Professional Hosting review | TechRadar

Web hosting generally is a difficult enterprise, and most supplier web sites have pages, and pages, and pages of content material telling you all about their options and learn how to get the most effective out of them.

The Professional Hosting website stunned us with its excessive simplicity: there may be little greater than a Home web page, an order kind, and pages for the privateness coverage in addition to phrases and circumstances.

To be very clear from the outset, this can be a review of Professional Hosting, with two s’s, not the Spanish-based ProfesionalHosting, which has just one ‘s’, and is a completely completely different firm.

Professional Hosting tries to impress with a headline of ‘internet hosting tens of millions of on-line companies professionally since 2001’, however that simply left us extra skeptical. Millions? Really? From a bunch with no social media and barely any Google hits? And an internet site which, in line with the Wayback Machine, hasn’t existed in its current kind for even a yr?

Investigating, we discovered the ProfessionalHosting.com area was registered in 2001 – maybe that is the place the date comes from. But in recent times it has been used as an affiliate hyperlink, quite than to host an organization. (The area proprietor printed web site suggestions to go to professionalhosting.com to get their internet hosting, that area redirected them to Bluehost.com with an affiliate hyperlink, and in the event that they signed up, the area proprietor acquired a lower.)

The service claims an handle of ’93 Sycamore Street, San Jose’, suggesting it is an actual group. But from what we will see, San Jose does not seem to have a ‘Sycamore Street’, and the one web reference to this handle is the Professional Hosting web site. Later, after we signed up, our cash was taken by somebody in Singapore.

The Professional Hosting product vary is, properly, small. There are simply three shared hosting plans. They sound well-specified – that includes unmetered disk area and bandwidth, limitless MySQL databases, subdomains, e-mail accounts, and FTP accounts – however they’re costly.

The Basic plan prices $99 yearly (an efficient $8.25 a month), and helps internet hosting a single web site. Advanced is $149 ($12.42), and hosts as much as 4 web sites. Ultimate prices $199 ($16.59) and helps internet hosting limitless websites.

Although we’re quoting month-to-month figures that can assist you evaluate, there isn’t any month-to-month billing, and no choice to subscribe for longer to get a reduction: you simply get an annual plan.

Oh, and there isn’t any trial, and no point out of any money-back assure, so that you’re risking greater than traditional in opening a Professional Hosting account. That’s particularly worrying when there isn’t any clear info on who’s behind the corporate. All that stated, we did ask for a refund – we’ll come onto that later within the review – and obtained one finally, just a few days later, however there are not any ensures on that rating.

At any charge, can this service probably be value signing up for? Let’s discover out.

Professional Hosting

(Image credit score: Professional Hosting)

Setup

Professional Hosting received some uncommon bonus factors at the beginning of our signup process, after we realized it wasn’t going to request any important private info. The service did not want our identify, bodily handle, cellphone quantity or firm identify: our e-mail handle was sufficient.

Payment choices are restricted to card solely, although, which is a bit more disappointing.

The actual shock got here on the finish of the method, when the web site requested us to e-mail the assist group with our area identify, the domain registrar login URL, our registrar’s username and password, in order that they may replace our DNS data.

Uh, what? Give away the login for one thing as important as our area registrar account, to an internet site which seems to make deceptive claims, and has no info on who’s behind it?

We’ve no purpose to imagine Professional Hosting would do something underhand – in all probability it truly is simply attempting to be useful – however we have no purpose to belief the positioning, both, and even a small danger of issues by way of an harmless mistake (it deletes one thing necessary or adjustments a key setting) is an excessive amount of.

This additional step appeared to delay account activation, too, with the web site stating that our account won’t be arrange for 24-48 enterprise hours. Order late on Friday, and also you is perhaps ready till the next Tuesday or Wednesday earlier than you get began.

The Professional Hosting web site did not give us a ‘do that when you’d quite deal with DNS your self’ choice, however we emailed anyway, supplied our area identify and requested for particulars of their programs so we may set it up ourselves.

The subsequent day, an e-mail arrived with the nameservers: ns833.websitewelcome.com and ns834.websitewelcome.com. We thought these seemed a little bit acquainted, and a fast internet search revealed why – they’re the nameservers supplied by HostGator on its reseller hosting accounts.

What? ‘Professional Hosting’, which had hosted ‘tens of millions of on-line companies since 2001’, was primarily simply reselling HostGator internet area?

This out of the blue made extra sense. A large internet hosting firm is not going to have successfully a single web page web site, three merchandise and no assist past a single e-mail handle, however you would possibly anticipate that from a easy reseller mission.

Professional Hosting

(Image credit score: Professional Hosting)

Checking the small print can typically inform you extra about an organization, so we headed off to the phrases and circumstances. This puzzled us, because it talked about all types of options Professional Hosting did not appear to supply. But then we realized: it was largely a lower and paste of Hostwinds’ phrases, with all ‘Hostwinds’ references changed by ‘Professional Hosting.’

Unfortunately for Professional Hosting, the unique phrases had a typo, as soon as referring to Hostwind quite than Hostwinds. That means it wasn’t caught by Professional Hosting’s international search and change, and it is still visible as we write: ‘if a consumer violates the Hostwind service settlement or this settlement, Professional Hosting will…’

Despite the identify, this actually wasn’t sounding like knowledgeable service, however we would purchased our plan, so determined to strive it out anyway.

Creating an internet site

Professional Hosting arrange our account utilizing our area, which means we needed to entry our management panel by way of cpanel.ourdomain.com. That’s inconvenient when you’ve not arrange your area but, and it is not what often occurs with ‘actual’ suppliers. Standard follow is that you simply’re capable of arrange your web site first, and level the area to it later.

The firm does not observe normal follow on internet account administration, both: actually, it does not have any in any respect. There’s no buyer management panel, no strategy to see which companies you’ve got ordered, to test when a renewal is due, to vary your cost methodology, to cancel an account. You’ll simply must e-mail assist and hope somebody does what you ask.

We’ve no purpose to imagine Professional Hosting would ignore your directions, but when there isn’t any account console, there isn’t any clear proof to confirm what’s occurred. What when you ask the service to cancel your account, however the e-mail will get misplaced, or the service proprietor by accident deletes it? There’s no method so that you can see when the cancellation occurs, and if it does not, and also you’re billed once more subsequent yr, there isn’t any audit path to point out what’s occurred.

Professional Hosting

(Image credit score: Professional Hosting)

Logging in utilizing the Professional Hosting credentials did at the very least take us to an industry-standard cPanel console, full of all of the low-level instruments you would possibly have to create and handle your website (MySQL database instruments, area managers, e-mail account choices and extra).

A QuickInstall device automated the set up of WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, PrestaShop and WHMCS. It’s lower than Softaculous requirements, however it’ll do.

There’s additionally one more disappointment. Professional Hosting guarantees ‘unmetered’ disk area and bandwidth on its web site, however cPanel advised us we had 1GB storage and a tiny 4GB of month-to-month bandwidth.

Responding by e-mail, the corporate advised us these limits can be elevated to go well with our wants. Well, okay, however by how a lot? If it is ‘unmetered’ quite than ‘limitless’, then there should be limits, however what are they? The web site does not make this clear.

Normally we would have continued with our review, working extra exams, checking efficiency, and so forth, however when the product is simply fundamental HostGator, and Professional Hosting is including no worth – if something, it is taking worth away – there appeared little level. So, we stopped. We’d seen sufficient.

As a last notice, there was some uncommon excellent news after we requested a refund on our account. While nothing appeared to occur initially, just a few days after asking, ProfessionalHosting refunded our money. That’s a welcome transfer and deserves a little bit credit score, however remember the fact that the web site does not make any dedication to a refund interval, and there isn’t any assure you will get one, when you ask.

Final verdict

Despite Professional Hosting’s web site boast of ‘internet hosting tens of millions of on-line companies’, it is only a very fundamental HostGator reseller with minimal assist and subsequent to no options. The service has no purpose to exist, and you may get a greater product, for much less cash, by signing up with HostGator direct.

As a last reminder, notice that this review is of Professional Hosting, with two s’s, and never the Spanish-based ProfesionalHosting, with one ‘s’, which is a very completely different firm.

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