Well, it seems like Advanced Access just can’t seem to figure out the magic formula to keep the power on. Once again, agents and their clients are reporting that the websites are unavailable. This has been an ongoing problem with Advanced Access for quite some time, even though they claim to have a state-of-the-art backup system in place. The other problem is trying to reach Customer Service to report any problems, as many agents indicate that calls go unanswered or they tire of being on hold forever waiting for a supervisor. All this should change once enough agents bail out and the size of the Advanced Access client base becomes something that they are capable of handling. Is there anyone who can save them before they go under?
Filed under: Media, Outrage, Site Down, news | Tagged: Affilliate Marketing, Finance, Income, internet, Marketing, news, Social Networking, Software, Technology
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[...] 404techsupport wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWell, it seems like Advanced Access just can’t seem to figure out the magic formula to keep the power on. Once again, agents and their clients are reporting that the websites are unavailable. This has been an ongoing problem with Advanced Access for quite some time, even though they claim to have a state-of-the-art backup system in place. The other problem is trying to reach Customer Service to report any problems, as many agents indicate that calls go unanswered or they tire of being on hold forever waiting for a supervisor. All this should change once enough agents bail out and the size of the Advanced Access client base becomes something that they are capable of handling. Is there anyone who can save them before they go under? [...]
The problem isn’t because the servers fail or because there isn’t a reliable backup. It’s because most IP addresses at AA are hosting 800-900 websites! Usually this just results in slow site performance, but during peek times if a few site receive a lot of visitors, it can bring down all the sites that are on that IP range.
AA does have redundancies in place to protect against a server crash. However, if an IP is down because of a spike in traffic then AA is forced to wait out the storm or buy new servers — and with servers being as expensive as they are, that just isn’t going to happen.
My web hosting provider only has 50-70 websites assigned to each IP address and I’m paying about $10 a month. For $30 a month I can upgrade to virtual dedicated hosting and not have to worry about sharing server CPU usage with anyone. Only a site that is receiving hundreds of visitors a day would need this type of hosting.
When looking for a web hosting provider you don’t need to ask what kind of backup they provide. You can & should always backup the website yourself. What’s more important is server speed and uptime.
Without monitoring a site 24/7 or paying a company to do the monitoring for you, it’s pretty hard to know if the 99% uptime guarantee claim is true unless the host publishes their stats. Very few web hosts actually do this.
So instead, you should check to see how many sites are assigned to a single IP address. If you notice something like 100-150 sites being assigned to one IP address, there’s a good chance their servers are maxed out. I’ve personally never seen a host that assigned 800+ sites before until began researching AA.
As of this posting, there are 1,001 websites on IP 64.68.32.40. This is the IP that hosts view-mls-homes.com.
SEO Egg Head has a great tool that will tell you how many sites are on your IP and the domain names of those sites. I use this tool for SEO research to make sure my clients aren’t on an IP that has websites interlinking to each other (remember the Realtor to Realtor linking fiasco?). Check it out by going to: seoegghead.com/tools/what-is-hosted-on-that-ip.php
For more information on the problems with shared IP address check out the article below:
http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/policy/2000-September/000087.html
You brought up a valid argument as to why the sites are often offline, however I have a Point2Agent site and when checking that on the same Egghead link you provided, it shows: Total: 992 hosts
Why would they not have the same downtime issues with almost as many sites on the same IP if that is what’s causing AA’s problem?
The issue isn’t servers… The issue is DNS. That’s why, say only 3.0 OR 4.0 sites go down. The server(s) aren’t going down, what’s pointing TO them is, causing the whole other thing to be “unseen”
My AA email and website has been down since last night (2/15/08). Have called them twice today. No ETA on when issue will be fixed. So glad I spent money advertising in this weekend’s newspaper pointed them to my website for more info and photos. Anyone else experiencing problems?
Mark – Today’s forum is full of comments on agents having problems with their sites, interior pages, and IDX not loading. Why does it always seem to happen on weekends when agents have ads, etc. directing readers to their websites? It seems like AA just plugs along and worries about fixing things after they have their Monday morning coffee. With all the clients bailing out, it doesn’t surprise me that funds are getting tight and the staff is being reduced. If I worked there, I would be sending out my resume before they put up the OUT OF BUSINESS sign.
I have called twice today also. They even acted surprised that I didn’t have service. I have been with them many years and this is getting old. It was also down on Feb. 13th. Does any one have suggestions?
Do what others have done, get set up elsewhere a couple months before your renewal is due and then move the URL over to a new provider. Point2Agent will give you a free 15 page site that you can get familiar with, then once you move the URL to their servers, simply upgrade to the Professional version to get unlimited pages. It shouldn’t be more than a blip on the screen when it is crawled by search engines, especially if you have similar content and an equal number of pages.
Their 35 photo virtual tours, alone, will save you money since you can make them unbranded for both your local MLS as well as upload them to Realtor.com
We’ve been with Server Intellect for our web hosting now for almost a year. We have found that their support team is by far the most friendly, responsive, and knowledgeable that we have ever dealt with in the hosting industry.
The answer to the downtime can be found in one of my other posts here. Read one of my posts from the recent comments on the left side of this page for the answer.
http://aapoweroutage.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/another-down-weekend-for-advanced-access-sites/#comment-175
I just posted a comment to another article discussing the problems with AA. Basically, it took me 6 months but I finally obtained a full refund of the more than $5500 I paid AA for site.
I hate to see anyone going through what I went through and duplicating all of the work I had to do in order to get my money back. So if you think I can help you with your situation with AA, please let me know.
~Amanda
Real Estate Broker & Lawyer