UK2NET
- From the company
UK2 has been a major player in the web hosting industry since 1998. We have been a profitable company since day one and today we've sold over a million domain names, and we host thousands of websites and dedicated servers for customers in various countries. We can also proudly say that we are one of the biggest and fastest growing web hosting companies in the UK!
UK-2 Group is accredited by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to provide .com, .biz, .info, .net, .org, .jobs, .name and .pro gTLD's to our customers.
As a company we have constantly proven ourselves to be a reliable supplier of top quality, professional and low cost affordable services. We believe that customers should always be the core of every business, which is why we are constantly on the look-out for ways to improve our products and services to our customers.
Recent improvements
Some of the recent improvements in our products and services include - a new UK based call centre, 24/7 live online support and new product packages to cater for a wide range of customers - those new to the web and even savvy developers.
From the company
UK2NET
Expert Review- From the Editors
Company Overview:
UK2Net is a hosting provider that has been in business since 1998. They have been
quickly expanding both in the UK and the US and currently have approximately 120
employees. Their site is easy to navigate and is grammatically correct as well as
being visually appealing. The contact number is prominently displayed in the upper
right hand corner, and the company offers 24/7 support 365 days a year. The company
says it has 33 large shared servers and says it has won awards for dedicated and
budget hosting, as well as a Website Hitwise Award.
Products, Features, and Services:
The company has a few main service types and offers domain registration, email hosting,
Linux hosting, Windows hosting, virtual private servers and dedicated servers. The
company does not offer Microsoft Sharepoint hosting, but UK2Net does support major
scripting standards like mod_rewrite, mod_security, PHP5, and Ruby on Rails.
Their shared servers run on Linux and their dedicated servers run on either Linux
or Windows.
Finding a domain name via their website is user friendly. They are an ICANN accredited
registrar and they provide a useful and practical question and answer section about
domains and clearly explain the options.
Domain names come with Free POP3 email. Also included for free is web forwarding,
free setup, and free name server control. Domains are managed with a control panel,
which is backed by 24/7 support. Using the control panel, you can create, edit,
delete email accounts and see an overview of your billing account. You can also
upgrade to add new products and services to your domain name.
The hosting provided by UK2 Net offers four different plans ranging from a very
basic personal “ Starter” with contracts ranging anywhere from 1 month at £3.95
to the most economical of 2 years at £2.95 per month. Most people prefer at least
one-year contracts because anything less can often be impractical.
The personal “Starter” package includes 1 website, 500 MB of disk space and 1 GB
of bandwidth -- a practical and very inexpensive way to get your feet wet.
The business plan is geared for small businesses and generally more applicable to
most people ranges in price from £14.95 per month to an economical 1 year plan priced
at £6.95 per month. The business plan package comes with unlimited websites, 3 free
domain names, 100 GB of disk space, 1000 GB of bandwidth, POP/IMAP email, a Google
AdWords certificate worth £30.00 and other nice extras including free unlimited
MySQL databases, a Business Directory Listing Certificate worth £25.00 for one year,
a site builder, a dedicated IP address, a free SSL Certificate worth £30.00 for
a year, and SSH.
I did note that UK2 will now be charging for its Catch All Forwarding service. It
is generally not used and was previously offered as a free service and will not
affect the majority of customers, however the feature, according to UK2 has been
abused by mail spammers and the company is trying to be responsible in trying to
stop spam, so they are withdrawing the Catch All Forwarding as a free service.
Premium backup to restore any file is £1.00 per month. The service lets customers
restore a file with a single click and up to four weeks worth of backup automatically
stored.
E-Commerce hosting prices are competitive at £10.95 a month and the company is running
a special and offering E-Commerce Plus for the same price as the regular program.
Included are the following unlimited advantages: space, bandwidth, E-Commerce Sites,
email addresses, databases, 3 free domains, unlimited number of items and categories,
and a gift certificate worth £35.00 for a dedicated SSL. The package also comes
standard with Stats2 Analytics.
Support and Service:
The Support Center is easy to navigate and offers user friendly help and suggestions.
It is conveniently divided into sections beginning with:
- Your UK2 account
- Domain Names which gives an explanation of different types.
- Webhosting explains statistics and all about the accounts
- E-Commerce includes how to use your site builder and helpful user friendly information
- ReSeller gives a video tutorial that was easy to follow.
- Dedicated Servers and how to use them
- EK2 Email and how to log in
- Billing and renewals information
- Service Status
The Knowledgebase is divided into categories or you can search the entire knowledge
base by entering keywords in the navigation bar. There are articles for beginners
from how to manage and own a domain to instructions on using your UK2 Dashboard
screen to setting up web diversion.
UK2Net offers Live Support. I contacted them and asked a few general questions about
set up charges and the number of client to server ratio. The tech referred me to
the sales department for the question on set up charges, and gave me some general
information about dedicated servers, but told me that the Sales department would
have more information.
I then went to the Support Center and asked the following questions:
“I am looking around for a web host and checking and comparing companies. What is
the client to server ratio for the small business plan? Also, I was searching for
more information about SEO friendliness. And finally looking for more information
about security practices. Thank you for your time.”
Their answer was:
“Hi __________,
With business plan you get 100GB space and 1000GB bandwidth. It really depends on
your site what ratio it could support. We have Search engine submission facility
and we provide google adwords voucher.”
It took 3 days to get a response from the company’s support center. The standard
is to receive an email when a company updates a ticket, but UK2Net did not, and
it wasn’t until I went back to my original ticket that I was able to log in and
read the response. There was no definitive answer given to me about the SEO friendliness,
and they do not provide anything special for SEO.
While technical support is provided 24/7/365, the billing office is available daily
from 9:00 to 5:00. Calls to them are charged at 4p. per minute.
Terms of Service:
Checking into the Terms and Conditions of domain names and hosting, the company
renews them at standard prices. They also automatically renew unless the customer
of UK2 gives written notice of non-renewal at least 14 days before expiration. Payments
are due to be paid in full and overdue accounts accrue interest at 15% monthly.
Under the termination clause, either party can terminate without cause with 14 days
notice. If the domain name is transferred or cancelled within the first 2 years
of registration, there is an additional administrative fee of £12.99.
There is a 100% refund policy if a customer is unsatisfied and a 30 day risk free
refund except under the following conditions: successfully registered domain name
but you will own the domain name. The following are excluded: SEO tools, Search
Engine Submission, Business directory under MoreUK2.
Summary:
The company offers excellent technical support and competitive pricing with a good
variety of hosting selections ranging from the very simple to a medium business
plan.
Upgrades were clearly explained.
The biggest concern, and a notable one, was the slow response from the sales department,
and the team’s failure to answer specific questions.