unblinkable wrote:
Nately wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I am brand new to this forum. I purchased a website from BluDomain over two weeks ago and still I don't have my template to start working on. I'm really close to just getting my credit card company to dispute the charges as I am ready to go elsewhere. Ulgh, why didn't I look around a bit to see what people thought of them (wouldn't have had to look hard)?!? Anyhow, any tips on how to get them to respond to me? I'm very frustrated because I've been telling my clients to keep waiting, it will be any day now. Now I'M starting to sound like the BluDomain Staff!

You happened to have bought while they were away at the convention. Even thought they've had slow service lately because of the overwhelming influx of purchasers for the last bit, that doesn't mean they're totally worth giving up on.

Why would you tell your clients "any day now" if you don't even have it in your hands? I don't give delivery dates of most anything I do unless it's in my control. I know that you must be anxious, but it will be worth it.

unblinkable wrote:
Nately wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I am brand new to this forum. I purchased a website from BluDomain over two weeks ago and still I don't have my template to start working on. I'm really close to just getting my credit card company to dispute the charges as I am ready to go elsewhere. Ulgh, why didn't I look around a bit to see what people thought of them (wouldn't have had to look hard)?!? Anyhow, any tips on how to get them to respond to me? I'm very frustrated because I've been telling my clients to keep waiting, it will be any day now. Now I'M starting to sound like the BluDomain Staff!

You happened to have bought while they were away at the convention. Even thought they've had slow service lately because of the overwhelming influx of purchasers for the last bit, that doesn't mean they're totally worth giving up on.

Thank you for responding unblinkable. I'm just getting a bit spooked by all of the negative comments regarding Blu, and wondering if they're really worth the headaches. I really hope I'll hear from them soon because I do think their templates are amazing.

Cuz I'm a dummy! Ha, ha. I had not read any reviews on Blu ahead of time (shame on me) and so I just believed them when they said they had a 24-48 hr. turnaround. Even after I purchased it I got an email from a BluDomain rep stating, "I never miss any deadlines that I set and you will be ready in 24-48 hrs." Like I said, should have looked around a bit more.

Nately, sorry you are having issues. I got my site from them last month and they met their 48 hour deadline for the template and the 36 hour go live deadline once I was ready to get it up and running.

Have you tried sending an e-mail to the concierge you were assigned? I've seen alot of times they miss their deadline because they were unable to access your web (ftp) server to upload the files. Not saying that is what happened here, but it does happen.

DmitriM - I looked at your site and think it is excellent. I thought it was way better than the cookie-cutter BLU sites that are everywhere. I suppose however that using the site you suggested is a crap shoot and that you have to really shop around to get someone with the talent your designer has.

Brian Mullins wrote:
Nately, sorry you are having issues. I got my site from them last month and they met their 48 hour deadline for the template and the 36 hour go live deadline once I was ready to get it up and running.

Have you tried sending an e-mail to the concierge you were assigned? I've seen alot of times they miss their deadline because they were unable to access your web (ftp) server to upload the files. Not saying that is what happened here, but it does happen.

Thanks Brian. I have tried emailing my concierge and Blu support multiple times to ask if they needed any further information, but I don't hear back. I'm really hoping someone will contact me soon.
GoDaddy is who I'm hosting through, so I'd hope Blu wouldn't have too many troubles. Who knows?
Anyhow, thanks again for responding.

The second site I did through Blu was hosted on my own. It went fine but there was not an email to tell me they had put the site on my webhost. The site just showed up there and I took it from there.

Have you checked your account to see if there is a folder there named after the template you bought?

The service should be better but the value could not be beat.

I think Blu has shown other enterprising individuals there is a lot of money to be made doing exactly what they do which is not rocket science. I would look for more Blu clones to be popping up with competitive value. For now, Blu is it for the price / quality package.

Well guys, just bought a Blu sight a couple hours ago. I'll keep you all posted....

Update
3/25/08
I recieved 2 emails today, the 1st was an auto reply saying they were out of town over the weekend. And they are working on replying to every email they have recieved since.
The 2nd email came about 8 hours later from Aundrea. She asked a few basic questions to gain access to my FTP with go daddy.

So far so good!

Edited by sidewa388 on Mar 28, 2008 at 08:12 PM GMT

I read really bad reviews here but was surprised how quick they were. The only hitch I had was trying to get control of my DNS from my previous hosting admin. I would have had my site up in 1 week but took me 2 weeks to get control of my domain in order to direct the DNS to their servers. I am pretty happy with Blu domain.
Marco

Just replied to email asking for godaddy account info. Hope things go smooth....

paid for my site on Saturday late at night, requested to go live with their hosting on sunday night, site was up and running Monday night (technically less than one full business day). i've had a few little glitches in setting up the site but they have been AMAZING to respond. every time i fill out a support ticket, they respond in NO MORE than 12 hours.

Requested my site in December. They set it up within a couple weeks, but it took them two more weeks to go live in mid Jan.

Then, it took them 3 months to send me the bill...

jacobzking wrote:
paid for my site on Saturday late at night, requested to go live with their hosting on sunday night, site was up and running Monday night (technically less than one full business day). i've had a few little glitches in setting up the site but they have been AMAZING to respond. every time i fill out a support ticket, they respond in NO MORE than 12 hours.


WOW wish I would have gotten mine that fast! Oh well, its only been a couple days so I really dont have any worries right at this piont. Just wish I had lighting fast service like you did. I guess if you host with them you become a VIP member

update 3/28/08 1:07pm
Just recieved an email saying that my website would be complete by midnight tonight

I use Smugmug, and find their customer service outstanding. Fast, friendly, very affordable.

Edited by mulder32 on Mar 31, 2008 at 09:30 PM GMT

mulder32 wrote:
I use Smugmug, and find their customer service outstanding. Fast, friendly, very affordable.

www.focalpointphoto.smugmug.com


smug mug is ok, if you have good images to help make their poor site stand out. Personally I wouldnt want a cheap (free) site as my business site.

But hey thats just me I guess.

I am cautiously jumping in on the blu band wagon. They really need to fix their automated emails. It took a half hour to get one. The one I got said they were at WPPI until Saturday the 22nd. This was on Friday the 28th. The message said nothing about when or how to get the template.

in the evening I finally got an email saying I would have my template emailed by no later then Midnight TODAY(Friday). Saturday evening around 10:00pm I finally received it.

This morning I requested to have it go live. They claim someone contact me with-in 36 hours to give redirect info to my current provider. We'll see how long it takes.

I must say they have nice templates and they are very user friendly to set up. As of right now I give them a 7 out of 10.

paparazzinick wrote:
mulder32 wrote:
I use Smugmug, and find their customer service outstanding. Fast, friendly, very affordable.

www.focalpointphoto.smugmug.com


smug mug is ok, if you have good images to help make their poor site stand out. Personally I wouldnt want a cheap (free) site as my business site.

But hey thats just me I guess.

It must be me too, because I paid $150 for it--probably just cheap ol' me though.

j.curtis wrote:
I am cautiously jumping in on the blu band wagon. They really need to fix their automated emails. It took a half hour to get one. The one I got said they were at WPPI until Saturday the 22nd. This was on Friday the 28th. The message said nothing about when or how to get the template.

in the evening I finally got an email saying I would have my template emailed by no later then Midnight TODAY(Friday). Saturday evening around 10:00pm I finally received it.

This morning I requested to have it go live. They claim someone contact me with-in 36 hours to give redirect info to my current provider. We'll see how long it takes.

I must say they have nice templates and they are very user friendly to set up. As of right now I give them a 7 out of 10.


Same boat my friend, but honestly I think for the price its well worth it. Besides that their service isn't that bad... They have always responded to my emails within a day.

My new site is up and running.

They definitely have their flaws, but my experience was pretty pain free.

$300 I have a great site, a shopping cart, and 1 year of hosting.

Okay I can see that my site was put onto my godaddy server but call me stupid... I cant figure out how to get into it and begin to edit. Can anyone piont me in the right direction?

I've had a good experience so far.

I purchased a site on Sunday, and received it yesterday. They logged on to my web host and set everything up. I never received the email initially telling me that they were finished, but found it on my own by poking around my ftp servr, and contacted them. I got a response within a day.

Now it's up to me to use the admin panel and configure/build the site.

$200 lets me get content (which is all I have to focus on, now) up quickly and easily and host wherever I want. The site design isn't original (obviously, they sell it to many other people), but it's also a lot of features for $200. A batch uploading system, client proof galleries, calendar, shopping cart, easy edits to page text, etc.

sidewa, in my case, I had a directory http://www.yourserver.com/templatename/bluadmin/ to start editing the site.

Does anyone know, once done configuring, how to move the built site from http://www.yourserver.com/templatename/ to http://www.yourserver.com/ ? I don't want the url in the top of the browser showing the /templatename/ on click-through of a splash screen. Can everything in /templatename/ be brought down a directory? Or should this just be left to them, I noticed the admin panel has a 'Go Live!' button, which I am assuming puts in a request to do this.

Matt

Matt, when you are done configuring, select the "Go Live" option from your control panel. That will send you to a BD support page to log a ticket and request they make yur page live. Once this is done, the page will be at your top level domain (http://www.photobymatt.com).

I looked at doing mine myself but I wasn't aware of all the associations so I just waited it out to let them take care of it.

blu domain is bad news... I just started a blog devoted only to people having problems with them. they currently have an "F" rating with the Better Business Bureau of Denver. Here is the blog url:

http://bludomainrippedme.blogspot.com/

Remember, there are many things in life that look pretty and seem like a good idea at the time... this is not one of them. patrick

Anyone know if i have to go through blu-domain to change url's?

I want to switch domains, both are hosted on dreamhost, can i just ftp all the files over to the new domain?

Thanks

cookie-cutter. i scratch my head every time i see a photographer who shoots killer work, but market themselves on one of those template websites. i'm currently having my wedding/family site redone and spent a several hours surfing and checking out peoples sites this weekend...at one point i recall i went to four different sites in a row that had the exact same look!!! you'd think they worked for the same company the similarities were so striking.

one other thing, not sure about you, but when i open a site i hate music commencing without me asking for it. i have itunes for music while i surf, thank you. music, as part of the "experience" of your website is lame. as are blogs. just my 2 cents.