Month: August 2019

Late last year, I signed up for InMotion Hosting. It was during November’s Black Friday that I came across the company’s offer. I don’t remember how much the cost was but it was reasonable. Moreover, the company has been recommended by multiple Internet Marketers.
I always know better than to trust online web hosting reviews. Most of the sites you will find ranking for top search teams such as “best web hosting company” or “inmotion hosting review” or reviews of other companies are just thirsty affiliates. They are simply after making quick commissions.
And who can blame them given that hosting companies offer on average $100 for every new customer?
Anyway, I had been using Scala Hosting for my sites and other clients’ sites. I really did not have any problem with Scala Hosting apart from issues with “resource Usage” one of my client’s sites was getting about 1000 visitors a day and this always triggered “resource usage’ warnings from the company.
I have multiple personal sites and I wanted to see how they would perform on InMotion Hosting. Their promises of Unlimited Bandwidth and Unlimited Space lured me. So, I transferred a few of my sites to InMotion Hosting.

My Experience with Inmotion: The Pros

Well, I have to give it up to Inmotion Hosting. The sales and technical team is good. In fact, I think InMotion is among the last big hosting companies that has live sales and support team. With InMotion, I never had to write a support ticket. I could chat with the support through live chat. And unlike other EOG Hosting companies, I did not have to wait for 15 minutes for someone to attend to me.
I was usually connected to support through the live chat in less than 4 minutes.
InMotion is generally like any other large hosting company. They have a cPanel interface and provide a range of web hosting disk space depending on what you need. I will spare you the long reviews of the features of the hosting as I assure you, they are just the same as any other hosting company you may be using.

The Cons of InMotion Hosting

When it comes to cons, most website usually indicate things related to price and support. Well, price is not really an issue as most of the large hosting companies have comparable prices.
InMotion’s support is great. I have to give that up to them. However, the biggest con I had with the company is regarding downtimes.
Now, when you sign up for InMotion hosting, they promise you a 99% uptime guarantee. Of course, no hosting company can provide 100% uptime guarantee. But trust me, the 99% uptime guarantee of InMotion hosting is more like 80 or 70 percent. And believe me, that’s huge!
I have used JustHost, Scala Hosting and a bunch of other web hosting companies in the past and never had an issue with downtime. But for InMotion Hosting, the downtime was just in EXCESS.
One day, I wanted to update one of the sites that I had with InMotion hosting. To my dismay, the site was unavailable. Well, sometimes things happen. So I waited for them to come back online. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. No way, this is too much.
I contact Inmotion Hosting through the live chat. I’m told that there is a problem with the server where my sites are hosted and that the technical team is working on it. Another bombshell: they don’t know how long the downtime is expected to last. Seriously/
Poor me, I did not save the chat transcript.
Anyway, I don’t know how long the sites were down for because I did not check. However, the sites were up the next day.

InMotion Hosting Complaints

#1. Sites Disconnecting from Server

A few months later, I am at the backend of one of my sites that I have with InMotion and I’m trying to post a new post.
First off, the site was painfully slow to open. At the time, I thought it’s because it had lots of images and was using a heavy theme. So, I ignored the slowness,
However, whenever I wanted to make a post or update an existing one, the website always lost connection for multiple minutes, sometimes up to 10.

I had to refresh the pages multiple times to get the connection back. Mark you, the problem was not with my internet connection.
Days later, I am trying to make another post at a different site I have with InMotion and I noticed that the disconnection error from WordPress was also there. That’s when some light bulbs lit up.
I opened all my sites I have with InMotion and they all had the same problems. Some of the sites did not even have any content or customized theme apart from the default WordPress post and theme.
So, this had to be something to do with InMotion.

#2. Extremely Slow Sites

So, I contact InMotion again and tell them my sites are painfully slow and they should be moved to a different server. Support tells me that the sites cannot moved to a different server since at their end, they don’t see anything wrong with the servers.
Their remedy: I should install caching plugins.
Damn, the problem wasn’t even about caching. Moreover, the sites were still disconnecting even on sites that I had a caching plugin.

#3. Extreme Downtime

Whenever I set up my websites, I usually install Jetpack simply to speed them up and take advantage of image caching and downtime notifications. I have a different email for Jetpack notifications that I don’t check often.
One day, I decided to check the email and guess what I saw? See the image for yourself:

There were hundreds of notifications about my sites responding intermittently slow or being unavailable.
Now, if a site goes down for five minutes, I have no issues with that. But when it goes down for 10+ hours, what the smurf?

Checking back the previous notification emails about downtimes, my sites were down every other day. Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for more than half a day. Inmotion, please.
Anyway, to cut the long story short, I had no option but to move from InMotion Hosting. I still haven’t transferred all my sites from the InMotion Hosting account because my next billing is due in Nov, 2018. However, for the main sites that I’m working on, I’ve already transferred them to a new provider.

Which is the Best Web Hosting Company?

Okay, so you are waiting for a recommendation on a different hosting provider? Well, to be honest, you have to do your own research.
There is no “best web hosting company”. Everyone’s experience will be different. For me, the Inmotion saga marked my last stint with shared hosting. For now, I have transferred the main sites to a VPS by SSDNodes.
You may not find a lot of reviews of the company since it does not heavily rely on affiliates to push its brand out. But so far, I’ve been extremely happy. My sites are extremely fast with zero downtimes.
Here is a speed test of one of my sites at InMotion:

And here is the current speed of the site at SSDNodes.

And I haven’t even gotten started with optimizing it for speed.

Should You Get a VPS?

This is a question that you are bound to ask. My take is this:

1. If you have a website that brings you income (for my case, I had Amazon affiliate websites at InMotion), then you need a VPS.
2. If you are moving from a shared hosting company and are considering going to Inmotion, my answer is: don’t go to Inmotion. Instead, get a VPS.

There are multiple VPS companies in the market. In my research, I found people had issues with Digital Ocean Speed. I found Vultr to be highly recommended but I did not go with them since they seem to have the affiliate promotion bug. Moreover, their prices are way higher than that of SSD Nodes.
Here a great article by SSDNodes that helped me compare the main VPS providers on the market: https://blog.ssdnodes.com/blog/vps-comparison-vultr-digital-ocean-linode-ssd-nodes/
Note: While the article is written by SSDNodes, you can perform the test yourself to see that the results are accurate.
Ultimately, you have to do your own research to know which company to go for.
If you would like to go with SSDNodes, one thing that I must warn you is that the server does not come with cPanel. Moreover, transferring the website to a server requires some Linux knowledge. I was able to dig the net and transfer my sites to SSDNodes in 10 days.
If you would like to transfer to SSDNodes or any other VPS and need help, you can hire me to do the work for you. I got to pay the bills, you know!
And that is my story with InMotion Hosting. Let me know what your experience has been or if you have any questions.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigations has sent a warning to private sector partners about foreign intelligence services using social media accounts to target and recruit employees with US government clearance.
“FIS [foreign intelligence services] officers will use popular US-based platforms and their respective countries’ social media platforms for personal and intelligence gathering/operations purposes,” the FBI said in a security alert the agency sent out in April.
The warning, authored by the FBI’s Washington Field Office, in coordination with the FBI’s Office of Private Sector (OPS), was sent to government contractors whose employees hold various levels of security clearances.
The FBI warning comes as the US has seen a rash of former government employees defecting or helping foreign intelligence services over the past few years. These incidents started with the now-infamous Snowden case, to the most recent one, involving a former US Air Force service member who defected to Iran and then helped its newly adopted country hack her former Air Force colleagues.
The FBI alert includes links to government resources where contractors can educate their employees on how to handle themselves online. The optimum scenario would be if clearance holders would avoid disclosing that they have a government clearance online, in the first place.
Further, the alert also includes four cases the FBI presented as examples of different scenarios of how foreign operatives used social media and online portals to rope in government contractors into committing treason.
We cite in full the four cases from the report [Italic text added by ZDNet]:
FIS Primary Targets: Former/ActiveUSG Clearance Holders
In 2017, an FIS used a popular professional networking website to contact a former USG [US Government] employee who held an expired Top Secret level clearance. The employee listed their intelligence/national security background on their website profile. Aseparatedbut recruited individual later acted as the “middle person” who introduced the employee to the FIS. In February 2017, the employee traveled overseas to meet the FIS and established a covert communication channel. That communication channel served as a mean to pass Secret and Top Secret information to a US adversary. In mid-2017, the USG arrested and charged the employee for conducting espionage against the United States.
Here, the FBI might be referring to the case of Kevin Patrick Mallory, a 62-year-old from Leesburg, Virginia, who was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison for selling government secrets to China.
FIS Private Sector Targets: USG Contractor Clearance Holders
A known FIS front company used a publicly available employment website to target USG defense contractors who posted their resume online. The FIS used the website to target, assess, and recruit employees of US-based defense contracting companies supporting the USG who have specialized skills in the aviation technology.
Here, the FBI is referring to the use of LinkedIn as a recruitment platform by foreign intelligence agents, a now common practice and well-known about practice.
Social EngineeringMethod: FIS use Fictitious Social Media Accounts to Obtain Access to Sensitive and Classified Data from USG and Corporate Employee
An FIS created a fictitious US military social media profile on several platforms. The FIS used the profile to establish online relationships/social network with a wide range of USG, US military personnel, and multiple US-based cleared defense contractors. The FIS used the social network to develop and assess a targeted pool of profiles.
Here, the FBI is referring to the use of platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks for targeting employees during their free time, and then moving conversations to sensitive topics.
Bridging the Physical and Online Introductions Gap: FIS Used Physical Events and Online Research for Social Media Usage to Establish Relationships
In early 2018, a US-based cleared defense contractor with a Top Secret level clearance attended a technical trade show conference in the United States. An FIS who operated a vendor booth at the conference approached the contractor several times and offered sales of products/services. As a means to deter the aggressive sales pitches, the contractor indicated to the FIShis/her affiliation with the USG and offered the FIS a business card. A week after the conference, the FIS located the contractor on a popular professional linking website. The FIS sent an online request to the contractor via the website. The FIS is likely associated with an identified US adversarial military unit.
Here, the US is referring to the tactic of scouting contractor employees’ social media accounts for info that can be used to get conversations and relationships going in the real physical world.

Related government coverage: