General Features:

*200 MB Space
*10 GB Data Transfer
*30 POP3 E-mail Boxes

Network Information:
*Utilizes UUNet Backbone

General Impression:
Earthlink is one of the newest players that have just entered the web hosting industry. After skyrocketing in the ISP industry, where they service dial-up users, they are finally trying to offer web hosting to potential clients. They have a pretty good offer where they are waiving the setup fee, however the regular pricing of their web hosting plans is just too expensive. To top it off, Earthlink’s web hosting plans really only include the bare minimum - there are hardly any extra features such as PHP or even MySQL for their premium web hosting plans. The pricing for earthlink’s plans are outrageous, and even the $99 web hosting plan includes only 500 mb of storage, when you can get at least double the amount of storage space and features at other web hosting companies.

Price and Cost Effectiveness:
Earthlink Hosting is just not a good deal. It is very simple to sign up, which is obviously a plus, but the product itself is NOT cost effective. Then again, if you are not planning on using any advanced languages like PHP or CGI, maybe it will cover your needs, but frankly I would not spend this much on hosting for how basic it is. With Earthlink Hosting, not only is it bare minimum web hosting with absolutely no support for any programming languages, but you are paying twice to three times as much for something you can get elsewhere with many more future. Finally for the price, one would expect free domain, yet there is a $40 charge for a two year domain registration.

Data Center :
Data center? What data center. I have no idea where it is located, how many buildings are included. I have no idea if they even separate themselves from their other services. The site is so simple, and they keep as many details as they can out of the picture, that you’d never know if you’re dealing with one person at a desk or a fifteen story building full of support folks.

Customer Service :
I have to give it to Earthlink when it comes to their customer service. It doesn’t stink as bad as it could. It’s not great. It’s not award winning. You get put on hold just like with every other “Your call is important to us, you’re the next in line” outfit, but overall it’s honestly not that bad. Sometimes I hate the feeling that I know more than the person that is on the line trying to help me, and I get that feeling a lot with Earthlink, so they’re not good, not at least they answer the phone.

Overall :
Overall you know what it is you are getting into if you read the site clearly enough. There are a lot of fees included that most will have no idea about until they’re signed up and paying. It’s a simple site, with little in the way of details. They say they’re awarded, but awarded with what? By who? Earthlink should stick to what it’s best at - their ability to be a good internet service provider - but when it comes to hosting they seem to be way out of their league.


Rating: 54%