First Impressions of Top Hosting Center
Posted on December 20, 2007
Part of the Top Hosting Center Series - Previous in series Next in series
As I wrote a few days ago I’ve been looking for a new website hosting company and decided to give Top Hosting Center a shot because they’re currently offering an incredible hosting deal-
- $95 one-time fee gets hosting for life
- One free domain for life
- 250GB disk storage
- 3000GB monthly transfer
- All the standard bells and whistles (emails, sub-domains, MySQL databases, etc) with unlimited access
- 24/7 support
- 30-day money back guarantee
Well, I signed up earlier today and overall am pretty happy. I’ve been designing (and thus hosting) websites for more than a decade now. I even operated a small web hosting company for a few years back in the mid-90s. So I’m far from a rookie when it comes to webhosts. Bear in mind that the following is a result of only a couple of hours of playing with the system. As I add more domains and do more work I’ll come back and post further updates-
The Good -
- Their Rudolph lifetime web hosting deal (outlined above) is absolutely amazing!
- Their tech support is speedy, human and helpful! Thus far I’ve emailed them (before and after buying a web hosting package) and sent one internal ticket through their customer support system. My response times: 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 2 hours, 45 minutes. All responses were directly to the point, friendly, and clearly written by a real human being.
- The one-click install for many standard web software programs is as easy as it sounds. So far I’ve installed WordPress and OpenAds (phpadsnew) on two separate domains.
The Bad -
- Both WordPress and OpenAds installed easily, but the software was out of date and needed an immediate upgrade. With Wordpress this was easy enough to do, but with OpenAds it’s a major upgrade and it turned out easier to just delete the automatic installation and do the installation myself.
- I have no idea what’s going on with my free domain. Part of the Rudolph hosting package is a free domain name for life. When I purchased my account I was told to email them the information for my domain. I did so, but have not heard back on that and the domain is still listed as “available” at the domain registrars 10 hours later. By contrast, I registered another new domain today and it shows as “not available” a mere two hours later.
The Ugly -
- When ordering my account it quickly became evident that this is a very young company. The process of simply making my payment took at least a half dozen different pages, none of which seemed to be hosted at THC. Having the payment processing so visibly done by a third party doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. As an FYI, I’ve used 2checkout.com (they’re payment processor) in the past, and found them reliable. This is a matter of the impression of insecurity rather than a genuine lack of security.
- I had to create a separate login for their support system. That is so annoying. When I’m already logged in to my account and need to look up how to do something I’m already frustrated. the last thing I want to do is have to login to yet another site. The support system should be 100% integrated into the control panel.
Considering the mad amounts of drama I’ve had transferring (or creating) accounts with past web hosting companies, these complaints are relatively minor. If you’ve hosted your own websites before you’ll navigate your way through just fine. if this is your first time, their customer support staff is superb. Top Hosting Center is definitely still a thumbs up from me even if you miss out on the Rudolph deal and go with the same plan @ $4.95/month.
Part of the Top Hosting Center Series - Previous in series Next in series
The Complete Top Hosting Center Series-
- Is My Website Hosting Search Over Already?
- First Impressions of Top Hosting Center
- Kinks Working Out At Top Hosting Center
- Well THAT Sucked!
- StumbleUpon Highlights Top Hosting Center’s Weakness
- Top Hosting Center Can’t Keep Own Website Online!
- Top Hosting Center Attacks Web Hosting Customer
- Grease For My Squeaky Wheel
- Top Hosting Center STILL Can’t Keep Their Home Page Online!
- Quick Update On Top Hosting Center
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