---

For some reason Host Gator cut us off short again this year.
Our domain run from August 17, to August 17, to August 17, of every year.
They don't send us an email stating that our domain fees need to be paid by August 18, and then cut us off a week early to boot...

We are in contact at this moment trying to find out why this happens every year.
As you can imagine, we are hot happy today with Host Gator.

---

I was wondering what happened earlier today....then I thought "Did Joe forget renew his domain again this year?....lol.

Glad you have it back up and running again.

---

Joe, I will put a reminder in my calendar for next year.

---

I can tell you are not amused at all by this. I for one appreciate your effort Joe and understand completely when there are problems with the server.

---

They seem to send us out an email when the Hosting Service package is due....
But even though we are setup for an automatic email when the domain registration is due we don't receive that email.... And then they cut us off a week short....

Phil,
I have also added this to my iCal calendar so I am warned 15 days before the domain registration fee is due....

It doesn't appear that we were down too long this morning and only some of you were affected.
The site never went down for me here on the West Coast but I was getting reports of people from the mid West and Eastward that they could not get to our site....
I was wondering why there weren't very many people online this morning. Now I know.

Hopefully this won't happen again next year......

---

Here in NY I was unable to get on and kept getting redirected to some hotel sight. I just figured we might have been hacked in some way and I knew Joe would be on it.

---

WC was down here in Seattle most of yesterday morning.

If you paid for a year, how can they cut you off before the year is up?

---

Strange it didn't go down for me but went down for others on the West Coast.

Our hosting package is due in June which they send us an email saying that the fees for the Hosting service is coming due. We pay this bill in June.

In August, our domain name, which is also hosted and handled by Host Gator, come due. For some reason they don't send us an email and then just cut us off.
Apparently all they are really concerned about is getting the Hosting package fee and not the $15 domain name fee. They don't seem to care about taking care of the customer completely.

If we go into our account at Host Gator, they show the domain name expiring on August 18.... However they cut us off and turn off the site August 12....
In the past we have tried to get them to fix this so we either get an email for the domain name fee or at the minimum they don't just shut us down without some kind of notice..
Obviously this wasn't fixed last year when the same thing happened.

Upon discussing this with them yesterday, the domain name actually expires on August 12 so their expiration date on their website and our account is not correct.
You would think they would be a little more considerate after spending a fairly large amount of money for their Hosting package that they would at least notify us of a small $15 fee instead of just shutting us down...

I have recorded these dates on my own personal calendar for automatic notifications and will most likely change the way we handle this.
We are probably going to pay the domain name fee in June at the same time the Hosting fees come due.
This will be a few months early for the domain name but at least they won't be cutting us off in August...

We will see how this goes next year.......

---

Yesterday, when I (on the east coast of the U.S.) couldn't reach the site, a whois lookup reported the following:

Creation date: 11 Aug 2003 06:32:00
Expiration date: 11 Aug 2011 06:32:00

Today it reports:

Creation date: 11 Aug 2003 06:32:00
Expiration date: 11 Aug 2012 06:32:00

It really looks to me like the expiration date has been August 11 from the get-go.

That being said, if your current domain registrar and/or web host doesn't meet your expectations, you should consider switching. I've been very satisfied with the services of Pair Networks for multiple domains over many (more than ten) years.

---

Tom,

We have registered our domain name with several different providers through the years....

It is now registered through Host Gator and the expiration date they had online for us was August 18 and that was the date I was using.

You are correct in that Whois always showed August 11...
I don't bother with going to Whois to lookup our own information as it hasn't changed since the beginning in 2003.

Maybe we will look into other providers but not just for this problem.
We have had 2 other providers in the past so this is the 3rd one which has had the least problems but still not problem free.

---

Yesterday in Texas, my PC couldn't access WC but my iPhone could. Thought it was strange but suspected you may have had a problem.

---

Funny thing, when I couldn't get on yesterday the first thought that crossed my mind was 'holy crap, now I'm banned from WC too.', It just so happens that at the present time and for the last couple of days I'm being banned from CW. Jimh is always messing with me and periodically bans me for a couple or a few days. He has some kind of warped sense of humor I guess, and he likes to cut off his nose to spite his face as they say. After I'm reinstated I don`t plan of going back anyway, and I am not knocking his site in any way.

---

Binkie's causing trouble. Hahaha.

---

I'm in the web business and always recommend that people use an independent registrar other than their hosting company. Besides them usually having better controls for your domain, you have a little more control when it comes to changing hosting companies. i.e. you don't have to worry about not being able to access your domain controls if your contract with your hosting company expired, or if your hosting company goes under, etc...

You can still move your domain to another registrar, while keeping your service with host gator.

Godaddy is a reputable registrar and they send out notifications a few times before your domain expires. It's something like 60/30/5 day notices. I've even had them call me to make sure I was meaning to let a domain expire. I don't think that's their normal policy, but they have. I would not host anything with Godaddy though.

That said, Host Gator does a great job at shared hosting with some great prices. I have customers & friends who have been with them for over 7 years. That's another star in my book is a hosting company who's been around a while.

So I'd say the best of both worlds would be to transfer your domains to Godaddy, but just check the box to keep your nameservers the same.

---

Cliff sez;
Binkie's causing trouble. Hahaha.

Not true, Cliff, sometimes I disagree with some of the informational stuff the administrator writes, and then its ZONGO, I'm gone. LOL. Others due the same, but I guess he's harsher on me.

---

I was just messin' around with ya bro.

I don't like the attitude over on the other site so I basically observe..........