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
- Limited developer tools
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
1000 GB of data transfer and 80 GB 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 ecommerce is also
fairly pricey at $59.95 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 5.0. 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.
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.
