I am very sorry for any inconveniences that were caused to readers because of our site problems. I am hoping there will not be a repeat of this experience.

The longer version is after the jump, but here’s the short version for those not interest in the geeky insider scoop.

We have had to change servers 3 times since November due to all kinds of weird stuff. We are settling in at our newest host, hoping to be staying permanently at Steadfast Networks. We highly recommend them: they are friendly, polite, helpful, and when something happens, they apologize. We do not recommend HostPenguin; while their mission statement says they will be gracious, they were rude and condescending, plus unhelpful and unstable.

We love people who can spell, use English correctly, and who apologize when they’ve made a mistake. It’s a Big Thing around here.

Our original host vanished in November after hosting us for about 6 years. I followed my Good Friend Sue to a new host. Good Host was fabulous and wonderful. I even wrote a review about how wonderful they were. From November through mid-February, I had 2 brief downtime issues, but otherwise no problems. Really accessible server admin, very responsive and just wonderful.

Unfortunately, there were behind-the-scenes problems and they ended up going under, and the Good Host set us up on the servers of a friend in mid-February.

From mid-February through early March, we were hosted by Host Penguin. I was dealing with my health stuff, the girls’ homeschooling, and general other crap, so even though I was a bit iffy about having a host that proselytizes Christianity on its homepage, I decided I’d move when things were quieter at home.

Things don’t really get very quiet here, of course, but it was a great concept. In any case, during the 3 weeks or so we were hosted there, we had to deal with having emails returned as blacklisted, database errors, unexplained downtime, and other problems - far more issues than I had ever had before. I had 1 support ticket with the Good Host, and about 6 in 3 weeks with this one.

I know it should be a minor a pet peeve, but I have issues with bad grammar and misspellings - not typo-type errors, but mis-using plurals, verb conjugations, word misuse, etc. Everything I received from them was filled with those errors, and in a giant block of text, which I find hard to read.

Another pet peeve - if someone makes a mistake I like to hear “I’m sorry”. It’s what I teach the girls, and it’s what I expect from others. Never in the myriad of replies for those 6 tickets did I get an “I’m sorry” for the problems or the downtime. They had errors after they moved the databases from the Good Host, but they said they weren’t responsible for data that was moved, nor for the files that were installed by the Good Host’s installer.

I got fed up quickly, got angry, and once my files were in a state where I could repair them myself, I backed up and moved my site ASAP. In short, Host Penguin sucks. Steer clear of them if you value good service and a reliable host.

While some might say “you get what you pay for”, I was paying the same amount for Good Host & Host Penguin. I’m now paying 5 cents less per month for my hosting with Steadfast Networks, so maybe you get the quality you search for - I based my choce of Good Host on Sue’s extensive research, and my choice of Steadfast Networks on my own research Googling and searching the Web Hosting Talk forum. I did no research before being moved to the suckage of Host Penguin.

I’ve been with Steadfast Network for about a day now, and while there were some problems with the databases after the move, the support staff was very helpful, polite, and knowledgeable. They guided me through the steps I needed to perform without a tinge of condescension. As a former tech support person, I know there’s a way of performing support that leaves the customer annoyed, and a way that leaves the customer happy, regardless of the end result. Steadfast definitely has “happy customer” skills!

Moving from one host to another is fraught with problems, so I was expecting a few. It turned out that some of the problems were because of a different naming convention that I didn’t notice, and when I told the support staff at Steadfast Network about the resolution, they apologized for being so busy on the weekend that they hadn’t been able to walk through it with me. Technical skills, politeness, sincerity, it’s all good. We like Steadfast so far!

I’ll update in a few months with a full review of Steadfast. In the mean time, let’s all cross our fingers that there’s no more yoyo-ing of the site!