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If you are building a website for the first time, then it's likely that you are unaware of everything your website will actually require to be worth anything.

I don't know about other web hosts, so I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but I selected ipage to host my first ever website, and what I do know is that they scammed me thoroughly.

ipage lures you in with an attractive offer of a long list of features for just $3.50 per month. Wow, you think to yourself, that is a fully comprehensive list. Well to all those who are building your first ever website, let me assure you that by itself, this is a list of junk ! The essential features you need to make your website worth anything are not included in this price. For that you must pay extra… a lot extra…

Most likely you will only discover this after you have signed your contract with ipage and begun investing your energy and love into building your new website.

To clarify, allow me to illustrate:

Here is the list of what ipage does offer for just $3.50 per month:

* Unlimited Disk Space, Bandwidth & Email

* FREE Domain

* FREE Security Suite

* FREE Site-Building Tools

* FREE Online Store

* FREE Google, Yahoo! & Facebook Marketing Credits

* GREEN! Powered by 100% wind energy

* Access to Online Marketing Guides

* Google Webmaster Tools

* $50 Credit for Google AdWords Click for more information.

* $25 Credit for Yahoo! Sponsored Search Click for more information.

* $50 Credit for Facebook Advertising

* Free Yellowpages.com Listing

* 60-Day Membership for RatePoint's Newsletter Manager

* Drag and Drop Site Builder (Choice of Two)

* Template-Based Site Builder

* Personalized Domain Name , such as yourname.com Click for more information. (A $10.95 Value)

* Blog Setup Wizard

* Photo Gallery Setup Wizard

* Google Custom Search Engine Click for more information.

* Unlimited Email Addresses at Your Domain (yourname@***.com) Click for more information.

* WebMail (Checking Your Mail Online)Click for more information.

* Email Forwarding Click for more information.

* Autoresponders Click for more information.

* Customizable Spam Filters Click for more information.

* Virus Checking

* Web Hosting Control Panel

* Enhanced Security Suite (A $100 Value)

* 24x7 Network Monitoring Click for more information.

* High Performance Load Balanced Servers Click for more information.

* Visitor Statistics/Site Traffic Reporting

* Extensive Online Help Center and Ticketing System

* Step-by-Step Tutorials for Using Your Account

* Anytime Money-Back Guarantee

* 24x7 Phone, Chat and Email Support

* Calls Answered in under Two Minutes, on Average

* Rigorous QA Testing of Staff

Impressive huh? Such a long list. And yes they do offer these things, no doubt about that.

Now check out the list of essential features that ipage DOES NOT offer for less than a princely sum, features without which your website is rendered worthless:

1) You are limited to a website of just 6 pages !!!

2) You cannot link within a page. In SEO 101 they will tell you that you'll need to create internal links within your website. You'll do this by linking between pages and also linking within a page. But with ipage, though you may link between pages, but you are not permitted to link within a page. WTF?!!!!

3) You are limited to only one form and five fields in that form, so forget about setting up an interactive quiz or questionnaire.

BUT for an extra $9.95 per month (basically three times what you paid for originally) you can upgrade from the Basic Service to the Premium Service, whereby you will "unlock additional features," including:

* Unlimited pages to build your site

* The ability to link within a page

* Advanced theme-editing options (edit an existing theme's CSS and HTML, start a theme from scratch, or import your own theme!)

* Option to password protect your pages

* Online booking capabilities with an integrated BookFresh element

* A discussion forum with an integrated Nabble Forums element

* Embed a file for visitors to download (up to 100MB)

* Audio player element

* Embed documents in your site with an integrated Scribd element

4) You get a site with no H1 tags. H1 tags are page headings and other prominent text used by search engines to rank a page. These headings are given a separate attribute (or tag) to the main body of text on a page and without them it becomes that much harder for you to be searchable on google.

H1 tags are so integral to a website, that a site with no H1 tags is like a car without reverse gear. Senseless.

But for a "˜modest' sum of $500 ipage's design team will include those essential H1 tags.

5) No 301 redirect, which is essentially a search engine friendly method for webpage redirection. A 301 redirect allows you to change the URL of a page as it is shown in search engine results, and allows people to access your site through several different URLs, which believe me you will need.

For example, if you your home page is http://www.example.com/home, you'll also want to set up a 301 redirect for http://www.home.example.com, or http://www.example.com, as it is very likely that people will try to find you that way too.

6) A support team with a normal IQ. As I reported previously, the ipage help center might be based in North America but that doesn't mean that they haven't hired the greatest *** to "˜help' you (link to other complaint). Most of these people can't spell simple words like "˜ridiculous', or help you with basic questions

But for an additional $49.95 per month, you can upgrade to ipage's concierge service, which is essentially a group of customer service persons with a normal IQ, who can spell simple words like "˜ridiculous' and who know how to turn on a computer. These persons will also set you up with that essential 301 redirect. Believe me you will need a 301 redirect !!!!

There are most likely even more limitations that I have yet to discover, and no doubt will discover as my web building knowledge progresses.

I am not averse to paying for a service, but I am averse to being fooled and lied to. If ipage would say from the start that $9.95 gets you a fully functioning website, instead of luring you in with this half-baked $3.50 website, then we wouldn't have a problem here.

As I said, I don't know whether all web hosts resort to dishonest tactics to lure customers. What I do know is that I need to get out of ipage. If anyone can offer advice on both an honest web host and one to whom I could transfer my website without having to start it from scratch, I would be enormously grateful.

In conclusion, do your homework before allowing a web host to take your money and host your labor of love, because by the time you figure out what's really going on, it'll be too late.

Location: New York, New York

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Guest

Image scammed me too. I purchased their web hosting, having issue installing WordPress, contacted them for help 3 days about the issue.

I even copied and pasted the content, they emailed me back on rubbish things not related to my question. It has been 3 days already and the ideas haven't yet been solve.Then there's a whole of call and emails from Image third party website builder advising me, they will make beautiful website for me.One day about 10calls and emails from them.Be careful if you used Image, they are a big scanner. Have never experience this with other hosting like hostgater.requirements check failed with HTTP code 301!!!!I have emailed them for 3 days about that, no responding to my issues. 24 hours support?

Bull shit.I request my refund through PayPal and they no respond!

I won't let them get away with it.I hope before anyone choose ipage for hosting, they read all the true post here.Once again, they are a scam. Don't risk to loose your money!Image user

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1454163

Sorry, I meant IPage hosting not Image!!! But I sure everyone understood what I meant! Remember IPAGE is a scanner!

Guest

I have lasted one day with ipage & already have claimed a refund, their support is zero, the 'free' domain contains their name in it which you don't know until it's too late.

They have not even responded to paypal.

Steer well clear !!!

Guest

I totally agree...the customer service is totally worthless and these bogus reviews drive me crazy! I thought they were outsourced because truly it seemed there were language issues.

The latest for me is signing up for a 30 day free trial of submitnet.(WORTHLESS). I am positive this was a popup offer. Now they (unfortunately you have to deal w/ IPage's CS for this) are saying that there was no free trial. They've signed me up for this @$9.95/month and I noticed today they billed me 2x in January!

I have asked 3 times to cancel it! I don't have huge needs--I am going to cancel one web site--set up a blog on Tumbler and add services as I need to.

Guest

Ehhh... I use the limited site and I rank tops on google for the words open a video game store... You have to get creative.

Guest

i agree with the fact that ipage really sucks, has an incompetent staff, and is probably the worst hosting solution around...BUT most of your claims aren't related to ipage hosting at all. You really can't expect to use a website building platform, such as webly, and produce a good product.

Stuff such as 301 redirects can be added to you htaccess file.

and inbound linking can be done via standard html coding or building a site via wordpress or joomla.

ipage does really suck though. definitely a waste of money and time!

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-593015

Yep, just a rant about the tools that where limited, sure its not the best host but you just reviewed Weebly and not much for iPage.

Guest

While I am no fan of ipage.com and yes, after 72 days and 52 service tickets later we still have issues. The above mention limitations appear to refer to the Weebly site builder.

My 1st attempt at site building brought me to the same limitations and was quickly trashed and then a few days worrying I had just been taken without being able to find a solution BUT found Joomla.org and its software and plugins to be a terrific way to go around ipage.com's sketchy claims. This took me about 2 months (because I had a lofty startup deadline) of reading and seeking answers on forums and tutorials and 100s of google searches.

As the build progressed, so did the service tickets. Downed servers, email server redirects without notification, bandwidth limitations on a website addition that simply contained a rotating picture module. AND OF COURSE THE GRAND DADDY OF ALL LIES. An ipage.com staff member told me flat out, I was not allowed to have more than 10 people viewing my site at the same time, if I wanted more I would need to upgrade to a dedicated server. NOTE**** In order to move from 1 web host to another, you must wait at least 60 days. I approached the 58th day of service and a tech support "accidentaly" took my mentioning a refund for a portion of my service for a request to cancel and deleted my website, thus prompting them to reinstate the account and start the 60 day process all over again. My compensation was an upgrqade to premium tech support which does me nothing as we are now in the SEO and promoational part of the web startup.

Guest

I wish I would have read this site instead of the " recommended web hosting" IPAGE probebly owns. Everyone's right.

IPAGE is one BIG TRAP!!!!! I cant get refunds on my add on sites, which I have because I was having problems in the first place. Now I have a useless, unsearchable website and the only tech support I get is Well, It takes about 8 months to be searchable. PLEASE......

I would like to dump those *** but I will looose money in the long run and really don't have a choice.

Hey did you all get an expired Google coupon as well. What a dump site!!!!!

Guest

iPage spends a whole lot of time pretending to be their own customers and posting rave reviews about themselves, and replying to complaints where they also pose as a regular Joe.

The FACT is that there are literally 1000s of complaints about iPage all over the internet from customers whose credit cards have been illegally charged. Getting a refund is next to impossible.

iPage sucks so bad the only way they can stay in business is to steal money from credit cards they have on file...and then refuse refunds.

1000s of complaints about site downtime, and tons of oher PROBLEMS.

Worse than a scam. Thieves!

DO NOT USE IPAGE.... YOU WOULD BE BETTER OFF ROLLING DOWN YOUR WINDOW AND TOSSING MONEY OUT. AT LEAST YOU WILL KNOW WHEN YOU'RE LOSING IT. IF YOU DARE USE IPAGE....YOU WILL BE SURPRISED BY UNAUTHORIZED CHARGES LONG AFTER YOU RID YOURSELF OF THEM (CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT)

Guest

yes, ipage.com is a scam webhost.I was scammed in $45.

Guest

Thanks Maxine for posting this thorough review... you have probably saved me a lot of grief!

John, Your comment is more dismissive than informative; and as such it doesn't come up to Maxine's contribution. Maxine is preparing us rubes for the sideshow tent and the nickel and dime process we'll encounter inside.

Guest

So basically what you're complaining about is the SOFTWARE ipage hosting offers you with ALONG with your hosting plan. So technically it's NOT ipage's fault that the software limits you to certain number of pages, form fields, links, etc.

You can DEFINITELY create as many pages as you want/need considering you have necessary skills to do that by NOT using the "create a fancy site software". It's somewhat strange that you did such a big research for search engine optimization, but can't seem to see the difference between the HOSTING and SITE BUILDING SOFTWARE that are 2 completely different things.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-199269

Any representations and/or services through other platforms (ie Weebly) on ipage whether its software or hosting is still the responsibility of the company representing it. If I offer PayPal on my website, it is my responsibility if the PayPal feature doesnt work.

If you go to a restaurant and order a salad and the lettuce is wilted and brown you would get a manager at the restaurant to make a new salad, not complain to the farmer who grew the lettuce. ipage needs to deliver on any services it advertises as a part of their plans which the consumer is paying for.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-767447

If I use Paypal on my website, I only expect Paypal to do the things Paypal is suppose to do, your saying iPage needs to have features not offered by Weebly in Weebly. That would be great, but its up to Weebly and not iPage.

I have to agree that iPage support is terrible, but the hosting is great, the tools arent as used but thats ok because its just extras on my hosting plan, not what im paying for. Web design is VERY expensive to have it professionally done, so if you have to drop an extra $100 on a decent tool to build your website and make it look clean its well worth it.

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