EIG Hosting Talk: Non-Strategic Brands
Last updated on Aug 11, 2017
Endurance International Group (EIG) has been raising prices and streamlining operations for all “non-strategic brands”. They haven’t named any of these non-strategic hosting brands, but have stated that BlueHost, HostGator, and iPage are not a part of this group. Instead moving forward these three web hosts are considered EIG’s “key hosting brands”.
From EIG Fiscal 2017 Q1 Earnings Conference Call – Prepared Remarks
“We continued our focus on key hosting brands, which include Bluehost, HostGator, and iPage.”
“For the brands that we do not market actively, we are planning price increases, and operational streamlining across a number of brands in order to improve cash flow. Finally, as expected, we continue to see higher than normal levels of churn associated with most of the non-strategic and gateway products launched in the last 18 months.”
From EIG Fiscal 2017 Q2 Earnings Conference Call – Prepared Remarks
“Finally, turning to our non-strategic brands, performance was in-line with our previously communicated expectations. As we continue to focus on operational streamlining and cash flows in these brands, we saw, and continue to expect, declines in subscriber count and revenue. As we look to the second half of the year, we plan to make additional efforts in operational streamlining such as greater use of outsourced chat support. We also plan on working to consolidate platforms for some of our smaller non-strategic hosting brands in order to increase free cash flow. “
So if you’re using any EIG hosting brand other than those three key brands, EIG has laid it all out for you. Pretty much expect things to be on the further decline and for prices to increase if they haven’t already increased for you. They are expecting a higher churn rate and there’s no point in proving them wrong on this by staying with them. Some EIG brands did increase their prices this year, e.g., A Small Orange, Arvixe, and Site5 all increased their prices on June 1st, 2017.
A Small Orange plans did start at $5/month and now start at $8/month (60% Price Increase)
Arvixe plans did start at $4/month and now start at $7/month (75% Price Increase)
Site5 plans did start at $4.95/month and now start at $6.95/month (40% Price Increase)
Some Reactions on Twitter to Price Increases
It’s gotten so bad AND they raised prices without asking or letting us know. @asmallorange #WebHosting @AGSchneiderman
— #trumpRussia (@JustAnotherRich) July 27, 2017
@asmallorange Hi. It seems plan prices (& poss. structures) changed recently w/ no communication that I’m aware of. Is more info somewhere?
— Nicole ❄️ (@nswan) July 17, 2017
We are very sorry for the negative experience Anthony. This increase was needed so we can make improvements.
— A Small Orange (@asmallorange) July 18, 2017
Incredible, @asmallorange has raised prices x1.5 without any notification in advance??!!!?!!?!??!?!!
— Gbrecht (@gbr3cht) June 4, 2017
Just got crazy invoice from #Arvixe to continue hosting my site. Used to be reasonable but now want monopoly money. No fucking way. Options?
— Lynn Kear (@lynn_kear) August 10, 2017
I’m looking for a new website host. After 10+ years as a loyal customer, @site5 raised my monthly rate by 43% without telling me. Thoughts?
— Jay Lane (@JayLane) June 27, 2017
@site5 thank you for silently increasing prices for your poor services. Finally forced us to move to a decent company #badhosting #hosting
— Web factory Ltd Ⓦ (@WebFactoryLtd) June 16, 2017
EIG’s Operational Plan
Slide From EIG 2017 Q2 Earnings Presentation PDF
If you are to host with one of EIG’s many web hosting brands (full list) I’m sure we can all agree that it does not make any sense whatsoever to go with or remain with one that is considered “non-strategic” in EIG’s operational plan. It should also be noted that this really is not a recommendation to move to one of EIG’s “key hosting brands” (BlueHost, HostGator, and iPage) either. This post is simply attempting to serve as an acknowledgement of where the current and future focus of web hosting is at with EIG.
At the moment I still have some domains hosted with Dotster, also not one of the “strategic” brands. I’m thinking I should finally add to the churn.
What was keeping me there so long is the same, basically irrational thing that probably keeps many customers at their EIG-hosted brands: the memory of better times, of how nice and responsive and personal the service used to be. Dotster, Namezero when I signed up with them, had terrific customer support. Someone who actually *read the content* of support requests was always quick at hand. They even gave me some free services at some point, as a thanks for being one of their earliest customers.
I think it’s time to realise that out of all the Dotster employees that were involved in giving me such a great customer experience, nobody is likely to even work there anymore. I may not be giving them a lot of money anymore, but every cent is one cent too much for a company showing behaviours as despiccable (to their customers, their employees, and the whole industry) as EIG. I hope their “churn” continues to grow and they will finally, and justly, be wiped off the face of the Internet.
I’m on Ready Hosting, one of the nonstrategic brands. I’ve experienced a price hike of 50% and learned how to beat off Site Lock with a stick. Since 1am this morning, my web site has been unavailable with a 503 error. I’m paid up through April, which means I’m stuck until late this winter.
I think this is news of another big EIG outage at least at one EIG host. I feel helpless and disgusted. The live help techs are polite and attentive, but that’s no substitute for actcual service.
Performance with Arvixe plummeted in July and after a back and forth with their support I finally found out that they migrated servers in July to “increase performance”. Now images take forever to load, it’s like dial-up. It’s like a completely different inferior service compared to June.
They won’t acknowledge any problems and just keep saying that migration has completed and I need to optimize my website but it all loaded fine before July.
So this is what they are up to, migrating servers, cutting performance drastically and increasing the price.