Jhost.com is a relatively young hosting company based out of Kentucky and I didn't think they would land a place in the top 10 when I began testing their services. Boy, was I wrong! Jhost.com turned out to be the surprise story of 2007 an emerged as the clear-cut winner for web hosting companies this year.
Let's get on with the review:
First, we went into this test realizing that every hosting company in the world has downtime. There's no way to get around it. The most important thing is how long the site is down and how quickly do they get everything back online. The thing to look for in a webhost is to make sure they deliver 99% and above uptime consistently.
Jhost delivered 100% uptime on all of the accounts we tested.
We set up 36 annonymous accounts and monitored their progress 24 hours a day, every day. Each one of them delivered 100% uptime and our websites loaded faster than any other host we tested. This is important, because you don't want your visitors waiting for your page to load. Attention span is too short. They'll leave and you'll miss out on a sale.
We also paid a visit to their data centers in Kentucky and toured the operation. The servers are impressive. Everything fault tolerant systems and is protected against denial of service attacks. They utilize smart-routing to ensure quick page loading time. And they have server redundancy to protect you and ensure uptime if one of their servers has a glitch or goes down.
It was impressive to see this multi-million dollar operation in person. And I like a company that digs in their own pocket to stand behind their guarantee. If Jhost doesn't deliver your website 99.9% uptime, they'll give you that month for free and 2 extra months for free.
That's powerful.
Score - 10/10
Jhost's basic offer is 100 GB of disk space and 1000 GB of monthly data transfer for only $6.95. This was one of the best offers we found at this price. You won't pay any set-up fees when purchase 12 months in advance and you also get a free domain name registration. You can see if the domain you want is available right on the website and they'll also help you with your transfer if you already have a different hosting account.
You can host up to 20 domain names with one account. You also get 500 sub domains with this basic account. You get 5000 pop3/imap email addresses, 5000 ftp accounts, 100 MySQL databases and 100 PostgreSQL databases. Every account comes with an easy to use website builder and you also can use Frontpage if that's your publishing tool of choice. You also get support for Perl, PHP, SSI, and Cgi-Bin.
One of the areas Jhost excels at is multi-media support. You have support for Macromedia Flash & Shockwave, Real Audio & Video, Apple QuickTime, MP3 files and easy blog creation through Wordpress. Video and audio is huge on the internet right now and you want your hosting company to be able to handle this effortlessly. Jhost does a great job in this area.
There are other hosting plans available on the website if you need more storage space or data transfer. All in all, they deliver a tremendous amount of services for a low price.
Score - 10/10
Out of all of the web hosting companies we tested, no one came close to delivering the level of service Jhost did. It was really quite extrodinary and it proved to me they are willing to go the extra mile to capture and keep your business.
First off, they have support available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year through toll-free phone, email, and chat. I'm a huge fan of just picking up the phone and asking my questions so I can get any problems solved quickly. The phone staff was extremely friendly and knowlegeable about every aspect of my website.
We wanted to put Jhost through the ringers and really test out their customer service and their patience level. We would call them at all times of the night with artificially created problems and time and time again they happily helped us through the everything. We had someone who knew absolutely nothing about Frontpage call up customer service and they patiently walked her through it step by step until her site was published.
This happened time and time again.
We called with help for CGI scripts, uploading and setting up password protected directories on the site and they walked us through everything. The level of training they give their customer service staff is quite impressive.
Every ticket we sent through the control panel was answered within 1 hour. This is one of their selling points and I can see why. If you've had experience with other hosting companies, you'll realize this is extremely rare. Some hosting companies never even respond to your tickets and others take 3-5 days, which is simply unacceptable.
The live chat was also helpful. It's simple to use and someone is there for you immediately with just a few clicks.
I'm tough to impress when it comes to customer service, but Jhost left me speechless. Hands down, it's simply the best service we have ever received.
Score - 10/10
The control panel is very user friendly and one you'll easily get the hang of within a few minutes. You're able to control your domain names and sub-domains, manage your email, handle your ftp uploading and downloading needs and take control of Frontpage from the panel.
You'll also be able to use the point-and-click site builder they have built in to your account from here. All of your website traffic and usage sites are available from the control panel. You'll be able to instantly see who's referring traffic to you and what areas of your website visitors are most interested in.
You get step-by-step instructions on every aspect of the control panel and if you need any help, it's simply a mouse click or phone call away.
Score - 9/10
Overall, I give Jhost an A+ and Jhost is my top pick for 2007. Everything from the service, the reliability, the package price and ease of use was incredible. They run a webhosting company the way you would want every company to be run.
I actually made a surprise visit to Kentucky and toured their multi-million dollar facility before I gave them this final grade. I wanted to be absolutely sure this was the right choice for the '2007 Web Host Of The Year'. When I left Jhost I was even more convinced they are the best hosting company this year.
You will not go wrong choosing Jhost as your hosting company and they get my highest recommendation and the award for '2007 Web Host Of The Year'.