Those interested in selling items online will be pleased to hear that 1&1 offers shared and dedicated SSLs, which help keep customers’ information encrypted from other parties. 1&1 also backs up their servers daily so there is little risk of losing your data due to a server malfunction. If you accidentally overwrite or delete your data, 1&1 has a webspace recovery tool that enables you to look back up to six days and retrieve any files you’ve lost. For those willing to pay a little extra, there is also the SiteLock service. With this plan, your website is scanned for malware as well as any type of unauthorized entry. You are notified immediately of any out-of-the-ordinary activity. If anyone ever tries to hack into your website, SiteLock could be just the lifesaver you need.

Most of 1&1’s web hosting plans offer unlimited bandwidth and disk space, which is an especially convenient feature because it gives you a lot of flexibility to grow your website while still paying the same monthly price. If you anticipate your website to expand and receive more traffic, this offering is definitely something you want in your web hosting company.

If you’re looking for a little more control over your website than you can get from a shared web hosting plan, 1&1’s other hosting offerings may be better suited to your needs. The company offers VPS hosting, which gives you a little more control and security while still keeping your costs manageable. If you’re looking for even more control and are willing to pay a bit extra, you may want to check out 1&1’s dedicated hosting plans. Cloud hosting is a nice alternative for those looking for a lot of flexibility because it enables you to pay only for the resources that you use, as opposed to a flat monthly rate. With all of these options, 1&1 is sure to have a solution that fits you no matter what you’re looking for.

When you sign up for an Unlimited or Business plan with 1&1, you also get access to a lot of great marketing tools to help you grow and advertise your business. This includes free Google AdWords credits, as well as Facebook, Bing, and Yahoo! search credits. These bonuses do a lot to help get your business out there and draw more traffic to your site. You can also get access to free ecommerce and shopping cart software, which is helpful if you’re looking to sell goods and services online. 1&1 also has their own email marketing tool that helps you design professional-looking newsletters and emails to send out to your contacts.

1&1 is doing their part to reduce their energy consumption by purchasing renewable energy to power their energy-efficient data centers. The company also offers entirely paperless billing, which is something that many people are sure to appreciate, both for its reduced impact on the environment and for its convenience. Features like these don’t have a direct impact on your overall web hosting experience, but it’s great to know you’re working with a company dedicated to going green.

Customer support is critical to a web hosting company and 1&1 is missing one of the key ingredients: live chat. Though the company does offer other support methods, including email, social media, and phone support, live chat is a fast and easy way to get your technical issues resolved, and access to it could make a big difference in how long it takes to get your website back up and running after a malfunction. Some may not consider this omission to be too big an issue since you can still get support through the other channels but, as most of the best web hosting companies provide live chat service, it’s something any premier hosting company should offer.

If you’re looking for a cheap and simple web hosting solution, the 1&1 Starter package may not be the right way to go. Many of the features offered by the company’s Unlimited and Business plans are not offered as part of the Starter plan, such as a free domain. 1&1 also limits your amount of disk space to 50 GB. This may be enough for some people, but many other web hosting services offer unlimited disk space for all of their plans. Many of the advertising credits that are also included with the other packages cannot be found in the Starter plan. If features like these are important to you, it may be worthwhile to invest in 1&1’s Unlimited or Business plans or to choose a different company.

Anyone interested in making a career out of reselling shared web hosting is out of luck with 1&1. This is disappointing because many of the best web hosting services offer reseller hosting, but it shouldn’t be a factor for anyone who’s just looking to host a website of their own.

Costs and Fees

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