March 2018 Update
I can no longer recommend arvixe for your hosting needs. It’s been a long time since I was able to, and should have made this edit long before.
While it is possible they could have fixed some of their issues, I don’t really trust EIG companies to really focus on customer service and uptime.
For this reason, I now ONLY recommend Name Hero. It’s an up and coming company, over 5K businesses use it and it is cloud hosting instead of the old school hosting that Arvixe is using right now.
Customer service is great, everything is great.
In fact, you can read a review of my experience with Name Hero here.
If you’re still looking for a hosting company, I recommend Name Hero 100%.
Original Post Reviewing Arvixe Hosting
I’ve been getting a lot of emails, especially recently about which hosts I recommend. The last few months I’ve been trying out quite a few and seem to be disappointed by a lot of them. It’s so freaking difficult to find a decent hosting company to use for clients, and for my own personal projects.
I’ve been using both Hostgator and Bluehost for years, but have noticed quite the decline in support. I still think they are “good enough” when it comes to hosting but if you anticipate needing a lot of support, I no longer would recommend either of them.
There is another company that I’ve tried out and am extremely impressed with so far. The company is Arvixe.
Arvixe Hosting Review
First off, let me get this out of the way… I’m excited to be an Arvixe affiliate. That means if you get hosting through my link, I get a small commission from it. As many of you know, I do not recommend products, services, software, or anything that I do not personally use or see beneficial for the readers here. Probably one of the reasons my affiliate income is so low. Heh.
Now let me tell you why I recommend them for hosting your website, blog or client websites.
If you read my income report of last month, you will see that one of my goals is to try out an amazon affiliate niche site. I’ve already started it, design is ready and nearly launched. The hosting platform I decided to use was arvixe after I tested out a few clients on the server.
Check this out, load times after moving these clients to Arvixe from HostGator. Nothing else was changed, themes are the same, pictures are the same, everything is the same.
Website | Hostgator Page Load | Arvixe Page Load | Percentage Difference |
---|---|---|---|
Roofing Site 1 | 1.98 seconds | 1.64 seconds | 17.7% |
Roofing Site 2 | 3.45 seconds | 2.37 seconds | 31.3% |
Roofing Site 3 | 2.29 seconds | 1.73 seconds | 24.45% |
Roofing Site 4 | 3.61 seconds | 2.2 seconds | 39.06% |
Roofing Site 5 | 2.83 seconds | 2.03 seconds | 28.27% |
Landscaping Site 1 | 5.21 seconds | 2.87 seconds | 44.91% |
Landscaping Site 2 | 4.53 seconds | 2.94 seconds | 35.1% |
Landscaping Site 3 | 5.13 seconds | 2.48 seconds | 51.66% |
I also have another table showing the difference in sites moved from one of my bluehost servers.
Website | Bluehost Page Load | Arvixe Page Load | Percentage Difference |
---|---|---|---|
HVAC Site 1 | 2.94 seconds | 1.57 seconds | 46.6% |
HVAC Site 2 | 3.30 seconds | 1.96 seconds | 40.61% |
HVAC Site 3 | 2.88 seconds | 2.13 seconds | 26.04% |
HVAC Site 4 | 3.72 seconds | 2.11 seconds | 43.28% |
HVAC Site 5 | 2.48 seconds | 1.89 seconds | 23.79% |
HVAC Site 6 | 3.21 seconds | 2.17 seconds | 32.4% |
HVAC Site 7 | 3.85 seconds | 2.25 seconds | 41.56% |
HVAC Site 8 | 3.69 seconds | 1.42 seconds | 61.52% |
Every site I have moved from hostgator and bluehost to Arvixe has experienced a decrease in page load time…with the exception of one site not listed above but I believe I understand why. I installed quite a few plugins before testing the page speed difference. The one site that did not have a decrease, only had an increase of 3.12 percent.
The amazon affiliate niche site I’m working on, has a loading time of 1.53 seconds right now, though with the addition of a few things I expect it to be around 2 seconds.
A little surprise when it comes to Arvixe
I wanted to get away, or slowly attempt to get away from HostGator and Bluehost due to the EIG acquisition. When I initially signed up to Arvixe, it wasn’t owned by EIG, but 2 weeks later the announcement came that EIG acquired Arvixe for 17 Million bucks. I’m actually not worried about this acquisition.
The support at Arvixe is awesome and this is one of the few EIG properties that is not planning on moving to the EIG datacenter, at least it doesn’t seem that way yet. It seems that the previous owner of Arvixe has a longer leash than what is normal for acquisitions and is still around. The office of Arvixe is completely decentralized which in my opinion gives them the best chance of success as an EIG owned property.
Is it worth moving to?
They have reseller plans that are a bit cheaper than HostGator and the shared hosting is by far better than both bluehost and hostgator. I’ve been pleasantly surprised so far in my experience with them, so whether they make sense for you or not, depends on your situation.
I didn’t move all my clients to Arvixe but I will definitely move more there as I find it more dependable than HostGator and BlueHost and the support is much better, though I don’t often need support.
Another Pleasant Surprise
Total I moved 21 websites to Arvixe. Of those 21 sites 9 experienced at least 1 rank spot increase after the move. 5 websites jumped more than 5 positions after the move. No websites lost rankings at all.
While I do believe that correlation doesn’t equal causation, I also believe that Google noticing page load increases can only help my rankings and client rankings. I believe Google sees it as a sign of engagement. Maybe not engagement in the traditional sense of social shares, likes, comments, social following, etc. but engagement with the internet, the online brand of the business… Google understands and sees these things that people often don’t care much about.
It makes a difference!
Summary
Hosting companies suck. I hate dealing with them because I feel like I have to migrate client sites ALL the freaking time due to a downturn in support or other problems.
Arvixe is a company I like so far and feel confident recommending. However, sometimes recommendations become outdated. If at any point I lose my confidence in Arvixe, I will be sure to let you guys know. I will not recommend something simply for an affiliate commission.
If you’re interested in hosting with Arvixe whether you want to host a simple blog or a large amount of client websites, make sure you save some money (20% off) with the coupon code:IncomeBully
Arvixe also allows for you to choose a location, in the USA, Europe, or Hong Kong for better location performance. Also, signing up through my link will get you access to $100 Google Adwords Credit and $100 Yahoo/Bing Ad Credit. Click here to claim your $200 worth of ad credits. And don’t forget coupon code IncomeBully to save 20%.
Have you used Arvixe? Have you had issues with the major hosting companies? Let me know your thoughts!
Those are some serious pagespeed increases. EIG just buying everything you touch. They’re tracking you for sure.
That’s how I feel. LOL. BTW, the page speed decreased when moving, not increased. This could also be due to different times checking the page speed. I tested again during peak hours and it’s a little less drastic but still noticeably better loading times.
Ya my fault that’s what I meant. Solid man, I just signed up for my new SEO site and will use it for clients as well. Your the man!
Hi Nathan, I was looking at coupons for Arvixe on twitter and found your site but no coupons 🙂 but twitter does work…
I am not too sure about your testing methodology for the hosting but since I need a VPS service anyway and was looking at Arvixe and can’t become affiliate and refer myself or family members I wanted to make sure that you got the commission since I came to your site first and the information I found were well put, nicely laid out and satisfying.
I also looked at your My BLack Box page and you are recommending a German VPS hosting company ?? I looked closer and since I don’t speak German and they don’t have a free 1800 number for any support I might need, I don’t think that this is a good fit for me.
Anyway brother, keep putting good info on your site and I wish you the best success.
Philippe
Hey Philippe, thanks so much for dropping by. I appreciate it!
I’ve been very happy with arvixe so far, of course there are countless ways you can test a host, and what I did was very primitive. The coupon code is “IncomeBully”, giving 20% off the first invoice.
Yes, I do recommend the german VPS company as well. Contabo has been good to me for running some grey hat software. I haven’t had a problem with language barrier yet, though recently I’ve had some issues with their billing system.
Thanks for coming!
Hey,There
I’ve used arvixe and hostgator in the past, for a beginner it’s a bit hard to customize arvixe and get started.I’m thinking of migrating to namecheap ? do you recommend moving to namecheap ? waiting for your review on namecheap.
Shafi, I’m not a fan of Namecheap. Have you tried out bluehost? That’s another popular one. I’ve had bad… very bad experiences with namecheap in the past.
hello,
i had read many bad reviews about arvxe .. many downtime i am also a arvixe affiliate and worried about this review …because i can’t recommend my visitors if there are down times.
The truth is every hosting company has a ton of bad reviews and they all have “problems with downtime”. I haven’t had an issue with any sites on Arvixe yet but I know a few people that have had to go to support and had their issues fixed right away. Support there is top notch. Usually bad reviews of a company, are also accompanied by a link selling another hosting company lol. That’s the way it’s gone for years.
I have quite a few sites hosted there, and it’s been working out perfectly fine for me. Are you not hosting your own sites there?
What Arvixe hosting plan are you using? I’m seriously thinking of switching away from Arvixe. Ridiculously long server response times/TTFB over the past month or so – I’m talking about 4-10 sec just waiting for the server to respond. And their customer support refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem with the server, just suggests that I optimize on my end – yes, I can minify my CSS and JS etc, but none of that is going to fix the huge server response time.
The past month has made me reconsider whether I should be an affiliate for Arvixe. I intend to fully recant my recommendation here soon. It was good while it lasted… server response times have definitely gotten worse, along with outages. I noticed last week one niche site I was working on, was down for 3 hours. Totally unacceptable.
They switched the server block I was on thinking that would help, but it didn’t. They also mentioned they did some migrations, which I believe meant that they migrated more sites to the same server.
I got a hosting plan from Arvixe about 1.5 months ago based on the good reviews all over the internet. Everything was fine until last weekend. But now the server my website is on is down for the last 3 days and counting. Tech support sends emails twice a day claiming they are working on the issue. I revisited the reviews on Arvixe and there are hundreds of complaints about server down or poor tech support etc most made during the last two months. It looks like something really bad going on with this company. Started to think about cancelling my account for a refund. They appear to have a 60 day money back guarantee.
Hate to say it, but take advantage of the money back guarantee while you still can. They’re falling apart and I don’t see them regaining their form in the future.
Arvixe is a con game. The 99% uptime is a joke. As a customer, my domain is on blacklists for spam, because they are constantly being infected with CBL trojan spam virus’s.
Their customer service is a joke, with over an hour wait time and many times refusals to help. The reps are hostile and rude.
Last month my site was down because they migrated to Texas and never bothered to even send an email about the migration.
I’m with arvixe for the last 3 years at least. And I’m moving to a different provider soon. My web sites are down every day a few times from one minute to a few hours. I call support 2-3 times per week. Later, my emails stopped working – it took them 4 days to fix. One is not fixed yet. Will recommend anyone to avoid them. They used to be good, not any more.
I hear ya… Just a few months ago the load times were faster than any other hosting company out there. I’ve never seen a hosting company deteriorate as fast as they are!
hey , I’ve website on Arvixe … i made the wordpress script and it is so slow
i want to move the whole website into bluehost wordpress hosting
what is your opinion sir ?
Bluehost would probably be fine, but keep in mind it is owned by the same company that owns Arvixe. Bluehost overall is pretty stable though, and appears to have survived the EIG process.
well , Now I want To Run My WordPress Website Very Fast
Tell my how please 🙂 ?
Hello Nathan,
That’s quite a difference in page loading speed. Are the websites you tested on WordPress and also have a Caching plugin such as ZenCache installed?
I myself, still host with HostGator & have done for more than 5 years. I too have seen a massive decline in response times on HostGator’s live chat.
The last live chat response time test I did at the end of December 2015, resulted in waiting 42m 33s, compared to 31 seconds for BlueHost.
I don’t require much support, so I’m fine with that, although if any one with little experience need support on a regular basis with HostGator, then buy yourself a dog and take it for a walk while waiting, alternatively, go with BlueHost or Arvixe!
All the best,
Aden Clark.
Hey Aden,
Only 1 of the websites were WordPress, the others were Joomla and Drupal with caching. I need to update this post, because I no longer recommend Arvixe. They’ve really dropped the ball, and the decline has been very rapid.
I agree with you on Hostgator… I’m so glad I don’t require support often at all. I’m currently trying out a few different hosts to find some good alternatives, but in this industry, what is good today can very well be awful tomorrow.
There are definitely alternatives out there. I recently switched to a company called MyLaunchKits (www.mylaunchkits.com) and have had good results so far. Still early but I’m happy with it
Thanks for your input Dave. I’ve been trying out a few other options that seem hopeful so far, but like you said, still early enough that I haven’t really had to test out the support or anything! Will have to check out your recommendation.
the company hosting my site is in a bad mess so i wanted to know if there is a host you can suggest , I am checking the site5 and siteground , but iam not so experienced with many technical aspects that means i also need nice support .Do you have any advice or recommendation to offer? Thank you !
George… I think site5 and siteground are great options. The company I’m really starting to love is NameHero (affiliate link). I’m a new customer, have shared hosting and reseller and their support is top notch. Very good hosting for pretty cheap! I love the fact that it is cloud hosting.
I plan to make a separate post about it soon, but currently, it is the host I like most. It’s hard to find good companies to host with, and I’m tough to please. So far they have exceeded my expectations.
Ah nice , thanks a lot for your response , i might as well give it a try as well.What do you think about the technical a support? Ease of use and Tech support are decisive factors for me ,
thanks!
The longest time it has taken for tech support to respond to a ticket, so far, has been 15 minutes. They said they try to respond within 20 minutes, but overnight it may take a little bit longer. As far as ease to use, I’m not sure what your level of knowledge is. The shared hosting is easy, but if you handle client work or multiple websites you may want to get a reseller account. It’s all pretty easy in my opinion… you have one click installs, pretty straight forward to setup.
I think I would recommend them even to those who have no prior experience, simply because of the tech support.
Hey man, nice. How difficult is it to move? I hate Bluehost and would like to move to Arvixe. Can I do it through your affiliate links?
Don’t do it! Move to namehero instead, they will move everything for you. I can no longer recommend Arvixe, I’ll update this post soon! lol. NameHero
I’ve been with Arvixe for nearly a month and I’m satisfied with the hosting, but I haven’t tried any other hosting. Arvixe is the first webhost I have used. Any opinions?
I like NameHero now… Arvixe has had reliability issues for me and for some people I’ve recommended so I’ve had to stop recommending people to Arvixe.