By By Vidahost

[bigbuzzbelfast]

It's kind of a sad day for me as I received an email saying that all my Vidahosts accounts will not merge into Tso Host.

I used to love Vidahosts until they sold out to SlowDaddy, they were fast as anything, their customer support was amazingly fast I converted people to them because of their fantastic support. So today it's the end for Vidahosts (Well May 13th to be Exact) I used to earn good money as one of their affiliates.

I will miss them a little bit but my relationship with them started to fade once I knew of the SlowDaddy merger and boy that lived up to it's name "Slow" so thanks for being there when I needed you (well up until the merger) Vidahosts. You will remain a part of my memories and I will bring you up in chats at times like "do you remember way back in the day there was this great hosting company called Vidahosts" good luck to all who started it and I hope you sold your company on for lots of money as your reward for hard work and the dedication you once had.

Adios!

 

[WebDesires]

I guess your level of standards for hosting were pretty low... Vidahost was no good before but i agree definitely no good now. I guess it depends on what you require of your hosting and your support, but never would i say they were a good hosting company.

 

[bigbuzzbelfast]

Well lets see they suited my needs and as we all know we all have different needs, but as I said way way back in the day when they started they were awesome in my eyes.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Dom from VidaHost was an active member back in the day on here and they were popular with UKBF members. When he was an active member they were good.

They grew too large, invested heavily in their own "cloud" infrastructure which was less reliable than their outgoing cPanel hosting - which they likely had to oversweat, merged with TSO Host - formed Paragon Internet Group - got bought out by Host Europe Group (who own 123-Reg among other brands) - and things quickly went downhill.

The acquisition of Host Europe Group by GoDaddy was the final nail in the coffin for many.

It also now means that a ridiculous number of hosting brands are owned by two big US businesses - Endurance International Group and GoDaddy.

Those seeking hosting the UK often managed to avoid the classic Endurance Intentional Group (EIG) trap which is buying poor overly commercial hosting, getting fed up with the poor service - and switching to another web host, not realising that that other web host was now a brand only - and all the actual hosting and support was provided by the same huge business.

In the UK we avoided that as while some will buy US hosting, typically people would seek out a UK web host.

Unfortunately Host Europe Group started following a similar model with UK web hosts - absorbing lots of brands - and then got bought out by a US giant known for its terrible service.

Dom still works at VidaHost as head of cPanel hosting I believe.

But it's a shame that so few good large web hosts exist - it's a bittersweet success story really.

Having said that we've benefited from that for those looking for the personal support they used to be known for.

 

[Ian J]

With the exception of my blog which is hosted by Dan I've lost track of what's happening with my other sites. Originally I started off with Compila and they got taken over and I've still got some small sites with them and I think that it was Compila that was taken over by someone else who was then taken over by someone else and my main site was hosted by Open Mind Hosting as they were members here but they were also taken over by someone else.

 

[Dominic Taylor]

Thanks guys....I guess it's bittersweet for me since I named Vidahost with my first proper girlfriend in 2004 when I was 17, and owned it until 2015 when I was 28. And married! (But not to her!) Or 2011 if you count when we founded PIG. The history of that is a bit more interesting but probably not to people who don't know us.

And definitely not to anyone who dislikes the company for any reason, so feel free to stop reading, or PM me and I can probably advise on any current issues, I do occasionally get contacted and am happy to try and help.

For for 2.5 years I've had nothing to do with the company/group (1.5 years if you count the time I left not the time we sold to HEG).

I would say one thing, contrary to what people might think, after we sold to HEG nothing really changed day to day other than me and maybe a small number of other senior people weren't on-hand 24/7, make of that what you will. Maybe cost controls running up to the sale to GD had an effect on staffing levels but I honestly had nothing to do with that so I don't know more than anyone else. I know that when we sold the idea was we were a great little group and ran reasonably independently.

After GD bought HEG I've no idea what happened I'm afraid, I'd left by then. Obviously GD doesn't need to run loads of small brands so it makes sense to consolidate.

Seb and Adam are still around. I did meet Blake (GD CEO) and he is a great guy (retired now), but GD is a big company which took on a huge and complex European operation. Lots to learn on both sides and I really hope it helps both companies. I know in the past GD were disliked by many, but Blake and others have modernised it a lot from what I've seen.

All I see these days is public reviews, and the occasional call from an old client who has my phone number...

I took myself away from the tech world for a while, and didn't touch my laptop. But old habits die hard.

I think the Companies House history for the tiny company I started when I was 17 tells the story from a technical point of view - my favourite is the first set of accounts we filed, in March 2006:

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05079572/filing-history

I have so many memories and stories but I honestly don't know if people would even care about them. I tell people "I did IT....eg have you heard of Godaddy? Something like what they do"

I made a mistake of telling a group of business students at Plymouth what I did (I ran the company whilst at uni in Plymouth) and got quizzed for a while, tho actually enjoyed it because it reminded me that a decade ago I didn't know the answers to half the things they were asking me, and also, they had better ideas/answers than me to the other half!

I have always been and always will be a geek, maybe one who's got a bit more outgoing and confident over the years, but otherwise, still a geek.

One thing's for sure, when you start a business and it gets into the deep end, take a look at the bigger picture, catch up on the outside world, and try to see yourself in 3-5 years.

These days whenever I see a firm that's been running unchanged for a while eg under family ownership, I really admire them and I use them. And wish I was still in their club. Sometimes. The workload in hosting is immense because you have a constant responsibility to your clients. But as I said, I am a geek and appear to be back on my laptop.....

 

[ryedale]

We've been approached three times in the last few months by buyers acting on behalf of the larger groups to see if we are interested in selling our client base

Load of guff about providing our clients with a seamless transition and fantastic ongoing support.

Declined each time, I made a promise to a lot of clients who came to us from companies which had been bought out (with subsequent service deterioration) that we wouldn't be going down the same route.

 

[webhostuk]

Thanks guys....I guess it's bittersweet for me since I named Vidahost with my first proper girlfriend in 2004 when I was 17, and owned it until 2015 when I was 28. And married! (But not to her!) Or 2011 if you count when we founded PIG. The history of that is a bit more interesting but probably not to people who don't know us.

And definitely not to anyone who dislikes the company for any reason, so feel free to stop reading, or PM me and I can probably advise on any current issues, I do occasionally get contacted and am happy to try and help.

For for 2.5 years I've had nothing to do with the company/group (1.5 years if you count the time I left not the time we sold to HEG).

I would say one thing, contrary to what people might think, after we sold to HEG nothing really changed day to day other than me and maybe a small number of other senior people weren't on-hand 24/7, make of that what you will. Maybe cost controls running up to the sale to GD had an effect on staffing levels but I honestly had nothing to do with that so I don't know more than anyone else. I know that when we sold the idea was we were a great little group and ran reasonably independently.

After GD bought HEG I've no idea what happened I'm afraid, I'd left by then. Obviously GD doesn't need to run loads of small brands so it makes sense to consolidate.

Seb and Adam are still around. I did meet Blake (GD CEO) and he is a great guy (retired now), but GD is a big company which took on a huge and complex European operation. Lots to learn on both sides and I really hope it helps both companies. I know in the past GD were disliked by many, but Blake and others have modernised it a lot from what I've seen.

All I see these days is public reviews, and the occasional call from an old client who has my phone number...

I took myself away from the tech world for a while, and didn't touch my laptop. But old habits die hard.

I think the Companies House history for the tiny company I started when I was 17 tells the story from a technical point of view - my favourite is the first set of accounts we filed, in March 2006:

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05079572/filing-history

I have so many memories and stories but I honestly don't know if people would even care about them. I tell people "I did IT....eg have you heard of Godaddy? Something like what they do"

I made a mistake of telling a group of business students at Plymouth what I did (I ran the company whilst at uni in Plymouth) and got quizzed for a while, tho actually enjoyed it because it reminded me that a decade ago I didn't know the answers to half the things they were asking me, and also, they had better ideas/answers than me to the other half!

I have always been and always will be a geek, maybe one who's got a bit more outgoing and confident over the years, but otherwise, still a geek.

One thing's for sure, when you start a business and it gets into the deep end, take a look at the bigger picture, catch up on the outside world, and try to see yourself in 3-5 years.

These days whenever I see a firm that's been running unchanged for a while eg under family ownership, I really admire them and I use them. And wish I was still in their club. Sometimes. The workload in hosting is immense because you have a constant responsibility to your clients. But as I said, I am a geek and appear to be back on my laptop.....

That really tells how much you cared about your customers, that's the reason customers are finding it difficult to be with the company at present..good to see you responding.

 

[albertramsbottom]

Yes I have 5 websites with Vidahost and now need to move to someone else. Any ideas how we can avoid the big players and go with a good host like vidahost?? Any suggestions?

 

[albertramsbottom]

It's kind of a sad day for me as I received an email saying that all my Vidahosts accounts will not merge into Tso Host.

I used to love Vidahosts until they sold out to SlowDaddy, they were fast as anything, their customer support was amazingly fast I converted people to them because of their fantastic support. So today it's the end for Vidahosts (Well May 13th to be Exact) I used to earn good money as one of their affiliates.

I will miss them a little bit but my relationship with them started to fade once I knew of the SlowDaddy merger and boy that lived up to it's name "Slow" so thanks for being there when I needed you (well up until the merger) Vidahosts. You will remain a part of my memories and I will bring you up in chats at times like "do you remember way back in the day there was this great hosting company called Vidahosts" good luck to all who started it and I hope you sold your company on for lots of money as your reward for hard work and the dedication you once had.

Adios!

Dont you mean will merge with TSO Host? As I received an email saying that my vidahost will be merging with TSO Host

 

[arnydnxluk]

Yes I have 5 websites with Vidahost and now need to move to someone else. Any ideas how we can avoid the big players and go with a good host like vidahost?? Any suggestions?

If you are happy with Vidahost why not just stick with Tsohost after the brand merge?

It's only a name change - the two brands are owned by the same company and I believe share the same infrastructure, staff, etc, so everything else should remain the same.

 

[webhostuk]

At the end of the day all your data and website will be managed and handled by Godaddy so your end question would be do you want to stay with Godaddy or not?

 

[bigbuzzbelfast]

sorry I did mean to say "Vidahosts will now merge with TSO "my bad spelling at the time @albertramsbottom

 

[TODonnell]

I think there will 'always'* be a market for a web-host that is upmarket and responsive. Discerning clients will pay more and be less hassle to the webhost.

Let CheapoHost deal with people who are cheap, who have no idea of the value of what they're offering and have constant problems, resulting in technical support who just don't care any more and owners who are just crunching the numbers.


*Technical advances notwithstanding.

 

[Ian J]

Let CheapoHost deal with people who are cheap, who have no idea of the value of what they're offering and have constant problems, resulting in technical support who just don't care any more and owners who are just crunching the numbers.

I have several sites with Vidahost and the only problems that I have ever suffered were of my own making yet their technical support acted quickly and efficiently on every occasion.

You say "Let CheapoHost deal with people who are cheap" as if cheap automatically equates with poor quality yet you own signature is promoting "Low-Cost Mail Forwarding?" which I assume is also poor quality and aimed at the same cheap people

 

[TODonnell]

Ha! A good riposte.

I've been down the cheapo web-hosting route, in a personal capacity, in the past and had some ... frightening experiences.

e.g. I had a Hostgator account and then they got bought out and I had to research why their service went downhill. Same story as the OP. I had to move my sites fast. I found out that there were very few CPanel-enabled low-cost independent webhosts with good reviews, remaining, that offered fast technical support.

Based on what the OP said, and my own experience, I suspect a mass-consolidation is going on in the industry.

Mail-forwarding is not a comparable niche, I think, and we achieve economies by automating most of what we do. We are also not part of a larger entity.

 

[S Isaac]

Have had two recent outages on TSO host (one this morning).

Will be looking to leave them soon based on the outages and them wanting me to get VPS just so I can use KeepAlive.

The question is, who's the 'best' UK based host these days? - A question for another thread I guess.

 

[bigbuzzbelfast]

My answer would be one of many,https://www.hihosting.co.uk/ ,https://krystal.co.uk/ and https://www.hostxnow.com/, in my eyes all the companies I just mentioned have offered me great customer support and to me that's worth its weight in gold.

No hosting company can promise 100% up time as there can be so many factors that can lead a host to show to us as a customer that it may be down when it fact it may not be, it could be your ISP having problems connecting because of so many hops and other reasons, old cache on your computer and a host of other things.

To me the three companies I just mentioned are my go to hosting companies

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Thanks for the recommendation @bigbuzzbelfast, that's much appreciated.

We take the service we provide very seriously so it's always rewarding to read that a client is pleased with the support we provide.

Everyone likes personal service but businesses especially benefit from this. It's great to see UK businesses grow and provide support and advice over the years to help with that journey.

 

[Ian J]

We take the service we provide very seriously so it's always rewarding to read that a client is pleased with the support we provide.

Another happy customer here too

 

[ryedale]

The rush to leave Vidahost, TSO host etc seems to be turning into a flood at the moment - we've had loads of calls in the past few weeks.

I think when these takeovers happen, they believe that there's enough people on the books and the brand is big enough to cope with a few that may leave due to the downscaling in support capabilities.

Just maybe they might underestimate people's willingness to cope with sub standard support if the exodus continues.

It's such a fine line in this industry to keep the balance of support staff at a sufficient level so you can provide the level of support that people expect.

 

[Sal-FastCow]

@Dominic Taylor You've done a fantastic job and hopefully can carry on with it in the near future.

@bigbuzzbelfast I suggest you hanging on for a little while once the merge occurs to see the difference, if anything the support may improve? If moving on is a must, there are a few UK companies who can help you with what you need. Best of luck finding the right provider who can give you great support like Dom and his team did when they were around.

 

[justintime]

I have to say I didn't realise Vidahost had sold out, first to Host Europe and in turn to Go Daddy.

Dom and Seb have been absolutely brilliant and were still in their infancy when I first joined. Calls were answered in seconds rather than minutes which was always pleasing. Pleased for them that they were able to make a big success of their business and that their success was rewarded by selling to a bigger provider, but inevitably it's lost their personal touch which made Vidahost great.

 

[justintime]

But after todays debacle I am definitely moving on. In March I was billed nearly £12 for a co uk domain and rang to query it. 20 mins later phone still not answered and meant to follow it up but never did.

Today I opened a web chat (apparently they've moved oodles of staff to the web chat thingy for a speedier response) 15 min wait time fair enough I thought. Eventually responded 35 minutes after starting the chat, (which I thought I had ended cos I got fed up of waiting)

I had already sent a support ticket when the lady answered the web chat and that was responded to in 19 minutes, by the same lady who responded to my web chat!!!

 

[icecream copernicus 2017]

Thanks guys....I guess it's bittersweet for me since I named Vidahost with my first proper girlfriend in 2004 when I was 17, and owned it until 2015 when I was 28. And married! (But not to her!) Or 2011 if you count when we founded PIG. The history of that is a bit more interesting but probably not to people who don't know us.

And definitely not to anyone who dislikes the company for any reason, so feel free to stop reading, or PM me and I can probably advise on any current issues, I do occasionally get contacted and am happy to try and help.

For for 2.5 years I've had nothing to do with the company/group (1.5 years if you count the time I left not the time we sold to HEG).

I would say one thing, contrary to what people might think, after we sold to HEG nothing really changed day to day other than me and maybe a small number of other senior people weren't on-hand 24/7, make of that what you will. Maybe cost controls running up to the sale to GD had an effect on staffing levels but I honestly had nothing to do with that so I don't know more than anyone else. I know that when we sold the idea was we were a great little group and ran reasonably independently.

After GD bought HEG I've no idea what happened I'm afraid, I'd left by then. Obviously GD doesn't need to run loads of small brands so it makes sense to consolidate.

Seb and Adam are still around. I did meet Blake (GD CEO) and he is a great guy (retired now), but GD is a big company which took on a huge and complex European operation. Lots to learn on both sides and I really hope it helps both companies. I know in the past GD were disliked by many, but Blake and others have modernised it a lot from what I've seen.

All I see these days is public reviews, and the occasional call from an old client who has my phone number...

I took myself away from the tech world for a while, and didn't touch my laptop. But old habits die hard.

I think the Companies House history for the tiny company I started when I was 17 tells the story from a technical point of view - my favourite is the first set of accounts we filed, in March 2006:

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05079572/filing-history

I have so many memories and stories but I honestly don't know if people would even care about them. I tell people "I did IT....eg have you heard of Godaddy? Something like what they do"

I made a mistake of telling a group of business students at Plymouth what I did (I ran the company whilst at uni in Plymouth) and got quizzed for a while, tho actually enjoyed it because it reminded me that a decade ago I didn't know the answers to half the things they were asking me, and also, they had better ideas/answers than me to the other half!

I have always been and always will be a geek, maybe one who's got a bit more outgoing and confident over the years, but otherwise, still a geek.

One thing's for sure, when you start a business and it gets into the deep end, take a look at the bigger picture, catch up on the outside world, and try to see yourself in 3-5 years.

These days whenever I see a firm that's been running unchanged for a while eg under family ownership, I really admire them and I use them. And wish I was still in their club. Sometimes. The workload in hosting is immense because you have a constant responsibility to your clients. But as I said, I am a geek and appear to be back on my laptop.....

Hi Dominic,

I am a customer of Vidahost and have been for almost 10 years. I remember talking to you in the beginning. I went with you because you seemed to care AND you knew your stuff. That is what matters the most. Clearly you still care a lot after reading your post. I hope you are well mate and thank you for setting up such a good hosting company.

 

[HostXNow]

My answer would be one of many,https://www.hihosting.co.uk/ ,https://krystal.co.uk/ and https://www.hostxnow.com/, in my eyes all the companies I just mentioned have offered me great customer support and to me that's worth its weight in gold.

No hosting company can promise 100% up time as there can be so many factors that can lead a host to show to us as a customer that it may be down when it fact it may not be, it could be your ISP having problems connecting because of so many hops and other reasons, old cache on your computer and a host of other things.

To me the three companies I just mentioned are my go to hosting companies

Thank you for the mention @bigbuzzbelfast much appreciated!

 

[Seb de Lemos]

Dom and Seb have been absolutely brilliant and were still in their infancy when I first joined. Calls were answered in seconds rather than minutes which was always pleasing. Pleased for them that they were able to make a big success of their business and that their success was rewarded by selling to a bigger provider, but inevitably it's lost their personal touch which made Vidahost great.

Thanks. Those days were awesome and by far the best fun. It was great having only happy customers and being able to sort nearly every issue, big or small, perfectly and personally.

For some background, I founded Vidahost with Dom, merged with Tsohost in 2011, and then ran the group and the acquired brands up-to and through the HostEurope acquisition in 2015 and the GoDaddy acquisition in 2017. When we sold to HostEurope it was part of the deal that we kept our independence which IMO worked really well, though as soon as it was clear that a GoDaddy acquisition was on the cards we started handing over responsibility in preparation. By mid 2017 Adam (orig. Tsohost) and I, who both stayed on to handover, were just running a few legacy systems and doing some brand merges and tidy ups - not closely involved in the day to day running of the brand, support or systems. I formally left the organisation at the start of July.

The main comment I'd make is that some of the things we did as a small company didn't work when we were a bigger company, regardless of who owned our shares or made the decisions. With 1,000 customers Dom or I could jump in whenever something was a problem, and personally solve it. But at the point of GD's takeover we had >220k customers, £20m turnover and 200 staff, and while we hired well and had some superstars, we couldn't hire 200 Doms. When we had ten staff I didn't need to worry about staff getting angry at a customer, or sending incorrect login details out, or deleting a customer server. But I did at scale, and so a lot of effort went into making sure things scaled properly and securely - I'm sure at the expense of personal service, and technical quality. Hiring numbers wasn't ever a problem, but hiring well was - and having enough good people to train new starters, and who could be escalated to.

Contrary to what seems to be opinion, in my experience GoDaddy is an excellent company, especially their ethos and product. Calls will be picked up in seconds, customer satisfaction is high, new products are built by experienced teams with a load of testing and QA, and for 95% of customers it's a perfect host. Plus, there's the not entirely insignificant point that it's growing like a rocket. They've got being a big hosting company nailed. A lot of the changes at Tsohost are to make sure it can scale in the way GoDaddy does. While I've not been directly connected to things for a while, I know there are dedicated training teams flown over from the US in the offices working with everyone, residential courses for leaders, analysis on chats, calls and more. If anyone is still experiencing issues there, I'm confident they are well on the way to being sorted.

If I did hosting again (no plans to!) and we offered personal technical support in the same way we did before (custom server setups, fixing php scripts, adjusting system settings for individual scripts, debugging site errors...) we'd for sure do well, but I think we'd hit the same issues as soon as we grew.

That's why there's always going to be space for smaller more-personal service focused hosts, as long as you are aware of the paradox: if those hosts are really special and do well, they might well lose what made them special in the first place.

Anyway, thanks for the kind words about the good-ol-days to those who commented.

 

[arnydnxluk]

Great insight Seb and congratulations on your success. The Tsohost / Vidahost cloud platform was fantastic and really one of a kind when it first came out, in fact it still is a really unique platform although the performance seems to have dipped these days in my experience. I remember putting through about 30 million PHP requests per month for one website in 2011 and everything being handled without a sweat... all for the cost of about £20/month if I remember correctly! A great mid point between shared hosting and a dedicated (/virtual) server. I bet that platform was a huge hit with those customers who had spiky traffic?

Do we get to hear what your new business upmind.com is about? The holding page isn't giving any info away!