Transcript Of This Video

[00:00:00.17]
In this video, I want to talk a little bit about a company called known Host. All right. And because in my line of work, I deal with a lot of different hosting companies. I’ve recently come across known Host on behalf of one of my clients, and I wanted to make a few comments about it. So this company is called known Host, which is ironic because I didn’t know them. I had not heard of them until this client came along. They offer the standard suite of hosting that you would expect, shared web hosting for the low-end stuff, managed WordPress hosting, reseller hosting, and then it goes up to the cloud stuff, dedicated. They basically have the whole darn thing. They promise a lot of the same stuff you see in a lot of other places. And then my client, this particular client that I’m using, he’s using one of their premium cloud hosting options. And let’s see if we can find. I think he’s using this one here, premium cloud hosting option. So it’s not the cheapest, but you do have pretty good specs here. In fact, he may be on the professional. I’m not actually sure, but he’s got pretty good specs here.

[00:01:10.29]
Compared to Cloudways, these are pretty decent specs. But the thing is, what really I don’t like about this company is the fact that they don’t seem to put any real work into their client experience. Now, I know that seems like a harsh statement, and I And I want to be clear, I am not a customer of known hosts, so it’s not as if I’m speaking of a lot of experience. I want to say that the comment that I make here about customer experience does not necessarily apply to dealing with their support people. From what I can tell, it seems like their support is actually pretty good. It is apparently only email, though. They don’t have the live chat and that type of setup. But from what I can tell with looking at some of the reviews out there, it does seem as if their actual support staff is pretty good at what they do. So what do I mean by no investment in the client experience? What I mean is primarily the software that they’re using. This is one of my beefs with too many web hosts out there is that they don’t have a customized control panel built for their particular hosting offer.

[00:02:20.07]
What they do is they go out there and they buy a license to cPanel or something similar, and they install it, and they just throw their clients into cPanel. And that is what this company has done. When you go with this high-end, fairly high-priced hosting that this particular client has, when I log into his account, I am dealing with cPanel, which basically It’s throwing you into the deep end. It has all these icons. It’s stuff that we don’t need to be dealing with, and it’s just not a good experience. Even with this fairly… The pricing here on their professional cloud hosting, and I go down here and I’m looking at their add-ons. So they’re charging more for light speed, which a lot of companies actually just do now because it’s the fastest hosting. I mean, it’s really a good way of having the server set up. It’s going to perform better than Apache and stuff like that. They’re charging extra for soft elicit, soft… I can’t even say that dumb word. But it’s one of those things. It’s like this is what makes WordPress and some of these things easy to install. Plus it has all these things in there for other software that I’m never going to want, like Joomla and Magneto, and blah, blah, blah.

[00:03:35.08]
I mean, the fact that they charge extra for that is like, why do they charge extra for that? They’re charging you extra for backups. Why? This should just be standard stuff. But then when I go over into the control panel here, this is cPanel. Look at all these things, the fact that you’re managing your email. Basically, this has all the hallmarks that I’ve seen of bulk cheap host from the likes of some of the cheapest hosting companies I’ve ever dealt with. They throw you into the deep end. They expect that you’re going to want to deal with all these things, and it’s just too much. It’s just not This is not a user friendly experience. Even when you go over to log into the client portal, and I’m not logged in right now, this is a bad interface, but they’re using a piece of software. Everything’s hosted. And so a lot of company, they’re using something called Blesta. At the end of the day, it’s just one of those things to where known host has probably got good infrastructure. They might have good support, but it doesn’t seem like they put anything into their customer experience.

[00:04:46.09]
And I would say the exact same thing about any web host out there, regardless of how good they are, I’d say the same thing about them if they were throwing their clients into cPanel or some licensed billing software. I do think that a professional company these days has a much more streamlined experience, and you’re not dealing with cPanel. If we pop over to Trustpilot and look at known host, they’ve got a 3.7 out of five. So it’s not fantastic. I mean, they’ve got a lot of people saying nice things about them, and that’s fine. They have apparently been around a long time. And it’s funny how this actually seems to follow the same template I’ve seen with some other companies that have been around a really long time, and they might have really good hosting. It’s just the problem is they’ve been outdone by more modern companies. But these companies are just not very quick to change and keep up with the times, in my personal opinion. There’s another company out there that I’ve talked about before called Pair Networks. And I actually used to use Pair Networks back in the day, and they’re good.

[00:05:52.20]
They’re local, they’re up in Pennsylvania. They’ve got good servers and all that, but they just have done a really piss poor job of keeping up with the times because their management interface, they call it the Account Control Center, sucks, too. It’s bad. I mean, they’re doing a little better in cPanel, but it’s just not that good, and they haven’t kept up. And that could be also what happens with known host. I mean, here’s a review from 2013, so it’s over 10 years ago. But you do see some bad ones in here, and that’s why they’re earning a 3.7. And people who are saying they’ve done bad things about them. And you know whatever. I understand that that type of thing happens. And if you look at the breakdown, you’re going to have people who give the five star, and then you’re going to have people who give the one. And that’s the way the Internet works. Everybody’s very extremist with their viewpoints. But I will say, the company that I prefer these days is Rocket. Net, and we pop over to them, and we’re at a solid 4.9. And so there are differences here with these hosting companies.

[00:06:56.04]
Rocket. Net is also a much newer company. They have a much more modern much more performance friendly. You’re not having to deal with all that nerdy stuff like known host just throwing us into with cPanel. It’s a lot more… It’s a simpler, more performance friendly experience, but it is geared toward WordPress only. So it’s a different… In some ways, this is an apple and orange’s comparison, and I get that, but it does show you the difference sometimes here, 4.9 versus 3.7. Those are a few off the cuff thoughts. It’s about known hosts. Now that I’ve been exposed to it a little bit here through a client, it doesn’t seem as if they’re doing anything to stand out above all the other thousands of web hosts that are out there. It just seems like your standard fair of hosting options for various calibers, and they’re throwing you into the deep end with cPanel and all that and using basically licensed software. So they don’t really have a custom user experience for their clients. I don’t really see what that they’re bringing to the table outside of a bunch of servers, and perhaps some good support. And again, I have not dealt personally with their support at this particular point, but it seems like they’re okay, but it does seem as if it’s email only.

[00:08:13.21]
So that’s where it is. Other than the fact that this is an independent company and not through a big conglomerate, I don’t really see any major unique selling proposition to known host. They’re just there, and there it is. By the way, did you know that as a concierge client, I will actually host your site for you on Rocket. Net? So if your site is actually hosted on one of these bulk hosts and it’s not performing very well right now, come over to blogmarketacademy. Com, learn about Concierge, because I will actually put you on some of the best hosting out there as part of being in the Concierge service. But it also includes off-site backups, access to plugins, all kinds of things. It’s basically the one-stop shop. And then, of course, I’m your support guy. You know me? If you have a question, you know where to come if you have anything that you need to get done on your site. Anyway, head on over to blogmarketingacademy. Com, and you can learn more about Concierge. If you have any questions, let me know.