Seeking to capitalize on the brand awareness it has built over the last 15 years, Yahoo has discontinued the free GeoCities service in favor of Yahoo Web Hosting. Through Yahoo Small Business several products are offered in addition to Yahoo Web Hosting including domains, merchant solutions, sponsored search, and display advertising. Through this kind of vertical integration of services within a strong brand Yahoo hopes to provide a convenient one-stop-shop for small business customers. But along with convenience and brand recognition there is a small premium to pay, as similar services can be obtained from less widely recognized providers for less cost.
Yahoo Web Hosting is priced to encourage customers to purchase more months of service up-front, with the best value at $111.93 for 12 months, $62.73 for six months, and $12.95 for month-to-month service. For this price Yahoo ostensibly offers unlimited disk space, data transfer, and email storage, but with some caveats. In its terms of service Yahoo makes it clear that Yahoo Web Hosting is for small business and not for large enterprises, and Yahoo utilizes technology to detect abuse of its resources and will throttle web sites that demand too much or grow too fast.
If you are a power-user that demands full shell access and a suite of a dozen or more scripting tools you might be disappointed. But if you are a non-technical user that just wants the easiest way to get your small business website up and running, you should find the design tools provided with Yahoo Web Hosting most adequate. The convenience of a free domain name and secure hosting from a company with a track record like Yahoo tops off the Yahoo Web Hosting package, for which the small business owner might find is worth paying a little more.
Another advantage to keeping everything under one roof is Yahoo Web Hosting customers need look no further for search engine optimization and other marketing tools. Yahoo provides credits to new customers of $100 for Yahoo! Search Marketing and $50 for Google AdWords, plus a discount on Yahoo! Local Enhanced Listings. Yahoo has also partnered with email marketing company GOT to supply customers with a one-month free trial of GOT Campaigner to help get the word out about the new website. All these features and more should entice the small business owner to take a close look at what Yahoo Web Hosting has to offer.
