The Truth About A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting Facts, Host Profile & Hosting
Reviews
By Mark Shroyer
We researched over 200 web hosts and narrowed it down to
the best Web hosts called the "Web Host 'Straight A'
HOT List." To qualify for this list we required each
web host have an A rating with the Better Business Bureau
(BBB) at the time of our review. BBB ratings indicate how
well companies have satisfied their customers and resolved
complaints. The BBB rated A2Hosting
with an A-.
But we did further research.
Next, we emailed A2 Hosting twice with 40+ tough questions
about their shared Web hosting. We wanted to check out their
response time and the depth of their answers. Both times were
during "off" hours. (i.e., First set of questions
were emailed on a week night somewhere between 7 PM to midnight.
The other set were emailed on a weekend.)
It took A2 Hosting 3 hours and 21 minutes to answer our first
set of questions and 25 hours to answer our second set. 24
hours or less for a response is considered quick by industry
standards. A2Hosting easily made the cut with their first
response. We received their second response one hour past
our 24 hour deadline. Frankly, we almost disqualified them
for that. But oversights and mistakes do happen. Since they
responded so quickly the first time they made the cut.
Here are the answers to our questions straight from A2
Hosting themselves:
- Question: How long have you been in business?
Answer: 2005
- Question: What are all the different ways I can
contact technical support?
Answer: Phone, live
chat & email based ticket system
- Question: Do you offer a simple user-friendly
Web site builder for beginners to make creating web pages
quicker and easier? (i.e., WYSIWYG online HTML Editor or
something similar?)
Answer: Yes - we do
offer a Web site builder called A2SiteBuilder, and we also
offer a WYSIWYG HTML Editor.
- Question: On average how long should I expect to
wait before I get a reply back from technical support on
an urgent high priority request?
Answer: 12 hours or
less.
- Question: Will I share an IP number or will I have
my own?
Answer: A shared IP
comes on shared plans by default. You can get a dedicated
IP for $3/mo. VPS packages and Dedicated servers include
dedicated IP's.
- Question: How many sites do you normally put on
one shared server?
Answer: This varies
by server and package you choose as to how many sites run
on a server; as well as by the capabilities of the server.
(Note: In our research we found at least 201 web
sites sharing a server.)
- Question: How do you decide what constitutes a
full server?
Answer: We monitor
load averages and other statistics closely to determine
this.
- Question: Will I be contacted in advance about
routine maintenance?
Answer: Yes
- Question: What is your bandwidth, transfer, file
or hit limit?
Answer: Bandwidth/transfer/disk
is unlimited on Executive shared hosting. However, inodes
are limited to 300K and all files must be related to the
site.
(Tip: Every time you create and upload a file to
a server, an inode is created. Inodes are the count of the
files on your web hosting account.)
- Question: Can I have telnet access?
Answer: We have SSH
access on all our plans. We do not offer telnet since it
is insecure.
- Question: Is a CGI directory included?
Answer: Yes
- Question: Can I run CGI scripts outside of the
CGI directory?
Answer: No, they need
to be in CGI directory.
- Question: Is there a limit to how many scripts
I can install?
Answer: No, as long
as you are not using excessive resources compared to other
users, you will be ok.
- Question: Do you provide full shell access?
Answer: Yes
- Question: What version of Perl do you use? Does
it contain a full set of modules?
Answer: Perl 5 (multiple
versions). We can install modules that you need, but most
are included.
- Question: Do you offer a Web statistics package?
Answer: Yes, they are
included.
- Question: Will I have access to the raw statistical
log files?
Answer: Yes, you can
activate this.
- Question: Does the space used by my logs count
against my allotted disk space?
Answer: This would
only be a factor of Startup Hosting (our cheapest package).
- Question: How much space am I alotted for databases
such as MySQL?
Answer: Unlimited
- Question: Do you offer Frontpage extensions?
Answer: No
- Question: Do you offer Secure Socket Layer?
Answer: Yes
- Question: How many email accounts, forwards, and
email aliases can I have?
Answer: Unlimited
- Question: Is sending to opt-in email lists allowed?
(i.e., e-newsletters, autoresponders, etc.)
Answer: Yes
- Question: How many emails can I send out per hour
and day?
Answer: 500 per hour
on shared hosting.
- Question: Is your package upgradable and what should
I expect if I ever need to upgrade to a larger package?
Answer: From shared
hosting, one can upgrade to a VPS and then to a Dedicated
server as needed.
- Question: Do you have a money-back guarantee?
Answer: Yes. You must
contact them within 30 days from effective date of the particular
services you wish to cancel. Only monthly fees are refundable
as long as isn't paid by check or money order.
- Question: What are your billing and cancellation
policies?
Answer: Must use the
online cancellation form.
- Question: What is your acceptable usage policy
in a nutshell?
Answer: We do not allow
adult sites. Our network must be used for lawful purposes
only and not endanger our network. You must email to 500
recipients or less and any complaints received will be considered
spam.
(Note: See their Web site for the rest of their policies.)
- Question: Are there any penalties or fees for exceeding
basic allocations and what should I expect if it accidentally
happens? (i.e., Going over my bandwidth, etc.?)
Answer: Generally we
do not have such fees.
- Question: Can I set up a free trial period?
Answer: We have a 30
day moneyback policy.
- Question: How soon can I expect to obtain access
to my Web site after I submit my order?
Answer: Normally within
20 minutes
- Question: Do you impose file size upload limits
and, if so, what are they?
Answer: Yes we have
a 32 MB limit on file size for PHP uploads
- Question: Do you impose any limits to how many
files can be stored in a single sub-directory and, if so,
what are they?
Answer: No, but many
FTP clients will not view more than 2000 files in a directory.
We do have an overall 300,000 file size limit on our shared
plans.
- Question: Do you impose a size-load limit that
a directory can have and, if so, what is it? (i.e., 100
MB worth of files per directory)
Answer: No
- Question: Do you have any CPU, RAM, or Inode limits
that I need to know about and stay under and, if so, what
are they?
Answer: We do have a
300,000 inode limit. We do not have hard caps on CPU or
RAM but, on our shared hosting, your account is compared
to others on the server, and if it is using significantly
more resources than any others on the server, an upgrade
to VPS or dedicated is required.
- Question: Is there a limit to how many simultaneous
HTTP connections there can be and, if so, what are they?
Answer: Yes, we have
a limit of 35 simultaneous HTTP connections on shared hosting.
- Question: Is there a limit to how many simultaneous
PHP connections there can be and, if so, what are they?
Answer: No limit
- Question: Is there a limit to how many simultaneous
database connections there can be (i.e., MySQL, etc.) and,
if so, what are they?
Answer: No
- Question: Is there a limit to how many simultaneous
FTP connections there can be and, if so, what are they?
Answer: No
- Question: Do you offer IMAP and, if so, is there
any limits to how many IMAP connections I can have and what
are they?
Answer: Yes, we offer
IMAP, and there are no limits on IMAP connections.
- Question: What should I typically expect to happen
if any of the limits above accidentally went over their
limit? (i.e., Would my visitors see a message saying "account
temporarily suspended" or what should I expect? Please elaborate.)
Answer: If your site
is causing the server to crash or have a very high load,
our system administrators would need to suspend some or
all services and we would contact you immediately so you
can resolve the issue or upgrade.
- Question: Do you offer ffmpeg for video conversion
and video sharing? If so, are there any limitations and
what are they?
Answer: No, we do not
offer this on our shared accounts.
- Question: Do you host adult content or web sites?
Answer: No we don't
- Question: How can I ensure your network and my
(shared) IP address you give me won't get blocked or blacklisted
as spam by ISP companies when I send and receive emalis
through your server?
Answer: We do not allow
spam to be sent from our servers, and if someone does send
spam, their account is suspended and we work to get removed
from any blacklist. If you sign up for a dedicated IP, you
can also avoid this issue from ever occurring.
- Question: Do you automatically make back up copies
of all my files and, if so, how often, and is there any
limits?
Answer: Yes, we make
daily backups of all files, and they are saved going back
daily for the past week and then weekly for the past month.
They are accessible through the control panel.
- Question: What is the typical procedure you recommend
that I take (other than companies like PayPal) if I want
to accept credit cards from my web site, and what do I need
to know to make it happen and how much extra will it all
cost?
Answer: You can use
a merchant account such as Authorize.net, go through our
own A2Hosting merchant account, or you can sign up for an
SSL certificate through us and accept payment information
directly on your site.
- Question: How long will you give me to retrieve
all my files if, for any reason, either one of us decides
to terminate our service with each other?
Answer: If we were forced
to terminate services due to a terms of service violation,
we would provide the files for download for up to 24 hours.
If you decide to cancel, you can choose to cancel immediately
or at the end of your billing cycle.
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