Rating:
(4/5) 
Currently rated as #3
What This Review Is Looking At:
Cost vs. Features & Support, Ecommerce, Servers and Connectivity,
Customer Service;
Pros:
- Integrated site builder
- Miva E-commerce options
- Easy to use control panel
Cons:
- Supposedly "unlimited" transfer
- No store on smaller plans
- Older Miva version
Overall Impression:
Web.com, formerly Interland, offers 3 tiers of what they
call "do-it-yourself" hosting: basic, with "marketing",
and with marketing and a shopping cart. The first basic "website" plan
is a ‘standard’ hosting solutions priced in line with most other
hosts out there, providing 20GB of data transfer and 5GB of storage,
ample for most personal or hobby sites. The largest solution ("Website
+ Marketing + eCommerce") offers “unlimited transfer”.
This will no doubt make them seem like a good deal
to those looking for reasonable prices on high transfer sites.
Naturally, any claims of unlimited transfer have to be scrutinized
closely. There is a lengthy disclaimer which prohibits the obvious
such as Realmedia content, adult content, and reselling the transfer
for other sites, as well as a more troublesome exclusion on database
traffic.
Cost Vs. Features & Support:
Web.com's website offerings are
solid, and would meet the needs of most any personal, hobby,
or enthusiast sites. The tiering of plans around the addition
of marketing and shopping carts is a reasonable rarity. Some
might question the addition of a "+marketing" option
before the more ecommerce-enabled plan, as most marketing would
seem to be geared towards sites doing ecommerce. The plan with
marketing and ecommerce is also fairly pricey at $49.95 per month,
but it comes with Miva Merchant and support for other shopping
cart methods like PayPal. Web.com's plans also provide access
to their custom Amazon "Store Connectors".
Ecommerce:
Web.com’s plans feature Miva Merchant
4.2. Miva is a fairly common offering for shared hosts and a
feature-rich cart for those wishing to set-up anything from a
small store with a few products to a few thousand. It’s available
on the largest "+marketing+ecommerce" plans. It should
be noted, as of this writing, Miva Merchant version 5 has been
in release for some time and the presence of a such an older
version of Miva may be something to consider.
Web.com does go a little further, offering sign-up with the
Verisign payment gateway Payflow Pro on its largest plans, and
as an add-on for smaller plans. Payment gateways are essential
to performing real-time transactions with an online shopping cart.
They are not the only requirement, though; you will still need
to have a merchant account to put the funds into.
Servers and Connectivity:
Web.com is not particularly clear
on the status of their overall internet connectivity and where
their servers are located. They tout their security, especially
the multiple firewalls, but much less is said about the quality
of their connections and whether they have multiple redundant
access points to the internet.
Customer Service:
With an extensive online library
for immediate support, Web.com provides the industrious with
quick answers at their fingertips. They also provide chat and
phone service for those in need of more structured guidance.
We enjoyed general success with Web.com’s support options, both
online and live. As one of the larger hosting companies they
have the resources to put into support that smaller hosts might
not have.
