Company: IXWebHosting
Background: IXWebHosting was established in 1999 and *no longer in business* today. In the past. the company served up to 110,000 customers and hosted more than 470,000 websites on their servers. Their headquarters building and datacenter were combined in one location, in Columbus, Ohio, USA.
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Review Summary & Ratings
IX Web Hosting is Now Closed for Business
IX Web Hosting used to cater the special needs of SEO and they were one of my favorite web hosting companies back in the old days. Sadly the hosting provider no longer exist today. Below is what happened in the past that lead to the closure of IX Web Hosting.
For those looking for an alternatives – I recommend Hostinger and A2 Hosting. Both performed well in my server performance tests and are reasonably priced.
Pros
- –
Cons
- Out of business permanently.
What Happened to IX Web Hosting?
EIG's 2015 Acquisition
The company that managed IX Web Hosting, Ecommerce LLC, was acquired by Site5 – an Endurance International Group's (EIG) hosting company, in 2015. This news is confirmed with the announcement of EIG's 2015 Q4 financial results. EIG also owns and manages a number of other well-known hosting brands, including iPage, BlueHost, Hostgator, PowWeb, Reseller Club, JustHost, FatCow, and more.
Closure of Business
Three years after the acquisition, EIG consolidated a number of brands under their belt. IX Web Hosting was “retired” 2018 with existing users migrated over to Site5, Verio, and Dotster.
All three brands seem not growing actively in 2021. Verio site design needs a total refresh badly while the last time Site5 and Verio updated their Twitter account was April 2019 and March 2020. If you were considering IX Web Hosting – I highly recommend you look beyond these three companies for now.
Similar Hosting Solutions Like IX Web Hosting
For options, check out my best web hosting picks here. Companies with similar offerings like IX Web Hosting include:
| Web Host | Cheapest Plan | Renewal Price | Free Domain? | Free Site Migration? | Site Hosted | Money Back Trial | Learn More | Order Now |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hostinger | $1.99/mo | $3.99/mo | No | Yes | 1 | 30 Days | Hostinger Review | Get Hostinger |
 InterServer | $2.50/mo | $7.00/mo | No | Yes | Unlimited | 30 Days | Interserver Review | Get InterServer |
 A2 Hosting | $2.99/mo | $10.99/mo | No | Yes | 1 | Anytime | A2Hosting Review | Get A2 Hosting |
 GreenGeeks | $2.95/mo | $10.95/mo | Yes | Yes | 1 | 30 Days | GreenGeeks Review | Get GreenGeeks |
 TMD Hosting | $2.95/mo | $4.95/mo | Yes | Yes | 1 | 60 Days | TMD Hosting Review | Get TMD Hosting |
 InMotion Hosting | $2.29/mo | $8.99/mo | Yes | Yes | 2 | 90 Days | InMotion Hosting Review | Get InMotion Hosting |
 ScalaHosting | $3.95/mo | $6.95/mo | Yes | Yes | 1 | 30 Days | ScalaHosting Review | Get ScalaHosting |
 BlueHost | $2.95/mo | $9.99/mo | Yes | Yes | 1 | 30 Days | BlueHost Review | Get BlueHost |
 HostPapa | $2.95/mo | $9.99/mo | Yes | Yes | 1 | 30 Days | HostPapa Review | Get HostPapa |
Before the Acquisition & Closure
IX Web Hosting Plans & Features
In the past IXWebHosting offered three different types of packages: cheap shared hosting, cloud hosting and VPS hosting. Sharing hosting was available in three tiers of service (Expert Hosting plan price based on special promo coupon).
With IX's cloud hosting package, users had a choice of Windows or Linux based operating systems and (thankfully!) a cPanel or Plesk control panel.
And finally, IX offered VPS hosting. With this option, you got to choose a dual core server with your choice of disk space, RAM and bandwidth. These packages started at $54.95 per month with full root access.
All IX's hosting plans came with “unlimited” hosting space bandwidth, domains, sub-domains, data transfer and email accounts.
All the popular blog platforms (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal) were included as a one-click installation and there was also a website creator to help those without a lot of experience or knowledge.
IXWebHosting Control Panel
Those who were looking for a control panel they are used to such as vDeck, cPanel or Plesk you will be disappointed. IX provides a proprietary control panel with their shared hosting plans and it is somewhat clumsy.
Having had personal experience with the control panel, I can say that it is not at all user-friendly and if you are a beginner with websites, IX made it difficult to get your blog up and running. CMS must be installed manually in order for your blog to URL to be on the home page level. Yes, it was a one-click install – if you don’t mind an address of www.example.com/blog.
Customer Support
Like many other website hosting companies, IX provided support to their customers via a variety of options: phone, online support ticket, email and 24/7 online chat support.
The company prided that their reps were trained to provide a “unique and personalized customer support experience.” To that end, each customer was assigned a personal rep when they signed up for IXWebHosting services.
A lot of companies advertise that they offer American-based support and a native English speaking team so it’s not unusual that IX does the same. Their reps work right alongside other company employees, which has to be more effective than outsourcing customer service.
They also gave users a seven-day period during which your account was free. Of course, you do have to provide a credit card number to get your account started, but it won’t be charged until the eighth day and you can cancel any time before then. Outside of this first seven-day period, you can cancel your account anytime within 30 days to receive a full refund of hosting fees.
And three, the web host sup both Windows and Linux hosting- hence your database can be either MySQL or MsSQL.
The Pros & Cons of IXWebHosting
I have signed up and used IXWebHosting services twice in the past. In 2012, I bought an IXWebHosting Unlimited Pro account and hosted with them for about 20 days (the account was then cancelled before the 30-day trial period ended).
In April 2014, I was invited to try out IX's hosting service for free and I spent the next 2 years tracking IXWebHosting performance. There were both good and bad experience during my stay at IXWebHosting.
The following were the pros and cons about the hosting company back then.
[icon ok-circle] Advantages
- Generous dedicated IP offers – Dedicated IP is a big advantage for many!
- Affordable – Great price in relation to features.
- English-speaking customer service reps located onsite – Great feature especially for US customers.
- Reliable server – 99.9% uptime guarantee (see IXWebHosting uptime review below).
- Honest business practice – As mentioned, I bought an account in 2012 and cancelled within the free trial period. IXWebHosting refunded my money the next day with no question asked.
IXWebHosting= Great SEO Hosting
In the past IXWebHosting was regarded as one of the best SEO hosting. The web host provided at least one dedicated IP address for each hosting account. Plus additional IP address were available at very low cost.
Why do you need a dedicated IP address?
When your IP address is shared, it is used for multiple websites. The problem with this configuration is that if one of those website owners does something to get banned from a search engine, your site could be blacklisted, as well. This could really be detrimental to SEO. Another reason you need a dedicated IP address? It’s necessary to set up an ecommerce site, so if you wish to sell products or services online, IX might be a good choice.
[icon remove-circle] Disadvantages
- Control panel – not easy to use.
IXWebHosting Uptime Review
There are few things more important to a website owner than how often the site is up and available to visitors (as well as being available for you to make updates/changes).
The question to ask: how reliable is the website hosting company you are considering?
With IX, you were guaranteed that your pages will be available 99.9% of the time over a 12-month period. If the percentage during a single month falls below that, you are eligible for a refund of a full month’s worth of your hosting fees. Apparently all you have to do to request a refund is contact a customer service rep via the online Help Desk.
I took a look online and found that three sites hosted by IX, which had been monitored for the past seven years, didn’t quite enjoy that 99.9 percent uptime. In fact, the overall percentage of uptime was 99.839% (but 100 percent for the past seven days when I checked). Not a huge difference, but enough to perhaps cause problems.
OK, so you may be wondering what IX does to ensure maximum uptime. The good news is that IX owners their own datacenter, which uses Tier 3 providers and n+1 redundancy. This provides an extra data backup source. Being housed in their own datacenter, IX is able to control the environment, the network and the hardware (all of which are located in the same building as the company’s administration, sales and marketing departments). Two heavy duty generators are available to keep servers up and running in the case of a power outage.
As far as security goes, IXWebHosting uses network software that performs constant monitoring, malware discovery and recovery services. A nice feature of the malware service is that if infected files are found in your account, the malicious code is automatically filtered out and the files are corrected.
The dynamic image on your right indicates the uptime record for IXWebHosting for the past 7 days.
Conclusion: Was IXWebHosting a Good Choice?
Since IXWebHosting is no longer in business today – the answer is an obvious “No”.
However – back then, IX was very reasonable priced plus they came with exceptional customer service, solid hosting servers, and comprehensive hosting features.
The biggest issue with IXWebHosting was its control panel – The user interface design was outdated (even in 2012) and very un-user friendly (for example, you couldn't auto-install a CMS into your root).
IXWebHosting was never a good choice for newbies and non-tech business owners. However – before the acquisition, they were recommended for hosting shoppers who were comfortable with website design/development and in need of cheap dedicated IP address.
