*Promotion Details - Read Carefully!
FatCow has given our visitors a discount link that you can use to get special price from her hosting. Once a while she will throw in a BIGGER DISCOUNT in a 1 or 2 day sale depending on her mode. The price will be much lower than the normal price you see in their website. That's why it is important for you to check the latest promotion price by clicking on this link. I will do my best to update this page to reflect the latest promotion. For example, the following screen captures show they are selling for only $4.67/month.
FatCow does not use any coupon codes for discount. All promotions and discounts are link activated so you don't need to enter any codes.
FatCow is iPage!
You may be surprised if I tell you that FatCow is actually iPage! They are the same company. Both of them have been in business for more than 10 years. They are different brands under the same management. They are almost the same with many similar features. The obvious differences other than the name and website design is the price and money back guarantee. iPage provides anytime money back guarantee while FatCow provides the standard 30 day money back guarantee.
Make sure you check iPage pricing before you purchase FatCow because most of the time, iPage will be cheaper.
Since almost everything of FatCow is the same as iPage, I am not interested in copying my long iPage review here. Instead, I will focus on adding something new here, going deeper into FatCow and iPage so you can obtain more information. Thus, you are highly recommended to read my iPage review before you read this review. This will be "Part 2".
Brilliant File Structure for Multiple Domain Hosting
Both FatCow and iPage are powered by the vDeck 4 control panel. vDeck has gone a long way since version 1. The way that vDeck implement the file structure for multiple domain hosting is simply brilliant. We will see why and we have to first look at how CPanel arrange the files.
In cPanel, the domain that you use to sign up for your account will become the primary domain. Primary domain in cPanel is fixed and you can't change it other than removing the whole account and recreate a new one. This is the first weakness.
The second weakness is that primary domain will sit as the "root" of the file structure. Your 2nd and 3rd domain will be placed directly under your root domain and become part of the contents of your root domain.
Let me illustrates.
| \ | Files for primary domain/1st domain |
| \2nd_domain\ | Files for 2nd domain |
| \3rd_domain\ | Files for 3rd domain |
| \4th_domain\ | Files for 4th domain |
Can you see how all your addon domains sit on top of your primary domain? It messes up your primary domain. Backing up files for your primary domain becomes complicated. You have to manually isolate the unrelated files. This is also the reason why you can't simply change the primary domain of your hosting account without affecting all underlying domains.
Some CPanel hosts will charge you for changing the primary domain. Some will not. But there will still be a lot of works to do to restructure it. The recommended solution is to use a "holder domain" as the primary domain that will not be a website. The sole purpose of it is to act as the root. All your websites will go to the addons so you can maintain and backup your files easily. But most people are unaware of this and always sign up with their most important domain (which becomes the primary domain) which they will regret later.
vDeck saw this problem earlier and implement an intelligent file structure. There is really no fixed "primary domain" in vDeck. All domains share the same priority and you can choose whatever directory you want to load the files from. The file structure will look like this.
| \1st_domain\ | Files for primary domain/1st domain |
| \2nd_domain\ | Files for 2nd domain |
| \3rd_domain\ | Files for 3rd domain |
| \4th_domain\ | Files for 4th domain |
Do you notice that no website need to sit in the root now? You can always choose the root or a subdirectory depending on your choice. You can even point your "2nd domain" to the root. But since we are talking about good practice, all your domains should point to a subdirectory.
They do use the phase "primary domain" in vDeck and it is for identification purpose only (say when you speak to customer support about your account). It can be easily changed to any of your domains in the control panel with a few clicks.
All of these settings are done in "Domain Pointing Manager" in vDeck.
"ipage-review.net" is supposed to be my "primary domain" which I sign up the account with. But in vDeck, it doesn't matter. You can choose whatever subdirectory you want. I have chosen "/ipage-review/" in the case above. You can also point any domain to another domain in the domain pointing manager, even a domain name that is not hosted in the same account.
Fantastic Knowledgebase & Video Tutorials
They have been in business for more than 10 years and that's why they have a deep understanding of their customer. Their knowledgebase has been compiled over the years to address the questions and issues their customers will be seeking. The knowledgebase covers almost everything from how to change your password to how to transfer your domain name. You can easily search the knowledge base to find what you need.
There are also many video tutorials that guide you through the whole process of doing all kind of settings such as how to upload your files using the file manager. They invest a lot of time and effort in preparing these.
Choose PHP 4 or PHP 5 on the Same Account
Now you no longer need to change server just to change your PHP version. You can switch between PHP4 or PHP5 anytime you want in the control panel. You can you also customized your own php.ini file easily. Just paste it into the respective field.
Always use PHP5 unless you know why you need to use PHP4.
Website Statistics
You can choose either Webalizer or AWStats to generate your web statistics. Web statistics provide useful information of your website such as the number of visitors and where do they come from. While they are useful, I suggest everyone to use the free Google Analytics instead because it is more powerful than Webalizer and AWStats.
While Webalizer and AWStats can be turned on easily in the control panel, you will need to embedded some HTML codes to every page of your website when using Google Analytics. If you are using open source scripts such as WordPress or Drupal, you can easily embedded the code using their free plugin or you can just embedded the code into the template file.
Once you move to Google Analytics you will never look back.
Conclusion
Both iPage and FatCow provide feature rich hosting package that will worth all your money. I will be adding more to this review later including a look at their webmail, .htaccess editor, file manager, archived gateway, SPAM control, ServiceManager, etc. Stay tuned.
Remember to read my iPage review and HostGator review if you haven't do so yet.
