Does anybody here use iPage webhosting?

[gimmeagig]

I'm getting ready to put a website together. I found iPage and called them to ask some questions. they were very helpful.
Is anybody here using them?
iPage offers different packages to get my business to show up on search engines.One of these packages is called "simply local search"
100.- per year. it's supposed to make me show up on Google Maps and Google search. Some other freebies.
Here is their website
http://www.ipage.com/ipage/index.html
Any reason that you know of why I might not want to go with them?

 

[badfish77]

I use ipage and have been very satisfied. Lots of options and good price.

 

[Newman]

Wordpress is the most search engine friendly website platform, as I have been lead to understand. I recommend you have someone design your website using a wordpress framework. Once it is setup it was easy, even for a mental midget like me, to make changes and add pages and edit. Own your URL, buy it from godaddy or where ever you wish, then give your web designer access. This will give you the best chance to have your beautiful new website is found and bring you a return on your investment.

Andrechelle did a nice job building my website, give her a call...

http://web.andrechelle.com/

 

[The Great Oz]

Own your URL, buy it from godaddy or where ever you wish, then give your web designer access.

Nothing wrong with any of the cheap web hosting sites; storage is cheap. Beware of any "free" domain registration and all-inclusive packages though. That often means you don't own your site, you just build traffic to it and later they can hold it for ransom or sell it to a competitor. There are lots of guys that are now running websites that have goofy names because they lost their real name to the hosting company.

 

[gimmeagig]

This is what I learned so far.
With godaddy and also ipage the web domain name would be owned by me and would be transferable.
The price for Godaddy is pretty similar to iPage . Both companies offer their own proprietary web design software that is supposed to be simple to use and both can also allow me to use WordPress, which is supposed to be more complex.
Godaddy tells me that there are no advantages to use WordPress over their design software, except that I could not move their designed website to another provider.
iPage says that I might get better results with search engines if I used WordPress.
iPage offers specific SEO (search engine optimization) packages ( simply local search and SubmitNet Platinum for example) that can get pretty pricey.
GoDaddy told me that part of their website building program is an optimization process so they did not offer me any additional extras.
One extra they did offer was making my domain Private for an extra 10.- per year. I'm not sure if that is worthwhile.
Now I'm wondering if the extras that iPage offered were just a money making scam or if there is really a way for me to make sure my website shows up in more local searches.
Anyway,
I got a few questions answered but new ones pop up.
If there is anything else relating to this you can make me aware of, that would be great.

 

[The Great Oz]

If you want to do it all yourself and don't want to put much work or time into it, either hosting company's software will probably be OK.

If you want to build a strong site and update it regularly, I'd recommend using WordPress so the website isn't a captive of the hosting provider. A lot of pretty good WordPress templates are free, a lot of really good WP plug-ins are free, and there are a lot of web developers that can make a few custom tweaks or do the foundation work for a small amount of cash.