Yahoo!
Expert Review- From the Editors
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701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, California 94089
1-866-781-9246
Search engine giant Yahoo entered the world of shared hosting back in 2002. From their offices in California, Yahoo offers Unix-based small business hosting packages and domain names.
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Review
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Sales
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Yahoo takes sales questions by telephone. I attempted to call on a Saturday, my day off, only to learn that Yahoo’s busy sales offices are only open Monday through Friday during regular business hours. Bummer. I was able to reach Yahoo by phone the following Monday. It took less than one minute for a representative to greet me by phone, and just a few moments for him to answer all of my questions at length. The Yahoo sales team is fast and helpful, though not always available when you need them.
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Setup
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To get a hosting account with Yahoo you need only fill out a series of online forms and sign-up for a Yahoo account. The process itself is straight forward and simple. I had an invoice from Yahoo and my new account details within one hour of signing up.
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Billing
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Yahoo accepts all major credit cards and PayPal. I had no billing issues with my hosting account during my stay or following cancellation.
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Pricing
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Yahoo’s small business hosting plan offers unlimited space and bandwidth for $12.95/month. (You can lower this cost by purchasing a plan one year in advance.) Yahoo runs a bit more than other hosts in their class, but does give users a free domain name and a few other perks.
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Reliability
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I kept an account with Yahoo for a period of one year. During that time, I had no hardware issues of any kind and Yahoo’s infrastructure was sound.
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Support
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Clients can get support from Yahoo by email or telephone. I phoned Yahoo on numerous occasions after discovering that I needed a newer version of MySQL than what was installed to run the latest version of Wordpress. All three times I was told to look over the FAQ section of Yahoo’s confusing and wordy website, but never seemed to find an answer to my question. When I tried asking the same question by email, I was given a link to the Yahoo FAQ section. So, while support did address my questions in timely answer, I never did really get much of an answer by phone or email. This scenario repeated itself several times during the year.
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Uptime
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I employ a premium uptime monitor to keep track of my domains. According to that monitor, Yahoo maintained an average 99.95% uptime, which is well within their guarantee.
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Guarantee
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99.9% uptime guarantee
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30-day price satisfaction guarantee.
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Terms of Service
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You can find the Terms of Service for Yahoo on their website. Highlights include:
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Accounts are renewed automatically unless cancelled manually.
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Spamming strictly forbidden.
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Prices may change at any time.
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Domain name fees are non-refundable.
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Advantages
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Impressive site design tools.
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Good uptime.
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Free domain.
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Built-in analytical reporting.
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Disadvantages
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Slightly more expensive than other hosts.
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Some software outdated and cannot be updated by customers.
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Tech support lacking.
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Limited sales hours.
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Clunky file manager.
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