Category Archives: Reviews

Best Web Hosting Companies: 2020

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Here’s our rankings for the the best web hosting companies of 2023! This has definitely been a year of change for hosting companies, with several new companies making it into our top ten.

best hosting companies - 1st place badge

Who’s our #1 Pick this year?

What has provoked these drastic changes? Well, there are two reasons:

  1. Improvements in Cloud Hosting – Cloud hosting was all the rage a couple years ago, but it was also expensive and unreliable. Thankfully the price and reliability have improved to a point where most hosting companies offer at least some kind of cloud-hybrid hosting plan.
  2. VPS Improvements – This is not unrelated to the improved popularity of cloud hosting. VPS hosting (or ‘virtual private server’) has grown from a cheap imitation of dedicated hosting to a flexible, reliable hosting solution that bridges the gap between small traffic personal blogs and gigantic company websites.
#:Name:Customer Rating:Uptime:Ease:
1. A Small Orange5.0/5.05.0/5.04.9/4.9
2.Godaddy4.75/5.05.0/5.05.0/5.0
3.Hostmetro4.9/5.04.9/5.04.9/5.0
4.DigitalOcean5.0/5.04.75/5.04.8/.5.0
5.Dreamhost4.8/5.04.8/5.04.9/5.0
6.Bluehost4.75/5.04.9/5.04.8/5.0
7.Fatcow4.7/5.04.75/5.04.95/5.0
8.Hostgator4.65/5.04.75/5.04.75/5.0
9.1and14.5/5.04.8/5.04.5/5.0

Surprises from our Rankings:

While ‘A Small Orange’ topping our rankings isn’t that surprising (it frequently tops lists ranking hosting companies), the second place finish of Godaddy is very surprising. The polarizing company has a lot of detractors. However in the past couple of years Godaddy has attempted to reinvent its public image. Gone are the risque ‘banned’ superbowl commercials and instead Godaddy is focusing on the small business owner. Reliability and ease of use are the new Godaddy goals.

What’s interesting is that our up-time monitoring tools found Godaddy to be the most reliable web host of them all. While our sample size of a few websites is too small to be a truly scientific measurement, it does indicate that Godaddy has vastly improved their hosting services. That, and you can they also have plenty of discounts and sales to make it more affordable (Click here to make sure you get a valid coupon code that works for you).

Here’s a sweet rundown of GoDaddy’s Hosting Services:

The Best E-Commerce Platforms & GoDaddy Promo Codes for the UK

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E-commerce businesses have been proliferating at a very rapid pace, it seems that more and more people would rather shop from the comfort of their own home rather than braving a crowded shopping mall. It’s also just way more convenient for people who live outside of urban centers and may not have a wide variety of stores to choose from. The cornerstone of any successful online store is a well-designed and professional website built around a suitable e-commerce platform. There are quite a few options available, so we hope this guide helps you narrow down your choices.

First, Build a Website Using these GoDaddy UK Promo Codes

Before you get down to choosing an e-commerce solution, you’ll probably want to get a basic website up and running first. Even just a single page with a brief description of your company/products that you will be selling and an email sign-up form is great. You can start gathering people’s interest and some emails so that you will have customers when you are ready to launch. I like GoDaddy’s services, they are relatively easy to use and quite inexpensive. They also typically have a lot of promotions running, check out Discountgo.co.uk to see what they have available. If you are outside of the UK just do a Google search, and I think a lot of the codes listed on that page will work for anywhere as well. Once you’ve got a basic homepage set up you are ready to get down to work on your online shop!

godaddy uk promo codes

E-commerce Platforms

Magento:

Magento is perfect for small businesses that are looking to move beyond more basic platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify. Magento will grant you the flexibility to build an online shop with a grand array of custom options, which will make your online shop stand out in a very crowded marketplace. Its price range is between $1,500 and $100,000, so it’s definitely not an entry level product. I’d wait until your store has a proven sales track record before moving up to something like Magento.

Some of the many other great features:

  • Freight & Shipping Integrations.
  • Customer & Order Management system.
  • (CMS) Content Management System.
  • Marketing Means for Landing Pages and Promotions.
  • Integrated Compliant Payment (PCI) Solutions.

BigCommerce:

BigCommerce is among the simpler e-commerce platforms to use. Everything that you will need to know in regards to their features is explained in such a way that an absolute novice could figure out what to do. They are among the most affordable in the industry with a low set-up fee and a low monthly fee, though you wouldn’t know it by the service and features you receive from them. Built-In features include tax, coupons, newsletters, shipping, and analytics. The Standard set up price is $29.95 a month, the Plus set up is $79.95 monthly, and also the professional set up is $249.95 a month.

Features include:

  • No transaction fees.
  • Responsive storefront themes.
  • Multi-channel integration (Sell through eBay, Google, Facebook, etc.)
  • Excellent tech support.
  • Yahoo! Merchant Starter.

GoDaddy Shopping Cart Deluxe Edition:

Though not as well known as the high dollar platforms out there, GoDaddy Shopping Cart Deluxe makes it to the list on value alone. With no set-up fee and a monthly price under ten bucks, GoDaddy Shopping Cart Deluxe is extremely feature-rich for the price. Again, GoDaddy is a big name for those that like to have that on their side. Grab your first domain for $1.17! Limit one per client. Can’t narrow it down to just one domain? Alternative discounts are available – see cart for final price. Online Store has just one set up and just one price: $29.99 per month.

Other features:

  • A wide range of products.
  • Decent performance.
  • cPanel-powered Linux hosting.
  • Easy-to-use Website Builder.

PrestaShop:

Prestashop is an open source e-commerce platform that users can download or host from the cloud. It is a very similar service to Wix Ecommerce. The highest competitor Stitch is priced at $999 and the lowest price is Shopify which is priced at $9.

Features:

  • Mobile commerce.
  • PrestaShop internet Agencies.
  • Designer Guide.
  • Powerful Store Builder.
  • Quick Install options.
  • Intuitive Interface.
  • Ecommerce Analytics.
  • E-commerce SEO

Finding an e-commerce platform to take your internet business from idea to successful reality is a breeze with such platforms, and the only thing that can hold back your online success is you not starting as soon as possible.

Hostgator

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Hostgator was founded way, way back in 2002. Since then, Hostgator has grown to host over 9 million domains. The company started out offering personal and business web hosting packages. But in the past few years they have rapidly expanded to offer Reseller hosting, VPS, and Dedicaed hosting packages.

Hostgator is known for offering great customer support (both on the phone and online), excellent uptime scores and all for a reasonable price. The standard hosting price is $5.95/month, but Hostgator frequently offers flash sales where you can get hosting for 70% off or more (typically President’s Day, July 4th and Black Friday are the big ‘flash sales’).

As of 2008, Hostgator was one of the top 25 fastest growing companies in America.

Features:

  • Unlimited Disk Space (actually unlimited, unlike some other hosting companies like Godaddy)
  • Unlimited Bandwidth (again, it’s actually unlimited)
  • 45 day money back guarantee
  • Free Website Builder
  • 99.9% uptime guarantee
  • Thousands of free website templates

    • What They Don’t:
    Unfortunately they don’t offer SSL Certificates with their basic hosting plans (only the VPS plans). While GoDaddy doesn’t offer them either, you can use a SSL coupon code and it becomes dirt cheap.

    The Types of Customer Support They Offer:

    Live Chat (quickest), phone support, video tutorials, forums and support tickets
    You can always email support at ‘support@hostgator.com’ if your website has been down for more than an hour (they actually say that on their website).