Before I get into the review proper, I’d like to point [...]]]> Please Note: Initial reviews are for web host companies I either haven’t tested yet, but am preparing to begin testing; or for companies where testing has already begun, but I haven’t gotten enough data to feel comfortable enough to write a final review.

On Other Reviews:

Before I get into the review proper, I’d like to point out that all of the reviews I’ve seen elsewhere on West Host (I checked only a handful that came up first on Google) are hopelessly outdated. Best I can tell, no reviewer in the top positions has even reviewed the current products offered by West Host. Worse yet, most of what comes up first are totally useless “user review” sites. What I have gleaned from these reviews, however, is that West Host was considered by many to be the cream-of-the-crop for some time as far as shared hosting goes, and then they went through a brief, difficult transition period after merging with another hosting company, which is to be expected. Most of the reviews were either pre-transition reviews or, as expected from human nature, angry reviews that took place during the transition. User reviews are ALMOST ALWAYS suspect. The same angry folks go to each review site and fire away. In almost all of these cases, these people were trying to run sites that were inappropriate to the type of hosting they had purchased. As always, don’t just read reviews with your eyes. Use your brain as well. Whenever a review is written by someone with a fascinating name like “Tiger Pudgy” or claims to have lost thousands of dollars during a few hours of down time, simply move along. In fact, whenever possible, don’t read “user reviews” at all when it comes to something as complex as web hosting.

I’ve just determined I need to do a post on “user reviews.” I’ll get to that eventually. Now on to the preliminary review of West Host.

On Scalability:

If you have read any of my past reviews, you realize that one thing I look for in a hosting company is scalability. My principal concern here is that most people who create websites have big plans. That these “big plans” rarely come to fruition is of no importance; rather, the idea that some of these “big plans” are successful is the critical possibility to consider. If you succeed in your goals, you don’t want to be thwarted by incompetent hosting; neither do you want to be destroyed by your own incompetence in selecting a host that was never designed for your big ideas to begin with. So if you are one of these persons with “big plans,” you’ll want to consider scalability as of utmost importance, and this is just the area where I suspect that West Host may shine.

For starters, if you only need a personal web site and have no great expectations, shared hosting is always a good place to go, assuming you go with the right shared hosting company. Most websites are dynamic, or built-on-the-fly from databases, (think blog and ecommerce sites) these days, and some hosts are unable to handle even the simplest dynamic site. I don’t see any particular reason to suspect that West Host is one of these troubled hosting companies. Their technology architecture seems fully sufficient, and most of their shared hosting accounts seem distinctly under-promised, which is normally a good sign. Shared hosting comes in three flavors: personal, preferred and business.

Stepping up from shared hosting you have cloud hosting, reseller hosting, and both unmanaged and managed dedicated hosting. All, like the shared hosting, come with three levels to choose from.

All told, there should be just about enough scalability for anyone.

On Pricing:

Shared hosting plans aren’t the cheapest, but who wants the cheapest? Been there, done that, got intestinal problems. Plans start at $4 per month with no set-up fees if you purchase three years up-front. Other payment options are available, with the cheapest option to get started being $44 for three months ($8 per month plus a $20 set-up fee) plus purchasing your domain name ($12 for .com for 1 year).

Cloud hosting is very well priced. With West Host, you get a VPS set-up which would be similar to Media Temple’s GridContainer. Pricing for the cloud begins at $50 per month with no set-up fees.

Reseller hosting is priced the same as the cloud hosting and has some very nice features we’ll get into in a later post.

Dedicated servers are, as usual, ridiculously priced and completely unnecessary for most everyone.

On Services:

Just some highlights:

60 day money back guarantee plus a “100% Lifetime Satisfaction Promise” which is as follows (from their website):
* We promise to work with you honestly and fairly.
* We promise to provide you with fast, helpful and friendly answers to your questions 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
* We promise to provide you with optimal uptime. Our hosting systems infrastructure will be constructed, maintained, and monitored to ensure 99.9% uptime.
* We promise to employ the highest skilled and trained support staff in the industry.
* We understand that from time to time problems may occur. We promise to address all issues promptly and courteously.
* We take our promises very seriously and will issue you an appropriate credit if we have failed to meet our end of the bargain.

24/7 U.S. based support and live chat.

Incredible flexibility with nearly unlimited scalability.

Excellent ease-of-use with cPanel with built-in FTP and one-click installs of just about any software you’d like to use. This is incredibly important if you are new to running a website.

I have started a new trial with Netfirms. If you have read my old review of this hosting company, you realize that I have, in the past, had something of a love-hate relationship with them. On the one hand, they have the potential to be a fantastic middle alternative for those who need more than standard [...]]]>

I have started a new trial with Netfirms. If you have read my old review of this hosting company, you realize that I have, in the past, had something of a love-hate relationship with them. On the one hand, they have the potential to be a fantastic middle alternative for those who need more than standard shared hosting but don’t want to make the jump to dedicated or high end grid hosting. On the other hand, they have, at least the first time that I used them, issues with impossible customer support and performance that did not always match the marketing materials (okay, so that’s no big shocker).

Having talked to the folks at Netfirms, though, it seems that they have been working hard to overcome these issues, and I decided it was time for another try. So a couple of weeks ago I purchased their mid-level hosting plan and set up a new site. As of yet, I don’t have a lot to report. The site is still in development, and I refuse to artificially stress a site as I think that is unfair to both the hosting company and the company’s users. So all I can report so far is that set-up was a breeze, particularly with the option to have WordPress auto-installed during setup. One nice surprise was that when I opened my WordPress dashboard for the first time I realized that a number of professionally designed themes had been included in the installation.

So do I have an initial impression? Nope. There is a long way to go. Updates soon…

Reliable Web Hosting From $4.45/mo

State-of-the-art Clustered Server Technology
High Density Tier 1 Data Center
Free Domain Names
Free One-click Apps including WordPress, Drupal & Joomla
Up to $100 Ad Credits
Direct Purchase & Install of SSL Certificates
24/7 Customer Support
Money Back Guarantee
Short Feature Lists:

Standard Features

Free Domain Names
Host Unlimited Domains
Grid hosting
Price: $4.45
Bonus Features

$100 Marketing Bonus
Free One-click Applications
Direct Install of SSL Certificates