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Lifetime Domain AND Web Hosting For Only $95?
17 Nov2007
I just signed up for “The Best Web Hosting Offer Ever”, and to me it just sounds too good to be true:
With 95 USD you get professional web hosting for life. No other costs, you’ll never have to pay for upgrades, there are no catches (well maybe just one: we will not give away more than 1000 Rudolfs).
- 250 GB disk space – that’s huge!
- 3000 GB speed – that’s insanely fast! (guys, if 3000 GB refers to the monthly bandwidth allocation, then it has absolutely NOTHING to do with speed — Dennison)
- 1 Free domain registration !
- Host as many domains as you like,
- create as many subdomains!
- Unlimited MySQL and much more!
As a veteran in the hosting business I gotta say that this is one of the more creative marketing schemes that I have encountered. If this campaign is successful, the money lost on maintenance and domain renewals should be minimal compared to the amount of business, both new and residual (from the 1000 Rudolph subscribers) that they can potentially get.
It comes with a 30-day partial money-back guarantee (you will be charged for the domain if it’s already registered), so how can you loose?
The problem is that I am not that confident in their staying power. I am not even sure that they are legit. I have never heard of them until Mig commented on this blog. Their website is quite tacky, though I applaud them for skinning the H-Sphere setup and for having ClixConnect live chat setup. Then, they only appear to have two hosting plans, which does not make any sense for me from a business perspective.
Then there’s this list of “hosting features”:
I know from my singing up that they do actually support PayPal, 2CO, and WorldPay. But how can you support CPanel, Plesk, and H-Sphere all at the same time? I know for sure these guys use H-Sphere, so there is no reason for CPanel and Plesk to be there.
Then there’s RedHat and CentOS. Not that you cannot have both for a hosting company but why would you want to do that? To me, it looks like they just copied logos off another web hosting company’s website and slapped it all in there to look professional, which in this case, most certainly fails.
Another gripe of mine is that they do not list a phone #, which means no phone support.
The bottomline is: they are doing this to make themselves known to the world. One month ago they launched a contest with one year professional hosting with domain as top prize to the blogger who best explains the importance of owning a personal domain.
The lifetime thing? Bollocks. Most startups (assuming they are one) have a lifespan of 2-5 years. Assuming they even last for a year that’s close to $8 / month, which is quite a hefty price to pay. In order for my $95 investment to pay off, I am hoping they will be up for at least 3 years.
So anyway I signed up for Rudolph Windows. They are using H-Sphere and I wonder why the “Register a new domain” option was not included, knowing that the Rudolph option comes with a free domain. Are they reselling domains from a different company?
The sign up page told me that I should be receiving instructions via e-mail shortly, which I still haven’t received. So in the meantime I went ahead and did a whois on the TLD, TOPHOSTINGCENTER.COM, and got the following:
Registrant:
Proweb consultantscp 554 succ desjardins
montreal, Quebec h5b1b1
CanadaRegistered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: TOPHOSTINGCENTER.COM
Created on: 04-Dec-06
Expires on: 04-Dec-07
Last Updated on:Administrative Contact:
vanier, eric eric@tophostingcenter.com
Proweb consultants
cp 554 succ desjardins
montreal, Quebec h5b1b1
Canada
5148045316Technical Contact:
vanier, eric eric@tophostingcenter.com
Proweb consultants
cp 554 succ desjardins
montreal, Quebec h5b1b1
Canada
5148045316Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.TOPHOSTINGCENTER.COM
NS2.TOPHOSTINGCENTER.COMRegistry Status: ok
Which is cool, because it matches their Comodo SSL certificate.
I also tried out their Online chat support. It took a few minutes before I received a response. Here is an unedited log of my conversation with “Stephaine”:
Guest: just checking you guys out
Guest: hello
Guest: is anyone around
Guest: hello?
Stephanie: Hi there, my name is Stephanie, how can I help you today?
Guest: hello stephanie
Guest: just wanted to ask about the rudolph plan
Stephanie: ok
Guest: can i get technical details about the rudolph hosting plans?
Stephanie: Please hold on for just a moment while I get that information for you.
Guest: thank you
Stephanie: Limited offer: only 1000 Rudolf plans that make blogging fun for life!
Stephanie: 250 GB disk dpace, 3000 GB bandwidth: professional hosting!
Stephanie: unlimited MYSQL create as many blogs as you like!
Stephanie: FREE domain
Guest: what about other details
Stephanie: 99.9% uptime, instant FREE updates
Guest: like PHP version
Guest: FTP
Guest: email
Guest: control panel
Guest: is it anything like http://www.tophostingcenter.com/webhosting.html
Guest: I would like to have something as detailed as that one but for the Rudolph plan
Stephanie: ok. Please hold on for just a moment while I get that information for you.
Stephanie: hi, do you happen to have a YM ID? Our technical team member wants to have a chat with you.
Guest: sure
Guest: dennison_uy@yahoo.com
Stephanie: Thank you. Please kindly add “tophostingcenter” ID in your YM so that you can have a chat with one of our technical team
Guest: thank you
Stephanie: No problem. Thank you as well. Have a great evening!
So I went on and chatted with their technical support rep, “Eric”:
[04:30] dennison_uy: hi
[04:31] dennison_uy: would like to request for technical info on the rudolph plan
[04:31] dennison_uy: complete details please like you have in http://www.tophostingcenter.com/webhosting.html
[04:31] tophostingcenter: Hi
[04:32] tophostingcenter: Rudolf plan is a clone of that hosting plan
[04:33] tophostingcenter: did you check http://www.tophostingcenter.com/rudolf.html
[04:33] dennison_uy: so the features are exactly the same?
[04:33] dennison_uy: i did
[04:34] tophostingcenter: Copy carbon lol
[04:34] dennison_uy: cool
[04:34] dennison_uy: who am i speaking with please?
[04:35] tophostingcenter: Eric
[04:35] dennison_uy: great. thank you eric!
[04:35] tophostingcenter: are you going to signup now
[04:36] tophostingcenter: you are welcome
[04:36] dennison_uy: i already did
[04:36] dennison_uy: i am waiting for the e-mail it said i will receive
[04:37] tophostingcenter: What type of payment
[04:40] dennison_uy: paypal
[04:41] tophostingcenter: Ok you should have received it
[04:45] dennison_uy: nothing in my mailbox or spam box
[04:47] tophostingcenter: What is your email address
[04:47] dennison_uy: dennison_uy@yahoo.com
[04:48] tophostingcenter: Let me check this for you
[04:49] dennison_uy: thank you
Loving their support so far. I’m still waiting for that e-mail. Will post updates as I go along.
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9 Responses to Lifetime Domain AND Web Hosting For Only $95?
Mig
November 17th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Hi Dennison,
I suppose everything was cleared by now, yet I still feel the need to answer your other questions. The reason we have so many extras (like CPanel, Plesk etc) is that we sell dedicated servers too and the customer can choose what he wants to have installed there. We offer customizable solutions, if you know what I mean. All those features you mention have nothing to do with the Top Hosting Special (or Rudolf) plan. The features for Top Hosting Special are listed under the web hosting category on our (tacky?!) website. We most certainly don’t have only 2 hosting plans. Take another look at the website and you will see. We focus a lot on dedicated servers and virtual servers – Rudolf and Top Hosting Special being the blog-tailored solution we provide simply because we care.
I hope this answers your questions and doubts. And of course you can always contact the support team if you want to know more.
Mig
Mig’s last blog post..Top Hosting Center Contest Winners
Dennison Uy - Graphic Designer
November 18th, 2007 at 1:45 am
Hey Mig, thank you for elaborating. I am enjoying the Rudolph plan so far and I love the support and dedication that the team is giving. Now I can personally vouch for Top Hosting Center and the Rudolph plan.
Loula
November 18th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Hi, I too signed up. I was…and still am, a little concerned about who they are and how long they’ll be around. I came across this post. Quite interesting by the way, thank you. I’ve got to say that I have nothing bad to say about the thc site . Their tech guy if I remember well was this guy mike and he spent almost 45 minutes in helping me to get acquainted with their c-panel and some other stuff I don’t understand just yet. I’ve got to say I agree with that guy mig, their site is far from tacky. I found it to be one of the more simpler sites to navigate. No junk to confuse an already confusing market (for me anyway). And yeah, the phone number issue…..what are ya gonna do ? When is the last time you went to huge, I don’t know TELECOMMUNICATIONS company and counted just how many steps it takes before you find THEIR bloody telephone number !! Anyway, so far I’ve got to say I am happy with what I’ve purchased. Thanks again…
loula
Loula
November 18th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Ooopps, I’m back. I actually worked on h-sphere, and not c-panel. What can I say…I’m new at this stuff. I hope you continue to investigate. It helps many.
Loula
The Best Web Hosting Offer Ever | Life, the Universe, and Everything
November 20th, 2007 at 12:03 am
[...] So I bought a Windows Rudolph account from Top Hosting Center which I previously blogged about. [...]
Ivy
December 14th, 2007 at 7:34 am
I just a bought the Rudolph plan from them as well.
I highly doubt they were trying to ‘look professional’ by adding on random logos of software they don’t provide. HAHAHA.
They actually do offer all the softwares like Plesk and Cpanel, RedHat, CentOS etc. Check it out here: http://www.tophostingcenter.com/UpgradeServer.html
I don’t know why they would do that, but that’s quite cool anyways.
Ivy’s last blog post..Dawn of A New Era
Dennison Uy - Graphic Designer
December 16th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
You are right, Ivy … Mig did point out in her comment above that dedicated servers is their core business, so no biggie. It has been a month since I purchased mine and I have requested that they move over my plan from Windows Rudolph to Linux Rudolph and they have been very quick and accommodating about it. Kudos to the THC team for running a tight ship!
Hendra Rusly’s blog
January 13th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
[...] last But I sure hope they will last as long as possible, worse case, if they just last for 2 year (average webhoster lifetime last 2-3years), it’s still cheap to host on them Ordinarily to have this kind of offer in other places, you [...]
canadian website hosting
September 14th, 2008 at 9:39 am
I’m proudly using wordpress and I can even think about blogger. It’s like between FireFox and Internet Explorer. And who’s like IE?