Originally Posted by TWD

That's what I am already doing. Thanks.

I understand you. Process of finding web hosting company is not the easiest one.

Originally Posted by TWD

This could be a more general question not just for web hosts but for webmasters who provide on-call support for clients.

If you are a one man band, what do you do with your clients when you want to go off the grid for a while and take a holiday?

Do you outsource responsibility to a trusted business partner?

I would automate as much of the operation as possible and provide as many tools as possible (tutorials, faq, etc) for customers to help themselves. It probably wouldn't hurt to hire an outsourced support company to fill in while you're away since support is the most critical part of the operation besides servers being online. Then take web enabled phone and laptop with you and you should be fine for a few days.

take web enabled phone and laptop with you and you should be fine for a few days.

Jeysus H Christ, you call that a vacation?

Originally Posted by TWD

Jeysus H Christ, you call that a vacation?

If you do not want to lose your business - YES

I've been browsing the thread... and if you're a small web hosting company you can simply outsource support for that week, there are many companies who do that for you...

Back in 2003 when my brand was RSMHost, it was a smaller hosting company, and whenever I had to travel I used to simply outsource support to some guys during the week I was away. Of course I used to take my laptop with me to see that everything was alright, that's a must .

As a webmaster, another vote for laptop or no vacation. If if love what you are doing will be a great vacation. I mean you take the laptop only to check some things in the morning not to work 10 hours.

As a web host, I guess is better to outsource.

Originally Posted by sziberee

As a webmaster, another vote for laptop or no vacation. If if love what you are doing will be a great vacation. I mean you take the laptop only to check some things in the morning not to work 10 hours.

As a web host, I guess is better to outsource.

Indeed. You need to decide first what is important for you vacation or your business.

If you are a one man operation and seek a vacation, I guess you would need to go somewhere with very reliable internet access and constant service. This being said, I think this is good proof of why it is not advisable to go with a start-up, one man company for hosting services

Originally Posted by XeHSean

If you are a one man operation and seek a vacation, I guess you would need to go somewhere with very reliable internet access and constant service. This being said, I think this is good proof of why it is not advisable to go with a start-up, one man company for hosting services

I think he was suggested to do so, but it seems he does not consider that as vacation at all.

Originally Posted by XeHSean

This being said, I think this is good proof of why it is not advisable to go with a start-up, one man company for hosting services

Indeed. That's the point I was trying to make.

I use HostMonster for all my websites.

Can you use their support?
I found on their web site they have affiliate, can you outsource support from them?

Originally Posted by Natcoweb.com

can you outsource support from them?

You mean "to" them?

Well yeah, if your site is hosted with them, of course they provide a support help desk. If there is ever some problem I just open a support ticket.

And I think they have a great affiliate program.
$65 per new account gets paid back to the referrer (i.e. me!)

So it's a no brainer. The client is better off and so am I.

Having said that, HM is great for shared hosting but for
Magento sites or VPS solutions SimpleHelix is a better bet.
They are setup to cater for those.

Don't customers ask how many staff you have being handing over their money?