Blogging Tips

Having a reliable host is fundamental of the main priorities for your blog choosing a web host is not something you should take lightly.

Today I will be looking at Layer Online, a budget shared hosting company which apparently use power management and advanced power saving techniques to reduce the energy they use.

Please be aware that since I am not actually using Layer Online, I can only review facts and figures and cannot give any detailed information on the quality of support, downtime or performance from them.

Packages

All Layer Online packages are shared hosting plans therefore they are ideal for those of you who are going self hosted for the first time. Their are three plans available: Silver, Gold and Platinum.

• Silver Plan: The Silver plan costs $1.98 a month. By using the code 50OFF you can get the first month for $0.99. This plan comes with 1gb of Disk Space, 1gb of bandwidth, 10 databases and unlimited domains. This plan is suitable for a new WordPress installation but if your blog starts growing quickly, you’d have to upgrade to a higher package.
• Gold Plan: The Gold plan costs $5.98 a month. By using the code 50OFF you can get the first month for $2.99. This plan comes with 20gb of Disk Space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited databases and unlimited domains. This plan would be perfect for small blogs.
• Platinum Plan: The Platinum plan costs $9.98 a month. By using the code 50OFF you can get the first month for $4.99. This plan comes with 50gb of Disk Space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited databases and unlimited domains. With more disk space, it may be necessary to upgrade to this plan if your blog grows.

There are a variety of ways to save money with all packages. The offer you two free months of hosting for every person you refer to Layer Online. They also give one month free to the person who is referred so it pays to be referred to them. If you pay annually you will also have two months marked off the price.

Layer Online also offer to buy out the remaining of your current hosting plan:

Q: What if I am stucked with my current webhost’s annual plan?
A: Not a problem. LayerOnline offers buy out program for the most cost effective way to transfer. We will buy out the remaining months in your current hosting contract when you switch to us.

For example, if you still have 8 months left with your current provider, you will get a total of 20 months of hosting with us when you buy our annual plan. If your current plan is monthly or you simply want a monthly plan with us, you will get one month free. Just email us your cancellation notice and we will reimburse the credit for you.

Like most shared hosting companies, LayerOnline offers a free domain to anyone who signs up to one of their plans but as I have said many times before, it is better to register a domain yourself and not let a hosting company take control of your domain name.

Hosting Technology

The Frequently Asked Questions page on Layer Online explains more about what you can expect about LayerOnline. I found this section to be incredibly funny as they have put the word Layer in front of several words in order to market several of their services including LayerSpeed, LayerEdge, LayerEasy, LayerCare, LayerFreedom, LayerWall, LayerAntiSpam and LayerGuarantee (ok, I’m easily amused!!).

All hosting accounts use cPanel which means that you will have numerous amounts of wizards to help you with your website

Overview

Since I have not personally used LayerOnline or any shared hosting company in years, it’s difficult for me to say whether they are worth trying out. The one thing I did like about their pricing over companies like HostGator was that each package had a limited amount of disk space. Too many shared hosting companies give the false promise of unlimited disk space when no such thing exists, so a defined amount of disk space was welcome.

LayerOnlines prices are certainly competitive though and at $1.98 a month, their Silver plan is one of the most affordable web hosting packages available.

Link: Layer Online

* This was a Paid Review. If you are interested in having your site reviewed on Blogging Tips, please check out our Advertising Information Page.