3.Web.com

Overview:

Since 1997, web.com has been provided web services to hundreds of thousands of users. Web.com has enjoyed considerable success in website building, eCommerce and domain registration for a number of years and began to branch out into hosting shortly afterwards. With more than one million suscribers in 2001, it’s clear to see that web.com hasn’t slowed down after a long history of acquisitions. Offering a multitude of online services besides hosting, web.com is both a veteran and an evolving power online and is definitely worth your consideration.

Hosting Features:

TECHNIE FEATURES
Unlimited Hosting Space
Unlimited Bandwidth
Unlimited Domains
Unlimited FTP Accounts
Unlimited MySQL Databases
Web Control Panel
10GB Web Mail Storage across
Unlimited POP3/IMAP Accounts


Hosting Plans:

Whilst a lot of plaudits are picked up by comprehensive web hosting companies which offer a range of hosting plans, simplicity can be an art form in itself and web.com are very good at what they do. With such a wealth of knowledge and experience, web.com are confident in the abilities of their single hosting plan and have stacked it full of powerful features to appease both entry level and high end users alike.

With unlimited storage space, bandwidth and e-mail accounts, the web.com plan certainly holds its own against the competition. When you combine the choice of a Linux or Windows server, extensive scripting language support and database tools; the single plan begins to look like every plan you ever needed. Experienced users will recognize the power behind some of the included features whilst beginners will be pleased with the straightforward format.

Pricing:

On a single hosting plan, you’re either going to like the price or you aren’t. Without a cheaper or more expensive package to go for, it can be difficult to put your money down on something you aren’t sure about. Web.com’s package weighs in at $11.95 per month, with a billing cycle once every four weeks. Whilst this is significantly more than some of the competition is priced at, it is somewhat in line with the “Pro” or “Premium” packages or rival hosting plans and can deliver an equivalent punch. Web.com won’t cater to those of limited budgets, but the price is more than reasonable when you take a close look at what’s on offer.

Customer Support:

Having one plan means that it’s quite easy to get support, being able to bypass the complex questions about the state of your account and website. As a result of this, web.com feels that they don’t need to offer as extensive customer support as some of the competing companies and do away with the much loved online chat functionality. Instead, they offer support on an e-mail system and a technical service telephone number. Regardless of the simplicity, we’d like to see a bit more help available to the customer.

Reliability :

The uptime guarantee from web.com is a market leading 99.99%. Alongside this, they seem to gloss over the fact that over all of their web hosting packages they are entirely wind powered. This is impressive when you take into account that they operate fantastically powerful hardware including Cisco routers, strong back-ups and redundancy protection with diesel generators. It would take quite a storm to send your website down if it’s hosted with web.com’s servers. The Advice & Resources section of web.com is a nice touch however, with articles and reference on how to solve some of the more simple problems.

Ease of Use:

It may seem like flogging a dead horse to mention web.com’s single hosting plan, but this is where it begins to make headway on its opponents. When it comes to ease of use, nothing is easier than optimizing a static system and web.com have been able to make their interface and services very understandable and user friendly through their simplicity. The customer support, in our experience, was responsive and knowledgeable and were there to help out on the (very few) bits we got stuck on.

Bottom Line:

Web.com might not be the best solution for the techy or the business owner, but it occupies a happy middle ground for those who don’t want to make any hard decisions.

Prince : $0.99