What host should i use from justhost, hostgator, ipage or hostmonster?
Question: I am starting a small web-based business with blog and can’t decide on what offer is best. i am looking for best uptime, easy cpanel site setup, e-commerce support state of the art, lotsa advertising credits for google and social media like FB. i am also considering other hosts like inMotion hosting (i think best response and uptime) and goDaddy (45 mil domains, nr1)
Answer: The number of ad credits should be the last thing on your list when evaluating a web hosting company.
JustHost is owned by the Endurance Group, a massive corporation that buys out privately own web hosting companies. In my personal opinion, acquisitions destroy all the qualities in the companies they acquired. All they care about is the customer base and how much money they can make from them. Small web hosting companies depend upon their clients in order to survive, therefore pride in ownership and customer service is #1 priority with them. When the big fish eat the little fish, all that personal service is gone. Tech support is one massive call center handling support tickets from many hosting companies at once. Tech support people are used and abused in that boiler room environment. One recent call I made to SuperGreen (a JustHost company) tech support proved that. I was personally told that “we support multiple hosting companies”.
Stay away from GoDaddy. 45 million domains means nothing with regards to quality web hosting. The only reason they have that many accounts is because of the massive media campaigns they do. The first web hosting company that comes to peoples’ mind is GoDaddy because that’s all they know, again, due to the media. GD’s control panel sucks and they’re constantly trying to upsell you to get the features your hosting account should have come with to begin with.
That leaves us with HostGator, iPage and HostMonster.
HostGator: A privately owned company in Houston, TX with a A+ rating with the BBB. Their prices are a little on the high end of the scale, but this is the company super affiliates and marketers go to when they need quality service and high performing reliable servers. Use coupon code: HGFOR25LESS to get 25% off your first term of hosting. HostGator uses the cPanel control panel, robust and powerful.
HostMonster: A privately owned company in Provo, UT with an A- raing with the BBB. Pricing is right in the ballpark with no massive increase in pricing on renewal like other companies do. HostMonster also uses cPanel. I had a HostMonster account years ago and was not pleased with the downtime and non-existent customer service when I submitted a support ticket. Back then they had a horrible BBB rating, but things have changed over the years and with an A rating, they finally got things right.
iPage: A Burlington, MA with a C rating with the BBB. I was looking through some of the complaints against the company and most of them are because the customer did not read the terms of service when signing up. iPage has an anytime money back guarantee if you close your account. However, they cannot refund the price of the free domain name offer because the domain was already registered. There are no refunds on domain names from ANY place. Once a name is registered with ICANN, you cannot get a refund. So the lower rating is mostly from upset customers that don’t read. iPage uses the vDeck control panel. Many customers like it because it’s lighter than cPanel and that’s good for the non-techies who don’t want to be bothered with features they’ll never use. Customer support is outstanding. Been there, done that. Their people will bend over backwards to help and retain their customers.
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