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MechaSpanky

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 11, 2007
313
152
I recently started my own site (it is my 3rd such site) to use to showcase my portfolio as I'm looking for a new job. I used Bluehost for my last site and I was happy with them for the most part. The first site I had was a local company but they went out of business so I decided to use Bluehost again. Now I'm regretting it. Their site lists "1 included domain name" for FREE. But what it doesn't say and is that is only for one year. Nowhere does it tell you this. You have to sign up for 3 years in order to get the price that they list on their site (otherwise the rate goes up) but you only get the domain name for one year after that you have to pay an extra fee for it. I'm told that this is normal operating procedure for web hosting companies but I find it rather deceiving. If it says "includes a free domain name" then it should include it for the length of the contract or else it should say so.

Also another thing to be careful of is, I chose the Prime package as it includes "Domain Privacy". I wasn't told and I didn't know that you have to enable it in the cpanel. What in the hell? That should be on by default and if you don't want it on, then you should have to disable it. I only had my site for a 2 days before I realized it wasn't private and then I enabled it but I keep getting calls from scammers in India (or at least with an Indian accent) telling me that they are with Bluehost and that they need my credit card number.

The customer service at Bluehost is good but their marketing is super misleading and now I don't know what to think about the fact that some scammers have my name and phone number that they harvested from the "whois" directory before I made it private. Any suggestions?

Before I would have clearly recommended Bluehost but not now. While there is a lot to like about Bluehost, I have to say that I'm very disappointed with the company.
 

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ocabj

macrumors 6502a
Jul 2, 2009
548
202
I was with Bluehost for a few years and I personally didn't have the same issues you had. But my complaint with Bluehost was performance of the shared box I was on. It had some serious load issues even though they claim it was under the acceptable threshold. I ended up just moving my site to a Linode VPS.
 

MechaSpanky

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 11, 2007
313
152
ocabj,

Thanks for the info. As I just signed up, I will have to watch the performance. I used Bluehost before and I didn't notice any speed issues but it is good to know. My biggest complaint with them is, they are using false advertising. It says a "free domain" is included with a site but it isn't. It is only free for a year and then you have to pay for it. I bought 3 years worth of hosting so I thought I got the domain for 3 years but they said no, only one year. This is very different from how they are selling it. This didn't happen to you? Some people just have it set to automatically pay and so you might not have noticed it?

Mecha
 

GoJames4

macrumors newbie
Feb 2, 2017
15
0
Whatever web host you go with, make sure you research their customer service first. I just had a really bad experience canceling my hosting service due to issues similar to yours with the domain name. This company's customer service was extremely rude and charged me a $50 cancellation fee for services that they never provided.
 

MechaSpanky

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 11, 2007
313
152
GoJames4,

Thanks for the advice. I hear so many bad things about web hosting companies, especially GoDaddy. The first time I used Bluehost, I was happy with their plan and their customer service was good. I don't know why they have decided to use false advertising in order to increase sales. I guess that most people wouldn't notice it because they set up your account to automatically bill your credit card.
 
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