Review of XsitePro Website Builder

December 24, 2006

The creators of XSitePro make this bold claim on their website:

Well, I don’t think so. Being impressed by the tall claims made on their website, I had purchased XSitePro first on April 2006. Having worked with it for a week, I was not fully satisfied and requested for a refund. When asked for a reason for my refund request, here was my reply:

XSitePro is indeed a good software for the beginners. However, I saw many areas that needed improvement.

1) Lot of unecessary codes are added to the page that makes it bulky. For example, the navigation links in main panel footer could have been styled using default site style sheet than specifying styles in the HTML code for each and every link again and again.

2) If you add only a new page, without including links to it in navigation menu and footer links, it re-saves all the pages of the site. Due to which all the pages will have the last-modified date as the current one. Because of this, Google sitemap also has the same last-modified date same for all the pages.

3) For article pages, one cannot specifiy the maximum limit to the number of links to article sub-pages on the main article page. Same is the case for links page too (which I guessed).

4) Sitemap too doesn’t have the feature of splitting itself into multiple pages.

I was promptly offered a refund.

I again purchased XSitePro couple of weeks back, hoping they would have come up with a better version. Unfortunately, it was the same one I had installed six months back. Moreover, as I had upgraded to a laptop (Intel 1.7 Mhz/512 MB RAM), the software appeared to use lot of resources and slowed down my Laptop. Also, when trying one of it’s features, it crashed and I had to reinstall it. When I contacted their support department, I got this reply:

It sounds as though you may have a corrupt MDAC on your system.

MDAC is a microsoft component and it can become corrupt if another application installs an older version.

You can get information on how to fix it here:
http://www.macropool.com/en/download/mdac.html

…Which was not true, as the software was working fine when I reinstalled it.

When I again asked for a refund, I got this reply:

On checking our records I can see that you have previously installed XSitePro and have been refunded for this purchase.

As this is your second purchase of XSitePro, we are unable to process a refund for a second time. The refund guarantee states that the guarantee is for customers to try out XSitePro - risk free - for a period of 365 days.

As you have already tried out the software and requested a refund which was processed, the refund guarantee has already been applied. This is covered in more detail in the terms and conditions of XSitePro.

When I argued that there are no terms and conditions on their website, they came up with this reply:

I have copied below the Refund Policy taken from the Terms and Conditions which you agreed to when installing XSitePro.

Best regards

REFUND POLICY

The product referenced herein is sold with a *365-day ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee. If the product is other than an e-product or digital product, the product must be returned, at Buyer’s expense, during the refund period to the shipping address provided with the product. Only the price of the product and any applicable taxes are refundable.

The Buyer understands that all rights to view the product and all license or resale rights terminate when the product is returned for a refund. The Buyer understands that all digital products must be removed from his hard drive and destroyed and notice of this action must be sent to the Seller.

Giving the Buyer a refund during the refund period is the full and complete liability that the Seller of this product, service or membership has to the Buyer. Buyer agrees that the length of the refund period is reasonable and further agrees to examine, read, and try the product, service or membership during the 365-day refund period as a material consideration required by the Seller as part of the purchase price.

Buyer further warrants that he or she will make a determination during the 365-day refund period if the product is as described and to decide whether the Buyer wishes to keep the product. If the Buyer does not contact the Seller during the refund period, Buyer agrees that the Seller may construe silence as a full, complete and final acceptance of the product, service or membership with no further right of redress or refund for any reason due the Buyer.

Intellimon Ltd reserves the right to deny a refund if it is deemed that a prior installation of the product, service or membership has been examined, read, tried and returned by the Buyer, during a previous 365-day refund period.

NOTE: Charge backs to credit cards or stop payments on checks as a means to “return” software will be construed as fraud and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Please, don’t search for this on XSitePro website, you won’t find it. This is present in the 3100 word user agreement that you agree to when you install the software! I personally felt this very sneaky. Why hide this fact in place which 99% of users are unlikely to read? Why not openly disclose this on their website? Why not have a trial download instead?

Leaving the above experience aside, here’s what I liked and disliked about XSitePro:

Liked

• Ease of use
• Features

Disliked

• Bulky and slow
• No frequent updates (Only 3 updates since launch on July 2005. Last update was May 16, 2006)
• Very limited control over the layout of your site, resulting in almost cookie-cutter like sites that are easy to spot
• And some technical flaws I mentioned above when requesting for my first refund

Conclusion

If you wish to create hundreds of sites, without much emphasis on uniqueness and design, then XSitePro may be for you. However, if you would be content with fewer number of sites, then there are many better alternatives.

Possible Alternatives

Wordpress - While basically a blogging paltform, you can use wordpress as a CMS too! If your site is relatively smaller with fewer categories, you can cusotmize wordpress to create sites that are not only easy to manage, but also very attractive and search engine friendly. For example, check out this site created using wordpress. There are also themes and plugins that help you use wordpress as a CMS. For example, here’s one.

Joomla - This is designed exclusively as a content management system. While I haven’t personally used it, I have heard lot of positive reviews about it.

Note: While XSitePro is a desktop software, the above mentioned ones are server based and need to installed on the server where your website is hosted. These software also require MYSQl databases.

Posted in Software Reviews by Vishal • Permalink • 3 Comments

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