You probably already have a Yahoo email account. Now it’s time to find out if they should also host your website.
- About Yahoo Hosting
- What Makes Yahoo Unique?
- Yahoo Online Reputation
- Shared Hosting (From $3.75/mo.)
- Yahoo Websites (From $1/mo.)
- Yahoo eCommerce (From $23/mo.)
- Yahoo Local ($29.99/mo.)
- Yahoo Cancellation Policies
- Yahoo Customer Service Review
- Yahoo Data Breaches
- Who is the Ideal Customer for Yahoo Hosting?
- Yahoo Hosting Final Review
About Yahoo Hosting
You will certainly recognize the name Yahoo as one of the top search engines, but you may not know that they also offer website hosting, design, and eCommerce solutions. Along with these services, Yahoo is also one of the world’s largest suppliers of personal email accounts.
Yahoo offers shared hosting and a specially developed web design and hosting plan intended for small businesses. If this is your first website, or you’re looking for a powerful website builder, the Yahoo website plan might be worth a closer look.
The website builder is very easy to use and comes with a variety of templates and features. Yahoo gives you everything you need to get a professional website live in less than an hour. However, there are numerous problems with Yahoo the company that you also need to think about. In fact, for me, those problems are enough that I can’t recommend them as a host.
What Makes Yahoo Unique?
Yahoo is a global name when it comes to email hosting, but they also have a growing reputation in the world of website hosting. Yahoo does not offer any dedicated WordPress hosting, though you will find shared hosting and a decent website builder starting at $1 per month.
The Yahoo website builder and shared hosting plans provide access to Live Insights. This is an excellent feature that will give you clear website statistics, delivered to your dashboard in real time. Live Insights creates an environment where you can interact with your visitors and record their data for future marketing purposes.
If you are planning on opening an eCommerce website, Yahoo has tailored eCommerce plans available. The eCommerce platform reminds me of the one available through GoDaddy and allows novice computer users to create a live web store in less than an hour.
Yahoo Online Reputation
Yahoo Hosting appears in nearly every “Best Hosting of 2017” list. What?! This is surprising. I suspect this is just because they are a big name, because there are literally hundreds of other hosts to choose from. What do their customers think? The online reputation for Yahoo is a little mixed, but mostly good. They score an average of 3.6 out of 5 stars for reliability, support and value.
WhoIsHostingThis.com gave a score of 2.7 out of 5, from 77 reviews (not that good!). There are some very bad reviews from customers and some average reviews. One common complaint appears to be slow customer support, with many customers complaining about a “long and unnecessary” verification process. This can easily be overcome by skipping the telephone support and launching a support ticket.
HostingAdvice.com gave a score of 4.6 out of 5 (very good!), with high marks for reliability, page load speeds, support, and functionality. However, independent customer reviews on the same website gave a score of 2 out of 5, with many reviews quoting slow service and poor uptime as common problems.
Yahoo offers shared hosting plans for personal websites and blogs, but the best value comes from their eCommerce and small business solutions.
Reviews seem to be all over the place. Some rate them as lower-mediocre to good-mediocre.
Shared Hosting (From $3.75/mo.)
All Yahoo shared hosting plans come with 24/7 telephone and email support, site design tools, and marketing tools, similar to places like Hostgator. The marketing tools include apps for social media integration and SEO. The control panel is clean and easy to navigate and there is a selection of website tools that will help you track and grow your websites.
- Basic ($3.75/mo.) 1 Website, 10 Website Pages, 100GB Storage, and 1000GB Bandwidth
- Popular ($5.99/mo.) 1 Website, Unlimited Pages, 500GB Storage, and 5000GB Bandwidth
- Popular ($8.99/mo.) Unlimited Websites, Unlimited Pages, Unlimited Storage, and Unlimited Bandwidth
Yahoo Websites (From $1/mo.)
The Yahoo Website plan is the hosting plan that offers the biggest value. For only $1 per month, you can start to build and host your website. Yahoo offers a 30-day trial period with no commitment. This means you can try out the website builder and discover just how easy it is to use before spending anything.
The provided templates for the website builder are professional and stylish. With very little effort or computer knowledge, you can have a website or eCommerce store live in no time. All templates have been optimized to work on any device, including tablets and computers. If you can use a mouse, you can have a professional website live in under an hour.
Yahoo website builder comes with Live Insights. This lets you view the statistics of your website in real time and track how many visitors your website is getting.
- Lite ($1/mo.) Free yahoo.com website address. 3GB Storage, 10 Templates, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Website pages, SEO Tools, 24/7 Support, $100 SEO Voucher
- Basic ($7/mo.) Free Domain and Hosting, 5GB Storage, 150 Templates, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Website pages, SEO Tools, 24/7 Support, $100 SEO Voucher and 1 Email Box
- Professional ($10/mo.) Free Domain and Hosting, 10GB Storage, 150 Templates, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Website pages, SEO Tools, 24/7 Support, $100 SEO Voucher and 5 Email Boxes
Yahoo small business solutions include SEO features to help you get noticed. Add your business to multiple directories and view Live Insights.
Yahoo eCommerce (From $23/mo.)
Yahoo offers dedicated eCommerce hosting, providing a viable alternative to GoDaddy and Woocommerce. The hosting plans are built on the same infrastructure as the Yahoo website builder.
All eCommerce hosting plans come with a free domain name, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited items in your website store. All plans allow you to accept PayPal payments. If you want to use a third-party credit card merchant, you will need the Professional or Premier plan.
- Basic ($23/mo.) SEO Tools, Social Media Integration, $100 SEO Vouchers, PayPal Support,
- Professional ($55/mo.) SEO Tools, Social Media Integration, $100 SEO Vouchers, PayPal Support, 24/7 Telephone Support, API Access
- Premier ($179/mo.) SEO Tools, Social Media Integration, $100 SEO Vouchers, PayPal Support, 24/7 Telephone Support, Account Manager Support
Yahoo Local ($29.99/mo.)
Yahoo Local lets website owners promote their business on both a global and local scale. Your website will be listed in over 60 directories, including Google, Yelp, WhitePages, and Bing. You can control your listing from a single user interface, where you will find templates and images. The system works very well and gives the ability to manage all your listings from one dashboard. This would potentially give you an advantage in local listing pages, but for me, I’d rather build my site independently of Yahoo and rely on Google listings.
Along with web hosting, Yahoo provides business email account plans. Includes a free domain name for your business.
Yahoo Cancellation Policies
All hosting plans come with a 30-day money back guarantee and are paid annually. You can cancel at any time. The Yahoo website builder and store builder are both available through a free 30-day trial period. Reports show that canceling your hosting and moving to another host is a very straightforward process.
Yahoo Customer Service Review
Customers have complained about slow telephone support, including a lengthy account verification process. Luckily, the email support is fast and efficient. If you choose Yahoo for your hosting needs, consider using email to launch your own support ticket instead of placing a phone call. With support tickets, most issues are resolved within a few hours.
Yahoo Data Breaches
My main concern with doing anything with Yahoo is concerning the data breaches. I’ve had my personal yahoo email account hacked several times over the past decade. So much so that I created a 20+ character password to try to stop it. I also deleted all my emails in my inbox, and just never log in anymore. Plus, with headlines like Every Single Yahoo Email Was Hacked, it’s hard to trust them with your business data.
Did you know they were also hacked in 2013 and 2014? I know that at least one of these hacks they didn’t reveal until several years later, giving the Russian hackers plenty of time to steal your identity in the meantime.
Who is the Ideal Customer for Yahoo Hosting?
If this is going to be your first website and you are looking for something quick and affordable, you could use Yahoo website builder. For only $1 per month, you can start to build a website before you make any commitment to a hosting plan or purchasing a domain name.
However, personally, I would never purchase anything of importance from Yahoo, especially if it has to do with making money or hosting important data.
Easily create an online store using Yahoo eCommerce plans. PayPal payments are integrated and easy to set up.
Yahoo Hosting Final Review
Yahoo has had issues in the past. Do we judge Yahoo on their previous incidents or their current reputation? For me, considering there are hundreds of other hosting companies to choose from, there’s no reason to host my business on Yahoo Hosting, no matter how cheap it is.
That being said, it appears to be a reputation that is improving. Yahoo was ranked as one of the best hosting companies and you can get started for free. We’ll see how things play out in the future, but I’m not willing to be a guinea pig!
Check out Bluehost for big box hosting solutions, HostingSource for a smaller company with a personalized touch, or InMotion for an employee owned company with great customer service reviews.
My all-time favorite host is Kinsta. They are pricey, but freakin’ fast, fast and the support is rock-solid. The STARTER plan is great for one website, but I recommend the BUSINESS 1 if you want to build multiple websites
What’s up ladies and dudes! Great to finally meet you, and I hope you enjoyed this post. Sign up for my #1 recommended training course and learn how to start your business for FREE!