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[FGTH]

Hi Everyone:

One of my clients is considering using WebSitePros for routine maintenance and updates of pre-existing sites. The caveat is that my client is forced to switch web-hosting providers to WebSitePros.

On a site note: I know that WebSitePros acquired NetObjects a few years back after the original makers of "Fusion" went belly-up along with the myriads of other small "dot-com" firms. This was a good move on WebSitePros' part since many Web-Hosting firms bundle NetObjects Fusion with their web hosting packages. This added another revenue generator for WSP.

My questions are:
1) How is WebSitePros as a web-hosting provider?
2) Have you read or heard any opinions about them regarding web design, hosting, and overall customer satisfaction?

Thanx in advance!

[John Scott]

I've read alsewhere that WebSitePros uses dirty tactics and it can be hard to transfer a domain away from them. Best bet is just to Google the name and see what comes up.

[FGTH]

Thank you John for the info...

I Googled "WebSitePros" and most of what I found pertained to NetObjects Fusion...

Would you mind elaborating on the source of the "dirty tactics"?

Anyone else see or heard anything about these guys?

[FGTH]

I've been working with WebSitePros.

WebSitePros Problems:
1) WebSitePros uses 3 Web-servers each hosting approximately 300 websites each. This means that the webservers are overloaded and extremely slow to respond.

2) Customs get the bare-minimum for a web-hosting package running ensim control panel on Apache.
~250MB of disk space for a premium package and 10GB of transfer.
20 email accounts (no aliases or redirects).

3) They don't host IP-based websites which means that when any of the 3 web-server IPs are on a banned list, all sites sharing the IPs will be banned.
They are:
Ensim 80 -- 64.69.219.80
Ensim 81 -- 64.69.219.81
Ensim 82 -- 64.69.219.82

4) WSP project managers are pushed to sell even if clients get a really poor deal. They're trying to branch out from Web Design services. Unfortunately, they're doing a very bad job.

Suffice to say, WebSitePros is a big rip-off with poor web-hosting offerings.

Stay away from Web Site Pros

[monster]

Originally Posted by FGTH

I've been working with WebSitePros.

WebSitePros Problems:
1) WebSitePros uses 3 Web-servers each hosting approximately 300 websites each. This means that the webservers are overloaded and extremely slow to respond.

How do you know they don't have a Dual Opteron with 256 GB of RAM?

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by FGTH

I've been working with WebSitePros.

WebSitePros Problems:
1) WebSitePros uses 3 Web-servers each hosting approximately 300 websites each. This means that the webservers are overloaded and extremely slow to respond.

The number of websites on a server doesn't necessarilly mean the server is overloaded. Lots of people have business card type of websites. These are composed of 4 to 5 static pages and the average monthly bandwidth used is 0 to 5 MB. Others may have family websites where they put a few dozen pictures from their recent trip to the outskirts of the city. Such sites are visited by them, their aunt Lucy and their second cousin from Oklahoma.

According to http://www.internet-hosting-report.com/best2003.php, one fella shares a server with over 23,447 other sites. (you'll need to scroll down and find Brian H. - BrianHalacy.com ) He's happy. Read his review of his host. Either the other sites are puny, or the server is more powerful than you care to imagine.

Originally Posted by FGTH

2) Customs get the bare-minimum for a web-hosting package running ensim control panel on Apache.
~250MB of disk space for a premium package and 10GB of transfer.
20 email accounts (no aliases or redirects).

I was asked to make a small site for a company who will never even try sell anything on the internet. Total size of their site is 789KB (including pictures they provided). They will likely pay for hosting for a few years without even realizing the site is even there.

To give you an idea what I mean check out some personal sites hosted by a local ISP. Especially pay attention to this site:
http://www.niagara.com/%7Epossum/default.html
Sure, other sites there are more elaborate and they even have pictures. But the thing is that nobody ever visits them.

I think I could host 20000 sites like that on a single Pentium 100MHz with 32 MB of RAM and on a 56.7 modem "backbone".

Originally Posted by FGTH

Suffice to say, WebSitePros is a big rip-off with poor web-hosting offerings.
Stay away from Web Site Pros

That might be true and a good piece of advice, but you certainly did not prove it.

[FGTH]

I'm here to share my experience with WebSitePros web-hosting.

The majority of web hosting companies can host much more effectively than WebSitePros (as stated by the previous two responses by littleFella and monster).

Facts:
1) I've worked with WebSitePros over the past month.
2) They have 3 web-servers hosting all their clients.
3) All the sites I managed (previously hosted on olm.net) now hosted on WebSitePro servers respond much slower (3-5 times slower).
4) I did a reverse IP lookup for WebSitePros servers and tested other sites.

The results were:
WebSitePros web-servers were extremely sluggish.

Visit any of the websites listed on the shared IPs and you'll see the really slow response times. (The sites I managed were w3c compliant HTML 4.01 transitional static pages so they load quickly on a decent server).

5) FTP response time on these servers were horrible!
6) The packages are bare-bones...
They come with 4 things:
250M of disk space
10GB of monthly transfer
20 email accounts
Web Statisitics

Would you pay more than $100/month for this? I doubt it (but if you're willing to buy this, I've also got a bridge for sale in Brooklyn).

One thing WebSitePros does well is "selling".

Conclusion:
WebSitePros web-hosting should be avoided.

[FGTH]

Originally Posted by littleFella

To give you an idea what I mean check out some personal sites hosted by a local ISP. Especially pay attention to this site:
http://www.niagara.com/%7Epossum/default.html
Sure, other sites there are more elaborate and they even have pictures. But the thing is that nobody ever visits them.

I think I could host 20000 sites like that on a single Pentium 100MHz with 32 MB of RAM and on a 56.7 modem "backbone".

That might be true and a good piece of advice, but you certainly did not prove it.

I have to take everything with a grain of salt. I'm sure you can probably host 20000 sites.

The fact is that there are only 16 sites hosted on 209.5.56.2 which is owned by Internet Connect Niagara.

[FGTH]

Originally Posted by monster

How do you know they don't have a Dual Opteron with 256 GB of RAM?

I don't know what they have running within their servers.

For all I know they could have a Pratt & Whitney JTD8 Turbo Jet.

As a customer, some of the things I value are quality of web-hosting service (response time, uptime, service quality), packaging (what's included) and package cost (competitive pricing).

And if they do have Dual Opteron's as you assert as a possiblity, they're doing a really poor job of utilizing what they have.

Thanks for reading and responding.

Some additional metrics (rountrip:
Response time for roundtrip for olm.net web-servers (12 - 14 ms)
Response time for roudtrip for WebSitePros web-servers (57 - 72 ms)

Conclusion:
Stay away from WebSitePro Web-hosting

[Johan007]

They sound terrible! As for domains you should never ever host your domain with your web space company!

Dont v7 do hosting? If your after windows hosting (ASP/ASP.net) I am with http://www.protecweb.co.uk/ and are very fast.

[FGTH]

Originally Posted by littleFella

I think I could host 20000 sites like that on a single Pentium 100MHz with 32 MB of RAM and on a 56.7 modem "backbone".

That might be true and a good piece of advice, but you certainly did not prove it.

I'm sure you can do what you suggest and the 20000 sites you propose to host on a 56.7 modem backbone would all be extremely sluggish to load.

However, you confuse the ability to host with the quality of hosting.

My main concern as a consumer is to address the quality of service and competitive pricing (packaging) of WebSitePros web-hosting.

WSP has the ability to host; but they deliver something that's substandard in performance, price, & packaging.

[Jonathan VanSchaack]

They sound terrible! As for domains you should never ever host your domain with your web space company!

I have to disagree with this statment. Being a web hosting company and supplying domains, I keep both seperate. This way if a customer gets hosting or not, or even leaves we don't have a problem. Customers come and go, some companies try dirty tricks to make them stay, but I still believe most run good companies and have the morals not to.

[FGTH]

Some more information:
Over the past 7+ days, WebSitePros haven't been able to fix their email servers leaving hundreds of their customers without email.

I called WebSitePros tech support and the response was "Our admins are aware of the issue and are working on it."

I guess their SLAs don't apply to email.

Conclusion:
Stay away from WebSitePros Web Hosting.

[smrtmny2]

We tried their "promotional campaign" ($45.00 per month). Canceled it.
They're great at selling that's about it. No noticeable help. One of their features/selling points was to review site and make optimization suggestions.

They apparently did this and really made no constructive suggestions at all, even though our site was not optimized at all (previous to our present SEO efforts).

Don't waste your money.

[MisterB1949]

Originally Posted by smrtmny2

We tried their "promotional campaign" ($45.00 per month). Canceled it.
They're great at selling that's about it. No noticeable help. One of their features/selling points was to review site and make optimization suggestions.

They apparently did this and really made no constructive suggestions at all, even though our site was not optimized at all (previous to our present SEO efforts).

Don't waste your money.

Having just been approached, through Discover network, to join this deal for $44.95 per month, I am interested in your experiences (and any others out there). What alternatives do you suggest, to optimize the site and to promote it?

I have also been aproached by CentreCube Marketing, who will build an optimized website for me free of charge in return for 10% of sales, provided I commit to a "pay-per-click" ad campaign.

[FGTH]

Originally Posted by smrtmny2

We tried their "promotional campaign" ($45.00 per month). Canceled it.
They're great at selling that's about it. No noticeable help. One of their features/selling points was to review site and make optimization suggestions.

They apparently did this and really made no constructive suggestions at all, even though our site was not optimized at all (previous to our present SEO efforts).

Don't waste your money.

Agreed about their SEO competency or lack thereof

[dselby5]

I have an e-commerce site that was previously hosted on Microsoft B-central... as b-central was shutting down and Microsoft listed website pros as a suggested alternative I gave them a reply.

Their staff lied to me, and took a $250 deposit for doing nothing. In the end i was able to get my money back by contacting the credit card company. When I called website pros they denied charging me the $250 saying that they don't require a deposit.

[Ebizguy23]

Websitepros charges huge recurring fees. One client said they were charging him $300 every three months for a website thats just sitting there doing nothing. I could have built his entire site for $250 and charged him $10 per month hosting. Another company that charges huge recurring fees is MarketAmerica, they are charging $60 per month for editable sites. The consumer doesnt know they could just pay a little more for an editable website made with Joomla or Adobe Contribute and pay under $10 per month hosting. Those monthly fees add up to thousands of dollars wasted. Keep your savings account and avoid Websitepros. Why pay recurring fees? - own your website after you pay for it!

[iHubNet-Matt]

This seems to be a huge amount. Well they tell this in their TOS?

[~ServerPoint~]

The thread is 4 years old. Are you serious guys?