Toby Sembower

Contributing Expert
Toby Sembower
About the Author

Toby Sembower is founder and Chairman of the Board at Digital Brands, a company that builds, owns, and operates websites that have served more than 100 million users. His web hosting experience dates to 2003, when he built the first of many popular consumer resource websites. Since that time, Toby has tested and reviewed dozens of web hosts, worked with hosts to improve their pricing and services, and contributed his expertise at the industry's top conferences. Toby holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida's College of Journalism and a minor from UF's College of Business.

Latest Posts

15 posts written/edited to date
iPage WordPress Hosting Review: 4 Perks + How to Install (2024)

iPage and WordPress: Hosting Review, Perks, & How to Install
By: Toby Sembower • 1/30/2017
Considering signing up for iPage WordPress hosting? You’ve come to the right place — here, we’re diving into the company’s WordPress offerings and comparing them... read more »
18 Best Web Hosting Services for Small Business (2024)

Web Hosting for Small Business: Email, Site Builders, and Reviews
By: Toby Sembower • 10/26/2016
Whether you’re a solo act or already have a team of employees in place, the best web hosting for small business helps attract new customers and expands your brand’s... read more »
15 Best Free Web Hosting Sites (2025)

15 Top Picks for Free (or Almost Free) Web Hosting
By: Toby Sembower • 8/24/2016
We all love free stuff — whether it’s free tacos, free beer, or even a free T-shirt we know we’ll never wear. When people hear the word “free,” we just can’t help... read more »
Brafton: Meet the Content Marketing Agency Taking a Holistic Approach to Improving and Growing Brand Experiences

Brafton: The Content Marketing Agency with a Holistic Approach
By: Toby Sembower • 6/29/2016
No one likes a hard sell. People tune out ads but hunger for information about a company and its products before they buy. Enter Brafton, a content marketing... read more »
9+ Best Shared Hosting Services (2025)

9 Best Shared Web Hosts By Category
By: Toby Sembower • 6/17/2016
Shared hosting is a lot like 19-year-old me as a college sophomore deciding that sharing an apartment made a lot of sense. It saved me a ton on rent and bills, and I... read more »
HOSTING Ushers Customers into HIPAA Compliance — Guaranteeing Success Through Secure Managed Cloud Hosting Environments

HOSTING Assures HIPAA Compliance with Secure Managed Cloud Hosting
By: Toby Sembower • 5/17/2016
In the hosting game early enough to get the world’s most obvious domain name, the team at HOSTING is finding their biggest success more than 15 years later... read more »
Squarespace vs. WordPress Chart: Which One's for You? (2024)

Squarespace vs. WordPress
By: Toby Sembower • 4/14/2016
Comparing Squarespace vs. WordPress pits two titans of user-friendly web design, SEO, and ecommerce against each other. Which platform is best for you? We’ve drilled... read more »
10 Best Website Makers with Free Domain Name (2024)

Where to Find Domain + Website Builder (For Free)
By: Toby Sembower • 3/7/2016
Contrary to what you may think, the best website makers are not, in fact, wizards hidden away, toiling over a bubbling cauldron. Creating a new website is not... read more »
The Competitive Edge of WhatRunsWhere<span class="registered">®</span> &mdash; CEO Max Teitelbaum Explains How to Analyze Your Competition's Display Advertising

WhatRunsWhere®: Why Competitive Analysis is Great for Site Owners
By: Toby Sembower • 2/16/2016
Competitive analysis, or judging what’s working for other companies in relation to your own, is necessary in marketing a business or driving traffic to a... read more »
Liquid Web Consistently Earns Customer Favor with Heroic Support® and Emphasis on Performance

How Liquid Web Consistently Earns Customer Favor
By: Toby Sembower • 11/10/2015
Liquid Web stands out in the hosting space by matching in-house innovations with a responsive and knowledgeable, US-based support team. The Storm® Cloud... read more »
How to Delete a WordPress Blog (WordPress.com vs. Hosted)

How to Delete a WordPress Blog and/or Site Database
By: Toby Sembower • 11/6/2015
WordPress blogs come in two flavors: Those launched from the commercialized, fully hosted, free platform: WordPress.com Those hosted by a web host with the... read more »
The Wix Website Builder: Easy Sites for Hotels, Restaurants, &amp; Bands &mdash; Plus All New Features for 2015

New Features of Wix: See How They're Making Site Building Simple for SMBs
By: Toby Sembower • 7/1/2015
Wix is a flexible website builder serving up solutions for over 66 million sites, regardless of web development skill level. With a new “vertical approach,”... read more »
HostingCon Europe: Early Registration, New Features, and Unbeatable Networking

HostingCon Europe
By: Toby Sembower • 5/4/2015
The HostingCon Europe conference is coming up: from September 22nd to the 23rd, in Amsterdam. Hosts, cloud services, hardware providers, and software... read more »
Weebly: How Hosts, Organizations, &amp; Enterprises Can Leverage the Popular Platform to Enhance Their Own Offerings to Customers

How Weebly Leads in Website Creation for Hosts & Enterprises
By: Toby Sembower • 3/23/2015
The prominent web builder service, Weebly offers global solutions for end-users to create, market, and grow a web presence. Their reputation in the industry... read more »
5 Popular Text Editors for Linux

5 Popular Text Editors for Linux
By: Toby Sembower • 7/1/2014
Yes, all of you Microsoft and Mac users, text editors are still a big deal in Linux systems! You may think graphical text editors are where it’s at, but in a world... read more »