Have you seen web hosting companies which supposedly give you unlimited space and dozens of shiny freebies? Do countless adverts pop up on your web browser urging you to sign up with companies such as Godaddy and Yahoo?
As a webmaster and entrepreneur, I’ve spent quite a bit of time picking a decent web hosting company.
The first web hosting company I ever went with was Yahoo Web hosting… what can I say? They seemed to offer a fairly low price, touting unlimited disk space, data transfer and a bunch load of goodies. I decided to give it a shot, and if I didn’t like it, I could always ‘cancel’ within 3 months. Needless to say, their services were pretty terrible. Long story short, my accounts ended up being hijacked and then canceled without warning. Several hundred emails later, I was unable to get a refund or an explanation out of the Yahoo team.
On the bright side, I became much more wary of web hosting companies I signed up with. Some were good, most had horrible customer services. One comment can sway the decision of several hundred viewers, so if you’ve got a few of your bad experiences to share, do post them here!
Now let’s move onto the good stuff.
I wasn’t about to let big web hosting companies bully me into handing over my money or flaunt their products in my face. Instead, I went out and searched for hours until I stumbled across iPage. iPage turned out to be a popular host, top ranking in numerous websites and filled with enticing offers.
Here I entered sceptic mode. My gut instincts told me that their attractive website and offers were simply marketing ploys to gain more customers.
iPage boasted its focus on usability and ease in creating websites, stores and blogs within minutes. Their iPage team claimed to be dedicated to providing full customer services, including sorting out your problematic cases. Their package included: A free domain name for life, unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, 99.9% uptime guarantee and an ‘any day money back guarantee’.
I had done my research on iPage, and they seemed to keep up their promise of good service. I didn’t have much to loose, so I kept my hopes steady and signed up for iPage.
My immediate impression was how truly fluid the entire sign up process was, from choosing payment options to designing a website. Within minutes, I had set up a basic website without any hassle at all. Of course, I was impressed. This would prove useful to new webmasters or amateur website owners. However I wanted to take it to the next level, I wanted to see if iPage could actually handle higher expectations of a webmaster.
Much to my surprise, iPage did not disappoint. Their customer service seemed far better than any of the previous web hosting companies I have been with, and the speed of my website was top notch. Website controlling can be a speedy business, but I found that iPage could keep up with my frequent updates and changes.
Here’s a list of some free and useful goodies they offer:
- Security Suite against spam and hijackers – This was great for me, because I’ve had people hack into unreliable website frames and securities.
- Marketing credit and analytic software
- Design Suite (Very useful for people like me who own art or photography websites, or simply need a smooth, professional looking website without extra cost)
- Free Online Store (Some web hosting companies’ take a chunk of your money out of online stores, but iPage doesn’t.)
The best thing was that it was only $3.50 a month with an anytime money-back guarantee, a stunning offer compared to what I’ve used in the past.
If you’re thinking about finding a new web hosting service, I highly suggest doing some research on each company first before making your suggestion. I recommend using plain old Google to look up reviews. Simply type in ‘[web hoster] sucks’ to find some negative and truthful reviews. In comparison to Hostmonster and Yahoo, iPage had the least number of results for negative reviews.
If you’re anything like me, you might loathe bad services such as; slow and unhelpful customer service, slow data transfer, unexplained account shut downs…
Hopefully you won’t make as many mistakes as I have in finding a reliable web hosting company. I thoroughly recommend iPage as one of your top choices for a web hosting company, and my experience with them so far has been top notch.
iPage Web Hosting. Free Domain Registration, Free Setup, Free Support — All risk free!