i just came off an instant chat with brian c. at inmotion to see how they handle the issue of ‘heavy traffic’ to a website they host.

i am trying to see if i need to get a ‘business class’ or ‘vps’ (virtual private server) package with them ($6-18 and $40-150 per month) and asked at what usage level it would make sense to jump to the ‘vps’.

his answer was “20-30 concurrent users”. that is a pretty commercial level and i cannot imagine that my site will produce such results anytime soon so i will hang in the launch-power-pro area of their business class for a while first.

before i switch over i will read the terms & conditions and small print.

any advice on what else to look out for? i’m running a site offering tour guide services using wordpress with e.commerce. in the future i’d like to get it wacked into shape for i.phone/smartphone browsing.

Then you’ll be able to update your stats manually

Also, GoDaddy’s support is short, not terribly helpful (they typically blame the problem on you or your site and then if you press them they will investigate to see if there is a server side problem). After modest traffic gains and user complaints about the speed of the site I inquired to GoDaddy as to why the sites were so slow.

First they blamed the amount of content I have on the pages. They are simple magazine style WordPress blogs and forums so content shouldn’t be an issue. After I insisted they investigate the problem on the server side they finally admitted that they only offer 50 concurrent connections to your account (all sites) regardless of whether you are on the “Economy” or “Premium” plan.

I emailed InMotion to see if they have a concurrent hosting limit but I can tell you that if they don’t I will be leaving GoDaddy so quick.

GoDaddy is great if you are going to do a one off static site with low traffic expectations but if you plan to have forums or anything that might draw a crowd, save yourself the trouble (and money) and don’t use GoDaddy.