LiquidWeb.com Overview
Liquid Web is the hosting solution for over 20,000 customers spread across 120 countries in the world. A pleasant surprise from Liquid Web is that they offer unlimited email accounts, unlimited MySQL databases and free domain name registrations for 1 year with all hosting plans. CSS themes are used in Liquid Web hosting plans and make it easy to have a uniform layout whether it is a simple WordPress blog or a fully functional online store.
Ease of Use
Anyone, from a novice webmaster to an advanced systems administrators, should find ease when consulting Liquid Web for their respective hosting needs. The company’s apps and services are pretty straight forward and easy to use; problems seem to be solvable with just a few clicks of buttons and new applications installed just as smoothly. The beginner’s life is made easy with WYSIWYG editors and powerful, yet uncomplicated, control panels. Advanced users, on the other hand, can choose to have more complicated configurations and options added to their site depending on their needs.
Features
Liquid Web offers beginners 5GB of data for the Standard hosting plan all the way up to a dedicated 1 CPU Core and 2GB RAM server for the Semi-Dedicated hosting plan. Interestingly, there is no limit on the number of domains that can be registered. The same goes for sub-domains, which is pretty neat. Another cool feature that Liquid Web brings to its clients is the type of hosting that is dedicated to specific types of data and media. For example, the Video Distribution Service allows clients to upload, manage and broadcast audio and video files directly to their customers. Liquid Web even offers to convert the media between formats.
Liquid Web supports a myriad of plug-ins and applications. Examples could be: WordPress hosting (as a matter of fact, there is a plan that is solely dedicated to blogging), CMS solutions with Drupal, PHPBB forums and online stores with osCommerce. Liquid Web is one of the few hosting sites that have dedicated special hosting plans to specifically take on ecommerce sites. The company even goes the extra mile to actually help build clients’ ecommerce sites by providing tools for managing online stores and shopping cart packages. The array of commercial solution packages include Magento, osCommerce, ZenCart and CubeCart.
It doesn’t hurt that everything can be done with ease: setting up the store, stocking the shelves, setting up payment methods and shopping carts. The stores can be customized for various regions (language, currency etc.) and even coupons for deals can be integrated into the site. The stores can also be created to host various goods formats like electronic (ebooks, music, videos) and tangible goods. Installing a stock control application adds and deducts items as they are brought in or sold – making it easy to know current stock levels. Almost any and everything that has to do with payment gateways is supported at Liquid Web, establishing it as an all-encompassing service for your ecommerce needs.
Customer Support
At Liquid Web, customer support is offered to clients via tickets, phone calls and live chat. Clients can also access the Liquid Webs knowledgebase, which has a vast number of documents that touch on aspects of hosting with the company. All major applications have their own series of “How to” links that go into minute details of how to work with them. Apart from that, the company’s Heroic Support ensures that no client will be left out in the cold should any issues arise. The 24/7 support makes sure that all its customers get the service that is promised under the SLA and more: guaranteeing quick response times, hardware replacement, compensation for downtimes and much more.
Pricing
The main difference between the four hosting plans is the amount of disk space and bandwidth that is made available to the customer. There is also the fact that the Professional and Semi-Dedicated hosting plans come with dedicated IP addresses. Plans range from Standard ($14.95, 5GB and 120GB) to Semi-Dedicated ($40.00, 40GB and 320GB).
The Good
Beginners and more seasoned hosting personalities alike could find their needs met by Liquid Web.
The Bad
Seems especially built for those looking to host ecommerce sites