I’ve tried a lot of different hosts and packages over the years. Godaddy, Justhost, Wild West, and most recently 1and1 (which all my sites are on now). If you’re going to run a business, there’s some important things to know ahead of time. I only found these things out the hard way, so I’ll spare you some time and grief.

Wild West is a reseller for Godaddy (they’re even in the same building) and support is the real issue I found there. The phone support is good for basic hosting packages (like the $4.95 a month one), they’ll install WordPress or other mundane things. With a dedicated server though, things are worse. The phone support is very limited, you’re really on your own. Email support is yet another department, and things like installing an SSL certificate (with Wild West) was a true nightmare.

They have no tutorials for simple control panel on how to do it, but email you links for other control panels or tell you to search for it on the Internet. Phone support said their email support would install it if asked, but they won’t, they just kept sending the tutorial form letter. Then it was another ticket to advanced hosting, they sent more tutorials.

I then asked phone support what can be done, that I’d pay for support, and they said there was a paid option but I’d have to open up a ticket and specifically ask for “expert hands” support and they’d quote me a number. Never got a response or quote and that’s when I gave up on Godaddy and Wild West Hosting completely. If you just need a basic blog hosted account it’s fine, but don’t risk your business on anything more complicated. A dedicated server is far too complex to be held hostage by tech support with Godaddy based setups.

To present day: I now run 1and1 hosting and really like it. I did the virtual server which is fine for most anything. Performance is good, but the tech support is the best part. I emailed them some fairly complex questions and they chased down the answers right away. This was done by their ticket system and I could tell both times the person really knew what they were talking about. It’s about $40 a month and I have all my stuff on there now. Dedicated is nice, but you really have to have a lot going on to justify the expense.