It has come to my attention over the past few years that many popular web hosting companies happen to own or operate second and third hosting companies. It makes sense when you think about, sometimes success can kill a very popular web host when they can’t keep up with the explosive growth. As the growth curve continues, the hosting companies customer support and staff in general become overworked and severely understaffed. I have heard of some big hosting companies that hire 20-30 new employees on a weekly basis to try and keep up with the growth.
As often happens, the “successful” web hosting company is unable to keep up with the growth and the quality of support declines rapidly. After a while, the perceived value of the host drops as the negative buzz grows and festers as customers complain louder and louder. Until suddently, this once popular and very reliable web host has been branded a complete failure. Not because of the hosting package or price itself, but because what was once an acceptable 5 minute hold time for toll-free support has blossomed into a painful hour-plus just to talk to a support rep.
What do you do if your a hosting company that grows too big, too fast and is now branded a dud? Just start a new web hosting company with a fresh domain and a new S Corp filing. While some companies truly start fresh with everything from new staff to new datacenters and fresh hardware to updated support call centers. Most companies just go with the fresh website and try to trick us into thinking this is indeed a new web hosting company.
Who are these hosting companies living lives of duplicity? I know of several, but suspect that there are many more flying under the radar. The most prominent may be the duo of BlueHost and HostMonster. BlueHost was started nearly 18 months before Hostmonster but when you look closely they are virtually the same company. This is not a secret, but something that is very rarely talked about in the open. They have nothing to hide, they simply wanted a second chance at building a better web hosting service.
Another prime example is the web hosting mogul iPowerweb. They are one of the founding fathers of the web hosting industry but have had a couple of second tries. First, was the supposed iPowerweb partner Startlogic. What started as a super-reseller quickly turned into simply another morphing of the ipowerweb company. You could even argue that iPowerweb’s more recent launch of a corporate website ipower.com was a stab at a second try. Now, they have joined forces with Endurance International and have quite the big web hosting family of brands like , Dot5Hosting, BizLand, FatCow and more.
Acquisitions are no stranger to the web hosting industry. A long chain of acquisitions was what brought the hosting mogul Interland into the spotlight. They chose a dangerous and tricky path of growth by web hosting acquisitions that nearly collapsed when the dot-com bubble burst. While they are without question a very big web hosting company, many would argue that bigger is not always better.
Some other well-known web hosting pairs are Jumpline.com and DigitalSpace.net, MidPhase and AN Hosting, LYPHA and IMhosted, OMNIS and WebHostingPad, the now dead FeaturePrice relaunched as IX Web Hosting by co-founder. Do you know of other web hosting companies operating more than one website? Share them with us in the comments.
