A little while back I buckled down and did some much needed restructuring of my domain registration and web hosting. I made the decision to let more than half of my domains expire, and moved all of the domains I was not letting lapse to Hover.¹ I’m down to 17 domains from over 100. Of those 7 are of the “personal name” variety for me and other family members. Another 3 are for current or previous businesses. And the rest are for various projects.

I’ve been very pleased with Hover. I used their valet service to transfer a number of domains from GoDaddy and it was as seamless an experience as you could hope for. I’ve since registered a handful of domains with Hover for a new project I’m working on and I have absolutely loved the quick and easy checkout experience. It works great from a mobile browser as well. Inspiration often seems to strike when I’ve only got my phone with me. Recommended.

I also moved all of my websites to WebFaction² and have been thrilled with the speed with which my sites now load. Their control panel is a little different than the standard CPanel and has a few little quirks, but I’ve come to like it. Instead of creating a website that becomes the container for the domain, files, database, etc. you create websites/web apps then pair them with domains, databases, etc. Their support has been quick to provide answers to the few questions I’ve had, and I’ve reached the point of confidence where I am pleased that things just work and I don’t have to think about them.

This post was prompted by an email I received today from the WebFaction folks asking if I could tweet out some honest feedback about their service now that I’ve been a customer for a few months. I’m quite satisfied with it, and figured a more thorough endorsement of them (and Hover³) might be useful to others. As a tech community we are quick to complain when we are having trouble with a service; it’s nice to take a moment and celebrate services that are treating us well.