Morning - I am now using Bluehost for all our clients. I am not sure
what you mean by paying a lot up front, but Bluehost does let you
out at any time with full refund (even prorated for the month if you
drop their service short of a full month). A 12-month plan is
$7.95/month, payable it appears all at one time, with free domain.
Since you have a domain already, if you decide to transfer the
domain to Bluehost when it comes for renewal, there is free
transfer. There is no setup fee with an annual subscription. For a
24-month plan, the hosting fee is only $6.95/month.
Their tech support is live and knowledgeable. For one hosting fee,
you can set up unlimited free standing sites (they will be top domain).
I've been developing sites since 1996 and tested quite a few hosting
companies over the years, often testing with our own dummy sites for
12 months or more -- all with the goal of saving our clients' money.
Bluehost is by far the best we've used -- it is so good I signed up
to be an affiliated partner and am migrating our clients there. If
you decide to check it out, and will click through my site
(www.conlinks.com), I will earn 25 cents (regardless of whether you
sign up for the service or not -- those quarters do add up - thank you).
If you want to compare this with 1and1.com or Dreamhost, which are
similar, Bluehost is just more user-friendly. Having used GoDaddy
for one of our nonprofit clients last year, I would never recommend
it. Another company we've used is pair.com, which is less
user-friendly for those maintaining their own sites and, like
GoDaddy, the add-ons add up quickly, but an excellent company.
/gayley
--
Connecting Links Web Production & Consulting
"targeting your web problems, providing inexpensive solutions"
Randall wrote:
> I have 3 domain names through Go Daddy and have begun to set up 2
of the free, basic websites that come with the purchase of the
domain name. Have found it a pretty user-unfriendly experience so
far and takes forever to load, though may be having slow loading
problems beyond this site. At last Saturdays PC Computer Users
meeting someone from this list (whose name I will keep confidential)
heard me ask about webhosting alternatives and came up and suggested
Bluehost. I checked it out and it seems to be better than Go Daddy,
though you have to pay a fair amount up front rather than on a
monthly basis as Go Daddy lets you. Also, I now get a free, albeit
very basic, minimal site (5 pages) with the domain name. I'm
tempted to try Bluehost but just wondering if anyone else has had
experience with it and in comparison with Go Daddy, or any other
sites. BlueHost appears less expensive than the one Tom once
recommended, A1A or something like that.
>
> Also, my current site gives me 1 GB bandwidth, so wondering if
this might have to do with the slow loading speed. I can upgrade to
a better deal on Go Daddy but it would be a little more than
BlueHost and looks like you would still get less. And am I write in
thinking, after playing around with site awhile, that I'll probably
need or want more than 50 MB of disk space?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Randall
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