Yahoo web hosting tends to be the first option for several individuals looking to start their first personal website or individual project when they first get started online. The reason behind this is easily understood; Yahoo has a reputation on the internet. Yahoo is among the biggest brands to have built its reputation as an internet based company. Of course, in the recent past, their presence on the internet has become a little blurry with competitors like Google and other new businesses taking the spotlight, nevertheless Yahoo is still a reputed company offering top class web solutions.
Another reason why Yahoo web hosting is chosen is because of their hugely popular free web hosting service; Geocities. Geocities is among the most popular free web solutions that are used. When these users are looking for more functionality, they tend to proceed with Yahoo web hosting. Over time however, most website owners tend to migrate to other hosting solutions because of its limited functionality and relatively higher price. Let’s look at their hosting plans in more detail.
Yahoo! Small Business Web Hosting
The way Yahoo presents its hosting options can be misleading. Their plans are described as “ideal for personal sites”, “ideal for business sites” and “ideal for heavy traffic sites”. While the smallest package “Basic” plan may in fact be ideal for personal sites, their “Advanced” and “Premier” options may or may not be enough to host business sites or sites with heavy traffic. This alone implies that Yahoo web hosting caters to newcomers into the industry. All their hosting plans starts at a certain price with renewal beyond the 3 month point at a higher fee which can be misleading as this is only mentioned in the fine print.
Another point that suggests that Yahoo is targeted at beginners only is their feature listing. Their list of features comprise of an array of standard benefits that typically goes unsaid with other hosts such as “badges to link to your Twitter and Facebook pages” as well as “PayPal Buy Now, Pay Now and Donate buttons”.
Their basic plan offers 100GB of disk space and 1TB of bandwidth per month however the service is heavily crippled due to the availability of only Yahoo’s Site Solution to manage the website. Custom web development is not accommodated which seriously limits the capabilities of the hosting service. That being said, the site builder provided employs a number of features allowing you to develop a fairly decent website which should be sufficient if you are looking to handle a basic website to share some of your thoughts on a personal level.
Their advanced plan offers 500GB of disk space and 5TB of bandwidth at $6 a month (renews at $8 a month after 3 months). This seems like an impressive amount of capacity to work with but it would be worth to consider their usage policies which indicates that if your consumption is beyond “appropriate usage”, your services will be temporarily suspended. Appropriate usage is described as the typical use that a small business website usually requires to operate on a daily basis.
Besides being a beginner hosting website, one reason why it would be worth making a purchase is because of its email. Yahoo web hosting has one powerful feature that gives it a distinctive advantage over the strongest competitors in the hosting industry, Yahoo Mail. The email boxes provided with all accounts is powered by Yahoo Mail which is better than any email program usually available with most web hosts. This includes services such as SquirrelMail and Horde. Considering the email service alone, acquiring the Basic package may just be worth it without the storage and bandwidth available along with it. Their basic package provides 250 email addresses with unlimited storage. “Unlimited” again here should be taken with a grain of salt. While you may store as many ordinary emails as you like, using it as remote file storage for all your media comprising primarily of high quality videos is not going to be entertained.
Who is Yahoo web hosting for?
Yahoo web hosting is best suited to you if you are:
- An internet hobbyist looking to start your new website for the sake of experimentation with little technical knowledge.
- Looking to maintain a personal website to share your thoughts on a certain topic.
- Looking to run a static website that requires a standard layout with no extensive customization required.
- A beginner or professional website manager looking for a powerful email solution for a custom domain.
Who is Yahoo web hosting NOT for?
Yahoo Web Hosting may not be suitable for if you are:
- An experienced webmaster looking for a new hosting solution.
- Working on a very limited budget.
- Looking to manage a customized, dynamic website.
- Targeting a considerable amount of traffic.
- Running a website for commercial purposes.
If you fall in to one of the above categories, don’t bother wasting your time going through the Yahoo web hosting plans; no matter how enticing they look. Instead, take a look at one of the several other options available on this site.
Despite Yahoo’s limited scope, there are certain aspects that can be commended about their hosting service. One thing would be their reputation. With the Yahoo brand name, you can be sure that they won’t give you a reason to complain once you sign up with their service; this means excellent customer support and delivery of the service as expected.
Another thing to consider is the security provided with hosting accounts above the basic package with snapshot backups performed several times a day.
Conclusion
Looking at their product and their target market, it is apparent that Yahoo web hosting needs a modification of its hosting service. This trend is visible with a number of Yahoo’s services that has come under harsh criticism in recent times. Their services offered as well as pricing is in need of serious revision to keep up with the trends of the current thriving web hosting companies.
