eJoneClicks.com

I came across a very very short (only two paragraphs) review on 1&1 (or 1and1) web hosting while I was checking out the Acronym Replacer plugin for Wordpress.

The first time I came across 1&1 was a few years back (circa 2000-2003) when one of their flyers fell off a computer magazine I was reading. At the time, I had a website hosted on SupaNames (which I just had moved over from GetDotted). Prior to those two web host providers, I was using various free web hosts at the time such as Geocities, FortuneCity, Tripod, etc.

After 2 minutes of browsing through their website, I found two things that immediately put me off:

1. No payment via PayPal
2. Available only to customers in the US and Canada

Fine, so they provided me with a link to their UK site. Upon clicking on that link, I was immediately transferred to 1and1.co.uk. However, the deals are completely different there and are nowhere near as good as the ones available on their US site.

In my opinion, GoDaddy provides a good value for money package. If you know what you want and are already familiar with most of the terms and facilities, setting up your own website will be quick; it took me about 2 minutes to register my domain along with web hosting and payment was made via PayPal. Within seconds I received an email from them confirming the order along with a couple more emails welcoming me as their new customer along with instructions on how to manage my new domain.

I logged on immediately and it took me another couple of minutes to figure out that I needed to activate my hosting package and link it to my new domain, which I promptly did. About 5 minutes later, I received another automated email confirming that my webhost is all up and ready, along with details such as uploading instructions and domain name information.

It came as a big surprise to me as I’ve heard so many reports that new domains will require at least 48 hours to properly propagate on the internet. If this is so, how is it that I was able to start work on my new website almost immediately from across the pond?

If you live in a country outside the US and Canada, I can personally recommend GoDaddy. Otherwise, you might want to give 1&1 a try.