Names.co.uk In 2020: What Do Names.co.uk Client Reviews Say?

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by Claire Broadley

Last updated: August 6, 2020

Names.co.uk Introduction

Names.co.uk was originally branded Namesco and was founded in 2000. It is now part of the Dada Group, a European company that owns a variety of hosting and advertising companies. Names.co.uk is based in the UK, but Dada has offices for other arms of the company in Italy, Spain, Ireland, France, Portugal and the Netherlands. Previously, Names.co.uk has been associated with other brands such as Simply Names, Register365 and UKdomains.

The hosting available at Names.co.uk has been designed with British small businesses in mind: customers can toggle VAT on and off, which is a pretty solid indicator of its target market. All packages are essentially shared hosting plans.

Names.co.uk Hosting Plans

Names.co.uk’s hosting packages are described in straightforward language, with plenty of help to assist non-technical users. It focuses mainly on shared hosting. Names.co.uk’s packages have a few quirks you might not have seen elsewhere.

• The Starter and Professional plans are fairly standard plans with limits on storage, bandwidth, databases and email accounts. Both are available on Linux or Windows and come with a custom control panel. The Premium and Platinum plans are, strangely, available as dual platform plans. Essentially, you get the option of Windows and Linux under the same package, which is an oddity. Platinum is also a reseller plan. Again, both platforms have a custom control panel that’s unique to Names.co.uk.
• Names.co.uk also offers a SiteMarker website builder plan. There are two versions, SiteMaker and SiteMaker Pro. Both offer 100 templates, a shop builder module and a mobile site creator module.
• There are four ecommerce plans – these are essentially site builder plans skewed towards online retail. The features are not dissimilar to something like Magento; customers are essentially charged in terms of the number of products they want to sell.
• Under the Servers menu, you’ll find dedicated servers and VPS hosting. Both are available with Linux or Window, and Plesk comes with all plans as standard.

Despite being very simplified, the content on the site is generally pretty solid and novices would be able to get their head around hosting pretty quickly. There are some strange phrases in use – WordPress is described as an ‘external app’, for example – but if you have a basic grounding in hosting, you’d be able to find what you’re looking for.

Names.co.uk Uptime/Downtime

Names.co.uk customers benefit from a 99.99% uptime guarantee. When you check the technical data for a hosting package, you might see this listed as 99%, but the smallprint confirms that it’s 99.99%. Presumably the alternative figure is a typo.

The company uses cloud technology so I’d expect them to meet this uptime promise without too much trouble. The Network Status page shows current availability across all servers, but it doesn’t provide any archived or historical uptime data.

All of Names.co.uk’s data centres are in the UK, which is another good reason for UK businesses to look into hosting with them. It has space in the Tier 4 Pulsant facility in Milton Keynes, and it also uses some Telehouse data centres (presumably in London). The information about its data centres is fairly scant, but if you’re interested in knowing more about them, you can research them directly on the Pulsant or Telehouse websites.

There’s no mention of any backup provision, so we’ll have to assume that backups are not provided as part of the deal.

Names.co.uk Support

When it comes to support, it’s important to note that technicians are not available round the clock. Support is only available Monday to Friday, 8am until 7pm, and 10am until 6pm on weekends.

Dedicated server and VPS support is only available on weekdays, which is pretty poor considering that these are the most expensive plans on offer.

Customers can contact Names.co.uk’s support departments via an 0845 number. This isn’t free to call. There is an ordinary UK telephone number too, but this is only supplied for non-UK customers, which is a bit of a shame.

The support page is essentially a large knowledgebase with some video tutorials and Quick Start documents. There is a ticketing system which appears to be tucked away in the control panel. Limited support is also provided on the company’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Its Google+ page is not regular use.

Names.co.uk in the News

In January 2012, hackers gained access to the Names.co.uk billing system. The hackers stole credit card details and personal information belonging to 178 customers.

http://www.zdnet.com/hackers-nab-namesco-customer-details-4010025220/

There’s more information about the hack on The Register. Customers were dismayed at the way Names.co.uk handled the credit card hack.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/13/namesco_phish_like_security_warning/

Names.co.uk Control Panel

Shared hosting customers are provisioned with the Names.co.uk custom control panel. The control panel offers users access to most basic account functions: email account management, access to bandwidth reports and basic analytics, an online file manager tool and basic reseller functionality. Users can also install one-click applications.

VPS hosting and dedicated server customers get access to Plesk – this is included in the account subscription fee, so there’s no licence fee on top.

Names.co.uk Extras

Many Names.co.uk plans include a free domain name, but you’ll need to pay annually to claim yours. Only co.uk domain names are eligible for the offer.

Customers also receive 5 free stock photo credits and 25% off Names.co.uk’s PPC management service. (Don’t confuse this with a genuine Google AdWords voucher).

In the one-click installer tool, Softaculous, you’ll find a range of handy scripts including WordPress, Joomla, Piwik, Coppermine and more.

Names.co.uk Money Back Guarantee / Cancellation Policy

I searched the Names.co.uk website for a money-back guarantee, but I couldn’t find any reference to one. Its Terms and Conditions are split into several small documents, and that made it difficult for me to search for any references to a guarantee, but it’s probably best to assume that there isn’t one seeing as it’s not advertised anywhere.

Names.co.uk has a refunds policy, but it’s pretty vague – it basically says that refund requests will be decided on merit. If you do want to cancel, you’ll need to send your request from the control panel.

Names.co.uk Summary

Names.co.uk has a very clearly defined target market: UK small businesses with non-technical staff. Although its packages do cover the fringes of that sector as well, it’s primarily interested in attracting sole traders and business people who don’t have time to get too involved in the technical aspects of running a website.

When hosts target this market, it’s fairly normal to see corners cut in terms of support, and that’s clearly the case here: full support is really only provided on weekdays during office hours, which doesn’t inspire confidence, particularly when there doesn’t seem to be a money-back guarantee to fall back on if you find the support isn’t up to scratch.

Having said that, Names.co.uk have put together an attractive series of hosting packages that will tick all the boxes for many inexperienced users.

Names.co.uk Reviews by Our Community

Overall Rating from 4 Reviews by Names.co.uk Customers

Support
Quality
Features
Value

Filter reviews by: Most HelpfulMost RecentNegativePositive

Most Helpful Reviews

justin mcdowell planttissueculture.net

Sep 15, 2018

I registered a domain with them, it was supposed to be free. They billed my card a £1 after stating they would not bill my cardIidon’tt care about £1, but if they bill that £1 will they bill you again without asking???). whIn i had cheek to ask support why they make statements like thwon’tont bill your card untrenewalel’ they closed account.

Theyhey also take 24 hours to do ‘security checks’ when buying a domain name, everywhere else does your domains instantlI. i would of thought billing my debit card that matches name, address given on sign up would indicaIe i am wIo i sIy i aI. i wont be using them again, they appear useless.

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Henry Smith

Feb 19, 2018

I found names.co.uk slow to provide support and once they attempted a resolution of the problems they were quite sloppy. The CouldShop as website builder is quite basic and, in my view, not very stylish. I am currently looking for lternatives and would highly recommend shopping around before using.

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Debby Freeman communicator-marketing.co.uk

Jul 19, 2019

I was happy with Virtual Names who I’d been with over 15 years. Namesco take over and supposedly migrate my website – but don’t. I’ve just found out that my website has been down for 5 months – since they failed to migrate it properly.

They are not taking any responsibility and even had the cheek to take the annual hosting renewal £s from me in May. Theyy now want me to pay to rebuild my website. Not in a million years will I stay with them – some of their staff arerude, incompetentt and to be honest – I’m amazed that they can exist with such poor customer service.

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About Claire Broadley

Claire has been creating websites for over 20 years and has been using WordPress for over ten. She is an expert in web hosting, design, HTML, and more. She lives with her husband and son in the United Kingdom.

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