JustHost Suspended Me

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Yesterday I JustHost suspended my account. This meant I couldn’t access my blogs. I panicked because I spend tons of time building up this site.

Just Host offer unlimited hosting space and unlimited bandwidth, but as per our terms we will suspend any website which exceeds our 10% CPU/MEM/MySQL policy.

According to them I was WAY over the limit by about 50%. I don’t understand this because I don’t get that much traffic.

They offered me another server that would charge me about 140 dollars a month. Yeah right! Like I could afford that! They switched me to another server on their site (still confused why they would suspend me if all they were going to do is move me to another one of their servers).

I need time to regroup and think about what I am going to do. This mean I am just going to stop writing for a while.

Sure the site is back up but for how long? Will JustHost suspend me again? I don’t want to put a lot of work into something that will be penalized for bringing in traffic.

I will see you soon I hope (especially at your sites)! I want to leave you with one last serious question (If you use wordpress.com then this question won’t apply to you.):

How well prepared are you to handle a traffic spike on your site (I ask this even though traffic was the same as usual for me)?

http://tj0.co.cc TJ

That sounds like a trade descriptions issue. They can’t say unlimited everything in all their literature and bury something like that in the small print. Shame on you justhosts!
- http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
  
  Totally agree with TJ, thanks!
http://addanaccity.com George

My host plan has granted me unlimited bandwidth, but I don’t know how long that’s gonna last. It could be just a marketing ploy to get me to join their Deluxe Plans. Keep an eye on things, Mel.
- http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
  
  I think you hit the nail on the head.
http://comix.dorkage.net Colleen from TIx-Comix

I can’t help you. I am the ultimate control freak. I self host. I mean I really self host on a dedicated virtual box. It costs $15/month. I have root on my box and I don’t share it with anyone (well, OK, I’m chrooted to only my share of the hardware, but that’s fine.) Only way to fly. I get no tech support and need almost none. I do it all myself. The system monitors my box & warns me if its allocations are being approached and I can buy more bandwidth, hard drive space, or CPU power. Hasn’t happened yet. The comic doesn’t get that much traffic but once on a commercial site I had 40,000 hits in a day. That was an actual physical box with a single CPU and it didn’t even hiccup.
- http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
  
  I would have to make at least $15 a month here for me to be able to do something like that.
http://madhatters.me.uk/ Duncanr

Probably a dumb question – but why don’t you export your blog to WordPress.com ?
- http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
  
  I can’t make one dime with wordpress.com. They are very limiting on what one can do with their site.
  
  I have 100% control (minus my host) of my site since it is self-hosted.
http://frigginloon.wordpress.com Friggin Loon

OK Mel what you need to do is back up your site. Really easy, just go into dashboard and export the lot and save on your computer. When you switch hosts just upload files. Can’t guarantee comments saved but the bulk of your work will be.
I have a lot of sites hosted with a lot of traffic and never had a problem like that! Sounds more like someone is stealing your bandwidth or mass spamming you. Have you got a spam filter?
Might want to change your password !!!!
I hope everything works out, we can’t have another loon biting the dust
- http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
  
  Thanks for the suggestions. Yesterday I exported my dummy files to the desktop just in case this happens again. I am going to do this with each new post and just erase the old download.
  
  When I have migrated before all of my comments came with so I am not too worried about that.
  
  I think I have people stealing my bandwidth through hotlinking so I took care of that issue yesterday.
  
  I closed comments on posts older than 45 days so that spam is way down.
  
  I think I will change my password for added measure.
  - http://www.comics.wombania.com Binky
    
    Just don’t change it to “Mel”. Although “leM” might be pretty good. And easy for me, I mean you, to remember, too.
http://tmcomics.com Tony McGurk

My previous comment must’ve went to akismet maybe because I put a link in it??? My biggest traffic spike was 225 in one day so I guess in more popular blog terms that’s probably not that high. I have no idea what would happen with my webhost if my visits went through the roof all of a sudden for some odd reason.
- http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
  
  Thanks for letting me know about your comment in spam. I dug it out.
  
  Make sure you have a cache plugin installed for when you get high traffic.
  
  WP Super Cache is the best I think.
  - http://tmcomics.com Tony McGurk
    
    I don’t have oe installed as I was a bit wary of them. I can’t remember what the problem was now or which cache plugin it was but my previous self hosted site developed a major problem of some sort & it turned out to be the cache plugin causing it.
  - http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
    
    You might need a simple one. I suggest two of them. One is called Hyper Cache which will cahce your homepage and two is widget cache will cache everything in your sidebar (I don’t cache top commenters).
    
    Those two should cause you no problems at all.
    
    Maybe you just had a bad cache or it wasn’t installed properly.
http://tmcomics.com Tony McGurk

I am not techy enough to understand what 10% CPU/MEM/MySQL means & what caused this to happen. You’re obviously back on again does that mean they sorted it out?.
I use Super Green Hosting @ $3.95 a month & never had any problems. Maybe you could check them out if Just Host gives you anymore problems & threatens to shut you down.
http://www.supergreenhosting.com/
- http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
  
  Thanks for the suggestion. Super Green looks very similar to Just Host in terms of what they offer. They offer a lot of unlimited things. But and it is a BIG BUTT, if all of my unlimited stuff I use from them takes up too much of their resources (over 10%) they suspend me.
  - http://tmcomics.com Tony McGurk
    
    That just doesn’t make sense. It reminds me of a report I heard on the weekend where a man took Sizzlers, an ALL YOU CAN EAT restaurant, to court because they banned him for EATING TOO MUCH each time he went there.
http://www.comics.wombania.com Binky

I noticed your site was gone yesterday, and I almost panicked! Where would I get my daily Dummy Quotient, if not here?

Are you sure you didn’t get a spike in traffic? Did you check your stats? Or maybe they suspended the wrong account? My site got hijacked by a spammer many years ago and they shut my site down for a while. It was quite a traumatic event!

I must admit I don’t monitor my stats as much as I should.
- http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
  
  Last week my stats were up to a record 2500 hits a day. Then mothers day rolls around and my stats dropped to 800 or so. This week it has “only” been 1000-1500 hits a day. So if it was because of stats I would think last week I would have been shut down.
  
  Fixing hotlinking issues and trying to figure out how to save on their resources.
  
  Technical side of blogging is not so fun.
http://refrigeratormagnate.wordpress.com/ SpilledInkGuy

Sorry to hear about this, Mel… I hope things are resolved as quickly and painlessly as possible.
- http://dummiesoftheyear.com Scholar Mel
  
  Oh the pain… the agony… I could have been a contender… but JustHost thinks I already am and they want to charge me $139 a month for service.
  
  Thanks!