Looks like iPowerWeb likes to keep their servers crowded as well.

At this point you may ask, why are we making such a big deal out of this ’server crowdedness’ section? Well, it’s about the probability of damage that an account can cause. Imagine this: you live in a house with 300 neighbors (ouch!), what’s the probability that someone will disturb you? Now, what’s the probability that someone will disturb you if have 700 neighbors (very ouch!)? Obviously, the chances of being disturbed are higher with higher number of neighbors. To see an example of what kind of disturbance you might get, scroll down to the Neighborhood section.

So, what about iPowerWeb? Good news first: we found a server with only 2 sites. It didn’t seem like a dedicated server as the registrants to both sites seemed non-related. Which means that this idyllic situation won’t last long as new accounts are added and the server is turned into a monster ‘apartment complex’ with 1080 sites like the server iPowerWeb called ‘host96.’

With this comes a rating of 2 stars.

This is a tough one, like always. We can distinguish quality as it relates to customer service, and as it relates to technical aspects of hosting.

Customers are supported 24/7 by email and live chat along with 24/7 telephone support. We came across complaints that some people are experiencing very long wait times on the phone.

iPowerWeb is aslo a member of LA BBB, so we glanced at their file. Take a look yourself.

They didn’t seem to have a forum, but we found a dedicated site for help with tutorials and what not.

We also quickly scanned web hosting forums, and the results seemed somewhat worrisome: you better do your research! Our overall impression was that the customer service used to be good but has gone downhill fast. But this could be a misconception because with hundreds of thousands of clients you also get a larger number of complaints.

And since their servers were down during the blackout in Sept. 2005 (what happened to the concept of back-up power at a 300K customer company?), we cannot help but give a 3 star rating in this category.

Why is turnover important? In our opinion, it gives a feel how the company is doing. It really makes sense only if monitored long-term because this gives a trend whether the company is loosing or gaining customers.

Since no company is going to volunteer this information, we can only guess what the actual turnover is. For guessing we look at how many domains are pointing to the hosting company. Dailychanges.com gives a list of 500+ most active name servers, complete with new additions and deletions.

Anyway, today, 11/17/05, iPowerDNS (domain is registered by iPowerWeb) shows a total gain of 167 domains today even after 211 domains were deleted and 127 moved out.

They seem to have a total of 276,475 domains. If it is indeed true that this total number reflects the number of hosting accounts, then that is somewhat less than what they claim on their web site.

Rank Name Server New In Out Deleted Gain %G All
69 IPOWERDNS.COM 367 138 -127 -211 167 0.06% 276,475

Because this is such an uncertain area, we don’t give any ratings in this category.

iPowerWeb seems to offer a 30-day money back guarantee. However, some fees that might be incurred during the sign-up process are not refundable (like the set-up fee).

Keep in mind though, that if you cancel the service after the 30-day period, you might be required to pay a $50 termination fee.

Be sure to read their Terms of Service for all the fine print. The document is easy to read, at least as far as legal documents go.

For this category, we give iPowerWeb a rating of 4,5 stars.

Your existing site will be transfered to iPowerWeb for free as of this writing. If you have a big site, it might be a good idea to check with them first.

The Acceptable Use policy nor the Terms of Service do not mention whether adult sites are allowed or not.
However, one of the FAQ’s mentions it, and the answer is no, adult sites are not allowed.

We couldn’t find any mention of proxies in the Acceptable Use policy either, but we bet they are not allowed either.

We did, however find that at least one of their servers — host17 — was blacklisted for spam at the time of this writing.

This is what you get on crowded servers — someone will do something that affects everyone’s accounts, the more there are users the higher the chances for this to happen.

And how are other accounts affected when someone sends spam? Well, we’d like to hear from people with experience, what happens to your email when you send it from a server that is blacklisted for spamming?

With this we bestow a 2.5 star rating in the Neighborhood category.

Something that we came across on the forums is that iPowerWeb doesn’t upgrade existing clients to new features/servers.
This claim obviously needs more research, which you should undertake if you’re considering their services.

In iPowerWeb’s protection we can say that this does make economic sense, at least in the short term. Imagine upgrading 300,00 customers every time the marketing department comes up with a new trick to attrack new customers.

There can be other things to know, so you better read the terms and conditions and ask questions, including on forums!

In conclusion, iPowerWeb is definitely a huge web hosting company. Frequent comments about poor support do rise concerns, however. Keep in mind that the bigger the company, the more you hear about them, both negative and positive.

The bottomline is: do your home work before signing up with iPowerWeb, or, for that matter, with any web host.

You now expect an overall rating, don’t you?
Here at Best Web Hosting Provider, we don’t give overall ratings because we believe overall ratings are…well, overall — they’re not precise, and often misleading.

So, that’s it. Let us know if your opinion differs, or you uncover useful information about iPW.

For now, take care, and come back for the next review.