Is is a mistake to choose 1&1 as your web hosting provider?  Some think so... while many others rave about 1and1's hosting services.  No doubt that 1and1 has had its moments that it would rather not brag about, but overall many people have been very satisfied with their hosting at 1and1 internet.  That is why 1&1 continues to command a very large marketshare in the hosting industry and continues to attract new customers at a very fast rate. 1and1 continues to be one of the fastest growing hosting provider in the world.  It currently hosts over 7.5 million domains and has a huge presence in Europe and North America.

As I read the various 1and1 reviews available on the web, I can't help but feel that some of those are not genuine.  There appears to be some hidden motives behind those write-ups.  Although I am not smart enough to figure them out.  Some the the 1&1 reviews will provide details about the up times and the reliability of the hosting service.  However, I question if those numbers are really accurate.  Other 1and1 reviews will provide insight on web hosting information such as bandwidth needs, diskspace usage, website building tools and a bunch of other technical stuff that I really don't care about.  Although some of the information did prove to be useful for me.  From my own experience though, I'm more interested in the cost of the hosting service and the level of support that I get with that service.  The one thing that I really like about 1and1 is that it will give you the private domain registration for free.  I'm not talking about the free domain(s) that you get with your hosting plan. I'm talking about the domain that you buy from 1and1 and then request to have those domains registered as private registration, away from public knowledge and curious cats on the web.  With private registration, when someone does a "whois" on one of my websites, the data only comes back as 1and1 private registration and thus all of my contact information are hidden from prying eyes.

The one thing that bugs me about 1and1 is the way that it transfers your domain from another registrar.  I once thought that it would be a good idea to consolidate all of my domains with 1and1.  Then I proceeded to transfer my first domain from network solutions over to them.  First of all, it wasn't as straight-forward as I had anticipated, considering that the transfer process from 1and1 is not the best process in the world.  Secondly, when I was able to complete the transfer process, I had specified that the domain's DNS should point to the hostgator DNS that I had setup.  Well, either the 1and1 service guy didn't understand these specifications or he didn't care.  The DNS that I had specified were blown away and were substituted with the default 1&1 DNS's.  When I found out, my website had already been down for the whole weekend, costing me potential income for the whole weekend.  When I called, the support personnel got the problem fixed and I was back online within 6 six hours.  However, that whole ordeal still pisses me off.  Despite the problem, I still think 1&1 is one of the better hosting sites out there.  Read the internet reviews for yourself.  Some of the reviews that I came across on the internet have been highlighted in this paper for you to find.