1&1

Limited Time Offer

Overview

1&1 Internet traces its origins to a small German company called, naturally, “1&1,” owned by Ralph Dommermuth. 1&1’s association with the Internet began in 1988 when it subsumed the marketing activities of BTX, an underperforming online service provider managed by T-Com, the parent company of wireless carrier, T-Mobile. To jumpstart this move, 1&1 boldly launched the first major campaign to market an online service – a surprising move since few people beyond universities or government had little interaction with the Internet at that time. In 1998, 1&1 Internet began competing as a domain registrar when it acquired Schlund + Partner, a leading German web hosting and registrar founded three years previously. Today, 1&1 Internet is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is a subsidiary of United Internet, a German company. Oliver Mauss currently serves as the CEO of 1&1 Internet.

1and1.com, which has a strong market presence in Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Spain, France, Poland, United States, Canada, Italy and Mexico, and with some 19 million domains hosted, caters to small- and medium-sized businesses as well as personal websites customers. Does having such an impressively expansive client reach, make 1&1 a compelling choice as hosting and domain registration provider?

Usability

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the highest, 1&1 is a 2 when it comes to usability. Exactly what makes it a 2 and not a 1 has a lot to do with the fact that there simply is no domain registry that can be said to be perfect. There is always that minor detail that one user might not want which could roll into a consensus that a particular registry is indeed lacking in that usability aspect. So, for 1&1, its usability is just good enough to not be rated lower than a 2, with just the right intuitiveness that allows users to look for functions and menus when they’re needed.

Some website owners or those looking to establish a website might go to the site only for a domain but it would be hard to miss all the hosting services offered. If it’s just domain, then 1&1 is definitely easy to use: one just has to go to search for a desired name, get results and pay for the service checked out.

On the hosting side, it is important to point out that 1&1 does not use a cPanel backend system. To those who are unfamiliar, cPanel is an open-source software commonly used by many web hosting providers. Not having this industry-standard control panel could be a good or bad thing depending on a user’s preference. Those who are familiar with cPanel and are looking to transfer here might not like that 1&1 uses a different backend, while those who are unfamiliar or simply don’t like cPanel will be delighted and might find the site’s control panel a step up from a former host.

Domain Privacy

Like most legitimate domain registries, registration privacy is offered at 1and1.com. This privacy feature is provided in-house, which means that in place of your name, registrant email and mailing address, 1&1’s registered corporate name (1&1 Internet Inc) and contact details appear in the publicly viewable Whois database where every person or entity that registered for a domain has their details exposed for all to see.

This useful and quite indispensable privacy feature helps registrants keep their private information from spilling on to a publicly viewable database that opens the doors to spammers and other entities that they may or may not want to hear from. In case they want to hear from telemarketers, they can browse through an especially created email account and gives the account owner an option to have these emails forwarded to a designated personal email. Any other unwanted communications, however, are filtered more efficiently. This capability to monitor email is flexible and can easily be done on the control panel.

Domain privacy can only be applied to .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .mobi, .name, .cc, .tv, .mx, and .com.mx extensions. Make sure to check that the domain you’re registering is not among these extensions if you feel like private registration is very important to you.

Features

1and1.com is, first and foremost, a web hosting company that also offers domain registration (free for certain plans), unlimited server space (for mid- to upper-tier plans), unlimited bandwidth, email accounts (250 to unlimited, depending on plan), support for MS SQL databases, and daily backups and password-protected directories to ensure data security and site visitor privacy.

From the moment you enter the site, 1&1 lets you know that you can leave all your web presence set-up needs to them, or at least most of it. Aside from giving you a domain name and hosting your website, they can also take care of email address creation, webmail account, and eCommerce website building, among others, which come in a pretty neat bundle. Domain registration is a quick and a pretty straightforward process here whereas its other features are given more focus: website design, hosting and WordPress hosting.

Its website design service guarantees user-friendliness and it is for the most part easy to manipulate and customize, and comes with a free 30-day trial and a lifetime free domain. Web hosting also comes with a free domain and has quite reliable uptime promise. Further services include online directory listing, online store (1&1 Online Store) creation and management, and website builder. Most 1&1 service bundles are worth checking out. 1&1 also offers a host of security features that protect websites, available through its different plans.

Bulk Registrations and Management

While there is plenty to like in 1&1’s domain services, bulk registration and management leaves a lot to be desired. To begin with, there is no option to search for multiple domains. Despite not having the best options for bulk registration, managing a number of domains in 1&1 is, strangely, one of its best features. This is primarily because a user who both has domains and websites hosted under 1&1 can seamlessly shift from managing domains to sites being hosted.

Access Level and Delegating

There is currently no means to provide domain management access to other users. This is another downside to 1&1 domain registration and could be bad news to customers who require this capability. Providing access and granting rights to a user that is not the main account owner are functions that can only be done through the web hosting side of the service. Getting someone to manage certain aspects of your domains is unfortunately not possible when using 1&1.

Pricing and Coupons

On pricing, 1&1 domain and hosting is so cheap, they could give other domain registries and web hosting providers with the word ‘cheap’ on their names a run for their money. For new customers on an extremely tight budget, 1&1’s introductory offer of $0.99 a year which could total to $1.17 including the $0.18 ICANN fee is a definite steal. As attractive as this may sound, this is for domain registration only. The better deal is its ‘1&1 Online Today’ which has virtually all the necessary add-ons in a domain + hosting package. This ‘limited offer’ comes with unlimited hosting, website builder and email address account creation. They offer a lot of discounted prices for domain and hosting plans, but when making a purchase and checking out, don’t forget to untick the boxes next to the suggested additional domain extensions and other services that you might not need.

The pricing competitiveness of its domain registration is not to be outdone by its hosting prices (it is after all mainly a web hosting company first) which are also relatively cheaper than most of its close competitors. Although not the cheapest, it could rival some of the bigger domain registries that offer much lower-priced domains and hosting services. The company is also quite generous with free trials most of which can be availed for most web hosting plans. 1&1 offers a reduced sign-up rate for the first 12 months for their three major plans and accepts all major credit cards for payment.

Customer Service

There is no telling if 1&1’s customer support staff is based off the company’s own offices or outsourced. It shouldn’t matter as their prominently displayed 24/7 professional support hotline is manned by knowledgeable domain and hosting staff who know what they’re talking about.

Unfortunately, there is no live chat function for very immediate concerns, but the phone numbers for specific concerns – products and orders, and contract and billing – are picked up immediately with rare instances of unsatisfying non-resolutions. Moreover, making follow-up calls or emails is likely to yield a quick response. Attempts to contact to technical support team don’t always get very immediate responses but when someone finally answers, the resolutions given are mostly satisfactory, specifically when one forwards a simple or complex question about any of its hosting plans.

Its customer service doesn’t have any glaring shortcoming and can be depended on for decent answers to varying issues.

Management Summary

Down servers, disruptions and similar domain or web hosting catastrophes are not widely reported as frequent occurrence in 1&1 hosting which is where the company really stands out. As a web hosting company with secondary website services, 1&1 does extremely well with their trusty, high performing servers and more than enough memory for the right-sized websites. Also commendable is their reliable support team. Often a dealbreaker for domain or hosting clients is the quality of support, and with 1&1 there is little likelihood that a support staff member could displease a customer reporting a concern.

Despite the previously mentioned pros, 1and1.com could use some improvements in certain areas such as bulk domain registration and user access delegation. These aren’t troubling shortcomings, though, and with its highly competitive pricing, reliable servers, and aggressive marketing, 1and1.com could attract rather than subtract users.