Lunarpages Review

Lunarpages started in 1998 and grew to become one of the premiere hosting companies in the United States, and possibly the world. The company offers a Basic hosting plan and a business hosting plan. Most customers choose the former even if they are a small to mid-sized business; the business class hosting is most appropriate for larger e-commerce sites and companies. The basic plan is usually paired with shared hosting although dedicated hosting is available.

With this basic plan, customers can choose between Linux or Windows -based hosting – something not all hosting companies offer. It includes domain registration free for the first year and you can register an unlimited number of domains with the company through the Customer Account Page. The online control panel allows customers to see and alter almost everything associated with their account from one convenient place, including contact and billing information, registration and management of domains associated with the account, and more. The problem with it is that it lists basically every option you can think of, making it slightly difficult to find what you are looking for until you become familiar with the navigation.

The basic plan includes unlimited storage (with some provisions), bandwidth, databases, domain names, e-mail and FTP accounts, and more. Lunarpages uses cPanel Control Panel and offers three webmail clients for accessing your e-mail through a browser. e-Mail accounts allow for unlimited forwarding and spam protection although the spam protection is severely lacking. Lunarpages boasts that it supports “whatever language you want to use” for programming, including Python, PERL, Ruby on Rails, and more. They also provide hundreds of scripts and add-ons to help customize your site. These scripts and add-ons allow you to include things like social networking, blogging platforms, message boards/forums, and more.

As noted above, Lunarpages also hosts business sites and offers two plans: Standard Business Hosting and Enterprise Solutions. If you do not know whether or not you need enterprise solutions, chances are that you do not. However you can always speak with a helpful customer service representative to learn more about it if you are not sure. Business plans include a patented hacker protection service called SecureLive which monitors and tracks hackers before they can attack your site.

All plans also include SecureDesk, a help and support center that offers multiple points of contact, including toll-free support numbers, e-mail and ticket support, live chat, and a library of tutorials. Customer service by phone has limited availability and turn-around for the helpdesk can be as much as 24 hours though most tickets are usually resolved much sooner.

Lunarpages also periodically offers a plethora of free software programs with your account as well as many search engine optimization (SEO) and promotional tools to help spread the word about your site. These tools include advertising credits with several major networks including Facebook. Lunarpages is competitively priced and has a good customer service record as well as an affiliate program.