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.
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.
