Yahoo Web Hosting Is A No Go for Beginners

Yahoo claims that Yahoo Web Hosting is for beginners. In late January I had signed up with Bluehost and realized right away that they were too advanced for me and actually got my money back inside of 3 hours or so from the time I signed up with them. On February 1 of 2008 I was starting my very first web site with Yahoo! We Hosting. For all intense purposes my first, period. At this time I had never even helped anyone with a web site either. I was true beginner.
Yahoo! Web Hosting technical writing has proved to be less than accurate. I have found at least 15 errors in their technical writing, that I know for sure are mistakes.....now. When I first applied their tech writing examples I didn't know just how often and how incorrect their tech writing actually is. I spent hours on things that were written wrong in one way or another.

After my first error or two I would write technical support via email. Nine times I have wrote their email support. Four times they answered my technical question. The answers came anywhere from 5 to 12 days after submission of the question. Two of those answers didn't address my question in any way. The other two were exact copies of the technical writing you can look up in their help section. Now I do understand their philosophy here. Normally people will not actually read the help section. I did and and when I received nothing that would aid to me achieving my task at hand, is when I emailed them. When I received an exact copy of the same information I had read, it was of no use. Basically speaking I am 0 for 9 writing technical support via email with Yahoo! Web Hosting.

After waiting three days or so on my first submission to Yahoo! Web Hosting email support, I decided to phone their tech support. I had became impatient waiting for that initial email to be answered, which by the way, is one of my five submissions that has never been answered via email support. When I called technical support the first time I had to wait awhile for a tech to get on the phone with me. I figure they must have been busy that day in particular. I was wrong. It is normal.

I actually began checking to see how long it took for a tech to get with me on each call. I was curious because of the consistent wait times. I collected this data as I went, at the time, for my own personal reasons. One reason was that if I had something to do I wanted to know if I had time to call Yahoo! Web Hosting technical support. I kept records on 14 calls that were in reference to just five different problems. I have called three and four times to technical support on the same issue because I didn't get the answer I needed from the first two or three calls.
When a customer calls Yahoo! Web Hosting technical support they receive an automatic message stating that tech support will be with you shortly and that all calls are answered in order. Sometimes another automatic message comes on telling you the average wait time. From this point my average wait time for technical support at Yahoo! Web Hosting was over 56 minutes before I would actually be talking live with a technical support representative. These are exceedingly long waits but that is still not why am disappointed with Yahoo! Web Hosting, you'll have that I guess.

One awful thing that happened is that one of those calls, I waited for 1 hour and 36 minutes, and right after I had made the tech understand my question, my phone died. I had to recharge it and call again. When you know the average wait time is that long, like I did, it's a complete bummer. I should have made sure my phone was charged, my bad.

Of the 14 calls I received three correct and very helpful solutions to my problem. The others were wrong or I received no effort to answer my question. Sometimes I would receive several bits of slightly wrong information, then actually figure out my dilemma via piecing together all the data I received from 3 or 4 calls to technical support. That has occurred twice. No matter how it worked I did get five dilemmas solved through 14 calls albeit the wait time is a bit of a hassle.

One example of a less than accurate group of answers, that lead to me figuring out my own problem, was the sitemap. Go to help.yahoo.com and type "sitemap"(not: site map) into their help search bar and then click search. This will bring you to a page that has 5 to 10 answers listed. The first says "How to build a sitemap" , click on it. If you do know java script then you can look at the very bottom of either example script and you will see they end with two end url's before the end url set. Because there are two end url's this site map will never work.

I called their support four times about my sitemap without knowing this two end url thing with java scripting, because I am a beginner. None of the four techs knew what my problem was and 3 stated that they weren't required to know java scripting. The other, and obviously last, came on the phone after a short wait at yahoo tech support of 36 minutes, and he didn't know either. But he busted his behind for the next 1 hour 43 minutes getting me an answer, by conferring with other techs that he was apparently right near. I allowed him access to my File Manager, via giving him my password, at one point. I had 52 pages on my "sitemap", when he got done, there were only the four main pages. Then I asked him if he did the yahoo web hosting tech writing sitemap template exactly as it is written. He said "yes".

I didn't bother to let him know he didn't. I had noticed by looking at his 4 page xml scripted sitemap that there was only one end url at the bottom of his script, that did work. Although I was now without the other 48 pages, I did know where the problem was. I asked him what I would have to do to get my other 48 pages on this xml filed sitemap. He said to go into my file manager and insert them into the xml file at that point. Wrong! Luckily I knew that was wrong. You see you can't edit an xml coded file the same as html coded file. You have to save it as an .xml file, in notepad or some other capable program, which was stated correctly in the Yahoo! Web Hosting technical writing. Then upload the saved .xml file in your root directory.

In order to make it easy I just went back to my original code, which I still had saved inside notebook, and erased one of the end url's at the bottom. Then I re-saved it as an .xml file. I then re-uploaded it and it worked, magically. This was one example of multiple wrong answers in tech writing and phone support that I cyphered through and made work. I couldn't get mad at that tech, even though he was still quite wrong, because he tried extremely hard to help me, and did show me the glitch, whether he knew it or not. He didn't just quit on me and say he wasn't required to know java scripting.

I know of many other errors in Yahoo! Web Hosting technical writing that you will find in the help section. The reason I will not shed light on these other wrong answers is because I want to get paid for them. You know, for all the time I have waisted, that these same bad technical writings cost me. I would be so much further ahead, with why I actually decided to start a web site, if it weren't for these errors at Yahoo! Web Hosting.

In short I wouldn't tell someone to sign up for Yahoo! Web Hosting unless all they wanted was to build an information oriented site. If all you want to do is put a bunch of free information on a site then Yahoo! Web Hosting would definitely work. The technical support won't be needed too much for this, if at all. If you want to implement add-ons or do anything out of the ordinary you have to know java scripting, it's that simple.

I currently have 2 problems that are unsolved. One is how to connect Pay Pal with my site. The other is my sitemap which keeps reverting back to the original four page sitemap. I have contacted phone support about the Pay pal issue but not the sitemap. Phone support said that I would have to write a .php script and that they weren't required to know .php scripting at Yahoo!Web Hosting technical support.

That is what makes me mad, every single time. Here are some questions that Yahoo! Web Hosting should put in a questionaire poll for the purpose of gathering data on this subject of beginners building web sites.

1. How many web building beginners have heard of java scripting?
2. How many web building beginners know what java is, if they have heard of it?
3. How many web building beginners know that there is more than one type of java scripting?
4. How many web building beginners know how to right any form of java scripting?
5. How many web building beginners know how to write html script?
6. How many web building beginners know how to write php?
7. How many web building beginners know if they are looking at errors in the example scripting?
8. How many web building beginners feel technical support will be required to know the answers?
9. How many web building beginners expect answers from email support?
10. How many web building beginners expect answers from email support within 5 days?
11. How many web building beginners believe the example templates will all work every time?
12. How many web building beginners know what MySQL is?
13. How many web building beginners know how to manage MySQL.
14. How many web building beginners know how to mesh MySQL with .php? I will stop here as the average bear already gets the point.

Because of all the errors that I have found in Yahoo! Web Hosting technical writing I am very cautious and reluctant when reading their technical writing. Most of it is well written, but knowing some is flat wrong, creates a great tendency to be skeptical. I even have taken this philosophy to another level. When it comes to subject like java scripting, Yahoo! Web Hosting offers a company with a whole bunch of free information, php.com. They have free info in all types of java scripting. I won't even go to their site and learn, I go to tizag.com instead. I have no idea if the one Yahoo! Web Hosting offers is good or bad because I simply don't trust them because of their close association with Yahoo! Web Hosting.

A little advice to those already using Yahoo! Web Hosting (1) Take their technical writing with a grain of salt. If it doesn't work at first, try again, if it still doesn't work call phone support (2) If phone support even starts out like they don't know, just end that call, then call again and cross your fingers you get a good one. They do have some good phone techs. (3) Never email for support.

Yahoo! Web Hosting does offer some very excellent services. I have had any easy time navigating through my site with their control panel and file manager. Their Site Solutions would be excellent for a beginner as long as the beginner was building a site for informative reasons. They have so many different templates available that I can't see anyone not having a problem of which one they liked best. This is true with Site Builder as well, which is what I use. Their email editor is simple and easy to understand. In my opinion the whole thing goes bad at the point of adding extras, it is impossible and frustrating for a web building beginner that doesn't know multiple types of java scripting.

You may have noticed by some of the things I wrote of that I do know some java scripting now. I even know all the answers to questions #1, #2, #3, and #12 and some of #4, #5, #6, #7. I only knew the answers to question #1 on January 31. Thanks to Yahoo! Web Hosting I am a little less ignorant when it comes to these matters.

Sam Staffen