Well, well, Lunarpages claims they host over 80,000 web sites, and this definitely shows on the amount of sites hosted per server. For instance, their Neptune server hosts 1154 web sites as of this writing and their Galaxy server hosts ‘only’ 625 sites, which, we think, is still a bit too much. In our opinion, 300 sites per server is alright. But, with new technology, perhaps our opinion is outdated.

Now, we have to admit that the two sites we looked at were very fast. One of them, hosted on Galaxy, is a site with 1,710 members and a fairly active forum, and still most pages load without much delay. So go figure…

Anyway, we give them 3 stars for this category. After all, we are talking of crowdedness, and 1000+ sites is a bit on the crowded side.

This is a tough one. We can distinguish quality as it relates to customer service, and as it relates to technical aspects of hosting.

Customers are supported 24/7 by email and live chat along with telephone support during normal business hours.
They also have an online forum with thousands of posts.

Lunarpages is a member of the LA BBB, so we took a look at their file that seemed OK, considering they have thousands of clients.

We also quickly scanned web hosting forums, and the results seemed encouraging: mostly good reviews, with some bad ones mixed in. One problem that surfaced is that their email service may not always perform as expected.

Another thing that came out from the forums is that there might be some “weird storage rules” and you may not be allowed to host vBulletin or IPB scripts. If you’re considering Lunarpages, drop them a line about this, and do your own research!

So, overall 4 stars for this category.

Why is turnover important? In our opinion, it gives a feel how the company is doing. It really makes sense only if monitored long-term because this gives a trend whether the company is loosing or gaining customers.

Since no company is going to volunteer this information, we can only guess what the actual turnover is. For guessing we look at how many domains are pointing to the hosting company. Dailychanges.com gives a list of 500+ most active name servers, complete with new additions and deletions.

We’ll have an account turnover tracking utility based on the domain name changes in place soon — stay tuned!

Anyway, today, 11/16/05, Lunarpages shows a gain of 126 domains, and it seems they have a total of 71,774 domains. If it is indeed true that this total number reflects the number of hosting accounts, then that is significantly less than the Lunarpages’ claim of 80,000 sites on their web site.

Rank Name Server New In Out Deleted Gain %G All
70 LUNARPAGES.COM 94 73 -29 -12 126 0.18% 71,774

Because this is such an uncertain area, we don’t give any ratings in this category.

Lunarpages seems to offer a 30-day money back guarantee. Check their specials page for an extended guarantee.

Be sure to read their Terms of Service for all the fine print. And don’t hesitate to ask questions because the refund part was pretty unclear to us after reading.

For this category, we give Lunarpages a rating of 4,5 stars.

Your existing site will be transfered to Lunarpages for free as of this writing. If you have a big site, it might be a good idea to check with them first.

Lunarpages does not allow free adult sites. The question then remains, do they allow paid access adult sites?

We couldn’t find any mention of proxies in the Acceptable Use policy, but we bet they are not allowed either. So, unless you’re an adult webmaster, you’re good to go.

Also, as of this writing, none of the servers were backlisted for spam. Another good news for you.
With this we bestow a four star rating in the Neighborhood category.

It seems that Lunarpages won’t let you downgrade your account if your site doesn’t fit the resource allocation of the lower level that you want to switch to. This actually makes total sense as it protects the sites on the lower level from a resource hog.
Nevertheless, it’s something to keep in mind.

Another good thing to know is that they have a specials page! Check it out for the current offers! At the time of this writing they were offering a 90-day money back guarantee and free site transfer and more for qualified accounts.

Here’s one more thing you should be aware of: you get disk space in increments if you meet certain requirements. This point was also reflected on the forums as mentioned above in the quality of service section. Here’s an excerpt from their Terms of Service:

“Shuttle accounts come pre established with 1,000 MB of storage. Voyager accounts come with 1,500 MB of storage. Enterprise accounts come with 2,000 MB storage. If requesting the additional storage offer at no additional charge, you agree that you must 1) be already utilizing 90% storage capacity with the files being stored directly utilized for the website 2) not be utilizing storage capacity for emails 3) must request the increase in writing to support@lunarpages.com and 4) agree to have storage increased in 500 MB increments up to the alloted maximum free storage offer. All requests for additional storage are subject to approval.”

There can be other things to know, so you better read the terms and conditions and ask questions!

In conclusion, Lunarpages seems like a nice place. Or at least it’s worth investigating their offers. After all, the next time there’s a power outage in LA it’s good to know that your site is still online. That is, if the folks at Lunarpages keep up their good work.

You now expect an overall rating, don’t you?
Here at Best Web Hosting Provider, we don’t give overall ratings because we believe overall ratings are…well, overall — they’re not precise, and often misleading.

So, that’s it. Let us know if your opinion differs, or you uncover useful information about LP.

For now, take care, and come back for the next review.