Rackshack On A Roll

Who's benefitting from the turbulence in the web hosting market? Among mass-market hosts, the clear winner in June was dedicated hosting provider Rackshack, according to new data from Netcraft, which provides some of the most useful and detailed information about the world of web hosting. Meanwhile, Verio and Interland saw significant net losses among existing sites as they consolidated data centers - a trend worth noting for Cable & Wireless and Sprint, which made news last month by announcing planned departures from the US hosting market.

A total of 1,066 web sites moved to Rackshack from other providers in June, while 524 Rackshack customers headed elsewhere for a net gain of 542 sites. Rackshack also acquired 3,078 new clients with no prior hosting relationship.

"Particularly notable is the 1,066 sites that Rackshack gained from competitors, over three times the number of the second most successful company, and that Rackshack's gains from competitor's outnumbered losses by two to one," Netcraft noted in its analysis.

Verio and Interland each had substantial growth on the month, but saw net losses among existing sites - a trend that suggests effective marketing, but trouble retaining customers. Verio debuted 2,170 new customer web sites, but saw 593 sites head for other providers, while just 322 migrated from other companies to Verio. Interland brought 1,431 new customer sites online, but saw 479 departures and 276 arrivals among existing sites.

Both Verio and Interland have been consolidating data centers in recent months. Interland said last week that it exited five data centers, reducing its hosting footprint from 60,000 square feet to 27,000 square feet. The company moved more than 3,800 servers to remaining data centers in Atlanta and Miami, and moved more than 95,000 customer accounts.

Netcraft is a British firm that provides network services and data. Their web site allows you to enter a domain name and learn the web host, web server software and uninterrupted uptime for that domain. In recent weeks they've added the new data on customer switching between hosting providers, updated on a monthly basis. It's a paid product, but this type of information could be really useful for providers doing a competitive analysis. While most companies know which hosts they're winning customers from, they probably have less information about who's winning business away from them.