Web Hosts-Opinions please

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I am looking for an opinion on the web hosting service onedollarhosting.net.

I work with a non-profit firm that is looking for a web host site for our 7 offices to use. We are looking right now more for a site to use as a sort of “intranet” among our wide-spread offices in Oregon. I have looked at several that offer free services, but none seem to quite fill the bill for us.

A low cost site that I have found is onedollarhost.net. They offer a lot of what we want, including free POP3 e-mail, no banner ads and unlimited storage space, unlimited bandwith, unlimited FTP access, etc. They also provide HomeSite 4.5 as a free Web editor. They charge $1 per month, after an inial $39.00 set-up fee, and we can pay for up to 2 years in advance. The free unlimited e-mail is a real plus for us, because we had been using yahoo, and since they have limited their free services, we are paying money to expand some user’s mailboxes. We have also been using YahooPOPs to download e-mail to the desktops.

My question is, has anyone out there heard of this site, and/or used this site for Web hosting? I am looking for any personal experience you have had with them. They offer so much for so little, it seems a little too good to be true.

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Tia,

All I can say is that ‘you get what you pay for.’ You may be getting a cheap monthly fee, but that doesn’t guarantee up-time , and I would bet that support is non-existent. You also want to see what the monthly transfer allowance is, anything over your allocated bandwidth and you’re going to pay too.

I’ve been very happy with iPowerWeb for my personal site. It’s cheap, and the support has been good so far. There are also a lot of little niceties like you’ve mentioned with iPower, so it may be worth it to check around.

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Hi Tia,
I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking for low-cost web hosts. I have never come across the one you mentioned, but there are quite a few out there that offer decent service for rock-bottom prices.

It looks like a decent offer – you certainly get your money’s worth! The only advice I would offer is that sometimes there are factors you only find out about after you’ve signed on. For instance the fact that they offer unlimited data transfer could mean that other customers sharing your server might take advantage of that and transfer high volumes of files, which will ultimately reduce the bandwidth available for other customers, making your site seem slow at times.

Also, I didn’t see any options for FrontPage and they didn’t offer a Windows hosting option (which would support ASP and all of the goodies that come with it). Just be sure that their plan will meet your needs in that area.

As for alternatives, I found a great site that has a directory of low-cost web hosts: http://www.hostpulse.com/app%5B/url%5D. This will allow you to search by budget and features.

I have found that you usually get what you pay for, but there are a few exceptions. Unfortunately, I highly doubt that the OneDollarHosting is one of them. That’s not to say that they would be bad, but you could find a MUCH better host for just a little more money – around $5-$10 per month.

Hope this helps!

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Is pair.com still in business?
I used to hear good things about them.

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I must question the usefulness/objectivity of the info at hostpulse:

1. They do not list pair.com, one of the better known web providers.
2. They do not lisyt two other providers mentioned in this thread.
3. They list their own service as number 1.

I’d look elsewhere for recommendations.

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Tia,

I have never heard of them before, but I’ll tell you who I use: Tera-Byte

For $10 a month you get:

200MB storage
20 GB Monthly transfer
Front Page extensions (upto FP 2K)
Password Protected directories
Unique IP address
PHP, MySQL, CGI
99 e-mail addresses.

I have sent 4 clients and one friend to Tera-Byte and they are all happy with the service that Tera-Byte Provided.

They have great customer service and almost no downtime. I won’t say no downtime, because I can’t guarantee they offer 100% uptime, but I have never run across any of the sites I administer being down in the almost 3 years I have been using them.

If you need ASP support, you will have to move up to the next service level for $15 a month. You also get an increase in disk space, transfer amount .

I know that I didn’t answer the question you asked, but it’s just some more food for thought.

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My current host, for 3 sites, is Parcom.net. Packages start at $2.50/mo. I have enjoyed the service so far, and the help line is ver good.

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I can echo what Mark said about getting what you pay for! I’m on my THIRD “low cost” web host in as many years. Most of the time, support is just about non-existant or at intolerable delays. And, if support is bad, down time REALLY gets to be a problem. I’m “only” paying $4.95 a month right now, but the people are mostly impossible to get through to. One thing you ought to search for, if you haven’t already done so, is some web sites containing web host reviews, written by real customers. You won’t find very much good stuff, but what you’re looking for is the downside of the service, when it comes down to brass tacks. Let’s face it, for $1 a month, they can’t possibly be “there for you” when you need them!

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pair.com is the one that’s been most recommended to me.

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