Hostjury has been trying to keep you informed about the ever changing landscape of the web hosting industry.
Site5 has just recently announced on their company blog that they're shaking up their upper management. The head honchos, Matt Lightner and Rod Armstrong have announced that they are giving up the keys to the castle. Quoting, "While this may come as a bit of a surprise, we can assure you that it only means bigger and better things for Site5." They continued, "Matt and I have absolute confidence that they will be able to keep Site5’s original spirit alive while also taking you all to greater heights in terms of service and the web hosting experience.
So having given up the keys to the castle to a couple of old hands, we began with our obligatory search of Site5 reviews on Hostjury. With an average uptime rating of 30 and support barely reaching 40, one wonders whether Ben Welch-Bolen (Previous owner of WebHostingUnleashed) and Joel Brown have just acquired the rights to be slum lords in their own tenement building.
Bolen introduced himself to clients on the Site5 Blog, stating in part, "I know that a change in ownership might worry some and I just wanted to stress that Site5 will continue to follow the same principles that its founders did," end quote.
I contacted Ben Welch-Bolen and got an immediate response. (Always a good sign).
My first question concerned the number of negative reviews from their clients on Hostjury. So I asked Ben Welch-Bolen, if there a plan on how to counter what may be seen by some as lack luster services.
His response somewhat surprised me. "First, You have to keep in mind that a hosting company can have 1,000 happy customers and 10 unhappy customers and those unhappy customers are going to go leave negative reviews when a happy customer will not. Happy users don't scour the net looking for a place to post but unhappy ones do. This is a big problem with review sites as they don't take this into account. Not that Site5 has been perfect, we need to improve the quality of support and the response time to submitted tickets and that is what Joel and I will be focusing on. Matt and Rod, the founders of Site5, have done a great job and created a company dedicated to webmasters and we plan to continue that vision. "
Ben Welch-Bolen continued "While we don't really check reviews on third party sites, we are focused on improving customer service and know that that will show everywhere that Site5 is discussed as we implement improvements."
The premise of his statements are in fact true. Site5 has a solid and long term foundation with their relationship to the Planet. Focusing on improving customer support and response times will begin to manifest itself in discussions on the web. And yes unhappy customers are more likely to scour high and low for places to vent their frustrations!
But the reality of his statements are less solid. I sought out reviews in two locations. Hostjury, (doesn't everybody), and directly on the Site5 forums. Here's a couple of examples of what was found:
Posted October 29 /08 by webmage
Are you guys going to fix the existing Site5 problems before you move along with your spectacular plans? One huge concern is oversold (and therefore unreliable) reseller boxes still back at liquidweb.
Posted October 29 /08 by Shredfest
Please make the oversold reseller boxes at Liquidweb a priority. ...(deleted partially)... The migration to The Planet was held out as hope for relief from these problems, and I feel like I have been strung along with how long it has taken. I ended up getting a VPS at another host for some personal projects, and I am seriously thinking about moving my clients there as well. I need to know soon when the reseller boxes are being migrated. If it is going to take another 6 - 12 months, I don't think I can wait that long.
Posted October 30 /08 by cGc0202
I just got the email today. I hope this change in management will mean changes for the better too. When I first moved to Site5.com in early 2005, I was really quite happy because my sites were fast. I upgraded to the new higher "grade" accounts then, what had become multisite accounts, because during the early days -- higher grade accounts truly contained fewer accounts per server. The problem started when site5.com started with the $5 dollar deal accounts. ... (HJ deleted details)
Site5 is a great company that needs to really focus on revamping some long running issues, that may be the real reason clients are scouring the web to write reviews. New and fresh management might just be the step in the right direction. Recognizing why clients are writing bad reviews may be another.
Add a review for Site5 or your host on Hostjury.
http://forums.site5.com/showthread.php?t=25045
Thu, 11 November 2010, 11:28
Great idea Ben!
One can expect a follow up in the near future :>)
Thu, 11 November 2010, 07:37
I'd love to see an update on this article since you never followed up :)
Wed, 12 August 2009, 04:26
Thanks for the update Scott, much appreciated.
Tue, 11 August 2009, 23:09
Sorry to not reply back any sooner David. Been pretty busy lately.
To answer your moot point statement, yes I was employed by Site5 but not during the time I made the previous comment. This was how I knew about what I stated previously although my statements are common knowledge found readily on Site5's website and forums. However, I am still a shared hosting customer with them and will continue to be.
You'll have to excuse my not updating my Linkedin profile any sooner than I did. If you have the time, check it again. You'll find it has been updated.
My statement of "As a shared server customer, I'd hope that Site5 would make sure that my server was not being abused so as to not cause issues with my account..." was not misleading as any shared hosting customer would feel the same way. To feel otherwise would be a bit strange would it not?
I made my statement based on the previous comments to this review with the first hand knowledge I felt was pertinent at the time. Leaving my former employment out was possibly a mistake but my statments were made as a shared hosting customer, not an employee of Site5.
It may have looked screwy to you at the time, but the truth of the matter is that I am still and will continue to be a shared hosting customer of Site5 because of the impressive turn-around that they've made and the improvements that will be forth-coming. Not to mention, I like the speed and reliability as well.
I am not familiar with the details that surround Neil or mooiness as they were before my time. Nor will I try to white-wash their issues when Ben has already replied on this. However, let me make one point clear so there is no further reason to suspect my comments, I am not presently employed by Site5 nor am I an affiliate of theirs. This reply is just to clear the air so to speak. If you'd care to check with Ben I'm sure he'd oblige you with a confirmation on my employment status. ;)
Have a great day!
Mon, 3 August 2009, 19:12
And just to confirm that here is Scott's linkedin profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/scott-wilson/11/a82/363
Mon, 3 August 2009, 19:35
ScottW,
Just out of curiousity, would a lot of your post be sort of a moot point since you work for Site5?
Not to throw stones, but saying "As a shared hosting customer.." -- when you're actually an employee is a bit much, no?
Sun, 2 August 2009, 16:57
New management? Yes! Same old story? No!
All of the reseller accounts were migrated to newer servers at the Planet recently. This in itself would alleviate any of the issues mentioned previously about the old location.
As for shared server accounts, anyone using more than the TOS or RUP states will most assuredly be suspended first and probably terminated last if they refuse to comply. As a shared server customer, I'd hope that Site5 would make sure that my server was not being abused so as to not cause issues with my account. We all want that.
As for responses from Support, they've been down to 30 minutes or less ever since I've been with them. Sounds like a darn good improvement to me.
Site5 may have had a rough reputation before but I see nothing but a bright future for them with all the improvements and new employees they've been hiring.
Fri, 6 March 2009, 06:46
I've always had good experience with site5... I have tons of sites hosted there, and have referred a number of my clients to them.
They were a couple months late on my $350 referral cheque, and did change their referral system to be less money now, but I'd still give them a recommendation.
All my support issues have been dealt with very quickly....
Thu, 11 December 2008, 02:33
Neil has been going around to every site but the truth is we helped him repeatably and explained to him that his site was not fit for shared hosting. We don't allow any one site to cause a shared server to crash and due to his resource abuse he was causing that.
I think anyone can appreciate that we don't allow any one customer to cause problems for everyone, Neil is very vocal as he feels he was dealt the short of the stick and for that I am sorry. I spent countless hours helping and explaining to him the problem but he refused to accept reality,
Thanks, Ben
Wed, 10 December 2008, 04:18
Hi,
Another thing to consider with Site5 is the patent lies they use to rope users in.
My company just had its website taken down by Site5 because they were not happy that we were using HALF of the storage available to us under their so-called "Plan To End All Plans".
CEO, the aptly-named Ben Welch-bolen (look up "welch" some time) made up all sorts of reasons that he was unhappy with our site, which he then retracted one-by-one when challenged on each) finally decided to remove us because he could. Quite frankly the whole thing is a sham.
STEER CLEAR.
Regards,
Neil Brennan
Tue, 4 November 2008, 05:52
I was a Site 5 customer who had left earlier this year. It is true that unhappy customers make the loudest noise but you can't just dismiss them like Bolen did, and imply that those who complain are simply being whiny.
For another example of how even previously happy and loyal customers feel about Site 5:
http://forums.site5.com/showthread.php?t=25002