It seems to me that many web hosting company is using TemplateMonster design. I was looking around WHF for some hosting review and I got bumped to many TemplateMonster design.

Here's one that I have bookmarked previously for their feature only to realized that I have two website using the same design..

forcehost.net

e-webswift.com

Not to say that it's a bad thing to do, but I guess this really make a pull back on impression wise.

However, on the good side, TemplateMonster do offers good design for a relatively cheap price.

Just my opinion..

Cheers.

I beleive when ForceHost.net was under construction, we had actually paid someone for the design. It turned out they were selling modified TM templates, which was not the initial agreement and contract. We found this out and unfortunately by the time we found out, it was an important stage at ForceHost and we didn't want to bring the website down for a new design. However we modified the template quite a bit to be "unique" we changed a good portion of the layout and design in order to acheive this.


We are currently working with a design company to get a new website only sometime this summer.

There is nothing wrong with using templates, the design at M are very high quality, but I agree that once you see it too many times you get annoyed that maybe hosts dont have imagination.

It would be nice to see a unique design for every domain but we all know that is not realistic.

The two are not exactly the same, they have the same base, but are unique in each way.

Nothing wrong with the two.

Don't judge people if they are "twins" ;)

These companies specialize in web hosting... so why should they invest say $30k into a web design? I know I know... $30k is a ton of money but you get my point.

For a quality TM design you are looking to pay at least $1k for a unque template that is of that quality. Not all companies have that money or want to spend that money on a design... they use it to expand and improve their services :)

i am not against it at all. i am shopping around templatemonster as well.

but having the same design at times can be a bummer ;)

it's a small world afterall....

The thing is most people don't even know about templatemonster so when they visit a host site using an el-cheapo TM template they are none the wiser, and as long as it does the job of displaying the product that's the main thing.

What's more worrying is somebody posted a link to a site offering free templates yesterday and they are ones many hosts are using that look very much like TM/BoxedArt templates, to use a free template for a business is quite sad, but once again, most customers will never know.

And there's nothing to say that people like http://2advanced.net or http://mediatemple.com who probally have two of the best looking hosting sites around have better service than any host using a mass produced template, though you'll probally find they are more financially stable and more likely to be around in a years time.

To base service on the fact of design is absurd, you are selling your service, not your design. However it is becoming common for web designers to use templates, on that side of things, it's just wrong.