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PowWeb Review – Many Customers Are Not Happy At All

Updated: March 19, 2020 by tbwhs

Name: PowWeb
Plans: Shared.
Website: www.powweb.com
Summary: PowWeb is company I don’t recommend. They are EIG owned and have a lot of issues. This PowWeb review will show you what others are saying about using this company.

Powweb.com
{{ reviewsOverall }} / 5 Users Score (40 votes)
Overall1.6
Reliability1.5
Server Speed1.7
Customer Support1.4
Features1.7
Cost/Value1.7
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ReviewResearchInterviews

PowWeb LogoPowWeb was established in 1999. They are developed by the same company that is owned by Fatcow, Dot5Hosting, Hostgator, and Apollo Hosting.  They are an EIG (Endurance International Group) owned company. A lot of small businesses are reluctant to go with PowWeb. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of reviewing them many years ago. At that time I had nothing but kind words to say about them. Boy have times changed! I now longer recommend them.

Why the switch and why do I no longer recommend PowWeb?  

When I review a web hosting company, I like to look at many different things.  I like to check out their features, uptime, dependability, customer service, and last but not least their price tag.  Then when I factor all those together, I can either A recommend them or B recommend another service over them.  If you’re looking at choosing a web host I have developed a checklist for picking the right one for your website.

 After reading this full PowWeb review, you will see why I no longer recommend them.  Well, grab a cup of coffee and get ready to learn why PowWeb is a company you should avoid.

PowWeb Features

PowWeb does look appealing; I mean they almost mimic WebHostingHub in the image that they only offer shared web hosting.  Their prices are pretty decent. So this is why small websites would be drawn to researching their company. I mean everything is “unlimited” with them (which is just a sales pitch), respectable hosting companies like GreenGeeks use this tactic too, but I will go over some of the reasons on why I don’t recommend them.

One Plan

PowWeb offers one plan to its customers, with one price. This plan is all-inclusive, with full service for an affordable price. Included in the PowWeb package are unlimited disk space, data transfer, and bandwidth. They use load balanced technology to avoid service interruptions. Also, your web address and their simple website builder are included in the package free of charge. This package is eCommerce ready, with SSL and a built-in shopping cart that is set up on site. The package also allows you to accept payments through PayPal, one of the most preferred methods of payment on the internet. Right now, one year of PowWeb is available for $4.18 per month, which is a 54% discount. The two-year contract is also 54% off, but comes to only $3.88 per month, while the three-year contract is the same price as the two years.

Control Panel

PowWeb Control Panel

PowWeb has their own control panel, much like DreamHost, Homestead, Network Solutions, Servage, and Web.com. Their control panel is called “Member Operations Center” which they have fully customized for their website. I do like the colors, but sadly this is not a fashion show. In turns of functioning correctly, it does do that to some degree, but if you are used to cPanel or Plesk you will find this to be odd because everything is tucked away in its category. When you first log into PowWeb’s control panel, you will see 6 tabs/panels. The first on is “Main,” obviously this like the homepage which does have a lot of useful FAQs, support tickets where you can get your questions answered, or possibly if you want to contact billing or support for any issues you might be receiving. The next is the “Personal” tab which is pretty self-explanatory (you update your personal information there, name, address, etc. The “Accounting” tab is just a place where you start new billing, see your payments, as well as their amounts. You can add/remove them pretty easily. The “Package” tab is where you will spend most of your time setting up email accounts, adding/removing FTP’s, managing your databases, and the whole nine yards. Lastly, the “DomReg” is where you register your domains.

Script Support

PowWeb Scripts

You have your selection of scripts from PowWeb. You can use Joomla for your content management or WordPress for your blogs.  There is many other CMS you can install, as well. Images are handled by Coppermine or Gallery2.  You can have your discussion board with phpBB. You can even establish a guestbook to expand your contact list through GBook.  Groupware is provided by WebCalendar, and you can select either AgoraCart or osCommerce for your e-commerce.  X7Chat is available, also, if you want to have chat capabilities with your customers.

Email Through PowWeb

Your email is with POP3/IMAP and SMTP. You will have a secure login, along with forwarding and aliases available to you. You can greylist senders, and the spam filters are set the way you want them. You also get DNS text record/SMTP+SPF with your email. You can access your email, schedules, contacts, and tasks from anywhere, including your smartphone. You can also share information such as schedules and emails with others.

Security

Security and web hosting seem to go hand and hand. PowWeb has partnered with SiteLock which is a service that helps safeguard your server so that you’re not prone to malware. SiteLock can even recover your files if you do get infected with a virus.

Clearly, PowWeb will have everything you need to start a website.  Ok this is where my review of them turns south, so keep reading.

PowWeb Uptime/Performance

Your website will load very slow with PowWeb.

PowWeb has gone downhill over the years.  Their uptime is guaranteed to be “excellent.”  For the most part, your server will be up all the time, pretty close to 99.9%.  But, what are webmasters saying about their uptime and performance?  Quite the opposite, in fact, they are experiencing lots of slow loading times.  It’s gotten pretty awful over the years.  For instance, people are having issues with their MySQL databases (they don’t support external MySQL connections).  Their servers are below average at best.  To show you why I state this, please see the image down below:

PowWeb Speed
This chart shows their speed is 85 milliseconds from solvedns.com which is very high. In fact, 60% of web host are faster.

A lot of hosting companies are migrating to SSD hosting.  Sadly, PowWeb hasn’t made this move yet.  SSD hosting is much faster than solid state drives.

PowWeb Billing Issues

Expired Credit Card - PowWebPowWeb has lots of billing issues. Over the years people have been using their service after falsely thinking PowWeb was a lot larger than they are. As we all know our debit/credit cards go out of date from time to time. Well, people are reporting that they have lost their card associated with their account with PowWeb, and within the next time, it was time to pay the their bill there card was denied. Now, I have had some card changes in my day, but never has a hosting service closed my account and told me “Sorry buddy.” Well, that’s what they do. A respectable web hosting service will tell you your card was denied; would you please update your information with 3-5 business days before we terminate your account. They certainly, don’t operate that way, and one longtime (10 years) user got his account terminated and closed down. He lost his data and had to completely start all over again.  Wow, that is bad! There are lots and lots of similar stories like that, and they make their way around lots of web hosting review sites just like this one. One service that comes to mind is 1and1 because they are notorious for having billing issues just like PowWeb.

Make sure you watch your credit card expiration dates because PowWeb might terminate your account.

PowWeb Customer Support

PowWeb has issues with customer support.

PowWeb has lacking customer support. As you might guess this is a big deal with me and a lot of other webmasters. When our sites have issues/problems, we want answers. Why because our clients are worried about what is wrong with their site and we have to get the answers.  If there is one thing you get from this PowWeb review it’s simply this; their customer support is very lacking. Well, when PowWeb closes their doors for live help a red flag goes off. Let’s say you notice a big problem at 9 P.M. on Friday. Sadly, they only help with technical issues between business ours. So if something happens and you need assistance over the weekend “to bad wait until Monday and we will help you.”

PowWeb's Horrible Customer Support
Here is a comment on how bad their support is by Bill Lorenz – familyequality.org.

I hadn’t talked to their customer support in some years but, when I did they were helpful. However, over the years people are reporting they are either getting canned answers or nowhere with their assistance. Unfortunately, PowWeb seems to be loaded with apologies and excuses on why stuff doesn’t get resolved.

PowWeb Summary

PowWeb is just a complete waste of time. Take your business elsewhere there are plenty of web hosting services that do not have loads of billing issues and customer support that only works during business hours. True, PowWeb used to be OK, but more and more people are just reporting complaints with them. I used to recommend them to anyone looking for a good web hosting service, but I no longer do.

I tend to look the other way when a company is owned by EIG.  There are some issues with companies that are operated by them.  If PowWeb could address these business hours for customer service and get their server response rate up to the industry standard, I would be more than happy to reevaluate them.

I would highly recommend you use InMotion or GreenGeeks if you are looking for a good dependable web hosting company. I would like to hear your responses preferably from PowWeb staff, but please leave a comment up above to contribute to this review. Feel free to share my PowWeb review down below at your leisure if you did find this helpful (there are some buttons you can push down below this review). Thank you for reading.

PowWeb research.

“Positive”
“Negative”

WhoIsHostingThis.com

WhoIsHostingThis.com is a hosting review site that is quite similar to tbwhs.com. They offer reviews by professionals as well as by customers who have used different web hosts. They offer reviews on several different host sites, as well as a comparison section in which you can compare different hosting sites. They are a sponsored site but offer a wide variety of reviews. They also offer coupons for different hosting deals. In this case, we are looking at WhoIsHostingThis’s reviews on PowWeb.

Good and Bad

The first reviews you see on the site are positive, with 4 to 5 stars. That looks good, right? But as you read on, you find more and more customers who are dissatisfied with PowWeb.

The overall rating affixed to PowWeb comes to only two and a half stars, with the lowest scores in the area of customer support. The highest scores that PowWeb receives are only three stars out of five, overall, including uptime on websites.

The few good reviews were from customers who had been with the company for several years, and say they never experience downtime and get immediate attention on their calls and chats. However, even one of the two positive reviews noted that customer service has declined and that the value of their service has dropped. His support ticket was opened for over 100 hours without resolution.

One reviewer reported that he had checked the site, only to have a customer notify him a few days later that the site was down. PowWeb had done nothing to notify him of downtime. There have been a lot of reported issues with PowWeb, and they don’t get the most favorable reviews on WhoIsHostingThis.com.

As a whole, it doesn’t look like other webmasters are boasting about their experience with PowWeb. Instead, they are warning you not to do business with them. For this reason, I am adding this piece of my research to my negative section.


WebHostingSecretRevealed.net

WebHostingSecretRevealed is a host review site like tbwhs.com. They offer a comprehensive review of all of the services of each host, with positives and negatives, even going into detail about the pricing and features on each package available from the host. Their reviews of PowWeb are very revealing and might lead you to choose a different host. Jerry Low has developed this website and has addressed some things that I believe are noteworthy:

Good Comments

Some reviews of PowWeb are very positive. Several customers say they never have any downtime with PowWeb. However, those are customers who have been with the company for several years. Most new customers, and even some of the established ones are not so positive with the reviews.

Be Selective

In general, it seems that if you want to use PowWeb, you should stick to sites that don’t change a lot or offer a lot of customer service. For example, if you have a business site that has a catalog or takes orders, you probably should go elsewhere for hosting. A static site will do ok with PowWeb. They have very limited disc space and limited bandwidth. Once you approach your maximum, you are threatened with suspension.

Shut Downs

PowWeb has been reported for shutting down accounts to get your attention. When you contact them with a complaint, they try to get you to upgrade. They also auto renew your site whether you want them to or not. Even when you refuse to auto renews, they will do it, and keep the $200. It is nearly impossible to get away from them. Most customers report endless hours trying to get customer service to answer questions and fix problems.

PowWeb is another EIG (Endurance International Group) owned company. Overall, they do get 2 out of 5 stars. They may be cheap at a glance, but as your website grows you will not be able to keep hosting with them. There are much better options out there. For this reason, I am adding this piece of my research to my negative section.


WebHostingGeeks.com

WebHostingGeeks, much like tbwhs.com, is a review site for web hosts. They cover a full range of web host sites and give a very thorough analysis and review of the services, prices, features and customer service available with various hosts. In this case, WHG has reviewed PowWeb hosting service, and the results are not good.

Overall Rankings

Overall, PowWeb gets about 2 out of 5 stars. The best scoring it gets is in pricing, which is 3 out of 5 stars. A couple of people like PowWeb, but the vast majority of reviews are two stars or less.

Declining Quality

Some reviews are offered by customers who were among the first to do business with PowWeb. They recall, fondly, the early days, when the founders gave their customers individual attention. Now they say that management makes excuses and blames everybody else when things go wrong.

They evidently change the rules in the middle of the game, turning off your email because it is suddenly out of compliance with their guidelines or software. The systems get hacked, and they will not take responsibility for security.

Customer service according to most reviewers has gone away. Some users say they have waited 30 minutes on hold, and finally just hung up. The switch over also caused their customers to lose a lot of their data and reset domain pointers.

They shut down sites, and when you complain, they tell you that you have a virus on your site and they will only help you if you buy their products.

Overall, PowWeb does not get very good feedback on WebHostingGeeks.com. About 60 webmasters have left ratings and comments for PowWeb and nearly all of them rate them 1 to 2 stars.


WebHostingJury.com

WebHostingJury.com is a web hosting review site much like tbwhs.com. Instead of offering an editorial review the reviews consist of users that have used their service in the past. This site had a lot of reviews on it from 2005 to 2012. Some reviews were left by PowWeb and the following points were addressed:

Cons

  • There is a lot of frequent downtimes.
  • The customer support can not figure out a simple task. It takes awhile to get ahold of them. There are speculations that they hire overseas support which is hard to understand.
  • The prices increase after your first billing cycle.
  • Lots of problems with getting your email to work correctly with them.
  • Changes in management (EIG) reflected negatively on PowWeb.
  • They are quick to suspend accounts.

Pros

  • Long term clients have stayed with them since 2003.
  • They offer a lot of features to their clients.
  • WordPress sites are very easy to setup with PowWeb.

The general feedback on WebHostingJury.com seems to be very negative. Overall, PowWeb gets 2.3 out of 5 for reliability, 2 out of 5 for support, 3.5 out 5 for pricing, and are rated 2.1 out of 5 overall. For the above reasons, I am adding this piece of my research to my negative section for PowWeb.

“Neutral”

TopTenReviews.com

TopTenReviews.com is a website that reviews all kinds of different products and services. They have a section on web hosting. A lot of the host they have reviewed I do agree with. This review on PowWeb is one review that I do agree with. Toptenreviews.com did a review on them and stated that for the most part PowWeb doesn’t stick out to them as a web hosting company that has any real features or anything that other competing hosting companies don’t already offer.

For instance, they rate them as just average. PowWeb gets five out ten stars. As stated in this article they only offer customer support on the telephone Monday through Friday. It means that if you want to talk to them on the phone on Saturday or Sunday, you are out of luck. They only have a live chat and a ticket system where you can get ahold of them 24/7.

They feel that the features are nothing special. You can’t get custom cron jobs, a script library, and a custom 404 error page. They do use their control panel which is something unique to PowWeb. They do not use cPanel. They state that new users might be kind of confused when using the control panel.

In the fast paced web hosting industry you need assistance and if you have to wait until business hours is a huge turn-off. According to TopTenReviews.com, they are just an average company. They simply do nothing to “wow” you. For the reasons addressed above I am adding them to my neutral section

 

Interviews with PowWeb Customers.

“Victoria_Masters”

I am a professional photographer and also work in the veterinary medicine field. I started hosting with PowWeb when I created a website for my fine art photography during my final year of obtaining my Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography. I have a second domain for a joint commercial photography company hosted on SquareSpace, and will now be moving my fine art website there as well. www.torimasters.com (fine art photography – website is still in the works as I had to start from scratch) www.photodotimages.com (commercial photography).

How long have you been hosting with PowWeb?

I have been hosting with PowWeb for three years.

How come you chose to Host with PowWeb?

PowWeb was recommended to me by a family member. We both feel that the service has drastically decreased in the last few years through PowWeb.

Can you explain in detail what problem/problems you have had with them?

I have always found the control panel unattractive and not user-friendly. Recently, I received an email from an unfamiliar address @powweb-inc.com which I had never previously encountered in emails from PowWeb. The email was poorly written, full of grammatical errors, saying that malware had been detected in a scan. I checked my website and found everything to be working properly, so I chalked it up to a spam email. I was then notified some weeks later by a client that my website was down. I checked, and sure enough, it had been suspended. When I spoke to PowWeb about this and my concerns that I had only received one email that appeared to be spam before they suspended the website that I was continuing to pay for, I was written off entirely. I was never offered any resolution to deal with my concerns with the company, only instructions on how to remove the supposed malware (which essentially was just to re-upload ‘clean’ copies of everything – super helpful and informative!). I was begged to “please do not be taking your domain and the hosting from us” which is a far cry from the appropriate response to an upset client. I have worked in customer-service based jobs for years and would never make a remark like this to a client. I was never offered the chance to speak to an individual in a higher position in the company, or any other attempt to find a solution. In further discussions with PowWeb, I have been informed by them that it appears the matter has been resolved. I suppose if you count taking your business elsewhere, the problem has certainly been resolved!

I have heard their customer support has “business hours.”  How do you usually get ahold of them and how long does it usually take to get a reply.

Because I work long hours, I attempted to contact them through some methods online. First I tried their instant chat with support. This is where I was told in broken English that there was nothing they could do and begged not to take my business elsewhere without having an actual solution mentioned. It was obvious in this interaction that the customer service representative who I was speaking with was primarily basing their interaction on a script and did not have a strong grasp of the English language. I then tried submitting a ticket for this problem. I was given instructions on how to transfer my domain name, which was the extent of the “help” I got, and then told the problem had been resolved. Lastly, I reached out to them through their Facebook page and was again told that “a resolution had been sent” in my ticket, and that if their are any further concerns to re-open said ticket. I have received multiple emails asking for my opinion and if there are any concerns, yet have not found a single place or employee who cares to listen to my concerns and try to find a solution.

At this point in time is there anything PowWeb can do to regain your business?  Why or why not?

At this point, I do not feel that PowWeb can regain my business. I was extremely disappointed in the deteriorating quality of the service offered, and a complete lack of support staff who have any interest in retaining clients and solving problems. Squarespace offers a quick and simple way to create a beautiful portfolio website, and I have been nothing but happy with their service, so for slightly more money I will be switching my business over to them.

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All content on tbwhs.com are opinions and not facts. I have thoroughly reviewed each company and then provide my personal opinions on them. It’s up to you as the consumer to do your due diligence and do more research if you feel something might be inaccurate.

Filed Under: Not Recommended

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