Yahoo Hosting Review
Webmasters looking to get their website hosting from Yahoo! tend to expect an experience that is commensurate with the reputation of the company – and they will not be disappointed.
Hundreds of thousands of websites call Yahoo!'s servers their home and they are highly appreciative of the services they are offered. And so, webmasters, designers and administrators can look forward to that famous service by simply signing up for Yahoo! Small Business web hosting.
It should be noted here that although Yahoo! does offer web hosting that is designed with the small business and its owners in mind, it doesn't mean individuals should stay away. On the contrary, they should actually sign up for a hosting solution that has been tried and tested to do much more than simply display a few pages.
Pricing
Yahoo! offers three web hosting plans, each of which can be purchased for a low monthly fee and an even-lower introductory fee (for the first three months). The plans are called Basic, Advanced and Premier, and although Yahoo! offers many similar features between these plans, they differ primarily in the amount of storage and transfer available for each.
| Basic Plan | Advanced Plan | Premier Plan | |
| Disk Space | 100GB | 500GB | Unlimited |
| Data Transfer | 1000GB/month | 5000GB/month | Unlimited |
| Email Addresses | 250 | 500 | 1000 |
| Web Pages Available | 10 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Basic Plan | Advanced Plan | Premium Plan | |
| 1 month | $5.99/month | $9.99/month | $14.99/month |
| 1 year | $2.50/month for the first 3 months, then $4.99/month | $4.00/month for the first 3 months, then $7.99/month | $6.00/month for the first 3 months, then $11.99/month |
| 3 years | $1.99/month for the first 3 months, then $3.99/month | $3.49/month for the first 3 months, then $6.99/month | $4.99/month for the first 3 months, then $9.99/month |
| 5 years | $1.75/month for the first 3 months, then $3.49/month | $3.00/month for the first 3 months, then $5.99/month | $4.50/month for the first 3 months, then $8.99/month |
Yahoo! Small Business web hosting also offers premium services for nominal fees, such as the use of DudaMobile, which helps adapt a site for more convenient mobile access.
Money Back Guarantee
Yahoo! Small Business hosting packages can be cancelled anytime within the first 30 days for a full refund, minus the $7 domain registration fee. After the first 30 days, customers with yearly plans can cancel for any reason for a pro-rated refund, minus any domain registry fees.
Features
Yahoo! Small Business Web Hosting Features:
- Unix operating system
- Step-by-step site building checklist
- Easy to use site builder
- Customizable templates
- Diverse multimedia integration abilities
- Photo galleries, user forums, maps and more
- SEO-friendly features
- Useful site reporting
Yahoo! Small Business web hosting offers advanced marketing tutorials that will be especially helpful for people new to the world of internet business. These tutorials cover such topics as submitting sites to search engines and sending grand opening emails to relevant recipients.
Yahoo! also offers instructions about how to optimize websites for search engine visibility, how to improve conversion rates and how to increase awareness, all topics that are not generally covered by other web hosts to such an extensive degree.
Ease of Use (Web Builder)
Yahoo! hosting comes with its own control panel that is straightforward and simple to use. Anyone can log in and get on with running even the most complicated of websites with just a few minutes of orientation – it's that simple.
To begin with, webmasters need simply drag and drop the features they want to add to their new sites. For those that might need a gentle reminder on how to proceed, Yahoo! has a site building checklist on offer for all its webmasters. Once the way forward is known, it is on to creating a website with a tool that allows for customizable site designs and flexible page layouts, which can be turned into almost any imaginable design. For those that might falter or lose their way, Yahoo!'s website builder offers step-by-step instructions to ensure all that needs to be included in a basic website is put in its place.
Add to that the features which make a site interesting and interactive and you have a winning solution for the perfect website: multilingual capability, galleries, maps, forms and multimedia players and downloader managers… the list simply goes on.
Creating an email address with Yahoo! Small Business is a snap, even easier than building the site. All that is needed is to insert the required username and click on "Finish", and Yahoo! creates the new email account. Yahoo! creates an initial password – thus ensuring it is as secure as it should be.
Although webmasters can use the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers to build their websites, Yahoo! Small Business web hosting is not yet compatible with Google Chrome.
Customer Support
Yahoo! Small Business hosting offers phone support for sales from 7am-5pm PST, as well as technical support by phone 24/7. During the course of this Yahoo! web hosting review, clients called the customer support hotline several times. Yahoo! offered a recording informing webmasters of how long their hold time is anticipated to be, so that you may try again later, should they wish so. Calls to the sales center were answered within a minute and each representative was quite knowledgeable about the issue at hand. In fact, the sales representative was even able to answer some of technical questions, which was quite helpful.
A notable advantage of Yahoo!'s customer support is that the company offers a call back service, which allows clients to request a call back and tells them how long it would take to receive the call.
An email sent to Yahoo! at 2:48pm EST on a Tuesday, was replied with an automatic response that stated emails are generally answered within 24 hours.
The final response came about 22 hours later and addressed the question quite directly.
Finally, Yahoo! offers a thorough list of articles that answer many common questions related to web hosting and web building. The company also tries to offer relevant article suggestions based upon clients' activities on the site which may be helpful for some Yahoo! users.
Summary
- Three different hosting plans
- Intuitive site builder
- Customer support call back option available
The Good
Great webhost specifically tailored to small business owners' needs
The Bad
Offers good discounts, but only with long-term contracts
The Ugly
Needs to consider Google Chrome as a suitable browser.
Customer Testimonials*
"One thing that I really love about Yahoo, and the reason I stay, is that the support you guys offer. Whenever I have an issue with the store, it could be a code problem, product knowledge they have the answer for just about anything I ask. When I call the tech department, It's great because it's more of a personal one-on-one, rather them a commercial call center environment. That's a great feeling, knowing that they know your voice over the phone without introducing yourself every time you call them. They always extend themselves, and I'm not just saying it. I had an issue with the checkout page and he actually formatted the page himself, added some pictures, went above and beyond the call of duty. Maria Melo…always updates me before new store feature releases come out…she always helps me out with merchant for yahoo store that would best fit my needs. Maria's been a wonderful resource to fall back on, because let's face it, she knows Yahoo! store better than anyone, I'm here to sell my product, and Yahoo! helps with that."
Mark Richmond, www.chefKnivesToGo.com"We've seen growth every year since we've opened and as we grew Yahoo Small Business grew with us. They keep adding great new features to the platform that make it easy to track and control our inventory, monitor sales and process orders. While the name cloud" computing was not even invented when we started we have always appreciated having our business with Yahoo because it's internet based. If something goes wrong they have a team of technicians working around the clock to keep us up and running all the time with little or no input needed from us. They often fix problems before we know there were any! We're now processing over 20,000 orders a year and YSB has made it easy to scale our business from tiny start up to a nice size small business with several employees working full time. We couldn't be happier with the service."
Au-Co Mai, Emitations.com"It's a really good, consistent platform that has scaled with our needs."
Eric Strand, Designer Plumbing Outlet"I saw the growth potential of a Yahoo! store, and I moved everything over."
Jack Sheng, Eforcity"We were able to scale up our store and did not hit any major technology glitches."
Chad Trent, www.OurWorldShops.com"Over the past 10 years, Yahoo! has been essential in the success of our business. Our World Shops started as a home-based business with one employee and one website, and has flourished into a growing business with several employees, six websites, a retail store, and a warehouse that holds nearly all of the inventory we sell online. Since the beginning, Yahoo! has provided our business with the necessary tools to grow our business. The easy to use applications, great developer network and customizable platform are all crucial in helping Our World Shops thrive as an online retailer."
Bob Goodliffe, President, Cyberweld.com"yahoo! has allowed by 75 year old local small business to become one of North America's largest online retailers of welding and safety equipment. The web tools are simple and intuitive and I can easily maintain my site, even though I don't have a tech background. The best part of the Yahoo! relationship, though, is the excellent network of consultants and developers Yahoo! has introduced me to. Through my Yahoo! account rep, I have been able to establish business ties to some of the best minds in Internet retailing, web design and marketing. These online professionals have helped keep my business on the cutting edge of a sales landscape that literally changes everyday."
Tony Pang, GoJane.com"It's reliable, it's scalable, and the people at Yahoo! have been great."
Tom Hoeck"It seems like a really stable platform, we don't have to worry about crashing or a lot of the things that we do with the website…There's a confidence that we have in the stability of what we've got, and that we can get support to help us quickly figure out if there's a problem."
Joe Nashif"I originally selected Yahoo Stores as my ecommerce platform over 13 years ago. I chose Yahoo because it offered powerful business management tools, an easy to use website editor, and robust web performance - all at a great value. These are the same reasons why we continue to rely on Yahoo as our business revenues have grown to the tens of millions. We receive great service, and Yahoo has been a key reason behind our success. I love Yahoo!"
*All features described in any testimonial may not be included in every package offered.Not all submitted reviews are posted but all submitted reviews are factored into our rating. Consumer-Rankings.com believes the posted reviews best reflect the overall opinions of all submitted reviews.
I've used Yahoo approx. 8 years. Tools for building a website is not conducive to my creative needs without hiring designer to code. Too time consuming for me. Overall, customer service is good and very supportive.