So, in their home page, they have a list of best web hosting companies for 2009.  In my opinion, the top web hosts listed there are the ones who have established themselves in the web hosting industry since ages. People who are new to web hosting could easily be convinced that the top has the best value for your money. Certainly not. Remember, big companies have better funds to initiate a massive marketing. However, looking at the site’s reputation (and Internet marketing parameters), it seems to me most of the web hosts listed there are reputable. Now, that’s just a tip.

Back to Web Hosting Geeks, their website presents neat hosting categories for specific hosting platforms and purposes. In addition to the top ranking for each year, you can view lists of web hosts sorted according to the type of services they offer (e.g., Unix Hosting, Blog Hosting, VPS Hosting, and many others), according to type of web hosting (e.g., dedicated server, green hosting, multiple domain hosting), according to web hosting rating, or come up with the result of web hosting companies according to the awards they have received.

If you feel like you need to familiarize yourself with the web hosting terms and/or you want tips and tricks, they also have useful web hosting blogs you can immerse into.

Presently, this blog is currently hosted at Top Hosting Center, running over their Speedy hosting plan. My show’s website, Tech Conclave, is hosted at Host Color.

Host Color, a global Quality Web Hosting provider introduced today it’s special WordPress Hosting service. The company launched WP hosting plan priced at $2.99 per month to provide more choice for the growing community of WordPress site owners.

Host Color says its new WordPress Hosting Plan is an exclusive WP service that can not be used for websites that run any other software applications. The limitation is set due to quality assurance, so company can guarantee that customers of WordPress Plan will not use the promotional price of $2.99/month to host other applications instead of WordPress.

"We provide quality service to people in various areas of web activity and
to enable site owners to use their favorite CMS and other software
applications in high-class web hosting environment. That’s why Host Color
maintains more than 30 different service plans only in Shared Class
Hosting", said Alexander Avramov, Managing Director of Host Color LLC.

"All customers of our have a choice and can use quality hosting plans in
range between $2.99 and $11.99 per month. WordPress Hosting plan is the most inexpensive one and we allow it to be used solely for managing a WP blog", add Mr. Avramov.

The WordPress Hosting plan allows WP blog owners to use 1,000 MG disc space and 5 GB data transfer per month. Host Color says that these quotas will be increased for anyone that needs more disc space and monthly transfer, but the company does not want to promote any numbers that aren’t realistic and could be considered as overselling.

Besides preinstalled WordPress blog, WP customers can use a number of
premium WordPress themes without additional cost, and to meter their
visitors with AwStats. Anyone who wants needs to register new domain name has to pay only $8.95 for web address under COM, NET, ORG, INFO, BIZ, US or WS extensions.

Host Color has recently been very active in promoting national and regional
domain extensions. It has launched campaigns to promote .ME, .US, . Asia and .BZ domains. The company has recently opened its new Affiliate Center and new Affiliate Program. The new program transfers 25% of the company’s revenue per sale to its affiliates and at the same time pays them for each unique visitor sent to Host Color’s website.

About Host Color
Host Color LLC is a quality U.S. web hosting company incorporated in
Delaware. It powers thousands of business and personal websites in data
centers in South Bend, Indiana, U.S. and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The
company also provides fully Managed dedicated hosting through HC Servers and European hosting services through HC Europe. It offers discounts to academics and non-governmental organizations. The Host Color’s corporate message is "Web hosting about people, not about gigabytes."

You can read my personal review about Host Color and its hosting services on this post.

This company does web hosting a very different way. It offers a wide range of Quality Web Hosting plans priced from $2.99 per to $11.99 per month. The main shared plans are Blogan (Blog hosting), Content (CMS hosting), Social Web (Social networking plan), Web Mall (E-Commerce hosting service) and Multi Site (Multi Domain hosting service for up to 30 small websites). Besides them you can use between other 24 hosting service plans. Each of them features different software application – from WordPress and b2Evolution Hosting plans, through MODx, Drupal and Joomla hosting services, to Social and SSL hosting plans.

Host Color also offers VPS Hosting plans powered by Virtuozzo, a leading virtualization solution. VPS plans cost from $19.95 (192 MB RAM, 10 GB HDD, 50 GB data transfer) to $69.95 for very powerful Virtual Private Server with 1024 MB RAM, 50 GG disc space and 350 GB data transfer. Anyone who needs to use fully Managed VPS can purchase it for low cost monthly flat fee of $49.95.

The company also offers Dedicated Hosting starts at $99 per month. These commercial information however is far less important than a few other things about Host Color. Besides my current host which is the Top Hosting Center, Host Color possess the following qualities:

1. This is the only hosting company I’ve seen to show their senior management to customers. You can see who runs Host color on its "Team" page.
2. This is the only web host that express its business principles and says "NO" to overselling on its website (Check their "About Us" and "Philosophy" sections)
3. This is the web hosting company that has implemented the probably the best customer service approach I’ve seen – to build an Online customer center (Host Color named it "pZone") to enable customers to manage their accounts and to communicate with its customer care specialists. This approach to customer service means that the web host id focused not just to sell, but to provide a high level customer care.

There are a few other things that make Host Color very open hosting company. It updates its new section and blog very often and launches promotional campaigns.

Powered with independent customer ratings system based on customer satisfaction, hosting plan affordability, uptime and support consistency, Web Hosting Rating is becoming the Web’s largest searchable web host directory that presents all the hosting information you need to come up with a decision in choosing a good host. Through them, you can also get exclusive promotional coupons that you can use to get discounts to certain web hosts. The reviews and web hosting rating they present on their website intelligently categorized for your convenience were written by real customers of today’s medium to large-scale web hosting companies, so they may be credible and trustworthy. I’ve been difficult to convince to get a hosting through a web hosting review site, as I’ve encountered before something that made them look unreliable. Fortunately, WebhostingRating.com is not one of them. However, continue to be wary and trust your gut.

One of the things I like besides the hosting ranking system is their rich and massive hosting articles library. It presents a lot of web hosting tutorials and web hosting guides related to web hosting such as multiple domain security, managed hosting management, setting up an e-commerce site, using a certain web language or payment gateways for your business website, among others. You’ll learn a lot of stuffs if you have time to browse this section that can easily be found on the site’s main menu.

Web Hosting Rating completes a good web hosting ratings and review site with their web hosting awards directory. Trust me, this is very useful in identifying a good web host . I’ve been hosted by Top Hosting Center for over a year now and I already enjoyed their hosting plan. I never regret that I trusted the awards they got that are presented on their site. Same would be the case with Web Hosting Rating.

Finally, if you reach a point that you think you’ve found the ideal web host for your blogging or business website through Web Hosting Rating, my personal advice is that you contact the live chat support of that web host and investigate further. Don’t even get a hosting to a web host that doesn’t have a live chat, it sounds untrustworthy to me.

Overall, the good thing with Web Hosting Rating is that you don’t have to research further on Google about a web hosting company as they already present most of the details you need to come up with a good decision. Good luck.

Customer Service

There are quite a number of ways to reach ImHosted.com’s customer support and it starts on their website. Strategically, the support link can be found at the top of their website which can be easily seen and accessed by anyone. Like what most web hosting companies boast, ImHosted.com also offers 24×7 customer support — that’s good to hear for sure but it doesn’t surprise me anymore. Interestingly, their support center is quite appealing. They put everything what the customers would potentially need all at the same place which is really good: from online control panel documentation, ticketing support, login links, and even comprehensive tutorials. One thing that is a bit unusual to me is their live chat since they just use ICQ messaging client for it. No ICQ? No live chat support. Personally, I prefer a web based live chat that is one click away than using any messaging client that requires software installation. Overall, ImHosted.com support department is excellent. If you are an ICQ user, you’ll love it even more. I’ve been reading reviews from their existing customers that their support is first rate — so having a different style of live chat is therefore not a let down.

Hosting Plans

As of this writing, ImHosted.com’s front page presents their mega web hosting deal. They offer affordable web hosting services for only $6.95 USD per month comprising of the following key hosting benefits:

• 2, 500 GB web space (huge)
• 20,000 GB monthly bandwidth
• host unlimited number of domain names
• free 1 lifetime domain name
• CPanel control panel
• unlimited database, email and FTP
• SSH/Telnet support

It is best that you check the complete features of their competitive shared hosting plan on this page to find learn more. It looks good for me.

ImHosted.com also offers reseller hosting which is perfect for anyone who wants to start an  online hosting business. My current hosting company doesn’t have this feature yet.

Reputation

I’ve done some research about ImHosted.com and I found some good reviews from their existing customers on various web hosting review websites and web hosting forums. I learned that their stellar reputation was brought about by their consistent excellence of their web hosting services (good uptime, effective support and well-priced hosting). This positive reputation is a good sign that a web hosting company is reliable. So, if you are planning to get a hosting, ImHosted.com is worth a try with confidence.

Verdict

Looks like ImHosted.com a reputable web hosting company with affordable web hosting plan for everyone. For only $6.95 a month, you could start a blog that you can monetize or run good websites. Their hosting plan offers not just web hosting service, but an opportunity for anyone who wants to start making money online through online ventures.

Speedy hosting plan Windows boasts almost identical features with its Linux counterpart, except of course the support for Microsoft-based web languages and software sits on top of it such as ASP and ASP.net 2. The rest is almost the same with Speedy hosting plan for Linux — 1000 GB disk space, lifetime domain name, a gigantic 33 000 GB monthly bandwidth (tantamount to having unlimited bandwidth),  a dedicated IP address, the pricing at $6.75, among other features. I would love to get this plan if I am an ASP programmer — however, I feel better with PHP so I’ll stick with their Linux hosting plan!

If you want to know how THC’s Speedy hosting plan feels like, you can read my extensive review on this post. I really loved that my domain is running with a dedicated IP from Speedy hosting plan as it boosted my traffic a lot.

THC has announced that they are giving 10% discount if you order Speedy hosting plan under a 24-month billing cycle. To get the discount code, all you need is to talk with their live chat representatives and they will give you the coupon code.

Based on my experience, the best thing about Top Hosting Center is their outstanding web hosting support. It’s the greatest bonus you can get aside from their competitive, beefed up hosting features. Keep it up THC!

Many web hosting companies were affected by the downtime, as well as their loyal domain name resellers. EstDomains.com support system was flooded with many complaints and threats from their clients that they would abandon the already-scarred reputation of the said domain registrar. Now that the privacy protection service is back, EstDomains.com doubts that they would lose a significant number of their customers. I personally restored my domain registration’s privacy protection for this blog through their excellent control panel. Resellers, on the other hand, can take advantage of their Bulk Action to enable privacy protection of all domains under them at one time.

EstDomains.com is one of the cheapest domain registrars on the Web and their optional privacy protection service for all their domains are free of charge. My love for this domain registrar is back. I just hope they make all good things consistent from today onwards.

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Having a domain name is one of an online entrepreneur’s needs in starting a business on the Web. Basically, domain registration from all domain registrars is coupled with an optional (free or paid) domain privacy protection service. This service is essential for domain buyers who do not want to expose their sensitive information related to their domain registration through WhoIs, a searchable database program maintained by domain registrars, which can publicly display information about networks, networking organizations, and domain name contact information. While some domain registrar asks for payment for this service, EstDomains.com is known to offer domain privacy protection for free.

For an ICANN-accredited registrar, a failing domain privacy protection service for more than a week is a shame. Domain privacy is a basic domain service that customers should enjoy for their personal or business’ protection. With this service down, many hosting companies and domain resellers under EstDomains.com are now in clamor on their support department asking for answers from rather tight-lipped registrar. EstDomain.com refused to give an estimated time of arrival (ETA) of the fix for their privacy protection issues as well. Not a good sign.

This blog’s domain name is registered with EstDomains.com, and I can say this provider has done great services ended only three weeks ago. As I’ve dug through the Internet’s largest web hosting forums, I found out that EstDomains.com’s reputation was already scarred. Many experienced people in the web hosting industry who have done business with this domain provider advised to stay away because of its affinity to both scammers and spammers. However, my personal experience for one year with EstDomains.com is rather contrary to this claim.

I guess for now I will let EstDomains.com have their time to deliver the solution of their domain privacy protection. They are in business and I believe they are more worried than me (or any of their existing customers). The workaround is to change temporarily any sensitive information associated with the domain until this issue is over. It is just too bad EstDomains.com didn’t tell this temporary remedy that could help alleviate the problem.

If your web hosting plan uses H-Sphere control panel, and you run WordPress 2.5 from it, most likely you will get an "HTTP error" when you attempt to upload an image or anything to your WordPress 2.5 media gallery.

Here are the steps THC told me on how they solved the WordPress problem:

1. Right-click and save (download) this no-flash-uploader PHP file and upload it to your WordPress 2.5 plugin folder.
2. Activate the no-flash-uploader plugin in your WordPress control panel.
3. Be sure that your WordPress upload folder is writable (chmod to 777 to be sure).
4. Download this zip file, uncompress it to your local hard drive, and upload the folders to your WordPress installation directory. Make sure that the folders you upload follow the same directory structure of your WordPress installation.
5. Login to your WordPress control panel, and try uploading an image. WordPress 2.5 image upload should work during this step.

Just take note that the notorious WordPress image upload error is not exclusive to H-Sphere control panel. It also occurs to other control panels like CPanel and Plesk — and the solution approach is different.

If you find the solution above ineffective for your H-Sphere web hosting plan, please let me know and I would be fully happy to assist you.

Speedy Versus Rudolf

The hosting features of Speedy plan can be emphasized by putting it side by side with the infamous Rudolf plan which I believed to be one of the greatest hosting plans the Web has ever seen during its time.

As you can see above, Speedy is distinguishable by its enormous disk space and monthly bandwidth. Plus it comes with free dedicated IP address and a domain name, along with other hosting features Rudolf has. Perhaps one of the things you would care is that Speedy is regular hosting plan priced at $6.75 per month for 24-month subscription, unlike Rudolf which was introduced as lifetime hosting plan for only $95.

Like what I expressed in the post when I first experienced Speedy, honestly I was very excited for its features. My previous Rudolf plan felt great as is, considering that I don’t have to pay for its monthly fees and enjoy hosting for life. However, I wanted to have the best for this blog. So, when THC unleashed its Speedy hosting plan, I was one of the early people who were able to taste its glory.

The Glory of Dedicated IP

Other than the great bump of its figures in terms of disk space and bandwidth, it is the dedicated IP address that makes Speedy hosting plan rather distinctive compared to its competitors. THC is proud that Speedy is the best hosting plan with its level as shown in their comparison page.

Once you buy a Speedy plan and you gain access to THC’s H-Sphere control panel, you will get one dedicated IP address that you can use to any of your domains. Unfortunately, a dedicated IP address can only be used by one domain, so if you need more, you have to pay add-on for $24 per static IP address per year. Once again, THC offers the cheapest rate with this optional upgrade for your domains. If you don’t have any idea about the importance of a dedicated IP address, this post is a good reference for you.

Now, knowing that this blog run with Speedy’s dedicated IP address for over a month now – was it able to make any difference at all? My answer is a resounding yes. Other than extended FTP functionality, one thing I noticed is that this blog got better traffic from search engines. It was scarce before when I was still under Rudolf’s shared IP. Another thing I noticed is that my domain’s emails received less spams. As you know, having a dedicated IP address protects you from being affected by other abusing users on a shared hosting environment. Chances of getting unsolicited emails and damaging your growing business reputation resulting from shared IP being blacklisted are greatly avoided.

The Speedy Hosting Experience

At first, I was greatly thrilled of the abundance brought about by Speedy. With four times disk space capacity (1,000 GB) and ten times monthly bandwidth (33,000 GB) allocation than that of Speedy hosting plan, dreams and daydreams of having dozens of sites having large contents are definitely possible. More sites, more money – that is what I thought.

Later on, I realized that it is quite hard to take advantage the enormous disk space and bandwidth (well, for my case). Adding quality contents to each of your sites and managing them are more challenging than merely getting large margins of hosting resources. However for web entrepreneurs and webmasters who have multiple existing domains and rapidly-growing websites, Speedy’s resources are sure-fire advantage.

Adding quality contents to each of your sites and managing them are more challenging than merely getting large margins of hosting resources

The hosting experience in general is rather identical to that of Rudolf hosting plan except worries of having deficient disk space and limited bandwidth are eliminated – which is good, less stress.

Speedy is only available on Linux platform. THC found out in their previous hosting plan experience that customers favor Linux platform than Windows. This is seconded by them because Linux is more stable, faster, and secure. If you need a Windows plan, however, ask THC’s live chat representatives for a Rudolf Windows plan (I heard Rudolf is still available on demand despite being out of the spotlight).

As usual, Top Hosting Center still excels in the area of customer support – which plays a vital role of having a pleasant hosting experience with them. Their chat support representatives are responsive and well-informed. They immediately act when they get aware that a problem has struck to any of their customer’s websites. Same goes with their trouble ticket system – responses and solutions arrive in timely fashion.

Little Shortcomings

Shortly after Speedy hosting plan was introduced, THC announced the change of H-Sphere’s EasyApp collection. EasyApp is a set of one-click-install PHP applications similar to CPanel’s Fantastico. EasyApp applications include CMS, blog platforms, e-mail and chat applications, among others.

THC is not anymore relying on default EasyApp package from PSoft, the provider of their H-Sphere control panel and EasyApp. According to THC, PSoft failed to deliver updates on time when customers need them. So, they outsourced custom EasyApp packages from HSpherePlugins.com, a third-party developer for H-Sphere. Now, despite applications being up-to-date, the number of EasyApp applications kind of reduced. You don’t have to worry though; WordPress and other important applications are still there and would possibly expand in the future.

Another thing worth mentioning during my observation is that Speedy is not slowdown-free. My blog experienced several slowdowns sporadically within the month. It is good to know, however, that despite Speedy being so generous, it is still running on a shared hosting environment – a kind of hosting that is not totally free from hosting problems such as slowdowns and downtimes which is normal.

Related Articles From THC Speedy Customers

If you have tried THC’s Speedy hosting plan and you write a review, please inform me and I will add your review hereunder. So far, these are the customers who expressed their opinions regarding THC’s Speedy hosting plan.

• New Hosting For GrandmasterB.com

Conclusion: Is Speedy The Next Big Thing?

I remember THC calling Speedy “the biggest standard hosting plan” they’ve done to date when they unleashed it. By reviewing the page they made comparing Speedy versus the hosting plans from other big hosting companies, I would say Speedy is superb. It deserves the throne of Rudolf hosting plan, which however is still very good for thrifty and frugal online entrepreneurs.

Then again, I would like to emphasize the nature of shared hosting. Despite Speedy being so big and great, figures will not guarantee a problem-free and dedicated-hosting-like web hosting. However, its free dedicated IP is a consolation, and with THC’s quick-responding support department, you will get a pleasant hosting experience for you and your business.

Despite Speedy being so big and great, figures will not guarantee a problem-free and dedicated-hosting-like web hosting.

Now if you don’t bother paying monthly fees for your web hosting, and for the sake of abundance, better SEO and quality of hosting, Top Hosting Center successfully wipes off their hosting contenders with the striking features of their Speedy hosting plan – and that is a big thing.