Hosting blues

I'd written a long time ago about how I started working for Resonate Consulting and am running short of time leading to sheer neglect of this blog.

Actually a large part of my problems are from the incompetent hosting providers their site is hosted on. We have been trying to get them to release the domain (that WE paid for) for the last three months, and they have perfected a strange form of deafness that no matter how much we yell, our request just doesn't seem to reach them.

Its a really frustrating situation, and quite illegal I'm sure, but it doesn't help us, as we don't want to get caught in years of legal tangles with basically our professional identity online and our official email addresses hostage to their whims.

Wish me luck folks.....

Netbiz.in - Exhorbitant and Incompetent

In a world of professionalism, Netbiz.in stands out as scammers of the worst kind. If you are thinking of using their imcompetent webhosting services, DON'T.

I have started working with Resonate Consulting for documentation and research. These are really patient and generous people willing to understand difficulties. Naturally, knowing my experience with running websites, they wanted me to update their site and add a blog.

Sure, I thought. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. This was two months ago. The backend opened a can of worms that I still haven't found the bottom to. This is obviously a shared hosting. These guys charge Resonate Rs.10,000/- a year for the hosting. And what does Resonate get for that price? Their html files served to whoever visits the site.

Problems? Where do I begin?

There is no way to access the home directory in the backend - the user doesn't have rights. I tried every folder I could think of and then some, and I still have to discover where the original files are. This means, I can't update the site.

There is no way to add a blog. I tried everything I could, and nope. Not happening. I can add a subdomain, but not a database. Surfing to that subdomain gives me a 400 error.

And support? Try the number on their site. Always busy. When you get through to someone, they don't have time to talk to you. Some dude there actually hanged up on me when I asked him what the package was for Resonate Consulting. Another time, when Vikram (one of the consultants at Resonate) called them up, they didn't even want to know what he wanted and simply asked him to email support. Those emails have not been answered to this day.

There is insufficient space for email, and some of the most important business email IDs bounce client mails unless they are emptied regularly. Upping the quotas doesn't seem to have much of an effect.

It just makes me mad to think of people being fleeced like that.

Now let's compare this with the hosting for my site that Mochahost provides me. I pay $89.10 for 2 years (about Rs.4,000/-) This is a fifth of what these guys fleecing Resonate charge me. For this amount, I have complete control over my site, databases, subdomains, etc. I have Fantastico for one click installs of common site softwares. If I run into problems, I have never needed to make a phone call - emails are addressed in a few hours - a day at the most.

So why in the world should anyone want to host their sites with such imcompetent resellers? Unfortunately, our requests to shift our site to another hosting and for them to release our domain for it are also not being answered.

I am trying to figure out what to do next. Probably consumer courts.....

HDFC Bank Netbanking

I don't know what's happening with my HDFC account. I was unable to login to my netbanking account for quite some days, and the site seems to be down. Earlier in the evening, I was not able to access my account from an ATM either. Some system maintenance thingy. I wish they could have scheduled it better like late night or so.

Quite inconvenient and a source of concern, as I have issued out a few cheques and have no clue if my account needs more funds moved for them, or if the balance is adequate. I wonder who takes responsibility if my cheques bounce?

Has anyone experienced Technorati working perfectly?

Its a rather silly subject to post about, but my curiosity got the better of me.

I went to the technorati site to have a look if they had indexed that blog I was having trouble with (and this one) and I see:

Doh! The Technorati Monster escaped again.

We're currently experiencing backend issues and are working to resolve them as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Like this. Nice look, BTW. Dysfunctional for the site, but clean, aesthetic feel. Maybe the site is better down..... Don't believe me? See this:

Yesterday, it was an apology about some search and indexing problems they were having.

Almost all the time, there is someone or the other with blogs flagged for review, not indexed, links not indexed.....

This is of course idle curiosity..... I don't have a single blog that ever gets any traffic worth mentioning from there, so it doesn't really matter to me if they shut down the site on a whim. I never went there in the first place except for some occasional curiosity, but if you use Technorati for promoting your blog for more traffic.....

And curiosity gets me again. I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this place working like it was supposed to; and out of idle curiosity, what was it like?

How many backlinks do I really have?

Was just checking the back links for my blog Footprints on the mountainside, which is about my expereinces and reflections about my work in the outdoors and training. This was inspired by my recent problems with Technorati indexing my blog....

The more I looked into this, the more confused I got. Apparently, not only every system has its own ways of counting the links, but things differ within them as well. I tried different ways of looking at this. Each one had its own results and led me to different understandings on what these resources looked at, but little understanding on how many backlinks I really  had.

Not even going to speak about Alexa here, since it has nothing to do with links....

Outside tools like backlinkwatch show about 263 links to this page. When I login to my wordpress dashboard, the Technorati Incoming Links Plugin finds links to me on Technorati (never mind that they have stopped indexing my blog), while google blog search shows no links to this blog...... My dear old wordpress thinks me linking to another post on my own blog is a link too and shows it as a trackback...... while this is misleading, I like the feel of something being happy to index absolutely every link I have that it finds....

Then for the Google thing..... The "External Links" in my Webmaster Tools thingy says I have 463 links pointing to my blog, but the index stats show one link.

Searching for my link on the net excluding my blog gives me these results-->

So now, I am just wondering when everyone will agree about how many links people have......

In the meanwhile, I have decided to let them do their job, and I will do mine.

Technorati mess

I really don't know what the matter is with Technorati. I rarely check what's happening with my blogs there, so it came as a surprise to see my blogs as having been pinged 23 days ago. This is of course nonsense. My blogs ping technorati (and half the world) each time I make a post.

Then I searched for it to see if anyone else has similar problems, but most of the posts I found were from two years ago. I emailed their support, and am still waiting for a reply.

I found some technorati post explaining how they were not indexing 2.3 version blogs because of some vulnerability, but my version of Wordpress is always the latest - I update the instant I come to know.

The strange thing is that out of my four blogs:

• Footprints on the Mountainside seems to have vanished from their index, though it shows up complete with blog reactions and authority in my profile. This is a wordpress.
• Life As I Find It is also a Wordpress, with much of the same everything (and on the same server), but it is fully indexed.
• Adventures in India is a Postnuke I write to sometimes, and it is not even a blog, but fully indexed, though it shows some ancient posts as recent.... but I can live with that.
  
• Nerd In Progress - this blog - is a Blogger thing, and it is indexed until 2 days ago.
• My HTML website Wide Aware is also indexed (of course no latest posts) but authority 11 being registered.

I really don't understand what is happening. There seems to be no logical pattern. One Wordpress is indexed, one is not, one Blogger stopped being indexed two days ago, the Wordpress getting indexed is showing latest posts instantly. The Postnuke needs to be pinged, but indexes pretty fast too. The HTML site seems to be fine. It is not even as though there is a pattern with all my blogs having problems..... can't figure out where to start looking at this from.

Actually, I'm not sure I need to look at anything. I don't depend on Technorati in any case. I'm just getting hyper because I like everything to work. So I'm going to ignore it, and let Technorati figure their own life out, while I enjoy mine.

Update: I tried something different and discovered something interesting. I tried to claim my blog again. It wasnt' indexed, so it shouldn't matter, right? Wrong. Technorati wouldn't let me claim it, and finally directed me in the right direction...... straight into their FAQs.

The bottom line of the matter seems to be that this blog, and my other Wordpress blogs have been flagged for review (no clue why). The details of it:

When I try to find my blog in the Blog Directory, I get the Sorry :~( message.

Your blog may be flagged for review......

Getting the "There was a problem claiming your blog" message immediately?

If the system will not allow the blog claim to go further than the first step, then your blog has been flagged for review.....

Most recent posts not indexed AND "Last Pinged" date IS NOT updating?

If pinging Technorati manually does not work (After the really obvious suggestion of pinging it...)

If you are new to Technorati and claimed your blog, and you've tried pinging and the "Last Updated" does not change, your blog may still be pending review. If this is the case, please understand that it may take some time for the review and for indexing to continue for your blog. Claiming your blog puts gives your a higher priority in the review, so be sure to claim your blog!

Oh fabulous, so this takes me back to my loop. My blog is pending review and not cleared, so I must claim in, which is not allowed because my blog is pending review........

There are suggestions to contact support on each of these pages, and I have contacted support from each of these pages and for each blog separately, in addition to my earlier email...... Nothing from them so far except the automated email that my email was received, and the support staff has a lot of work to do.

Have I mentioned that I am sooooo not happy with this shoddy state of affairs at Technorati?

The Blog Development Challenge - Blog Growth - 2

This is part 2 of the blog growth challenge, where I began last month with this blog being brand new. This is the first post:

The Blog Development Challenge - Blog Growth - 1

I've been getting some traffic from stumbleupon and digg and very minute amounts from search engines. Posts are getting commented. One of the posts has 25 diggs!!! which is quite good by Digg standards though nothing like the avalanche that people talk about. This growth has happened in less than a month.

Still very few subscribers (like 5 or so)

As of now, the blog has:

• 5 subscribers (average per day)
  
• 31 posts and about 5 or so posts have comments.
  
• 5 or so hits as search traffic
• 0 direct traffic
• Referrals:

Thank you all, my readers for supporting this new blog, and I invite your comments to make it even better.