Company Information
In 2003, Jonathan Meersman, a college professor who teaches web design and development courses, founded hostingspot.com. He wanted to create an affordable, all-inclusive, third-party web hosting resource for his students.
What started as a learning resource for his students grew into a full-fledged, third-party web hosting company serving both public and private sectors.
In December 2008, the company was sold to Eileen Soto, a web designer of Greendale, WI and a former student of Meersman. Soto plans to continue providing affordable for educational and commercial users but is also branching out as a web hosting community.
- To provide affordable complete web hosting
- To foster a free forum for web designers to network
- To be a support system for new web designers by providing friendly and patient technical service
Hosting Spot, Inc. is Your One-Stop Web Hosting Spot
We specialize in managing Microsoft Windows NT, Unix FreeBSD, and ColdFusion servers. We provide a complete solution to meet your web hosting demands - from development languages such as ASP.NET and PHP, to MS SQL Server and MySQL databases. We have plans for basic sites, as well as Premier eCommerce sites with osCommerce Shopping Cart and SSL capabilities. Our plans are competitively priced and our services are very reliable. Compare: Windows | Unix
Hosting Spot offers 40% discounts to educational customers
Hosting Spot was founded in 2003 by Jonathan Meersman, a college professor who teaches a variety of web design and development courses. He was looking for an affordable, all-inclusive, third-party web hosting option for his former students who wanted to start their own web sites. He believed that part of the learning process for students is to experience the same service that a third party company offers in the real world. Hosting Spot was founded to service this need, but has continued to grow by servicing clients in the public and private sectors.
Hosting Spot offers leading Web hosting plans at competitive prices
In order to keep your costs down, we provide shared web hosting services, which means that web sites for multiple customers are served from the same web server. This is the most common form of web hosting available in the industry. Each web site is still able to have its own domain name. Shared hosting is a very cost-effective solution for most small businesses and individuals, as requirements are not as complex as large corporations. Rest assured that your sites are using the same software and hardware as many large corporations - you're just sharing the space with other small companies in order to utilize web services more efficiently and to save money. Check out our server cluster configuration.
Hosting Spot is here to support you
Our Technical Support team offers a wide variety of 24/7 support options to help you quickly get the answers to your questions. For you to search, we have over 45 tutorials, a control panel user manual, and a knowledge base FAQ section. Our Trouble Ticket system, email, and voicemail are monitored after regular business office hours and on weekends.
Hosting Spot servers are very reliable
We average over 99.95% uptime. We have network operations in two separate datacenter facilities in Dallas, Texas, and Orlando, Florida. They are fully meshed and redundant with multiple backbone providers. Both datacenter facilities offer complete redundancy in power, HVAC, fire suppression, network connectivity, and security. The datacenter facilities are monitored at all times - 24/7/365.
Privacy Policy top
Our privacy policy is quite simple...
Under no circumstances will we share your information with anyone else, for any reason, without your permission.
1. Coverage Definitions
This Service Level Agreement (SLA) applies to you (the "customer") if you have ordered any of the web hosting account services from Hosting Spot, Inc. (the "Services") and your account is current (i.e., not past due) with Hosting Spot. As used herein, the term "Web Site Availability" means the percentage of a particular month (based on 24-hour days for the number of days in the subject month) that the content of customer's web site is available for access by third parties via HTTP, as measured by Hosting Spot.
2. Service Level
Goal: Hosting Spot's goal is to achieve 100% Web Site Availability for all customers.
Remedy: Subject to Sections 3 and 4 below, if the Web Site Availability of the customer's web site is less than 99.9% in any month, Hosting Spot will issue a credit to the customer in accordance with the following schedule, with the credit being calculated on the basis of the monthly service charge for the affected Services:
Web Site Availability Credit Percentage
99.9% to 100% 0%
95% to 99.8% 10%
90% to 94.9% 50%
89.9% or below 100%
Customer must immediately report any outages to Hosting Spot by one of the following methods: opening a Trouble Ticket from the Customer's control panel, emailing support@hostingspot.net, or by calling toll free 888-4MY-SPOT.
3. Exemptions
Customer shall not receive any credits under this SLA in connection with any failure or deficiency of Web Site Availability caused by or associated with:
Circumstances beyond Hosting Spot's reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, armed conflict, embargo, fire, flood, strike or other labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of or interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services, failure of third party software (including, without limitation, ecommerce software, payment gateways, chat, statistics or free scripts) or inability to obtain supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of this SLA;
Failure of access circuits to Hosting Spot's network, unless such failure is caused solely by Hosting Spot;
Scheduled maintenance and system upgrades with at least 24 hours notice, occurring between the hours of 1am and 4am Central Standard Time, and lasting for less than 30 minutes;
DNS (Domain Name Server) Propagation;
DNS issues outside the direct control of Hosting Spot;
Issues with FTP, POP, IMAP, or SMTP customer access;
E-mail or webmail delivery and transmission;
Outages elsewhere on the Internet that hinder access to your account. Hosting Spot is not responsible for browser or DNS caching that may make your site appear inaccessible when others can still access it. Hosting Spot will guarantee only those areas considered under the control of Hosting Spot: Hosting Spot's server links to the Internet, Hosting Spot's routers, and Hosting Spot's servers.
Customer's acts or omissions (or acts or omissions of others engaged or authorized by customer), including, without limitation, custom scripting or coding (e.g., CGI, Perl, HTML, etc), any negligence, willful misconduct, or use of the Services in breach of Hosting Spot's Terms and Conditions;
False SLA breaches reported as a result of outages or errors of any of Hosting Spot measurement systems;
4. Credit Request and Payment Procedures
In order to receive a credit, customer must make a request for credit by email (admin@hostingspot.com) or fax (888-469-7768) to Hosting Spot. Each request in connection with this SLA must include customer's account number (per Hosting Spot's invoice) and the dates and times of the unavailability of customer's Web site and must be received by Hosting Spot within ten (10) business days after customer's web Site was not available. After the unavailability is confirmed by Hosting Spot, credit will be applied to the customer's account within one billing cycle after Hosting Spot's receipt of the customer's credit request.
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, the total amount credited to customer in a particular month under this SLA shall not exceed the total hosting fee paid by customer for such month for the affected Services.
Terms of Service top
Terms & Conditions
This is a legal and binding agreement between you, the Customer, and Hosting Spot, Inc. By using, installing or accessing the Hosting Spot web site, the Services and certain Products that are offered, as our Customer you agree to all of the terms and conditions of this agreement. If you do not agree to these terms, the Acceptable Use Policy or any other Terms and Conditions posted on the Hosting Spot web site, all services will be discontinued, activation of the account will cease and your account terminated. All customers must agree to comply with Hosting Spot's Terms and Conditions of Use prior to sign up. This policy was created to ensure that all of our customers receive equally high quality service.
Adult Content
Hosting adult-oriented sites or links, pornography, and sex-related merchandising is prohibited. This is also true for sites that promote any illegal activity or content that may be damaging to our servers or any other server on the Internet, or provide links to such sites.
Illegal Content
Transmission, storage, or distribution of any information, data, or material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: copyrighted material; or other intellectual property rights used without proper authorization; material that is obscene, defamatory, or constitutes an illegal threat. Examples of unacceptable content or links include: Warez sites, hacker programs, copyrighted MP3, and IRC bots. Hosting Spot reserves all rights to refuse such content from our servers.
Security
Violations of system or network security are prohibited and may result in criminal and civil liability. Examples include but are not limited to the following: unauthorized access, use, probing, or scanning of Hosting Spot's servers and network; interference with service to any user, host, or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system, broadcast attacks; spoofing or modifying of any TCP-IP packet header or any other header information in an email or a newsgroup posting.
Server Resources
Any web site that uses a high amount of server resources (such as, but not limited to, CPU time, memory usage, and network resources) will be given the option to either pay additional fees (which will depend on the resources required) or reduce the resources used to an acceptable level. Hosting Spot shall be the sole arbiter of what is considered to be a high server usage level. Any web hosting account deemed to be adversely affecting server or network performance will be shut down without prior notice.
CGI Scripts
Any CGI-scripts deemed to be adversely affecting server performance or network integrity will be shut down without prior notice.
Chat Rooms
Hosting Spot does not allow customers to install chat rooms on their own. Chat rooms tend to require significant system resources and therefore must be approved prior to installation.
IRC
Hosting Spot does not allow IRC or IRC bots to be operated on our servers.
Unsolicited Email - SPAM
Spamming, the sending of unsolicited mass email from or through a Hosting Spot server or using an email address that is maintained on a Hosting Spot machine is STRICTLY prohibited. Hosting Spot will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. Customers are also in violation of this provision if they engage in spamming using the service of another ISP or IPP, but channel activities through a Hosting Spot server as a mail drop for responses. Violators will be assessed a minimum fine of $300 and/or immediate suspension of service.
Server Abuse
Any attempts to undermine or cause harm to a Hosting Spot server or customer are strictly prohibited.
Software Distribution
Hosting Spot's shared web hosting accounts are not configured for the purposes of distributing software and/or multimedia products. If you wish to distribute software and/or multimedia files, please contact sales@hostingspot.com to make special arrangements.
Domain Name Registration Renewal
If you purchase a domain name during the sign up process, it will also automatically be renewed within 10 days of expiration. You will automatically be billed using the same payment method that you selected during sign up. Should you decide to cancel your account and/or domain name, you must open up a Trouble Ticket to the Billing department to make your request at least 10 days prior to the end of your term.
Copyright Violations
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") sets forth the requirements for valid copyright infringement notification. If you would like to notify Hosting Spot of an infringement of your copyright, the DMCA requires that you:
Send your notification to Hosting Spot's designated agent. You may reach us at admin@hostingspot.com.
Include in your notification the following information:
A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf (the "Claimant")
Identification of the copyrighted work(s) claimed to have been infringed
Identification of the material claimed to infringe the copyright(s), and enough information for Hosting Spot to locate it
The Claimant's name, address, and telephone number(s)
A statement that the Claimant has a good faith belief that use of the disputed material is not authorized by the copyright owner or his agent
A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification of copyright infringement is accurate and that the Claimant is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner
Actions Taken by Hosting Spot
The failure by a customer to meet or follow any of the above Terms of Use is grounds for account suspension. Hosting Spot will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of the Terms of Use. Hosting Spot reserves the right to remove any account without prior notice. Hosting Spot may, at its sole discretion, restrict, suspend, or terminate a customer's web hosting account and/or pursue other civil remedies. If such violation is a criminal offense, Hosting Spot will notify the appropriate law enforcement authorities of such violation. Hosting Spot does not issue credits for outages incurred through service disablement resulting from Terms of Use violations. Hosting Spot's customers agree to indemnify and hold harmless Hosting Spot from any claims resulting from the use of our services that damages them or any other party. Hosting Spot service is provided on an as is, as available basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. Hosting Spot expressly disclaims any representation or warranty that Hosting Spot service will be error-free, secure or uninterrupted. No oral advice or written information given by Hosting Spot, its employees, licensers or the like, will create a warranty; nor may you rely on any such information or advice. Hosting Spot and its partners and suppliers will not be liable for any cost or damage arising either directly or indirectly from any transaction or use of the service.
Refund Policy
Every hosting account at Hosting Spot comes with a 30-day money back guarantee. If you are unsatisfied within the first 30 days after purchasing your account for any reason, just send an email to admin@hostingspot.com and you will be given a prompt refund. If you wish to cancel a quarterly or yearly billed account after the first 30 days, there is no penalty, and you will be refunded for the number of unused months remaining in your contract. Domain registration and overage fees are not refundable.
Modification
Hosting Spot reserves the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of its Terms of Use at any time with or without official notice.
HostingSpot's Network top
Hosting Spot's newest H-Sphere cluster is located in our Network Operations facility located in Orlando, Florida. We utilize bandwidth, power, and connectivity from the new, ultra-modern datacenter located at 100 W. Lake Lucerne in Orlando.
Bandwidth Providers
Providing intelligent route control utilizing UUNET, ATT, Sprint, Verio, Cable and Wireless, Global Crossing, GTE/BBN, Qwest, Digex, and Level3.
Cogent's end-to-end optical network consists of multiple metropolitan IP-over-WDM fiber rings located in Cogent's major markets throughout the United States and Europe. Network Map
Local Network Map in PDF Format
Complete Network in PDF Format
Network Services
Hosting Spot Inc. managed network provides our customers with fully redundant, high speed, state-of-the-art network access and the added benefit of working through Hosting Spot Inc., "Your One-Stop Web Hosting Spot" as your single vendor for systems, managed services, and connectivity.
Data/Colocation Center
We ensure a secured environment established to comply with the strict requirements of both Data and Telco Grade facilities. Each center provides UPS and diesel generator power backup, redundant HVAC systems, environmental monitoring, double detection pre-action fire suppression.
Connectivity
Hosting Spot Inc. provides connections to multiple backbones to ensure the fastest possible delivery of data to your end-users. Our network utilizes high-speed switched Ethernet and we connect with multiple tier-1 upstream providers for redundancy and optimal routing of your traffic.
Multi-Homed Network
We provide transit from a number of backbone providers to ensure your users receive the fastest access to your Web site and fast packet return delivery.
BGP4 - Routed Network
We employ the standard Border Gateway Protocol (BGP4) in our network to ensure that data is routed via best case routing. Each packet of information is evaluated and sent over the best possible route. In the event of a router failure, packets are automatically directed to another route in our redundant network architecture.
Guaranteed Packet Delivery
Hosting Spot Inc. offers superior reliability of data by guaranteeing minimal packet loss in the network. And, we work with our network providers to ensure that all packets leave our network at the highest contracted speeds and are delivered to your end-users.
Bandwidth Utilization
Our networks are designed to ensure excess capacity exists even in peak operating hours. We demand that excess bandwidth be the norm, even during the largest traffic spikes. We continue to add new connectivity/routes to ensure that this excess is retained and your content is sent to your end-users as efficiently as possible.
Network Providers
Our Network Providers are also our Technology Partners. They work with us to establish best-of-breed services for our network access, and they provide carrier services to our colocation customers. We have selected tier-1 upstream providers that deliver peering access for optimal routing.
Operating System Flexibility
We recognize that different platforms excel in different applications and hosting. We have developed expertise in multiple platforms to allow customers to select the platform that meets their performance and budget needs. Customers can select from Microsoft Windows NT, Linux, or FreeBSD.
Web Monitoring
We offer Web monitoring as an option to our customers. Web monitoring gives you critical insights into the performance of your online transactions, your Web pages, and your media streams.
Scalability
Scale your server configurations to the needs of your business. Outsourcing your infrastructure allows you to start small, with only the hardware you require, and build your network as your needs grow. And yet, you benefit from the amenities of a large data center with high-speed network access.
Industry Leading Service Level Agreement
We provide best-in-industry performance guarantees on uptime, network speed, and reliability by way of minimal packet loss. Check out our Service Level Agreement.