Some of my loyal readers may know that I operate a large network of websites that I maintain on my own dedicated servers. In addition to maintaining my own sites, I also manage several large corporate clients and a few of my friends blog networks. I’ve been very happy with the main bandwidth provider I’ve been working with for the last 10 years and with another second newer network that I use for hosting my email servers. As my network has grown, and as my clients are growing their networks, I’ve been continually searching for additional web hosting and dedicated hosting providers to broaden my horizons. Now you may be wondering, if I already have two exceptional providers with a well established working relationship, why on earth would I be looking for an additional provider and why not just upgrade or add services to my existing accounts. The answer is simple, as a professional Unix/Linux programmer who has worn many hats such as as database administrator, systems and network administrator, earning my MCSE, CCNA, OCP and SCJP certifications, I’ve learned the value of not keeping all of your bandwidth eggs in one basket. Additionally, spreading a large network out across multiple datacenters allows extensive monitoring and allows a developer such as myself to gain invaluable insight from conversing with the different support teams that can more often than not pass on precious enlightenment regarding technological advances and updates. That’s why I’ve worked for over 7 years with The World’s Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com
I also like PEER1, HostGator and IX (banner below).
In my quest to find another provider to handle a particular level of services I’ve grown to need, I came across an impressive company that provides realisticly priced domain registration and web hosting. The latest and greatest company I’ve found that I will be working with is Gossimer (http://gossimer.com). The first thing that impressed me was Gossimer was a quote on their website that stated “All Plans come with our 24 hour support”. Support is the most important aspect in choosing a provider for me and 90% of the time when I’ve needed to contact a provider, it’s been in the middle of the night after midnight. Well, bravo to Gossimer already because when I signed up for an account, I must have made some sort of mistake or typo when filling out the application form which resulted in receiving a message that a support representative would contact me shortly and they would complete the registration process for me manually. Lo and behold, in less than five minutes I was contacted by a helpful support person and my account was activated !! Gossimer also offers online “live support” which is a chat based support system and beside telephone support, “live support” is a favorite feature of mine.
Here are a few quotes from Gossimer’s website regarding their services, support and dedication to providing a professional experience for customers :
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Gossimer is a leading provider of internet services and has made a special mark in the web hosting and domain name registration industry. Our services are available for clients ranging from individuals to all size-businesses around the globe.
Gossimer is proud to announce that today we have completed the creation of 42 custom tutorials to help clients in need of assistance. These tutorials cover many subjects to include about 20 common CPanel tasks, installation of Fantastico scripts, setup of your email client for use with Pop3 and 14 tutorials that will walk the client through the entire process of creating a website using our website builder. |
Another aspect that appealed to me about Gossimer is the fact they’re on the Hurricane backbone which is one of the oldest and most reliable networks originally founded by Hurricane Electric back before time began. My original co-located server back in 1992 was running on that backbone but when I started my first hosting company in 1994, I switched to the network that is now the PEER1 network and my other network is currently running on The Planet backbone. I was more than happy to find out Gossimer will be offering a solid foundation on one of my three favorite network tiers.
Considering that this blog is called “Affiliate Best Programs”, what would a post here be without spotlighting an affiliate program for all of my loyal readers. Fear not fellow affiliate marketers, Gossimer.com also offers an exceptional affiliate program for web publishers and promoters. The affiliate program is maintained “in house” by their staff and is not part of a third-party affiliate network such as Commission Junction or LinkShare. As a Gossimer.com affiliate, you will receive 10% of any sales made through your personalized affiliate link. Funds may be withdrawn once your account reaches $20. Affiliates can request a payout via PayPal or eGold, or you can be credited with LiveCash, which can be used to pay for domain registration and web hosting services.
Cheers,
Dave
Thanks for yet another great chunk of information. I am a web developer who currently has all of my hosting eggs in one basket and have been looking for a different host who 1. Offers great customer service and 2. That wasn’t just another offshoot of some larger hosting company.
Looks like I may have found them!
Thanks Dave!
One Eyed View
Your site looks great! I found your blog via Google while searching for internet hosting services and your post regarding mer.com Domain Registration and Web Hosting Affiliate Program looks very interesting to me. I have seen many other so-called sites and they have been far from good quality.Your site has all the key ingredients to pulling in visitors.
If you’re looking for the best high-end hosting, I’d always recommend PEER1 as far as dedicated servers or racks are concerned. I’ve been dealing with PEER1 since I worked for Dialtone Internet who was bought out by Interland who was bought out by PEER1. Back in 1994-1995 we were pioneering Red Hat Linux servers and Beowulf clusters at Dialtone and the whole infastructure was well planned and the support staff have always been well-paid true Unix gurus.
The other company I really have a lot of respect for is HostGator. I’ve spoken to HostGator owner Brent numerous times on the phone and he’s done an amazing job of building his company off The Planet backbone. I’ve watched HostGator go through all the growing pains but they’ve emerged as one of the best in the business.
As far as Domain Registrations are concerned, GoDaddy is the only choice in my opinion. I’ve registered thousands of domains through them over the years for myself, friends, family and clients and I’ve never had a bad experience with them ever.
I was initially impressed with Gossimer, however, my opinion has dwindled and I’ll probably just bypass them and go direct to Hurricane Electric (he.net) for my next server. I wanted to be on that backbone because right now I have load balancing and redundancy between Florida, Atlanta, Dallas and Virginia but I’d like to tap into California because having access points on only the MAE-East and MAE-Central without any on the MAE-West can cause slower response to the West Coasts huge market of internet traffic. I’ve had a few of my forum moderators and business partners say the network was slow during peak hours but they’re all on the West Coast and to get faster site loading means setting strategic network access points.
Plus, I’m ramping up my blog and forum hosting business and I really need reliable and high-end bandwidth if I’m going to be reselling it because the last thing I need is my cellphone getting “The server is down” text messages at 3am ;-)
I’m now hosting two of my blog sites with Dave and he is very quick to respond to help me out when I have my stupid noobie questions. He has a system for setting up Wordpress blogs with cool plugins and themes and he imported my blogger blog posts and comments into Wordpress for me. He even has been teaching me how to promote my blog.
I recommend any bloggers contact Dave for his private Wordpress hosting and he only charges $5 per month !!!!
Thanks,
Marcus Washington
Hi Dave,
I have to backtrack from my initial excitement about Gossimer. After reading your post, I explored their site and found that their hosting plans just don’t compare to GoDaddy. As a web developer, I need more than one MySQL database on an economy hosting plan and certainly more than five for a “Luxury” hosting account.
However, I do understand that they may offer better more personalized support, especially where their affiliate program is concerned and I may give that a chance, but I’m having a hard time getting past the hosting costs.
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@One Eyed View - I like GoDaddy for domain registration but I’ve never used them for hosting. I’m only running dedicated servers at the moment but I have been looking for a cheap hosting account to serve chicklet images for my blog directory and maybe house some mysql database for logging purposes because I’m close to tapping my MySql systems right now although the main database machine isn’t overloaded. Maybe I’ll just install Oracle for Linux on the machine or use a copy of Postgres for the extra SQL processes.
Martha
I always enjoy coming to this site because you offer great tips and advice for people like me who can always use a few good pointers. I will be getting my friends to pop around fairly soon.