Bluehost.com CEO Email Spam
February 7th, 2006
Over the course of the last year, we have experimented with our share of hosts. Hosting has really become a commodity, and I tend to choose the host depending upon what type of site I plan on running.
I have found Bluehost to be a fantastic solution for hosting my blogs. If you are going to use Wordpress as your blogging platform, Bluehost makes it very simple to get your blog up and running. The pricing is competitive, and the service has always proven reliable. I have a dozen or so domains hosted there, and planned on using them for additional sites in the future.
A couple of hours ago, I received the following email 4 times from Bluehost CEO, Matt Heaton:
Dear Bluehost.com Member
This is Matt Heaton with Bluehost.com. I am writing to you on a somewhat personal issue. Many users have asked me how bluehost.com came to be, and a little about my own background. I have sinced created my own blog (Hosted on bluehost of course) to discuss the genesis of bluehost and to write about some of the issues affecting the hosting industry in general.
I feel a little trepidation when it comes to writing about myself, so if you have no interest in this blog please forgive me for intruding in your inbox
If you do have time though I would be interested in your thoughts regarding my blog.
The URL for my blog is:
Another issue I was hoping members of bluehost could help us with is a “Recommendation List”. I would very much like to put together a list of sites along with a positive comment about your experience with bluehost. If you feel that your experience with Bluehost has been exceptional we would appreciate a small one paragraph statement about your experience along with your domain name. We will compile this list of domains/comments and link to it from the main site (A page rank of 8 ).
Please email your comments directly to me for inclusion at matt@bluehost.com
Thanks for your time!
Matt Heaton / President-CEO / Bluehost.com
I guess Matt simply could not resist the urge to share the earth-shattering news that he had started a blog. I imagine that all the users of Bluehost received this email.
I immediately hit the blog, posted a comment, and grabbed a screenshot - and I am glad that I did, as Matt didn’t approve my comment. Nobody likes being called out on spamming.
Additionally, I was amused to see his appeal for testimonials, promising a link from his site - “A page rank of 8 “, Mr. Heaton is quick to point out. Puhleeeze…
Two cardinal rules broken here, by a CEO, nonetheless:
(1) Spamming your customer base to announce your blog. While it is nice to see more and more people and companies entering the blogosphere, you don’t need to hit your entire user base multiple times announcing it - especially when the blog is brand new. Big deal.
(2) Openly using your pagerank in an attempt to garner goodwill, and praise from your userbase. Here’s a hint: anybody that cares about your pagerank, will know your pagerank. You don’t need to hit people in the face with a brick to get their attention.
Bluehost stock price down big.
*Update - Since writing this, I have received an additional three copies of the same email. Through his spam efforts, Matt has been able accrue almost 300 comments on his initial post.
February 8th, 2006 at 11:02 am
That sucks. You’d think somebody in his position would understand the perils of spamming.
February 10th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
[…] I was checking referrals for my blog, and noticed that I was getting some traffic to my Spammer CEO post. Interestingly, my blog is now pulling (#1) for a query on “matt heaton” bluehost. I found that pretty amusing, and decided to try to drive some additional traffic to the post. So I hopped on over to Digg, and submitted my article. I hit a few of my friends with the post submission, and got a few diggs. I also got a couple of comments. One which reads: Is he kinda like the people who spam their blog links on Digg? […]
February 21st, 2006 at 6:27 pm
Come on! Every konws that my blog is very exciting. I do feel awful that I left out the unsubscribe link. Future “non essential” mailings from bluehost will have the option to opt out and stay opt out. The blog was requested by MANY people. The users wanted a means of getting informal information about future updates to bluehost. I respect your opinion, and you may certainly opt out of future mailings. I also made sure that multiple instances of the same email were removed so you don’t get 4 again. My Bad, but I got it fixed.
Thanks,
Matt Heaton / Bluehost.com
March 29th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
[…] A bit over a month ago, I got all steamed over how the CEO of Bluehost spammed his entire userbase to announce the launch of his personal blog. On his blog, Matt Heaton claims that Bluehost now has over 100,000 customers - that’s a lot of users to send some unsolicited email. In hindsight, I was even more pissed off about how he handled the situation after the fact. Not enough to spam me, but then to not let me comment about it on his blog, and only approve glowing comments - pretty damn lame. […]
May 5th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
I’ve been hosting my sites with BlueHost since 2003 and I also got the email from Mr. Heaton. You seem way too touchy about this whole blog email thing. Chill out. It seemed to me that he was just trying to get feedback regarding the positive experiences that some of his user might have had. I would venture to say that the majority of clients that call their hosting company aren’t calling to give them positive feedback. So asking for feedback wasn’t a surprise to me.
I find it pretty lame that you’ve vested the time you have to whine about this issue. Use your self proclaimed “activist” title to moan about something worthwhile.
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:47 am
August 23rd, 2006 at 11:09 am
My reply from the CEO of bluehost when I posted the above to his blog:
No where does it say we will give you a full refund, and you most CERTAINLY were not down anywhere near 40 hours. Give me a break! Take your $$$ and go find a different host.
We never say anywhere we will give you your money back after 30 days, so for you to expect that is assinine.
Thanks,
Matt Heaton / Bluehost.com
My reply back:
Check your facts Matt, a few days ago I was on box 126 which was down for over over 26 hours! Unacceptable! I did take my money elsewhere, to lunarpages!
September 30th, 2007 at 4:42 am
Andrew I’ve been in customer service for many years and the CEO of several business and I would never have given you a penny back because your attitude sucked. This obviously isn’t the case of a upset customer because of how they were treated, but an arrogant customer who demands that he get his way no matter what. You are the idiot sir.
October 15th, 2007 at 4:35 am
Yes I hear your statement, though I hear them quite differently than Zack Wingo whos been in customer service for years - maybe Zack needs a new job as I’d fire him for his comments here in your posting. I hear your comments as matter of fact statements, while a little flipant - but honestly its just another blog in the world of too many profound ‘nothing really to say’ blogs. I agree, though I suspect you don’t follow instructions well - mr ceo asked for positive feedback. Since none was given by ‘thou’ he’s not posting your comments, you can add them to thier reviews on his site.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
‘Come on! Every konws that my blog is very exciting.’
No it’s not Matt. It’s boring.
‘I do feel awful that I left out the unsubscribe link. Future “non essential” mailings from bluehost will have the option to opt out and stay opt out.’
Yes it is non essential. Please always leave an opt out link.
The blog was requested by MANY people. The users wanted a means of getting informal information about future updates to bluehost. I respect your opinion, and you may certainly opt out of future mailings. I also made sure that multiple instances of the same email were removed so you don’t get 4 again. My Bad, but I got it fixed.
Next time, compile a list of those people and let them know. The other people like us get steamed up.
December 15th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
You could go to SecuritySaint.com and get a stun gun for Matt….LoL. That would spice things up a bit.