Quality of OLM.net Web Hosting
Written: Apr 08 '02
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Pros: Cheap
Cons: Uninformed tech support, server downtimes, email relay server listed in SPAM databases
The Bottom Line: If you care about support and reliability, go elsewhere.
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| spetracco's Full Review: OLM |
I switched to OLM from Hostway a little over a month ago. I chose them based on their features (I needed Miva, PHP, MySQL, and shell access) and their cost. Since moving, I have had more problems than I did at Hostway (whom I also left for various problems).
Server Downtime
The first problem we had was unacceptable server downtimes. I started a log, and whenever my site was down, I tracked when it was down, for how long, and the reason (as provided by customer support). Of course, there may have been downtimes that I didn't notice, but I logged three significant incidents between March 10 and March 17. The worst episode was when my site was unavailable for 2 hours during prime time (7-9pm CST). According to support, they had to reboot the server, and it was running through disk checks. I have to imagine that if disk checks take 3 hours, then they have too many sites being server from this same machine.
Tech Support is Useless
I have received very few correct responses from technical support. The worst problem was when I tried to transfer my Thawte certificate from Hostway. OLM's tech support said I had to pay them a fee to generate a new CSR, and then I had to pay Thawte for a new certificate. This was going to cost close to $200. Instead, I did some research on my own, and found that since I was moving the cert from the same OS/web server combination, it was compatible. I had Hostway give me my certificate and private key, which I installed on OLM myself and it's been working ever since. Cost: $0.
Next, I wanted to point a second domain to my account. Tech support pointed me in the direction of an online form to request this. I submitted the form and waited for 3 days. I contact support, who told me to resubmit, and I waited another 2 days (since it was over the weekend). Finally I called tech support, who told me that since I was on a new server, I had to request it by email instead of the form. After an additional 3 days, they finally set up the parked domain. However, they double-charged me because of the form! Fortunately, Sue in accounting caught this on my invoice and made the correction.
Other Departments are Just as Bad
With the exception of Sue, customer support, sales, and billing has been just as bad. I faxed my CC info to them the day they set up my account. Then I started receiving emails that I hadn't faxed the form, and that they were going to shut down my account. When I tried to respond to find out what the problem was, I got no response. So I called, and they said they must have lost the original fax. Fortunately we got everything resolved before they took down my site, but the threat and subsequent non-response concerned me.
Email Relay Server Problems
I started having problems with my email, where I wasn't getting responses to certain automated requests. For instance, I tried to subscribe to a mailing list and didn't receive a response, error or otherwise. This happened 3 times. Then, the administrator for another mailing list happened to notice one of my emails had been flagged as being sent from a relay server listed in the SPEWS anti-spam database. As it turns out, many sysadmins use this (and related) databases to block incoming email, to prevent spam from reaching their users. This is what was happening to my email; since it was coming through hs7.order-vault.net (owned by OLM), it was being blocked as SPAM! Sure enough, I checked the SPEWS database (spews.org) and that server was listed. This turned out to be the problem with the other mailing list; my email wasn't getting through to majordomo because it was being blocked as spam. Who knows how many other emails haven't gotten through, including the resumes my husband and I have sent out while looking for jobs.
When I contacted OLM, they never understood the significance of this problem. The first response was that since they had received my email, the problem *obviously* wasn't on their end. (It was--they just don't block emails based on SPEWS.) Then, they said they could move me to a different server, but I would have to completely redo my site (Miva and all). I threatened to leave them and hung up on the support tech. She then emailed me explaining what I would need to do and expressing the hope that this could be resolved without their losing my business. So I wrote back to her, asking if there was a charge to move servers, and she never wrote back! (Although, after 2 days, I did receive a response to this question from a different tech.)
Is there anything good?
The only good thing I can say about OLM.net is that they offer a lot of features at a good price. If you are knowledgable enough to do many tasks yourself, and therefore don't need to depend on tech support, then you'll have a better experience than someone who doesn't know about server management. However, you'll also have to be OK with unreliable site availability--if you have a mission-critical website, or depend on it at all for revenue, you should consider someone who is more reliable.
Recommended:
No
Monthly fees (US$): $34.95 for Commerce SE-2
Platform used: Linux
Hosted on Secure Server: Yes
Database used: MySQL
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Epinions.com ID:
spetracco
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Location: Florida, USA
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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