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http://www.websitesource.com
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Here to Read Past Customer Experiences
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Performance |
5 | | Reliability |
6 | |
Customer Relations |
6 | | Features |
7 | |
Control Panel | 6 |
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Introduction
Some
Internet Web hosting providers are just
solid. There is nothing to write home
about but on the other hand, what they
offer is competitive and reliable. This
is what we found to be the case with Website
Source.
Website
Source claims that its hosting plans are
“the most comprehensive in the industry
and include everything you need to start,
maintain, and grow your online business.”
Accounts start at $8.36 per month and
include a Comprehensive Internet Marketing
and Advertising Solution, free Banner
Impressions, Newsletter Creator, Search
Engine Position Report, Site Statistics,
Chat and E-commerce Software, Microsoft
FrontPage 2002 server extensions, PHP,
CGI/Perl, mySQL, Webmail, Email Forwarding,
Access to log files. They offer Miva Merchant
their Web hosting accounts, which start
around $14.00. We feel that this is a
great feature with robust functions –
as those of you who know Miva Merchant
can attest – and worth the price
that Website Source charges.
Price
and Cost Effectiveness
A
word on that. There are two ways to get
domain names. You can go to a registration
company, submit your domain name (or multiple
names) to make sure that it is not taken
and then register it. Another way, which
has become more popular, is to find a
provider that will host multiple domains.
One question you should ask yourself before
you get excited about this option is why
you want multiple names, assuming you
do. There is a sort of myth built up around
putting keywords in domain names and having
a bunch of them point to one site to get
search engine coverage. If your site is
optimized you do not need this. If your
product cannot be explained on one site
or you have subsidiaries, then more than
one domain name might make sense. Some
search engines have historically yanked
sites that had many names pointing to
one place.
Reliability
On
the reliability side, Website Source was
fine. They are connected via a redundant
connection to Qwest, GTE and GlobalCenter
– all Tier 1 providers. During the
one incident when we did have some downtime,
though, it was incredibly difficult to
get ahold of someone in technical support.
That was irritating. So our conclusion
was that Website Source did fine on reliability
but left us not trusting that adequate
support would be there the next time we
needed it.
Data
Center
Website
Source is fully connected via redundant
connection to Qwest, GTE and GlobalCenter.
These are all tier 1 providers, and since
they have redundant connection, if one
or two of these providers go down, your
website hosted on their machines would
remain up.
Customer
Relations
Customer
relations need major work. So far our
contact with customer service has been
poor. Null responses and no phone call
pickups make this company's support possibly
the worst in the industry. Even though
they claim to offer 24/7 Chat support
and sales, they fail to show up when we
access those features. To make matters
worst, we were told that they would be
available in a minute, but instead they
never showed up even after an hour.
Control
Panel
Another
cool thing we found was Website Source’s
proprietary control panel made by 4siteinternet.
“Proprietary” makes us nervous
but this was not the case here. The panel
has great icons, easy navigation menus, and an
awesome help feature. We came away with
the impression that the folks at 4siteinternet
who designed and built this thing had
just spent one too many hours dealing
with sub-standard control panels and set
out to fix this. They did and slam dunked
the world of control panels with an outstanding
product. Bravo!
One
other thing we thought was cool about
Website Source was that they do not charge
big fat extras charges for adding multiple
domains. This is a big savings if you
need multiple domains.
Conclusion
Overall,
Website Source offers a reasonably complete
package at a competitive price. They have
a great control panel and high marks for
reliability. Still, until they get the
technical support thing under control,
we would advise caution. Again, it is
a matter that with all of the competition
in this area these days, support is not
one of those items any company can afford
to slip-up on.
Official
Website Source Web Hosting Review
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