A Review of Hibu
Hibu, being an affiliate of Yellow Pages, may look at first to be the answer to your website building and digital marketing service needs. But, many past and present clients of Hibu have been left feeling disgruntled and helpless. While Hibu emphasizes personalization for the client, some of their policies and client interaction leave a lot to be desired.
Here are some of the major problems that come with Hibu as a website and digital services provider:
High Pricing
Hibu offers a standard and complete package that you should expect from an online marketing company. However, the pricing is very high, regardless of your results. There are renting, building, designing, and maintenance fees. If then you decide to leave Hibu, everything they did for you disappears, leaving you with nothing.
Your Created Website is Not Yours
Once Hibu makes your website it is theirs to keep. Your company simply rents the website from them, with no deal of transfer of ownership. This means that your website is held as collateral for staying with Hibu. If you want to switch company services, you have no business website to show for it.
Domain Name Ownership
Internet Corporation (ICANN) is the company in charge of managing IP addresses and domain names. They are the company that you rent and gain control of your domain name from. If you have Hibu, your domain name is considered their property. You actually end up renting the domain from Hibu for more than it would cost to rent from ICANN.
Issues with Mobile Site
In this age of increasing fluid interaction and research, company websites must be accessible on both desktop and mobile platforms. According to Google, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing. Without an up to date and accurate mobile site, your company could be losing a lot of business. Hibu Customers have reported issues with generic and mishandled headers, images, tags and content on their websites.
Hibu builds two websites, one for mobile and one for desktop. This makes them very hard to maintain because you have to go back and make changes to two different platforms. This takes up immense time and can cause issues of accuracy. Having two different websites will additionally hurt your SEO rankings.
All in all, do your research before investing in Hibu as a website provider for your company. If you are already a customer of Hibu, make sure that you are legitimately getting what you paid for. Hibu clients report lack of customer service, results, and inadequate services. Don’t let the big company name fool you, do your research.
If you’re interested in a new website that is your proprietary property and best serves your end users, contact us today!
