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Dogbark Overview
Once in a while, you see a fish that swims against the current. You see all of the fish swimming in one direction, and take notice of the one going the opposite way. Dogbark is an odd little fish, as you might gather from the name, but don’t discount what they can do based on their appearance. True, their website looks more like a teenage girl’s blog than a company that provides professional hosting services to individuals and businesses. However, by giving them the benefit of the doubt, you might have stumbled across the hosting solution that works best for you. If you are a Mac user and have a personal website, or own a small or medium-sized business that needs one, Dogbark has hosting plans that could very well fit you to a T.
Ease of Use
Everything you need to know about Dogbark, you can pretty much figure out from their website. While they may lack the polished, enterprise-level panache of a BlueHost, they are not trying to be BlueHost. This is the “mom and pop” version of a web hosting store, and their plans are easy enough for anyone to figure out. Furthermore, the steps are outlined quite clearly:
Step 1: Register a domain name
Your domain name is basically your website’s identity, so choose one wisely, if you don’t already have one. You can register a domain name with Dogbark’s sister company FYI NIC.
Step 2: Set up hosting
A hosting plan can include a wide range of features and specifications that are geared towards specific types and sizes of websites. Thankfully, Dogbark provides their contact phone number on their website should you have any questions about their services offered.
Step 3: Design your site
If you don’t already have a website, Dogbark can build one for you that is tailored to your individual tastes, and functions appropriately for its particular market. If you’re a photographer or other creative type, Dogbark is a perfect solution, as their Mac hosting solution works specifically with Mac users.
Step 4: Promote your site
Your website will be the needle in the haystack if you don’t promote it properly, and Dogbark provides solutions that allow you to do that. Using search engine optimization is certainly a large piece of the promotion puzzle. Integrated social media is yet another powerful tool that Dogbark can implement to ensure the viability and visibility of your website.
Features
Dogbark’s feature set should provide everything you or your business requires in order to create a great looking website that functions as expected. Included in each Mac hosting plan is the ability to transfer files from Mac OS X computers to Dogbark’s FTP servers via Transmit or Fetch. Dogbark works well with Dreamweaver-designed websites, one of the most popular web content creators available for the Mac market. You can also run PHP5 and Perl applications, host your own WordPress blog and know that MySQL 5 database support is included in your hosting plan.
Customer Support
With the smaller web hosting outfits, there will always be a trade-off. There is a small-town, folksy charm to Dogbark that is refreshing. You feel as if its owners and employees could easily be friends of yours, and look forward to speaking to them on the phone about their weekend plans. But, ultimately, you have a business to run. Or, at the very least, a website. This may be where Dogbark runs into the most trouble. Their support page mentions that there’s a good chance you’ll be speaking to one of the owners when you call their customer support. However, there are only so many owners and employees to go around before you find yourself waiting on hold for eternity.
With a lightly-staffed company such as Dogbark, you understand that you may be waiting on hold just as long if using a large web hosting company. Dogbark provides indirect support resources on their website in the form of user guides, a limited set of informative articles that explain how to configure POP Email clients, upload files, set up client FTP space, and a few others. This may not cut it if your phone or email support channels fails and your website goes down, or you’re having trouble with configuration.
PRICING
Email Only – $29.95/year for 3 POP Email accounts (400MB each).
Basic Plan – $191.40/year for 2GB web storage, 10 POP Email accounts, 100GB traffic, 1 MySQL database.
Intermediate Plan – $239.40/year for 4GB web storage, 25 POP Email accounts, 300GB traffic, 3 MySQL databases.
Advanced Plan – $299.40/year for 10GB web storage, 50 POP Email accounts, 500GB traffic, ProFTP and 5 MySQL databases.
Pro Plan – $419.40/year for unlimited web storage, web traffic and Email accounts. ProFTP and MySQL databases.
The Good
A well-valued web hosting service for a niche market (Mac users).
Web storage and Email account limits are priced well.
The Bad
Probably not a hosting solution that will entice bigger fish in the market — really meant for artists and creative small-business owners.
The Ugly
Dogbark was outsourcing their website development at the time this review was written due to workload.