Names.co.uk Review

Speed & Reliability - We tested their server from Dallas, TX and the load time was an impressive 2.99 seconds at a page size of 1.4MB. Namesco has a guaranteed uptime of 99.9% so customers can be assured that their sites will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week with no downtime.

Namesco recently introduced its breakthrough SSD platform. It new NetApp tiered storage facilitates movement of the most popular data in a website to SSD storage. This causes data to be delivered to the end user even quicker.

Namesco’s Apache web hosting platform has also been strengthened with F5 Viprion load balancer which acts a reverse proxy, distributing network traffic across some servers. This improvement lets the website hosting provider give an uninterrupted experience to its customers.

Moreover, the hosting provider recently added extra features that are designed to give their clients more value for their money. There’s a wider choice of free domain names offered by Namesco. Also, Namesco clients can better protect their websites and clients with an SSL certificate that is free for one year.Namesco also takes pride for being the first UK hosting provider to offer PHP 7 on a shared hosting environment. This was after the company invested heavily on its data centre including upgrading its hardware.

According to the firm, the advantage of its PHP version hosting packages is that it can be directory specific. Clients thus can continue to run PHP 5.6 on their websites, while they can still run a test for the next iteration of their websites on a subdirectory running on PHP 7 without worrying about the impact it would have on the current websites.

Features - The hosting packages of Namesco are described in a straightforward language so it would be easy even for non-technical users to understand the terms. There is also plenty of assistance given to non-techie users.

There are four packages offered by Namesco - starter, professional, premium, and platinum. There are three payment plans or terms for these packages—monthly, one year, and two years. Fees are lower in the one-year tenure, and lowest in the two-year contract or arrangement.

For example, the starter package is only 48 Pounds with the one-year plan or around 3.99 pounds per month. The professional package is just £72 a year or around £5.99 per month. The premium package is pegged at £114 a year, or around £9.50 a month. Then the platinum package is priced at £210 a year or roughly £17.50 a month.

But if you settle for the monthly package, the starter plan is £5.99 a month; the professional package is almost £9. The premium package is £19 compared to the £15 a month in the one-year arrangement, while the platinum package is £35 a month.

Both the starter and professional plans have the basic features that small business owners would want from a hosting plan. As you would expect from the two lowest priced plans, there are limits on the storage and database. Even the email accounts are limited—10 for the starter package and 100 for the professional package.

The starter package is available on Linux or Windows. The rest of the packages are available as dual platform plans. Web space on the starter package is limited to 50 GB, while there’s unlimited web space for the three other packages.

The starter package can only host one domain. The professional package can host up to five domains while there are no limits on the number of domains hosted in the platinum and premium packages.

Regardless of the plan you avail, Namesco promises the following—unlimited bandwidth, UK-based 24/7 support, and 99.9 percent uptime guarantee. You can also access your hosting tools through the customized control panel. Moreover, your frequently accessed data will be stored on the speedy SSDs of Namesco.

One of the main selling points of Namesco is the unlimited bandwidth that it offers. This offer is available to every web hosting package of the company. Predictably, it asks its clients to be considered to their shared hosting neighbors. They’re also asking customers to adhere to the company’s Acceptable Use policy.

Should a client’s website attract a huge amount of traffic that can affect the performance of the other websites on Namesco’s shared hosting cluster, the company can move that website to its dedicated or cloud servers.

Also, all four web hosting packages come with a free domain name and free, 1-click installs of common content management systems (CMS) such as Joomla and WordPress.

Namesco plan subscribers can also get up to 40 percent discount on stock images from Shutterstock. This is a great offer that website owners should take advantage of as these images can bring their website to life.

One of the most important things for website owners is the support that they get from their web hosting provider.

Security - Namesco understands that security is one of the main concerns of website owners or administrators. It also knows that a lot of hackers are becoming more sophisticated in their methods to obtain personal details, which can expose their clients to data stealing. So it is combating this by introducing an FTP lock.

Support - A telephone number is prominently displayed on the website of Namesco. Unfortunately, technicians aren’t on standby round the clock. Customers can only call between 8 in the morning until 7 in the evening on weekdays, and from 10 in the morning up to 6 in the evening on weekends.

But if there’s a silver lining to that, it has to be the reduced wait time on calls. According to Namesco’s Twitter handle, the average time phone waiting time is 1 minute and 30 seconds. Clients may just have to do other things like checking their email or composing a message while waiting for their turn to be assisted by Namesco customer support personnel.

Speaking of Twitter, the company’s Twitter account is active. Some customers go there to communicate with the web hosting provider and relay their issues or concerns. The company’s Twitter administrator usually asks clients to send direct messages so they can send detailed instructions to their customers.

To date, the Twitter account of Namesco has more than 2,000 followers.

If Twitter isn’t your thing, there are other ways to contact the website hosting provider. Clients can contact customer support through their online control panel which can be accessed at http://admin.names.uk. It can also be reached through other social media channels like Google Plus and Facebook.

There is also a Support Centre on the Namesco website which clients can browse if they want to know more about the hosting solutions they plan to get, or if they have problems that they think they can resolve without asking for help from Namesco’s support team.

This section of the website is where clients can download quick start guides for online control panel, managing domain names, managing emails, and hosting their domain.

The tutorials section is very helpful for clients, especially those who are confused about the website hosting packages they availed of, or would like to know how to maximize their hosting plans.

Technical

Support

Pricing

Backend Review

Namesco recently revamped its control panel with the aim of making it easier for customers to use or configure. Namesco had been receiving complaints that its control panels look dated and clunky to use. Its control panel is now simpler and quicker to use on all devices.

The big change in Namesco involves two areas customers are mostly concerned with—new billing and renewals. The control panel now presents the two areas as a single page application. The page has been optimized so that customers can easily view the status of their purchased plans and to find any particular service.

Conclusion

Names.co.uk has pretty reasonable hosting package rates. It also serves well its main target—British small businesses that have staff members who aren’t exactly well-versed in the technicalities of running a website. As such, its packages have features that can benefit business people and staff who don’t have enough time and knowledge to get focused in the technical aspects of managing a website.

The major criticism about this hosting provider is the lack of 24/7 customer support which is quite a standard in most website hosting providers. Aside from that concern, Namesco is a good web hosting provider for small businesses with a limited budget for website hosting and staff with limited knowledge of maintaining a website. We highly recommend you to check out the Siteground review.