Web hosting support teams have to deal with a wide variety of issues. Many issues are purely technical. Others are a matter of communication between the hosting company and the customer. Some might just be the result of getting upset (who wouldn’t get upset after seeing their site go down?). To truly succeed in the saturated web hosting market, web hosts need to address the issues with a smile on their face and the best technical solutions at hand.

Here are the five most common web hosting issues I have seen from my experience in web hosting and how to address them:

1. How do I login to my account?
One of the first questions a new web hosting customer has after sign-up is “how do I login to my account?” It is a good question that often has two parts:

• Where do I go to login?
• What login information do I use?

The answer to both of questions may be right in front of you. Most web hosts send a well structured and thorough welcome email to new customers with account information, IP addresses, nameservers and a control panel URL to login and access your account. Most support teams should be able to answer the question without any trouble, but to make sure you get the service as quickly as possible, have all of the information you might need to verify your account handy. Include the last four digits of your credit card number, your domain name, name, etc. in the initial support ticket/email and it will help move the process along much faster.

2. Why isn’t my email working?
A lot of shared hosting customers use their accounts for email and that’s about it. Because of this, a lot of questions are about email. Common reasons for email not working are:

• The entire account and/or email account are exceeding their respective disk quotas
• The the password is incorrect
• The account is configured incorrectly
• There is a server level issue.

To fix these issues, check out your account and the configuration of your account in your email client first. See if email can be sent from webmail. If it can, then the problem is likely with the configuration of your desktop client. Try setting it up again, and if it still doesn’t work, ask your host to check into the account further.

3. How do I install –script-?
Many customers will signup with a web host with the specific intent of setting up a particular script (i.e. WordPress, Joomla, phpBB). How to set these scripts up (or what software to use) should be explained in a getting started section of your web site. How to access the getting started section should be prominently featured in the welcome email and when a customer emails or calls to ask how to setup the particular script, the representative that works with that customer can point them to that section of your web site and explain how it can help them. New customers should always be on the look out for programs like Fantastico, which make installing a variety of scripts a one minute process. Always check for Fantastico or a similar program before signing up for a web host if you think being able to easily install common scripts is important to you.

4. How do I get more domains working on my account?
The processes surrounding addon and parked domains can be very confusing to new web hosting customers. Addon and parked domains need to have the same DNS as the primary domain. Parked domains don’t do much, whereas add-on domains are usually fully functional domains within your primary control panel. Sometimes an addon domain will not be added properly on the server level, so if it still does not work after 48 hours, ask your web host to check into it.

5. How do I get my new site working?
This is a common question that mainly results from customers, usually new site owners, who have no idea what they need to do to get their website up and running. Many customers are confused with whether or not they need to transfer their domain to get it working at a particular host or if they just need to change their name servers. Some customers are still sorting out the difference in domain registrar and web host. These types of issues are almost always explained in the web host’s getting started guide and the short version (change your nameservers to get your site working right away and for the least money) should be mentioned prominently in the welcome email.

Some companies have special “getting started specialists” that deal exclusively with new customers, whereas others don’t differentiate between new and existing customers. It is often helpful to let representatives know you are a new customer and what your level of technical expertise is so they can adjust their answers accordingly.

These are just five of the many common issues that web host support teams encounter. Being able to put your hands on documentation that is well written, frequently updated, and most importantly, easy to understand, can make the difference between a hectic website launch and a smooth one. It is important to remember that Google is your friend, and oftentimes, the knowledge bases you find on other companies’ web sites can be just as useful as the one your own hosting company provides.

And of course, customer service representatives will appreciate you taking the time to explain the issue you’re experiencing fully. The more details you can include (in an easily readable format), the more help they can be and the sooner they can help to resolve your issue.

If you’re looking for the $50 Thinkhost coupon, it is redwood_5095015b

The story of ThinkHost is simple; the company realized that web hosting is bad for the environment (data centers take up a lot of energy) and decided to do something about it. Their solution? Run all services on 100% renewable energy. They also plant a tree for every new customer. The result? A “green” hosting company that actually helps, instead of devastates, the
environment.

Putting the aspect of green hosting aside, though, ThinkHost offers competitive plans and quality service. Their standard plan offers 100 GB of disk space and 1000 GB of bandwidth, along with some nice features like PHP 5 and Ruby on Rails, for $7.95 a month (assuming you pre-pay for two years). If you only want to pay for a six month period, the cost will ramp up to $19.95 a month.

In addition to providing standard hosting features (unlimited databases, unlimited email, etc.), the company includes a variety of software and services with its hosting plans, ranging from a call with a business consultant to discounts on environmentally friendly paper products.

ThinkHost customers are offered a custom control panel. The control panel isn’t as powerful as cPanel, but it gets the job done. It’ll work for a vast majority of web sites and allows for fairly complete management of a particular web site. Those use to cPanel may experience a bit of a learning curve, but again, it is a manageable change.

Those seeking phone or IM support should look elsewhere – ThinkHost offers neither. To test their email support, I submitted a simple question to their support team using the company’s online helpdesk at 2:30 PM on a Sunday. I received a response 20 minutes later. The answer to my exact question was actually available in the company’s knowledge base and that’s what the company sent me. However, the answer was appropriate and did answer my question.

The company offers a 120 day money back guarantee and a 100% uptime guarantee. The 100% uptime guarantee isn’t exactly “no strings attached, though. It only applies if you submit a ticket to their support team to report the problem and it doesn’t provide you with a full refund if your web site goes down for a few minutes. However, the offer is unique and the money back guarantee period is one of the longest ones in the industry.

ThinkHost prides itself on being a “green” host. If that is of value to you, the company is a great choice. The company offers relatively competitive hosting plans with enough space, bandwidth, and technology to keep any webmaster happy.

Update: ThinkHost now has 24/7 Phone Support.

Dotster Plans

Dotster’s space and bandwidth allocations for its shared plans are moderately competitive, but the plans do require a closer look. Those used to normal cPanel oversellers will notice a difference in Dotster’s plans: the company limits the number of email addresses and mailbox sizes. For heavy email users, this can be a serious problem. They also limit FTP accounts, databases, domains, and the like. It’s important to consider what extra features your web site will require before choosing a host like Dotster.

In addition to its standard plans, Dotster offers VPS hosting running on both Linux and Windows platforms. Email hosting is also offered and some plans come with and even focus around a SiteBuilder that makes it easy to create a simple web site.

Dotster adopts the standard industry practice of encouraging customers to pay in advance. They allow pre-payment of up to five years in advance, representing a 30% savings over the yearly plan. Comparatively, though, the savings that Dotster offers for paying so far in advance are relatively insignificant. This also means that you don’t have to pay too much extra if you want to signup for a shorter period of time.

As the plans get more expensive, the payment schedule gets more flexible. The most expensive plan (which is $25.95 a month when paid monthly) allows you to pay monthly, quarterly, yearly, every two years, every three years, and every five years.

Dotster uses a custom control panel. From the control panel, you can manage essentially every aspect of your account (including domain names). The control panel is surprisingly intuitive and offers all of the expected features. Email, FTP accounts, databases, etc. can all be managed as expected from Dotster’s custom control panel.

Testing Dotster

Upon testing, FTP speeds seemed to be reasonable and comparative to those of other hosts. The control panel loaded quickly and without errors.

Support at Dotster does not seem to be a top priority or a competitive differentiator; it seems to be more of an after thought. The company has an extensive knowledge base and provides support via a helpdesk, live chat, and the telephone. However, live chat and telephone support are only offered on weekdays during normal business hours. I sent a simple request to the company’s support team at 2:15 PM on a Sunday and received a reply Monday night at 8:03 PM. When it takes more than 24 hours to receive an email response, that does cause concern.

Who isn’t enticed by the flashy banners and scrolling links advertising “FREE WEB HOSTING!” anywhere and everywhere on the web? With everyone and their brother now owning a blog or website, these free services are just as popular today as when they first hit the market around 1995. Any webmaster worth his salt remembers the days of Geocites and Angelfire and the frustrations that ensued. And as we’ve all learned by now, anything that’s “free” is bound to have a caveat…so what’s the deal with free web hosting? It seems like such a great proposition on the surface: you give me a place to park my web page and I’ll let you post a few ads on said page. Simple!

Not so fast. As it turns out, with free web hosting (and nearly everything else on the web), you get what you pay for.

The Longevity Issue: Have you noticed that you don’t really hear about Lunarpages or Tripod sites anymore? That’s because like most free hosting services, these giants of industry eventually went paid. One of the biggest pitfalls of free web hosting is that your site is often about as stable as a house of cards: if your free host decides to go the way of paid or (que horror!) shuts down altogether, your site and the countless hours spent on it could be down the drain. Hosting is an undeniably important element of your site, much like the foundation of a house. In real life, would you build your house on top of a fault line? Probably not.

The Question of Ownership: So, who owns your website, exactly? If you’re online with a free web host you’re likely using some sort of subdomain (freehosting.clickfire.com) or folder on the host’s site (www.clickfire.com/freehosting). This technically means you don’t actually “own” your URL or even the content on your site, if your host wants to play dirty. So what happens if you want to switch hosts? You risk losing your URL altogether which can cause a butterfly effect across all your other marketing efforts, just like changing the name of your business would in the real world. Some free hosts allow you to buy a premium, traditional domain name, but once you’re buying, you’re no longer talking about free web hosting…

The Bait and Switch: So you’ve found a great free hosting service and so far, everything’s working out exactly as planned. Then one day when you’re checking your email, between the eBay notifications and endless suggestions from Netflix, you find this (taken from an actual email received 1 year after signing up for a “free web hosting” service):

Dear Customer,

Your hosting account ‘xxxxx’ has expired on May 10, 2011. Currently, your website and e-mail addresses are not operational. To avoid further downtime, please renew the account.

To renew your account please follow these steps:

1. Login to your hosting Control Panel here:
RipYouOffFreeHosting.com/login.html

2. Click on the ‘Renew Plan’ link located in the upper left corner of the Control Panel (under Upgrades).

3. If you have added any additional service upgrades to your account, you can select which you’d like to renew as well.
After you complete these steps all you have to do is to proceed to the secured payment page. We accept multi-currency payments via two methods – credit/debit cards and PayPal.

If you have any questions regarding our service or if you need someone to help you with renewing your account or domain name, feel free to contact us by opening a new ticket inside the Control Panel (click Open New Ticket in the Help Center section).

Thank you for using our services!

Best Regards,
RipYouOffFreeHosting.com Team

It’s only then you remember that you didn’t actually read all the fine print and, wait, was there any fine print? Either way, your free web hosting service now has you in a stranglehold, pay up or get out. Since most people aren’t overly excited to give back the domain they’ve been working on for months or even years, hosting companies like this usually get what they want: money. And since you’re between a rock and a hard place, hosts know they can charge you a premium to keep your site running. Ever join one of those companies that offered “12 CDs for only one penny!” only to have a collection agency call when you didn’t buy 24 more at retail price? Yeah, it’s kind of like that.

There are a lot of things to consider when you’re choosing a hosting company for your website, particularly if you’re planning on running a business off the site. Though paid hosting can feel like a wasted expense, try to think of it in more tangible terms: do most retailers choose to rent out commercial space for a fee or do they simply set up shop at the nearest abandoned building? It’s important to remember that with paid hosting services, you’re getting more bang for your buck – the peach of mind knowing you actually own your site, additional bandwidth, site space and editing tools and most importantly, reliable customer service.

If you’re considering going the way of free web hosting, remember to vet your choice thoroughly. The longer a hosting service has been around, the better, but make sure you ask yourself: how is my free host making money? Odds are, you won’t be able to ride for free forever, so consider at what point you’re going to get dinged for some element of the service and decide if it’s worth the additional risk. Most site owners eventually determine that paying for web hosting is a necessary evil, much like Twitter and, you know, health insurance. The more you shell out for a competent web host now, the less you’re likely to have to pony up later.

6/19/11 – Heather Jean also contributed to this post.

I’ve covered the web hosting industry as a journalist since 2005. Through my reporting, I’ve covered and written about countless web hosting companies. While I can be considered a relative newbie to some people, the industry is still pretty new. Many of the industry’s hottest players and companies are young. The people are in their twenties and thirties and their companies have only been around for 3 – 5 years. It’s still easy for newcomers to enter the industry and make a significant impact. That is one of the reasons web hosting appeals to so many and is such a fast growing industry.

Intense competition can make working at a web host, especially in a marketing role, very difficult. Because the barrier to entry is so low, there are thousands of web hosting companies. Even when one ignores the very small companies (which still have customers), there are still hundreds of serious players in the industry. These serious players are extremely competitive and the competition for customers is fierce. They all try to out market each other, offer more features, and essentially differentiate themselves however possible. They increase space and bandwidth allocations (often in vain), promise better support, and load every imaginable feature onto a budget hosting plan. This can make a working environment stressful. However, many people like, and excel under, that level of stress and with such intense competition.

The web hosting business can be complicated. A large web hosting company is in charge of managing hundreds (sometimes thousands) of servers. There are thousands of things that can wrong with each of these servers, especially when you put a couple of hundred clients on each one of them. The abuse department at a sizable web hosting company will be deal with spamming, phishing, and pornography on a day to day basis. The three situations/problems are to be expected at a web hosting company. Tens of thousands of clients, hundreds of thousands of web sites, and thousands of servers make for a very complicated business. When businesses get complicated, operating the business smoothly can become very difficult.

When web hosting companies put “fast paced working environment” on their employment, they mean it. Working at a busy web hosting company can often seem like a blur because the businesses move so quickly. There is always work to do, the management is always busy, and something is always happening. A big web hosting company will see hundreds or thousands of questions come in from existing and potential customers a day. At most companies, 95% of these questions are pretty simple and can be solved by level 1 (usually the lowest level with the least experience) technicians. The rest have to be elevated to level 2 or level 3 technicians who have more experience. Elevations can be frustrating for customers and stressful for employees.

Some web hosting companies move slower, though. I’ve worked with and covered relatively small (under 15 employees) companies. At these companies, things are still very busy, but calmer. There are statistically fewer things that can go wrong and the staff at the smaller companies is often closer. The management at smaller companies is often more involved with day-to-day operations and has a closer eye on what’s happening at the front lines. Working at a smaller host is a much different experience than working at larger one. Who enjoys which environment more depends entirely on the person.

Something that is important to keep in mind is that the most finely tuned, most advanced web hosting companies can still be hectic. Rackspace Managed Hosting, one of the largest dedicated server providers in the industry, was hectic when a truck crashed into one of their power sources and a chain reaction of events caused one of their major data centers to go down. This happened at a web host with one of the most advanced networks and arguably the most technical talent of pretty much any web hosting company in the industry. What will happen to a particular host can’t always be predicted and it is that level of unpredictability that makes the industry so hectic.

A web host company organization vary’s depending on size. This is a very general idea of what a web hosting company org chart might look like:

• Top Level: CEO / Owner
• 2nd Level: Director of Customer Service, Sales/Marketing Director, CTO, sometimes a General Manager
• 3rd Level: Senior Administrators, Frontline Supervisors, Bookkeeper, Human Resources, etc.
• 4th Level: Level 1 and 2 Reps (Sales, Tech, Billing)

No matter what your title at a particular web hosting company is, if you work in the industry, be prepared for a set of unique challenges. You’ll deal with every sort of person with every sort of situation you can imagine. It’s fun most of the time and frustrating some of the time. Regardless of the situation and the company, working at a web hosting company is certainly a unique experience. If you enjoy a fast paced working environment that is constantly changing and evolving, web hosting might be for you.

First impression of DreamHost is “Wow, this is a lot of space and bandwidth, for cheap.” Note: after this review was written, disk space and bandwidth have gone to unlimited. Once you navigate through DreamHost.com’s slightly 2000-esque web site that’s kind of hard to navigate, you’ll find out that it’s true.

For $8.95 per month, you can get “unlimited” storage and “unlimited” Terabytes of bandwidth (per month). The resource quotas also increase by 160 MB (storage) and 8 GB (bandwidth), weekly. Many other features (email, domains/subdomains, MySQL, FTP, etc.) are also unlimited. Their plans do have a $49.95 setup fee, but it’s not that big of a deal if you intend to keep your site simple. Setup is waived if you pay for one year or more.

DreamHost’s activation process is somewhat clunky and definitely not streamlined. Though the actual process is simple for a customer, when you throw in the free domain registration (included with most accounts), prepare your inbox! I think by the time I was up and running, they had sent me about 10 emails with various information about billing, passwords, control panels, and what not. Once you digest all of it, it does make sense and is helpful, but it’s not streamlined. It doesn’t taken very long for you to get up and running so DreamHost can be forgiven.

By far my least favorite thing about them is their control panel. It has the basics and a few nice extra features, but it’s clunky and difficult to figure out right away. The terminology is different than what a lot of web hosts use, but once you figure it out, it isn’t too bad. I’d definitely pick cPanel over this, but you can’t always pick. From their control panel you can view and manage all of your billing, domains, usage details, pre-installed scripts, emails, users, and all of that jazz. There’s a few nice addons like an ad-free version of DreamBook (a fancy guestbook application), a nifty affiliate system dubbed “Rewards” that lets you create your own promo codes and decide your payout, and quite a few other things.

Uptime and support has been good enough. For my simple needs, I only had to contact DreamHost once and I received a reply within a few hours. Uptime hasn’t been bad at all (I haven’t noticed any downtime, but I don’t pro-actively monitor it). All in all, DreamHost is great for a simple site that isn’t mission critical.

Pros: lots of space and bandwidth, cheap, some nifty addon features, awesome affiliate program
Cons: clunky control panel, lack of good statistics programs, phone support is limited to certain amount of calls per month, only shared hosting (no reseller or dedicated)
Bottomline: For a simple site that needs lots space and bandwidth, and not much else, DreamHost is probably as good as it gets.
Rating:

Visit DreamHost.com

Use CLICKFIREPROMO DreamHost promo code for 50% off first year, new customers.

BlueHost and HostGator are two well known web hosting companies. They’ve both been reviewed here at Clickfire and are both regarded as leaders in the web hosting industry. Each company received a 5 star rating in its respective review and both companies had far more pros than cons listed.

So which one is better? This little analysis will hopefully help answer that question.

Features

The features offered by the two companies are essentially the same. You can get a fully functional cPanel account with things like a site builder and Fantastico from either company. Both BlueHost and HostGator support Ruby on Rails and PHP5. You can get as many email and FTP accounts as you need and the way you manage them is pretty much the same. Each company has detailed plan pages that outline exactly what they do and don’t support.

BlueHost does not offer reseller or dedicated hosting. HostGator, on the other hand, has fairly extensive offerings for customers who require reseller or dedicated hosting accounts.

Guarantees

One thing that can be of concern is that BlueHost does not have any meaningful uptime guarantee. According to a sales representative I spoke to, all their uptime guarantee (99.9%) allows you to do is cancel and get a pro-rated refund. They won’t compensate you if the site is down. At HostGator, most of their plans have a 99.9% uptime guarantee. If they fail to meet it, you receive a refund for that month.

Both companies offer 30 day money back guarantees. The guarantees allow you to cancel at any time if you aren’t completely satisfied with your experience.

Pricing

HostGator’s pricing is pretty straight forward. Shared plans range from $4.95 per month (paid yearly) to $14.95 per month (can be paid monthly). Reseller hosting plans range from $24.95 per month to $99.95 per month. Dedicated servers are priced from $174 per month to upwards of $374 per month. None of HostGator’s plans have any setup fees.

To find pricing for BlueHost, you have to dig a little bit. It also takes a little bit of thinking to figure out what you’ll end up paying at the end of the day. BlueHost only offers one plan (a shared hosting plan). You simply cannot purchase anything shorter than a 1 year commitment.

BlueHost’s one plan provides customers with “unlimited” disk space and bandwidth, but BlueHost reserves the right to put a soft cap on anyone they feel is adversely affecting their other customers.  HostGator’s smallest plan matches the “unlimited” disk space and bandwidth with similar soft restrictions.

Assuming you stay with the companies for the following amounts of time, here is what you’ll pay (including setup fees, if they apply):

As you can see, BlueHost and HostGator have the same price at the 12 month mark, but in all other cases either HostGator is cheaper or BlueHost doesn’t even offer service for that length of time. If you’re getting close to a decision on one of the two, check each hosts review at Clickfire as HostGator and BlueHost both regularly offer coupons (HostGator) or special discount promotions (BlueHost) that can lower your cost. You can also check the Clickfire web hosting review top list for this stuff.

Customer Service

I called BlueHost’s sales department to ask if they had an uptime guarantee. The call was answered in about 30 seconds. The representative’s answers and tone didn’t give me a lot of confidence, but he managed to answer the question. A call to HostGator was answered within about 30 seconds as well. The representative seemed to be more knowledgeable and was more confident about his answers.

I sent emails to each company’s support department in the late evening on a Sunday. BlueHost doesn’t let you send a ticket in via email – you must use their web-based interface. The web-basted interface offers a lot of categories (which can be confusing) and forces you to look through a knowledge base before submitting a ticket.

I heard back from HostGator after 14 minutes. Their response was good and provided the information needed. I heard back from BlueHost about two and a half hours later. Their reply was helpful, but not as good as HostGator’s.

Both companies provide customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to all of their customers over email and live chat. HostGator also offers support over live chat.

Extras

New BlueHost customers receive $75 in advertising credits from Google and Yahoo. HostGator does not offer an equivalent to this. BlueHost also includes a domain with certain purchases (when you pre-pay a year or two in advance). HostGator does the same thing, but only at $50 in credits and only for Google. Not a huge perk, but it’s not a bad thing. Both hosts will help you move your sites over from other web hosts.

Bottomline

If it is between BlueHost and HostGator, you can’t make a bad choice. Both companies are well known and reputable companies that offer pretty much the same service for similar prices. Their customer service is consistent, effective, and easily available.

If it were my web site and my money, I think I’d go with HostGator. The company has always impressed me with their very straight forward, no hype attitude. I like that they offer more choices when it comes to plans and payment terms and I appreciate that flexibility.

The choice is yours, though. One of the great things about the web hosting industry is that there are lots of choices and lots of great companies to choose from.

–June 2007, Douglas Hanna

–Updated: March 2010, Steve Miller

Back to:

• BlueHost Web Hosting Review or BlueHost.com
• HostGator Web Hosting Review or HostGator.com

As is often the case with web hosting companies that are owned by larger companies, the product and service offerings are nearly identical. Like BlueHost, HostMonster only offers one plan. Except for some minor differences with the number of databases and email accounts offered, the plan at BlueHost and at HostMonster are virtually the same. The features offered are also the same and actually listed in the same order on the two web sites.

The control panels offered by the two companies vary only slightly. The BlueHost control panel has a more standard cPanel skin with only minor edits/changes. The HostMonster control panel looks different than the traditional cPanel X theme, but has all of the same features. Everything to manage email accounts, subdomains, databases, etc. is there and works as expected.

At HostMonster, you get 300 GB of space and 3,000 GB of bandwidth for about $7.95 a month if you pay yearly. The pricing is hidden well within the signup form. If you want to signup for the minimum period (3 months), it is $7.95 a month and a $30 setup fee. Pricing goes down to $5.95 if you choose to pay 24 months in advance.

As far as incentives to signup go, HostMonster is not bad. They offer a sitebuilder, $50 in free ad credits from Yahoo, and a free domain name if you pay 12 or 24 months in advance. The company will not move your site for free, which is very disappointing.

Support at the two companies is also very similar. Like BlueHost, HostMonster requires you to submit your ticket using the company’s web based interface and also has many departments listed. I tried to submit a ticket, but it kept saying my domain and password were not valid. Needless to say, that was quite frustrating. I even found out that BlueHost and HosterMonster even have the same hold music.

A call to their support department was answered within about 3 minutes after dialing. The representative seemed friendly enough, but I did have to spell my domain name three times. Apparently, to submit a ticket, you have to register with their ticket system as well. This was an annoying process that took a good ten minutes. When I asked my actual question, he asked for my domain name again. I had to kindly remind him I already spelt it out three times two minutes before.

Later, when I went to login to Squirrel Mail, the interface was in Japanese. Since I still couldn’t submit a ticket online and had given up on that process, I called again. I was connected within about 5 minutes. The guy who picked up got the language changed to English fairly quickly, but seemed like a drone. “Domain please”, “Hold on please”, “It’s fixed”, and “You’re welcome” were basically the only words spoken throughout the whole call, which lasted about 10 minutes.

In researching HostMonster, I saw several complaints about spotty and sometimes unreliable FTP connections. Other customers also had problems running scripts on HostMonster’s servers. During my testing, the FTP seemed okay. I was able to install WordPress and a CMS without any trouble.

All and all, I wasn’t that impressed by HostMonster. It seems like the company is neglected. You basically get a lot of space and bandwidth and that’s it. If you are looking for an “upload and forget about it” host, HostMonster will work out just fine. If you want or require more, I’d suggest staying clear.

Pros: Lots of space and bandwidth, inexpensive, plenty of features
Cons: Systems seem buggy, support is average at best
Bottomline: Forget HostMonster. Signup with BlueHost, which seems to be the better run of the two companies.
Rating:

–Review and testing by Douglas Hanna for Clickfire.

Visit HostMonster

1&1 offers a few main service types: domain registration, mail hosting, Linux hosting, Windows hosting, virtual private servers, dedicated servers, eshops, and Microsoft Sharepoint hosting. This review will discuss the pros and cons of 1&1 as a Linux hosting provider.

The company’s offerings are quite inexpensive. 1&1 offers a lot of space and bandwidth for very little money. You have to pay six months in advance for many of the plans, but the six months of their least expensive plan still comes out to be less than $20. Be sure to read the order and refund terms carefully. 1&1 will try to lock you in for longer if you choose some of their special offers.

Each account includes plenty of email accounts, databases, a control panel, a 90 day money back guarantee, and 24/7 support.

I called their sales department and the office was closed due to weather. I gave up trying to reach technical support representative over the phone after waiting on hold for more than 10 minutes. Their hold queue didn’t tell me when I should have expected my call to be answered, so who knows how long it takes to get through to a human. Among bigger web hosting companies, support seems to be the worst aspect. 1&1 doesn’t seem to be an exception in that regard.

An email sent at 11:07 PM on Friday the 16th got an answer at 3:26 AM on Tuesday, March 20, 2007.

Bigger web hosts have their advantages, though. The main ones that apply to 1&1 are: they have a top notch data center and network and lots of partnerships with interesting companies. Furthermore, you don’t have to worry about the company disappearing or going under and there is always someone to turn to if there are serious problems.

1&1’s partnerships range from being an ICANN accredited domain registrar to having partnerships with companies like Google (for ads) and Plesk (for control panels). A lot of these partnerships have helped 1&1 develop its marketing center, which offers discounts and vouchers on major web sites and tools like Google Adwords or Microsoft Adcenter to 1&1 customers. These offers add a lot of value to the accounts and can make a difference for someone starting out on the web.

The company’s custom control panel isn’t bad. It offers all of the expected features and has some nice add-ons that aren’t typically found in control panels. Most of the features, including billing, can be easily managed via the control panel, which has one login.

The control panel features a whole bunch of tools ranging from blog systems (a custom WordPress install) to web site builders to statistics programs and everything in between. Most of the little applications are pretty user friendly and will easily serve the needs of a newbie or an average web site owner. Each one has its own customization options and can be customized to a certain extent.

In my tests, FTP access was pretty quick and problem free. 1&1 likes to assign every install and many folders an odd series of letters and numbers as identifiers. This annoyed me personally, but was easy enough to get used to and understand.

Getting used to the control panel is not difficult. After a few minutes of playing around with, I was able to get a good idea of how it worked and was up and running. If you aren’t sure how to do something, 1&1 offers a lot of in-depth help articles and tutorials. I was able to get answers to a majority of my simple questions by looking at these documents.

Would I use 1&1 personally? No. Would I recommend them to a new web site owner who was just looking to get started and didn’t want to spend too much money? Most likely. As they say, you get what you pay for – and with 1&1, there is definitely a lot of value for your $20 a year.

Bottomline: For people new to the world of web site creation and hosting, 1&1 is a solid choice if your web site is not mission critical
Pros: Powerful control panel with lots of features, inexpensive pricing, useful marketing tools
Cons: Lack of customer service, some sneaky terms in ordering process
Rating:
Visit www.1and1.com

The company’s offerings are pretty standard: midPhase offers Linux shared hosting (the subject of this review), Windows hosting plans, VPS plans, dedicated servers, and web design services. VPS hosting and web design services are both new offerings from midPhase.

midPhase wants your business. They will transfer your sites, domains, databases, and so on, buy out your old hosting contract (basically, up to a $50 credit on your bill), and renew your domain name as long as you have an account with them. midPhase also owns the smaller AN Hosting.

Signing up at midPhase was simple. All of the instructions and information was clearly stated and the first step took about 5 minutes. The second step required confirming your order (likely for fraud prevention purposes). As a new customer, your options are to confirm your order using the telephone or fax. A telephone call simply involved clicking the link to have a call placed and entering in a confirmation code. The verification call did not take more than 15 seconds. After that, the account was setup.

Shortly after receiving my welcome email, I received a phone call from midPhase. The message they left said (paraphrased):

“Hi, my name is … I’m working at midPhase and I’m a technical support manager. I’m trying to walk you through our hosting services and want to let you that we are here 24 hours/day to talk to you. For any contact support you need, you can reach us via email at support@midphase.com. You can also reach us via phone which is… You can also chat with us live and you can find that link on our main page www.midphase.com under live chat. If you have further questions, you can reach me at my personal extension… That would be all. Have a nice day.”

I’ve never heard of a budget hosting company doing something like this before and it was interesting. I’d be curious to see how much the technical support manager will walk you through the hosting process, but the personal call is definitely a nice tough.

As expected, the company offers 24/7 support over the phone and email, a 30 day money back guarantee, high quality servers in a secure datacenter, an uptime guarantee (99.9%), and all of the standard things. Nothing too amazing or spectacular, but midPhase is on or above par in all of those areas. All accounts also come up with varying ad credits from companies like Yahoo ($50) and Google ($25).

Be aware of some of midPhase’s terms of service clauses:

• They charge $21.95 per year for a domain name. If they register a domain name for you (as their promotion states) and you cancel within your 30 day period, they will charge you for that domain. It is obviously well above the ~$9.00 you pay for an average domain.
• Their site says to read their Terms of Service for details about their uptime guarantee. I could not find any specific details about the uptime guarantee besides a section of their TOS stating it is basically impossible to provide 100% uptime (“When the Services Will be Available”). If an uptime guarantee is important to you, I suggest reading and asking about this.

midPhase’s shared hosting plans are very competitive. They offer 200,000 MB of disk space and 3,000,000 MB of bandwidth on their smaller plan. Their larger plan has 250,000 MB of diskspace and “unmetered” (supposedly unlimited) bandwidth.

Their plan details page is fairly vague, but do note that their small account only includes 1 MySQL database (the larger one includes 3). Unlike most shared hosting companies that include it, midPhase charges you extra ($1.95/month if you signup during the ordering process) for AWstats. A lot of people like AWstats and I have never seen a hosting company charge extra for it.

Plans “start” at $7.95 a month for the smaller plan. The larger one “starts” at $11.95 a month. Be aware that you only get the advertised price of $7.95 a month if you signup for a year in advance. If you want to pay quarterly or semi-annually, expect to pay a higher monthly fee and a $29.95 setup fee.

Once you’re setup, midPhase is pretty much like any other shared host that uses cPanel. Their version of cPanel is slightly modified (read: a prettier template), but is easy to navigate and functional. It offered no notable features or addons that I noticed besides some promotional items.

Feature wise, midPhase provides what is expected. The control panel and FTP weren’t slow, nor were they ultra speedy. Using Fantastico, I was able to setup a basic WordPress blog quickly and without any problems. Everything seemed to work as expected. midPhase’s control panel was actually quite boring compared to all the fancy addons that 1&1 offered, for example. However, as a person quite used to cPanel and its offerings, I had no complaints.

I decided to give midPhase’s customer service a test. When going to check my email using NeoMail, I got an error. I knew the error was because cPanel essentially stopped offering NeoMail, but did midPhase? I emailed support@midphase.com A few seconds later, I got a confirmation email stating they had received my inquiry and a ticket had been created. I received a reply exactly an hour later (well past their “20 minute average response time”, but not bad). The reply said that NeoMail was no longer supported by cPanel.

There was no answer on their live chat (they don’t promise 24/7 live chat, though). I decided to give midPhase a call.

After about four minutes on hold, it seemed like I was disconnected. I called back and after about three minutes on hold, the elevator music stopped and I had no idea if their IVR had dropped my call again. I called back once again and waited on hold some more. After 3 minutes or so, sure enough the hold music stopped looping. A very easy problem for midPhase to fix, but quite annoying when it does happen. I tried again and waited on hold for technical support for 10 minutes before giving up. To ensure it wasn’t a problem with either of the two phones I used, I called another well known hosting company and was connected to a person within about a minute.

midPhase’s customer service was disappointing. The company mentions several places on their web site about how they are available 24/7 and you can call anytime and talk to a human. I didn’t get to the point where the human’s attitude or knowledge was even an issue.

My verdict is that midPhase is essentially an average host offering average features and average customer service. They don’t do anything spectacular, but regardless, it seems to be working for them.

Overall: midPhase is a solid host for customers that want the basics for an affordable price.
Pros: generous space and bandwidth allocations, free site transfers, competitive affiliate program
Cons: the company seems to nickel and dime customers, setup fees for many plans
Rating:

–Reviewed by Douglas Hanna. Suzana Rowland contributed to this review.