[deanhills]

This is exactly why we lost HostLease as a sponsor. They used to get a lot of traffic and potential customers through the backlinks at the beginning, so sponsoring the VPSs actually allowed them to get more sales which pay for the sponsored VPSs. However, they no longer get any traffic from those backlinks (due to the reason I’ve mentioned above), so they saw that keeping the sponsorship wasn’t benefitting them anymore. And it’s only a matter of time before the other sponsors might end up doing the same.

With respect and hopefully not to be seen as lack of appreciation to Hostlease as we did enjoy their VPSs, but regarding the claim about "used to get a lot of traffic", this puzzles me.  I specifically don't get the narrative of the traffic and how it generated more sales.  Like how was that measured specifically?  Given in particular that the VPS Plans were being chopped and changed all of the time right from the beginning at end of 2018 to date.  Again you can check the Announcements.  First we had a VPS 15 then VPS 16 on an experimental basis.  Then VPS 15 was withdrawn, then returned, then VPS 16 cancelled and VPS 17 created. And later VPS 18.  Then a monster VPS 16 added back as a gift. Then over the last few months VPS 17 was dropped - we were first told temporarily to overhaul it - then permanently.  We were down to only VPS 18 (2) and VPS 16 (on an end of life basis) over the last few months. Chopping and changing all of the time. So hence also plenty of turnaround in VPS Holders.  I can't see how the traffic could have been measured in those circumstances.  Where did Hostlease get the stats from to measure the performance?

Furthermore, if you check through all of the announcements over the last 14 months we've been experiencing plenty of downtime with Hostlease VPSs compared from before including support discussions informing us the VPSs were down.  A few months back we were told that the sponsorship would end with immediate effect, only to have it reinstated much later with a couple or more weeks of down time when the VPSs had to undergo maintenance yet again - or that is what we were told had to happen.  Like if you check through the announcements you will note countless discussions about issues that Hostlease was experiencing that resulted in down time of the VPSs.  The VPSs were great VPSs, and popular particularly for use as games servers, if and when they were up and running.  But the regular down times couldn't have been good for traffic particularly the down time of longer duration.  So I'm very curious to see how the stats have been generated.