two webhosting servide providers I trust.

• Hostgator - HostGator is one of the most recommended web site hosting companies. Since I have signed up with them 3 or 4 months ago, they have delivered everything they promised. I especially like their 24/7 live chat – I like to get an answer when I need it, instead of having to wait 24 hours because the helpdesk operator lives in a different time zone… up until now, I’m very please with their service (and their pricing, of course)
   
• CheapWebHosting - Two years ago, i signed up for  a couple of months of free webhosting through a JV giveaway event, and I am a happy customer ever since. Currently, I have two paid accounts, of which I recently turned one into an unmeterd account. In two years time, I have never experienced any trouble with the sites hosted on this server, and helpdesk tickets are always answered, fast and friendly. While all my other hosting accounts were being created and closed again,  CheapWebHosting was there to rely on.

I’m in the process of re-installing my sites.. It’ll probably take a while to get everything back into place, mostly because – and I am ashamed to admit – I only have partial backups. 

- You’d think I would have learned by now, wouldn’t you?!  -

When it comes to backing up databases, however, I have already learned my lesson. I’ve installed Auto MySQL Backup – a free script to take daily, weekly and/or monthly backups of your MySQL databases on autopilot.

You can download the script for free here.

Get a video to help you with the installation here.
 

My advice:

• go for a reliable webhost – not for the cheapest. Losing your site will cost you way more than a reliable account at Hostgator or CheapWebHosting….

• make sure you backup your data regularly. If you are using cPanel, you can easily backup your entire cPanel at once. You can grab a free tutorial on how to do this here.