I have been considering a review of my current hosting package for quite some time because i find that their service is often highly reliable but with some problems i have been having lately i didn't want my opinion to be skewed.

It has been a few month since then and i have decided that it is probably better for me to review them so that the same people don't get stung by the same problems that i did, time and time again.

Servage

They are quite a large company boosting over 18,000 customers at the time of writing this which is clearly a pretty large number for any hosting company providing the millions of options out there. Servage was set up in 1998 (under a different name, doesn't specify why) and they claim to have years of hosting experience (over 10 years i should expect).

Servage claim to have modern technologies on their servers making it one of the most modern hosting services available, they also have technology in place to prevent downtime of your website hosted on their service as well as their own website (i'll come to this later) by using clustering technologies.

Servage claim to be popular because of 3 things, Cluster reliability, speed and customer services, only one of these things i can agree with.

So You're Hosted On Servage?

I have been hosted on Servage for around 3 years because they advertised a brilliant package at a reasonable price and i felt a large company like Servage would be able to offer the best support, the best product and also the best speed for the best cost.

Over 3 years i have had a rather acceptable experience with Servage and i the only problems i have faced were not massively crippling, however these problems caused me a lot of stress and fixing them was somewhat of a difficult experience.

The Package

The Servage package comes with 750GB of web space to use along with 7.5TB of monthly data transfer. They have servers equipped with the latest MySQL and PHP software as well as Ruby On Rails and various other new technologies. They also have 24/7 English support (and some foreign support) and promise to have a response within 5 hours of your question.

I think it goes without question that the package is massive and offers a lot, however the negatives which are obviously not published are quite a let down with the service.

Problem #1 - Cron Jobs

On Servage over the last few years i have been creating web development projects, some of which require scripts to be run on a schedule and you typically do this on a server with Cron Jobs.

In the first year i was with Servage i never had a problem with cron jobs and they worked fine, they ran the scripts i expected them to and on time like i expected them to.

However for some reason my cron jobs stopped running and there was no explanation for this, i ran tests and the scripts still worked, even the Servage cron tester came back saying they were fine. So naturally i contacted their support team to raise it to their attention.

One pattern i have noticed with Servage is that any support question you raise is not actually a problem with their service or servers and in actual fact it is a problem with you, your website, your script or your face. So normally i spend the first few days trying to explain nothing is wrong with my face or my script and that nothing has changed but for some reason the cron jobs have stopped.

Obviously you would expect any good support team to raise the issue with a technical team to look into, after the gooses on the support ticket system don't know their head from their arse so getting any technical response from them is like drying to draw blood from a stone.

Servage Customer Services don't seem to have this philosophy, their support immediately blame you for the problem and make you do all the tests that support should, then when that all fails like expected they do nothing at all and simply say it is still your fault. This was the experience i had with the first time i contacted them about this issue, after getting nowhere i decided it was a fair assumption it would never work.

This year i required cron-jobs again so i had another bash and came into the same problem, so thought it would be a good idea to raise it with them again, this time i got the same old shit and some new fresh steaming shit.

After contacting them i got the same old crap about it being my fault and to remove them and add them again so i did this, twice, and the problem wasn't resolved. After speaking to every different person on the support team i was told it was infect a problem with cron-jobs and that it is being looked into, so i waited, and then they fixed it, well they said they had fixed it, but didn't.

So this is still on going, my cron-jobs do not run and it is still my fault.

Problem #2 - Hacked

In 2008 i launched a new website and i was victim to an attach from hackers which launched a script on my shared hosting which left SEO spam links in all my website files.

I immediately contacted Servage to alert them of the hack and was told it was my fault and that i needed to secure my files better, how a HTML document can be insecure i do not know but apparently Servage say it can be.

I fixed the problem myself by removing all of my websites and deleting every single file, database and FTP account on my hosting account, then left it 3 days and re-uploaded everything. Then it happened again, and again, then again and again.

I decided it was getting a little annoying after the first 20 times it happened and started expressing my outrage in the best way i knew, offensive support e-mails. This kind of worked and i got them to look into the issue, an issue they came back and said was not there, however i never got hacked again.

Problem #3 - Downtime

Their about us page is confident that downtime is not an option at all which is the reason for their cluster technology. I would never expect downtime because they were so confident they were immune to that sort of thing, happy days.

Well happy days until there was a DDOS attach which brought not only all of their shared hosting down but also their control panel and website. It took them 2 days to get all services back online, which meant 2 days of downtime for most users or 2 days of revenue loss if it was a website that made money.

Our Fault? Pfft It's Your Fault

If you don't mind being accused of everything wrong with Servage then it is the host for you, or if you think you will never need any support even when their service is broken you should certainly choose them.

Their customer support script runs a little like this…

1. Its Your Fault
2. No, It is your fault
3. Okay try remove it and add it again
4. It's still your fault
5. We'll look into it
6. Nope there was no problem
7. The problem is fixed
8. Yeah but it is still your fault

Should I Use Servage?

Well this all depends on a few different factors. Firstly do you really need 750GB of space and do you really use 75TB of data transfer every month? Secondly do you really want to spend £80 a year on hosting, their are hosts that cost a mere £1. Thirdly do you require poor customer support?

If you answered yes to all of the above them Servage is right for you, i say go for it.

Little Help?

Well seen as you have decided to go with Servage even after my massive review you should straight up use my referral link and get yourself yet more space. Use coupon code "slaterjohn" when ordering or use the link below.

Go To Servage

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