A while back I shared an article entitled Round 1: Fatcow vs BlueHost (Initial Setup) where I discussed some initial differences between my experiences with Fatcow and Bluehost. Well today I disclose the rest of the story…

With my fatcow hosting heading toward expiration in just a few months I decided in the first week of April that I wanted to finally tackle the transfer of web hosts- FROM fatcow TO bluehost. At the time I had tech4eleven.com on fatcow along with vintagedoula.com. On bluehost I had youandmephotography.net. I mentioned in my first post that building and managing my only bluehost site at the time was WAY better than any of my experiences on fatcow, including speed and reliability. So I had no question about having all my sites on the blue. I did have question, however, on getting my sites transferred, only because it’s typically a dreaded process.

This is that story…

Twas the late late eve of April 9th when I rolled up my sleeves, pushed up my glasses, scratched my head and called the techs over at bluehost.com. With their 24/7 tech support and all-time live chat (on which I spent a lot of time previously inquiring about the process) I questioned on where to begin. The support person was not only friendly but, uh, ya, knowledgeable. Granted the peeps over at fatcow are friendly, but what always bugged me was their stale, rehearsed responses…”I am sorry to hear that Mr Church. Can I put you on hold for 3-4 minutes while I research your issue?” Ten minutes later you’re still telling them what your last name is.

I got what I needed from bluehost to start the process…download your entire ftp from your old host, set up an account, begin the transfer of the primary domain, upload the files, request the transfer of domain name servers, request 2nd domain transfer, wait (something like that). I started around 10:30pm. By 12:30am I was in the waiting stage. I’m not sure how many times total I either called or chatted with bluehost (because I really had no idea what I was doing) but by the next mid-afternoon, I had advanced in the waiting stage and finished up the domain transfer. The global DNS servers “re-routed” my sites by Sunday afternoon and the transfer was complete.

Now I don’t know why I can successfully complete a website transfer without any hitches with bluehost but couldn’t even set up my initial site without server errors on fatcow? (I really am harsh on them, but I went through hours of stress in the beginning.)

So now, April 17th, I’ve been on the blue for a good solid week and it’s been amazing. My wife and I no longer fight with our mail, down websites, or slow speeds. Bluehost is proving to be reliable and fast. Really- I can upgrade a plugin in no time- and I don’t worry about it timing out before it’s complete.

Alas, round 2 is the final round, for those who were wondering. And thanks to those who were patient with me as I finally got around to expanding on this story. If you share my woes for a bad web host, make the switch. Dreamhost, bluehost, whatever. Fatcow was the cheapest host I could find, but I gladly paid the $20 extra to upgrade to bluehost.

I have to mention before signing off that BH is not perfect- I don’t care much for their FTP and it’s difficult to get to your webmail (via the web of course). So there’s room for improvement (for all hosting services).

If you are in a love/hate relationship with your hosting provider, I would love to hear about it, even a two liner, just something.

Peace.