You’ve worked hard to build a website that provides benefit to your customers round the clock. The last thing you want to hear is that your website isn’t online. No, your site hasn’t been hacked by some bored teenager or international blog infiltration ring. It’s being held hostage by the very people you paid to bring your site online – your hosting company. Think it can’t happen to you?
Last Thursday, I launched my favorite Twitter tool, HootSuite, but it was down all day. Turns out that other popular sites like FourSquare and Reddit were also down because of server issues at Amazon – their hosting company. These sites were unintentional hostages for the day, but some small businesses have recounted the horrors of dealing with their hosting company intentionally holding their sites hostage.
Reasons Your Site is Being Held Hostage
Generally, hosting providers do not purposely set out to hold your site for ransom; however, it’s still a rather common occurrence. It’s usually the result of a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication that goes unresolved.
- You forgot to pay their invoice. Most of us have been guilty of letting a bill slip through the cracks from time-to-time. Even those bills set to auto-pay via credit card can go unpaid when you forget to update the new expiration date for your card.
- You violated the terms of your hosting agreement. Do you know the terms of your hosting agreement? Is that joke, picture, or post on your site a violation? Did you unknowingly publish a guest post that was copyrighted material? Did you forget to add the necessary disclaimers on your endorsements?
- They own your website address. Some hosting providers, especially free hosting sites, own the rights to your website address. This means that if you decide to change providers you will also have to change the address of your site.
- Your hosting company goes out of business. There are many hosting companies from which to choose. It’s important to do your research when deciding where to host your site. There’s always the risk that the cheapest providers may lack the necessary funds to stay in business effectively stranding your site permanently.
How to Prevent Your Site From Being Held Hostage
Fortunately, it’s easy to ensure that your site isn’t held hostage by your hosting provider. Here are the steps you need to take.
- Make sure your contact information is current. Most issues with your hosting company can be avoided simply by making sure they can get in touch with you. This is almost always via email. Provide a second email address, and make sure your primary is always up to date. Don’t forget to safe-list your hosting provider’s email address.
- ALWAYS own your website’s address. If you can’t resolve an issue with your hosting provider, owning your website’s address means that you can point it to a new hosting provider. If you must use a hosting provider that owns the website address, buy a separate address to give your customers and redirect it to your site.
- NEVER buy your website address from your hosting company. Most hosting companies offer discounts, or free domain names, if you use them for both your site’s name registration and hosting. While this is convenient, it also leaves your website at the mercy of that one company. If you’re using your domain name for your email then they effectively control it too.
- Back up your site frequently and regularly. If you don’t have a current back up of your site to move to a new hosting provider then none of the above suggestions matter. Take advantage of your hosting provider’s back up utilities to always have a copy of your site available, but make sure you also have a current copy available offline or at another online location.
Have you ever had your site held hostage by your hosting provider? How did you resolve the issue? What ways have you ensured that your site is never out of your control? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Photo Credit: ransom.sytes.org
This article written by Brad Harmon
Brad's Big Feet Marketing helps people on a limited budget enlarge their online footprint using blogging & social media. His other blog, Marketplace Christianity, examines faith's role in how we earn and spend money. He'd love to connect on Twitter and Facebook.
Brad has written 33 awesome post(s) for this site.
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: @msrasberryinc
This is excellent advice. I have had this happen to me and it is NOT fun. I hadn’t thought about the tip of not buying the domain name and hosting from the same company but it makes perfect sense.
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Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
One of my prior employers had their email hijacked when their IT director had a dispute with their hosting company. He had registered the domain name with this same company. I guess he forgot about this because he escalated the dispute to an all out war.
We engaged another hosting company, loaded the back up to their servers, and then discovered we couldn’t point the domain names to the new provider because the old provider blocked our access. After two days of no email or web sites, our CEO instructed him to pay the ransom which was loaded with fees at this point.
That was a lesson learned the hard way.
Twitter: @danalingga
The web hosting issue must be happened despite how good our web hosting providers. Therefore, we always prepare for the worst and the steps on this article is a good way to make us prepare.
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Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
Honestly, I think most web hosting companies today do a good job trying to resolve these types of issues. It seems that the majority of these complaints come from people who forgot to back up their site before changing providers or haven’t paid their invoice.
Still, even companies as large as Amazon can have issues which hold other companies website hostage. They were able to fix it in a day, but how much money does a day down cost some of these sites? Imagine if it’s a much smaller provider that may be down for a week or two.
It’s always wise to expect the best but prepare for the worst. Great observation, Dana.
Twitter: @FirstHosting
Hi, Brad!
This is really a nice guide, I would say to read each and every terms of hosting company so that you can complete understand them.
Because it would not be their’s fault if you’ve broken some rules, regarding invoices we do have many clients who don’t pay their invoices, and when we suspend them they come to see whats happen and then they pay.
So its better to keep in touch with your provider.
Regards
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Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
Thanks. That’s consistent with what I’ve found too. Expiration dates on credit cards combined with bad email addresses are usually the culprit. Number two on the list is people who think they have a right to access their sites after their contract is up without paying additional fees. Neither of these are valid complaints against a hosting company in my opinion. There are still some bad companies that spring up from time to time though, but I think if people follow the basic tips I’ve laid out then they will always be in control of their own site. Thanks for the comment.
Twitter: @FirstHosting
Yes Brad, main concern is to use active email.
to keep them self updated.
Regards
My latest post … How to move your site from Host to Host
Twitter: @blogaks
Hi Brad,
These are some of the great tips that you have stated above. I was really shocked to read the response to one of your comment about CEO paying ransom to get the site back. Did you kind of report the company or took a legal action against them ?
Thanks for sharing.
Ashvini
My latest post … Convert your hobby to business – Part 3- Challenges
Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
Thanks, Ashvini. That happened about 10 years ago when there were many more issues caused by hosting companies than there are today. If memory serves me correctly, our IT Director wasn’t without blame in the dispute and handled it very poorly. We didn’t take legal action against the company, but it wouldn’t have mattered much since they were out of business a few months later.
Twitter: @DennisEdell
The most frightening part is, 3 outa 4 would be your own fault right from the jump. I see from your “how to prevent” list, you kinda agree with me.
The best preventative measure is taken before hand…lots and lots of research and trustworthy recommendations before even picking a host.
Being with Hostgator, I never worry. I’ve even missed payments a couple times due to bad months…they have a very generous leeway policy.
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Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
I absolutely agree, Dennis. Most of the common issues are ones that are our own fault. Even so, many people still don’t see it that way and blame their host provider.
You make an excellent point that I failed to mention – do your research before picking your host provider. Very sound advice, my friend.
I also use Hostgator for my sites and have had a great experience with them.
Twitter: @KavyaHari
Initially, you have to choose correct web hosting companies at the correct time
It should be most important step in it 
Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
All hosting companies are not created the same, are they, Kavya? We need to make sure that we choose one that best fits our needs. Then we need to make sure we’ve read and understand the TOS to prevent our site from being held hostage.
Twitter: @chelc_thomas
Hey Brad!
ALWAYS OWN YOUR WEBSITE ADDRESS! That’s a big one, you don’t want to be held captive to someone else owning your site. When I first started blogging/my business I was being cheap and considered using a free website and I’m SO glad I opted to purchase my own domain!
Great advice here!
My latest post … The Numbers Game
Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
Thanks, Chelsea. When we’re starting out in business the budget is very tight, isn’t it? I strongly recommend self-hosting, but if the money just isn’t there and you have to use a free site then at least buy your own domain name and point it to the free site. You can get a domain name for less than the price of lunch at a fast food restaurant so there’s really no excuse for not doing it. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Great advice! People don’t want to purchase their domain right away because they don’ have enough faith in their website. But after it takes off, most folks do end up purchasing it and moving their website there.
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Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
Excellent observation, Joshua. I went through this exact scenario when I started my first blog. Fortunately, I came to this realization quickly and didn’t have a lot to transfer over.
Thanks Brad for this awesome post. One of the things you mentioned is for one to own their own website address. Unfortunately for me, I have been using a free Blogger account; and think it’s time I moved.
So, having read your post, I think I’m more determined to move now than ever before.
Thanks again.
Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
Blogger.com is a good place to cut your teeth as a blogger, Helen. There are some pretty great bloggers who still use it as their blogging platform. They own their domain name, and have it redirected to their site on blogger.
I see you have over 250 posts covering several years on your site. Will you be migrating all of your posts over to a new site and platform? If Blogger is still working for you, I’d suggest just buying a domain name and redirecting it to your blogger site for a while.
Start using the new domain name prominently in all of your marketing efforts. Change all of your social media accounts, etc. to reflect the new domain name. Sprinkle in a few posts about the new domain name and your plans to move your blog to a new platform in the future.
This will give people time to get used to using the new domain name before you make the switch. Good luck with your migration.
Twitter: @dlysen
I experience suspension of account many times. It happen accidentally when I install unfamiliar software. Beware of plugin that involve cache. Some hosting don’t support cache generated application. It is important to contact your provider immediately to resolve the issue, tell everything you did and they will be glad to help you.
Be responsible if you have hosting reseller account, your client are surely going after you if problems happens. Don’t worry! Just explain everything, primarily they just want to ask what happen and what to do to fix the issue.
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Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
That’s a great point, Dlysen. Only use those plugins that have a great track record and are from someone you trust. If they go haywire, you often won’t know about it until your site is taken offline. We turn a lot of control over to plugins as bloggers, but in the end we have to make sure they don’t violate the terms of service with our hosting provider. Thanks for bringing up this concern.
I sure would hate for that to happen to me. So it is definitely better to know these things before anything bad happens to our sites. Also I rarely see people read the terms of agreement of ANYTHING. Anyway, thanks for the heads up
I just had my blog held for “upgrade” ransom by a free website hosting company. I forgot to do backup from November’s postings and either I pay to upgrade or I will never see all the hard work I have done again. They claim that I had thousands of postings that were spam related. I use Wordpress and had installed Askmit to block all spam postings… the thousands of postings/files… are my uploads and content. I bought my own domain name since my last domain name was held hostage… I learned that lesson… but how do I get my files? All access is denied!
Good article. Great job, really enjoied reading it.
Twitter: @jenniferbourn
This is a ridiculously HUGE PET PEEVE of mine. Often the issue is due to user error or client error — and sometimes because a provider is just a jerk. The safest way to always remain in control of your own site is to own your own hosting account and all administrative rights and passwords, to own your own domain name, and to self host your site with a trusted provider. With web services, hosting, and even email, you get what you pay for.
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