HostPapa Web Hosting

Hostorian — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 06:24:03 +0000

Host Papa Web Hosting Ratings

A poorly rated web host. Not recommended!
Click here to visit Host Papa’s website

Or click here to see other top rated shared web hosting companies instead.

Summary

Host Papa is a hosting company powered by 100% renewable energy sources. They focus on offering solutions for small to medium-size businesses. It is easy to make a decision on your hosting solution: just pick a duration for your site.

Quick Facts About Host Papa Web Hosting

Host Papa is based out of Niagara Falls, NY and Oakville, ON in Canada
Majority of customers are not happy with the services.
Web Hosting Services: Price dependent on how long you sign up for. $4.95/month for 3 year contract, $5.95 for 2 years, $6.95 for 1 year.
Phone: 888-959-7272

Products and Services by Host Papa

With Host Papa, you do have a lot of the features other hosting sites have, but there is a catch. With other companies, the hosting packages are tiered, meaning the more you pay, your services are upgraded (more bandwidth, domains, etc.) With Host Papa, the price of the package is dependent on the length of your contract, and you do not receive any upgrades in the services.

With the package, you receive: a free domain for life, unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, 24/7 email support, online help, and a 30 day money-back guarantee. Pricing starts at $6.95/month for a one year contract, $5.95/month for a two year plan, and $4.95/month for a three year contract.

Hostorian’s Review of Host Papa

Host Papa’s Performance

Host Papa offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, with 24/7 network monitoring, UPS power backup, and a triple redundant firewall protection.

Host Papa’s Features

The standard features are available at Host Papa, such as one click install for popular software (WordPress, Joomla, B2evolution, ZenCart, and more), uses CPanel for FTP control, and unlimited email accounts.

The features that are being offered at Host Papa that may not be available everywhere are ad credits to several services, and a free website builder (SohoLaunch), and hundreds of design templates. The ad credits are for Google Adwords ($25), Yahoo ($25), MySpace ($25), Miva ($25), Ask ($50), and Bidvertiser Advertising Network ($25). That’s a total of $175 of free advertising to get the site off to a great start.

Support and Customer Care by Host Papa

Support for Host Papa is rather limited compared to some of the larger hosting companies. 24/7 support is only available through email, while live chat and phone support is only during regular office hours.

There is a knowledge base available, but the amount of messages in the forum are a tiny fraction of the amount found on the others. They do list free video tutorials, but I was unable to find them easily in their support system.

Pros

Offers great choices for software to get your website operational right away.
Packages offer a lot of features and services for a very low rate (with the 3 year contract).
Powered through green initiatives to help out the environment.

Cons

No added features for longterm commitment.
No 24/7 phone or live chat support.
Very low customer review scores.

Actual Customer Reviews of Host Papa Web Hosting

“Host Papa are ABYSMAL. I’ve just built 4 websites for small businesses, On Monday they were down for 4 HOURS and they’ve been down for a hour this evening…and this is just when I’m trying to work on them…so who knows how often they’re down when I’m not looking. Not the 99% uptime they promise…Online support say “this is a shared hosting it’s bound to happen occasionally” “ - Rowena

“What a selection of idiots. Only a country with such liberal views could allow a shower of incompetents to operate from there. My sites are constantly down (6 times in the last 2 weeks) and even planned maintenance is scheduled wrongly and the given dates are not accurate. I would be interested to hear from Canadians who actually runs Hostpapa. I really think they should start all over again. I suppose if their servers were as efficient as their program for spotting criticism of their sites online then we may not have the problems they do.” - Dissatisfied Brit

“Firstly- I wanted to vote 0 out of 10 but I can’t so my review is 1/10. Don’t bother, no RUN from Host Papa! They are the worst web hosting company on the planet. Our site was down so may times that our customers stated to think we had gone bankrupt! We are in the process of switching to Host Gator and waiting to transfer over completely. In the meantime Host Papa has kindly posted on our webpage that our account has been suspended and we need to contact them immediately for payment!!! LOL, we don’t owe them a penny, we just canceled with them!! “ - DBCL

Verdict of this Host Papa Review

Host Papa is a hosting company that has good intentions with their green initiative, but falls short in terms of performance. They have some interesting ideas in terms of pricing their hosting packages, and it’s nice to see that returning customers get a slight discount with the longer they commit to Host Papa – a common complaint with other hosts. I do think people would prefer the option to boost the performance of their packages, however.

The big problem with Host Papa arises when you do a due diligence report on them. Repeatedly when reviewing the customer review sites, people are ranking Host Papa poorly. The two major complaints are with the customer service, and with the uptime of the servers – the two features that people rely on the most with hosting companies. If it were one or two complaints, it would be easy to overlook, but there are countless amounts of complaints against the company, on different websites, too.

If it were up to me, I would heed the advice of these complainers and not take a chance with Host Papa. I would gladly go with Host Papa other than the larger companies because of their environmental policies, but not until they improve their performance.

Because of the limitations with their services, and the poor reviews, I can only give Host Papa a 2/5.

Click here to visit Host Papa’s official website.

Or click here to see other top rated shared web hosting companies instead.

Web Hosting FTP

Hostorian — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 02:47:03 +0000

FTP web hosting can seem a bit overwhelming if you do not understand what FTP is or how it works. Once you understand it; however, it can quickly become your best friend.

Here is a quick overview of FTP web hosting so that you have a solid foundation to build upon as you learn.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and allows files to be transferred to and from one computer system to another.

It was originally designed to compliment HTTP, which can format and deliver web pages but cannot transfer files. This symbiotic connection makes web hosting FTP invaluable.

FTP also makes it easy for multiple people to work together and share projects easier.

The Fundamentals of Web Hosting FTP

The server of a web hosting service stores all of the files and information in a centralized location. Anyone who knows how to access the server can upload and download the files using FTP.

FTP web hosting also makes it easy to arrange and manage the files into directories and sub-directories, as well as change their accessibility. Unique usernames and passwords are almost always required to ensure the security of the server.

Web hosting FTP can be easily broken down into two basic components: The Server and The Client

The server is where all of the files are actively stored. How much data the server can hold is based upon the web hosting package that is chosen by the client. It could be shared with hundreds of other people, or dedicated to only one person.

The FTP client is the interface that is used to upload and download in a fashion that is considered to be user-friendly. The FTP client also creates an extra layer of security through usernames and passwords, as well as simplifies the whole process.

Because using FTP is critical as well as a way to simplify file transfers, it is important to find a web hosting service that offer web hosting FTP.

It is also important to make sure that the FTP client is easy to use. Using a web hosting service without FTP will quickly become frustrating, and will likely send you scrambling to a different web hosting service that offers FTP.