A review of the TSOHost service

The domain registrar TSOHost is now owned by GoDaddy. This has caused a number of problems for its users.

Among these problems some are related to the installation of SSL certificates and others relating to the registration of domains originally setup using Wordpress.com.

Questions that I see asked are "Is TSOHost a good hosting service?" and general reviews of the service.

My answer to these questions is "no" as there are better services out there. In addition I have seen multiple searches for answers that appeared to looking for solutions to problems with either TSOHost's login and/or administration and with the mail service that they offered.

TSOHost would not be my first choice if I were starting out. When I setup a website hosted in the UK I used HostingUK.net.

My experience with TSOHost

I formerly had a website hosting through TSOHost due to the fact that a website that I assumed resposibilty had its domain registered with TSOHost.
This registration was made by wordpress.com (automatic.com) and was part of the package that Wordpress.com offered as part of their "Personal" plan. This plan included 1 free year of domain registration.

The downside of the free domain registration is that it was registered to the prevous administrator of the website that I had taken responsibilty for.
The domain login details for the original WordPress.com website had been forgotten by the previous admin and I found it impossible to transfer it to my name. The domain registration runs well into 2022, at which time, if I am still administering the VH site I will have to approach this again.

In the meantime, I registered another domain through TSOHost, bwvh.uk, this was due to the fact that TSOHost offered a free hosting to registered charities.
The domain bwvh.uk was used to develop an alternative Village Hall website.

The Village Hall website

I have changed my plan for the Village Hall website since I wrote this page. I now intend to use the Wordpress implementation exclusively and the bwvh.uk pages are now parked.

While waiting to get my hands on the domain for the Village Hall website I decided to register bwvh.uk and to order the Free Charity Hosting.

Having spent 24 hours evaluating the platform I can't say that I am impressed.

email problems

Whether it is the inapropriate choice of bwvh as a domain or the inability of gridhost.co.uk to provide a level of authenication for email addresses the result is that emails sent from php forms/scripts to Hotmail and BTInternet addresses (there maybe others) refuse to be accepted by the email hosts.

Creating an email alias andy@bwvh.uk, which I forwarded to the Hotmail account for Andy resulted in a "bounce back". This was only discovered after noticing that emails were not being sent from scripts that I had got to work on hostinguk.

Some of failures

• Gmail to andy@bwvh.uk (forwarded to hotmail) bounces with a message (see below)
• btinternet to andy@bwvh.uk (forwarded to hotmail) doen't get delivered
• Roundcube igor@bwvh.uk to Hotmail doesn't get delivered.
• btinternet boris@bwvh.uk (forwarded to Gmail) doesn't get delivered
• no email is devilered to Hotmail and btinternet addresses from previously working php scripts (on hostinguk domains)

The message:

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

Workaround

The Tsohost Support actually suggested a solution. This involved forwarding from another server. In my case I found that the Parish Council hosting alone was enough to get the btinternet mail delivered to a btinternet address. Hotmail/Outlook was a little more involved and I added a filter to my Gmail to forward one of my Parish Conncil addresses to Hotmail.

At the moment:

• Addressing to martin@bwvh.uk gets delivered to my Hotmail address due to a forwarding on bwvh.uk to my Gmail account - a filter is set on email from bwvh.uk to forward again to Hotmail
  
• Addressing to munt@belchampwalterpc.uk gets forwarded to martin_munt_cottage@btinternet.com due to a forwarding on belchampwalterpc.uk

To "go live" I need an email for Chris on bwvh.uk and another filter - Mick's belchampwalterpc.uk address is preset to his btinternet address

SEO Notes

A query, "tsohost login", may have found this page. I did not have anything relating to how you can login to TSOHost on this page. I have/will add this info.

I now see that one of the major reasons a page is found is that an Internet user is looking for an answer to a specific topic, such as logging into a TSOHost account or website admin interface. They could also be looking for a review on the TSOHost service.