The Best Web Hosting Companies Do Not Include Zyma…

I recently wrote a long update which included a section about what happened when There’s Value went offline for a week. I am going to use this post today to explain in more detail about the best web hosting companies, and why Zyma is NOT one of them, and why you should avoid using Zyma at all costs. You should especially avoid signing up to Zyma if you are thinking about how to set up a wordpress blog. I hope that this post will stop people signing up to use Zyma, because I don’t want anyone else to go through the problems that I did.

Don’t be Fooled by Low Priced Web Hosting

There’s Value started off with blogger last Summer. I was a bit concerned with the fact that you do not own your own content if you use blogger. I created the content, therefore I feel that it is mine. So I decided to switch to a paid for hosting package. I already had my domain name and was using it through blogger, so I just needed to choose hosting.

Since I had not long started blogging, I thought I’ll just go with someone cheap, as I don’t need lightning fast servers, and I don’t receive 500,000 hits per month. I have absolutely no idea how I found Zyma, but I did and I chose them. I was lulled by the low priced web hosting offer, and I didn’t see any bad reviews for them anywhere. Little did I know, Zyma actually have several terrible reviews, an example of which can be seen here.  Choosing Zyma was a huge mistake. There’s a reason why they’re cheap. It’s because they’re utterly rubbish. From day one, I was getting difficulties and confusion over quite a lot of things…

Zyma are Not a WordPress Friendly Host

Firstly, they did not support certain features of WordPress which I need to use, such as scheduled publishing using the xmlrpc protocol. So I had a major problem with that. I want to write my posts and schedule them to go out at an appropriate time. I don’t want to be hanging around on my computer just to click ‘publish’ at a certain moment.

Zyma are not a WordPress specialist, and boy does that show. I told them of my problem in that scheduled posts were not happening, and they told me I’d need to be switched to a different server. Which they did do… after going back and forth to them, and them not getting back to me to say it had been done. I had to chase them continually to find out what was happening and whether it had been done or not. They should have been contacting me to update me, not the other way around.

Error Messages Galore

Secondly, I started getting LOADS of error messages when I published a post, or updated a page, or changed anything on the site. This was an intermittent problem, but it happened at least once per week. Very aggravating, and there was nothing that could seemingly be done about it. This went on right up until the day my site crashed and was never to be seen again on Zyma. They had the audacity to say that it was my fault too… even though I googled the error messages and all the answers I could find suggested it was a problem at the host’s end.

Zyma vs. SiteGround*

I had enough, so paid for hosting with SiteGround* (* means affiliate link) and started the transfer process. SiteGround are one of the nicest and easiest companies with whom I have ever had the pleasure of working. I was guided through the whole process, even though there was very little to do on my part.I received a call to my mobile (which I unfortunately missed), that was then followed up by an email (a real one! not automated!) thanking me for my business, and explaining what was happening, how long it would take, and what I could do if I ever needed any help.

So, SiteGround are bascially amazing. But what came next from Zyma nearly knocked me over:

Meanwhile, I asked Zyma to change my nameservers, which they didn’t do. They asked me to pay for another year renewal with my domain name instead. I was furious. I asked three more times for them to change my nameservers, which they ignored. They told me to contact nominet (WTF?) at which point I gave up after having sent several angry and disappointed messages. If a host tells you to contact nominet, it basically means they do not want to help you at all, whatsoever. Going directly to nominet is a last resort (even nominet say that on their own website).

Then There’s Value went down. Completely offline! SO I contacted Zyma again. The site went back online very briefly the next day, but then it went down, offline, again. They had the downright cheek to say it was my fault too, and that I should contact a WordPress developer to fix it!

Can you imagine how angry I was by this point?!

How I Got my Website Back

So I came up with a plan. I realised I could try to transfer the domain name to namecheap* and thus gain control over the nameservers, so I could point them to SiteGround. Unfortunately, this didn’t work, as the name was already registered through eNom, who have a partnership with namecheap*, so they won’t transfer names between the two companies.

I was stumped for a day, then thought I’d try transferring the domain name to 123-reg from whom I think had originally purchased it. It took three days from the request with 123-reg until I got a status update of ‘PendingRegistrarTagChange’. Nothing happened. I waited 6 days, and still nothing happened. So I asked 123-reg and they said that Zyma hadn’t bothered to change my IPS tag (nor do anything whatsoever).

What a surprise. Zyma being totally crap. Again.

So I did have to go to nominet in the end. I paid £12 and got my domain name transferred to 123-reg. It took about an hour or two to appear in my 123-reg account. Then I changed the nameservers myself through 123-reg (it’s VERY IMPORTANT to have a company that lets you actually have complete control over your own assets). In the meantime Zyma put a message on the website that said it had ‘been suspended’. It took about 6 hours for my nameserver changes to propagate… FINALLY I then got There’s Value back! YIPPEE

Conclusion of Zyma Hosting Review

So the lesson learnt – NEVER, ever go with a host that doesn’t have a reputation for good customer service. Check out as many review sites as you can. Hosting is very competitive, there is no need to pay too much, but I advise you all to research it very carefully. Make sure they’re WordPress friendly.  Also, make sure whoever you register your domain name through lets you have control over all the settings e.g. MX records, nameservers, etc.

The worst problem about this whole affair is that Zyma just don’t care. They didn’t even care when @MustachianPost tagged them in a tweet suggesting that they try to make a customer happy. What business doesn’t care about their customers? A terrible one, one that doesn’t deserve to be in business in the first place.

P.S. Thank you to the FIREStarter for encouraging me to write this review as a separate post so that people could find it more easily, and hopefully avoid ending up with Zyma who are the worst web host on the planet.