My website (Custom Gifts By Talina) went live in November 2005. Over the course of the last few months I have experienced many site building mistakes and frustrations. I am taking search engine optimization classes and chatting with several other small business owners on various groups (AZ Craft Biz Connection & QFLEA) to learn more about website building and marketing.
I originally purchased service for 1 year with what I now know as a very bad hosting company (register.com). I learned I was not able to control my site construction as much as I needed and was not helped when I went to them to remedy this. Their “website now” service was not good for SEO and they were very unhelpful and basically refused to let me build my own site via frontpage.
The main thing that made me mad is that they market to people who don’t have site building experience, they claim to make building your site a breeze. Then they make getting your site in to the search engines via good SEO practically impossible. SEO is the best way to get your site on the search engines free, but they would rather have you not use SEO (because you can’t with their site builders) and just pay them extra to list your site on all the search engines. They way I saw it, they were trying to force me to pay them to list my site on the search engines, they want more money from you. Why would you pay for something that you can learn about and do free (and more ethically)? I ended up canceling my service and switched hosting companies all together.
While I was going through my hosting company issues I discovered so many people have had similar experiences and others have great services to recommend. The purpose of this post is to provide information and recourses on good/ bad hosting companies. This post will be more informative and well rounded if my readers post feedback on their experiences.
Some companies that were mentioned in discussion groups are:
doteasy.com
godaddy.com
siteocity.com
register.com
001host.com
web-designing.org
addr.com
aplushosting.com
premiumwebdesign.com
panthrpc.com
I did some personal research based on good recommendations I received. I have included the company and the price breakdown for you to reference if needed.
Company – 1 month / 1 year
http://www.siteocity.com – $1.95 / $23.40
http://www.theprimehost.com – $2.95 / $35.40
http://www.mountainvalleyhosting.com – $2.99 / $35.88
http://order.1and1.com – $2.99 / $35.88
https://www.godaddy.com – $3.56 / $42.72
http://www.ozeweb.com – $5.00 / $60.00
http://001host.com – $5.95 / $71.40
http://www.web-designing.org – $6.00 / $72.00
http://www.aplushosting.com – $6.95 / $83.40
http://wahmshoppes.com – $7.00 / $84.00
http://addr.com – $7.95 / $95.40
http://hostingct.com – $9.95 / $119.40
If you have a moment please take the time to post your recommendations/ experiences in the form of a comment below. Thank you for stopping by and I look forward to your recommendations!
The following comments were left:
Wed, 01 Feb 2006
I use http://www.web-designing.org and Sue offers wonderful service. She’s usually only and IM away. She does her best to work with your needs. Her prices are fab. and the service is top notch!! — Melissa http://www.mels-smells.com
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Wed, 01 Feb 2006
I too am using the hosting services of http://www.web-designing.org. I (and apparently many others) cannot say enough about her personalized service. If I didn’t see all the others above, I would never even realize that she had other clients because, honestly, she gives such wonderful customer support that I could swear I was her only client.
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Tue, 31 Jan 2006
We cannot say enough for Sue Smith of www.web-designing.org. She set up my web site a few years ago and then in the next year we did my husbands website. She covered everything, with such a personal touch that I won’t leave and go anywhere else. We have the best as far as we are concerned.
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Tue, 31 Jan 2006
Sue Smith of http://www.web-designing.org/ is my host and also does my site maintained for the last 3yrs. Since I went online in 1999, I have had several hosts. Sue is by far the best. She’s talented, stays updated with the ever-changing quirks of online business and she’s quick. If you want a protective “tiger” in your corner, Sue is the web guru for you. The lady knows her stuff.
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Tue, 31 Jan 2006
Hi my name is Pat Crump and my website is www.country-wood.net When I started my web site 4 years ago I knew nothing and so I went with a host that had a fill in the blanks program, Crow Soup, I just did not realize all the hidden things that there were and after 3 1/2 years it was pointed out to me that all my meta tags were advertising for them instead of my web site. There were also other things that I could not change that were not helping my site at all. So I made a change and went to Web & Graphic Designs at http://www.web-designing.org/ Sue set up all my pages for me put in the right meta tags for my web site and makes all the changes for me and fixes everything for only $35.00 a month, which I was paying $20.00 a month and doing all the changes and building new pages myself and advertising for my host instead of myself. I am taking a HTML class and trying to learn how to do things and belong to several groups where they share lots of information that helps. I’m really glad that I found Sue and she was honest with me and got my site fixed up and looking good. If there is a problem or a broken link she is right there to fix it, with crows soup it took a while to get an answer to questions on how to fix something or what I should do, they did answer me back but it did take a while for them to get to it. Pat Crump
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Tue, 31 Jan 2006
I have been using Web-Designing.org for a few years now. Sue is a wonderful web hostess, always on top of things and willing to look into any problems and answer questions. There have been very few problems over the years, all of which were taken care of promptly. I don’t expect any hosting company to be problem free, but this one is very close. Sue is very helpful and cares about her clients. I would highly recommend her hosting biz for her customer service, not to mention that you get a lot of space on the web for the money, as well as a lot of options on the control panel. Sue’s entire hosting package is well worth the money.
Post your own reviews and opinions below!
I have been hosting my sites mostly with Host Gator for some time now and think they deliver a recommendable service. But nowadays almost all of the hosting companies do a good job and there are only few that stand out negatively.