Yahoo Web Hosting Review

Yahoo hosting services are much like traditional web hosts, with a couple of unique features. Yahoo hosting plans are divided into three basic plans designed for normal website hosting, and two higher plans designed for ecommerce and extreme business web hosting. According to the Yahoo hosting services page, Yahoo offers the following plans:

Web Hosting Plans

• 12 month plan - $7.46/month for the first three months. $9.95/month after.
• 3 month plan - $8.96/month for the first three months. $11.95 month after.
• 1 month plan - $12.95/month.
• Learn about Web Hosting Plan detailed features.

Ecommerce (Merchant) Plans

• 1 month Merchant Starter plan - $39.95/month. 1.5% transaction fee. $50 setup fee. Learn about Merchant Starter detailed features.
• 1 month Merchant Standard plan - $129.95/month. 1.0% transaction fee. $50 setup fee. Extra exclusive benefits. Learn about Merchant Standard detailed features.

It's quite clear that Yahoo's hosting plan and pricing scheme is uniquely structured. The basic web hosting plans seem a bit more like cable Internet plans or credit card plans than traditional web hosting plans. The first three months at a cheaper rate, and then a standard higher rate after make Yahoo hosting plans a bit more confusing than they need to be. However, the plan structure is simple. Yahoo hosting wants customers that will be with them for at least a year. Thus, the more hosting you sign up for, the cheaper your rates will be in the long run.

The ecommerce Merchant plans are a bit pricey, but not too bad considering that Yahoo hosting Merchant plans offer an all-in-one ecommerce solution. Again, the advantage of the higher priced plan is clear. There is a lower 1.0% interest rate on the $129.95/month plan, meaning that more sales money goes to you, and less goes to Yahoo hosting through transaction fees.

The Yahoo hosting login and control panel is different than most other hosts such as Go Daddy and Hostgator. Yahoo hosting login and control panel are both fairly unique, and clearly targeted at the small business owner. Yahoo hosting actually focuses on customers using the built-in Yahoo hosting site builder to create and design their websites. However, anyone can just as well use Yahoo hosting for WordPress and other CMS based scripts.

Being much different than a traditional Cpanel web host, Yahoo web hosting does take some getting used to, and has a learning curve to it. For the most part, Yahoo hosting really is best for small business owners who do not have a lot of knowledge on building their own websites, as the built-in Yahoo hosting control panel makes it easy to create a very basic, template based website.

Be sure to continue on to page 2, where we will continue the Yahoo Hosting review.