Certified Hosting Review and Test Results

Review

HOSTING PLANS

Certified Hosting offers three low-cost web hosting plans: Dork, Geek, and Nerd. All three include a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space, and are backed by a no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee. Technical support options include 24/7 phone, chat and e-mail/ticket.

Priced at $6.95 per month for a one-year term renewal, the Dork plan is best suited for hosting a single non-ecommerce site as the plan allows for only 1 domain. Designed for hosting multiple non-ecommerce sites and priced at $8.95 per month for a one-year term renewal, the Geek plan allows for an unlimited number of domains. Priced at $13.95 per month for a one-year term renewal, the Nerd plan is best suited for ecommerce hosting. It allows for an unlimited number of domains and adds a dedicated IP address and private SSL certificate.

Certified Hosting’s services are also scalable. For advanced webmasters Certified offers an array of dedicated server plans that include three location options: USA West Coast, USA East Coast, and Amsterdam, Netherlands. For internet marketers, web designers, and developers, Certified offers six reseller hosting plans including a 30TB managed plan coupled with an Enom reseller account that allows webmasters to offer their customers domain registration in addition to web hosting services.

Certified Hosting checkout process screenshots. Click to enlarge.

PURCHASE PROCESS

The two-step Certified checkout process is a model of simplicity that other web hosting companies would do well to imitate (screenshots right). You simply enter the domain name to be hosted in either the “Register a New Domain Name” or “I Currently Have a Domain Name” form field and click the “Proceed to Step 2” button. To complete Step 2, you first select the package type and the billing cycle from the respective pulldown menus. Your choices produce an order summary which indicates the total amount to be paid with the order as well as the billing cycle you selected. Next you agree to the terms and conditions of use by checking the associated box. Then press either the “New Customer” or “Current Customer” button to generate the “Billing Information” form. Once completed, you click the “Submit Order” button. You are done.

Certified Hosting Uptime Test Results Chart. Click to enlarge.

SETUP

As is our practice for testing and reviewing, we purchased the lowest-cost plan (Dork), and opted for the PayPal payment option. The “New Account Information” e-mail arrived in our inbox almost instantaneously. It included the nameserver settings, mail server settings, and control panel/FTP login — all of the information required to set up our test site (click for sample test site) quickly.

A “best practice” for shared hosting services, Certified provides the user-friendly cPanel control panel. cPanel makes managing your website easy, as set-up and administration functions are divided into sections by topic.

Included within cPanel is the newbie-friendly Softaculous applications installer. It allows for the quick installation of content management systems like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, phpBB, and others. Softaculous also provides 1-click installation for ecommerce applications like OpenCart, PrestaShop, AbanteCart, and Magento.

TESTING

We are pleased to report that the page-load speed and uptime test results reinforced our positive opinion of Certified. Both fast and reliable, their cheapest plan (Dork) scored a perfect reliability rating throughout the entire test period (see uptime and speed test result charts right).

Certified Hosting Speed Test Results Chart. Click to enlarge.

All web hosting services reviewed by NCM Online are purchased and subjected to independent third-party, 10-day Dotcom-Monitor testing for uptime and page-load speed. Certified Hosting recorded a well above average speed of 1.4279 seconds to load our test site from 13 locations worldwide and 1.2278 seconds from 7 U.S. locations. Tested for uptime every 15 minutes from 13 worldwide locations over the 10 day test period, the Dork plan produced a perfect 100% reliability score.

Pros

• Unlimited disk space
• Unlimited bandwidth
• 24×7 phone, chat and e-mail support
• Quick checkout and set up
• Beginner friendly
• 100% reliability test result
• cPanel control panel
• Softaculous applications installer
• Credit card, PayPal and Bitcoin payment options
• Anytime money-back guarantee
• 20%, no expiration coupon code
• A+ BBB rating

Cons

• At $6.95 per month for a 1-year renewal, it is not the cheapest hosting on the market

Conclusion

Easy to purchase, set up, and manage, Certified Hosting shared plans include everything you need to launch your website quickly and easily. Perfect for beginners as well as experienced webmasters who require affordable and reliable hosting services, Certified merits your consideration.

Certified Hosting has earned 4.5 stars and NCM Online’s highest recommendation.

Pricing and Features

Cheap website hosting company price comparisons based on 1-year term list price before coupon/promo codes or limited time/introductory offer discounts. These are the renewal rates for the second year of hosting. To ensure that you receive the most affordable Certified Hosting pricing possible, please visit our Web Hosting Coupon Codes page for current discounts and special offers before making any purchases.

Plan	Dork	Geek	Nerd
Disk Space	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Bandwidth	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Domains	1	Unlimited	Unlimited
Domain Name
Dedicated IP	X	X	Free
Private SSL	X	X	Free
FTP Accounts
Hosting Support
Anytime Money-Back	Guaranteed	Guaranteed	Guaranteed
99.999% Up Time
24×7 Phone, Chat, & Email
Google AdWords	$100	$100	$100
Online Ticketing System
Video Tutorial
24/7/365 Server Monitoring
Supported Hosting Features
MySQL DataBase
WordPress & Joomla (CMS Hosting)
CURL
cPanel
GD Library
ImageMagick
FFMpeg – PHP
Libogg
Libvorbis
FLV 2 Tools
LAME MP3 Encoder
Mplayer Mencoder
Email Hosting
POP3
RoundCube
Imap
Spam Assassin	Available	Available	Available
SMTP
Mail Forwarding
Catch Alls
Mailing Lists
Auto Responders
Email Alias
Control Panel Features
Soholaunch
Hotlink Protection
IP Deny Manager
Custom Error Page
Redirected URL
Web Based File Manager
PW Protected Directories
phpMyAdmin
Script Library
Instant Blogs
Instant Portals
Instant PHP Nuke
Instant Forums
Instant GuestBook
Instant Form Mail
Instant Counter
eCommerce Features
Private SSL Certificate
Dedicated IP Address
OS Commerce Shopping Cart
ZenCart
Agora Cart
Cube Cart
Magento Shopping Cart
Website / FTP Statistics
AW Stats	Available	Available	Available
Webalizer
Raw Log Manager
Referrer Logs
Error Logs
Parked Domains
Add-Ons
Sub-Domains
FTP Accounts
Others
Ruby on Rails
PHP 5.3.27
CGI
SSH
Perl
Python
SSI
Cron
Front Page
Price per Month*	$6.95	$8.95	$13.95

*Prices based on 1-year term before the application of coupon/promo codes and introductory/limited-time offer discounts. While you may pay less for the first year of hosting, the prices displayed on this page are the 1-year term renewal rates.

Company Information

Founded in 1999 and based in Southern California, Certified Hosting was created as a webhosting company dedicated to providing for customer-specific needs. The company offers reseller hosting, shared hosting, and manages dedicated servers. Its worldwide customer base includes businesses large and small, as well as, individuals.

Certified Hosting’s approach to business is different as they offer individualized services to clients in varying industries. This tailors the services to deal with industry-specific technology needs and difficulties. They treat each client relationship as a partnership emphasizing the value they place on these relationships. This includes personalized attention given to each customer. This assistance is nothing less than superior as every staff member has years of experience in the field. The firm realizes that each success they help create with their customers contributes to their own success.

Certified’s network is backed with two datacenters in Atlanta and Phoenix. These have many connections to Tier-1 carriers which every customer is guaranteed to have providing fast connections. All customers also have access to a scalable bandwidth. The network is protected from any single point failure with many internal fiber connections, routers, and switches making up the backbone. The redundant network prevents network threats allowing for seamless hosting uptime. There is also protection in place to completely prevent downtime due to power outages and hackers. This along with 24/7 monitoring provides uninterrupted webhosting to all customers.

Certified Hosting Solutions 22365 Barton Road Suite 309 Grand Terrace, CA 92313 800-547-9995 909-498-4415 Fax 909-954-9570 Certified Hosting Website Certified Hosting on Twitter Certified Hosting on Facebook Certified Hosting on Google+

How to Install WordPress

This video tutorial demonstrates the installation of WordPress on a Certified Hosting shared hosting account using cPanel and the Softaculous 1-click applications installer.