In 2023 RimuHosting acquired NetValue Ltd’s hosting operations. Since then we’ve moved billing and support to our systems and upgraded our Auckland data centre. We’re now starting a broader refresh of the service.
The first change: NetValue Hosting is becoming WebAddress.
Here’s what changes:
| What | Current | New |
|---|---|---|
| Name | NetValue Hosting | WebAddress |
| Tagline | Better hosting | Be found |
| Billing Portal | https://netvaluehosting.nz | https://webaddress.host |
| Email addresses | support@netvaluehosting.nz | support@webaddress.host |
| Hosting Panel | https://mypanel.co.nz | Unchanged (for now) |
| Company | RimuHosting Ltd | Unchanged |
| Bank account | RimuHosting Ltd | Unchanged |
| Staff | RimuHosting support team | Unchanged |
RimuHosting Ltd continues to run the service. Your Waikato-based support team stays the same.
The original portal at https://netvaluehosting.nz remains online and shows a banner to the new address.
Your username and password remain unchanged on the https://webaddress.host billing portal and the https://mypanel.co.nz hosting panel.
We will email you from our new @webaddress.host email addresses. Messages to @netvaluehosting.nz support and billing email addresses still reach us.
MyPanel – the panel used for managing WebAddress services – is unchanged for now. We have a lot of improvements planned there and will announce them when they ship.
From misaddressed to WebAddress
Now that you know what’s changing, here’s why.
Every couple of weeks, we’d get a familiar email: “Your client paid into the wrong account—ours—today. Again.” Or we’d receive a days-old voicemail from a customer who had called the wrong support number.
Our name, NetValue Hosting, was causing confusion.
When RimuHosting acquired NetValue Ltd’s hosting operations in 2023, we kept a similar name and logo with the intent of making the change easy. In hindsight, that choice created confusion. Clients weren’t sure who to contact. Support calls went astray. Payments landed with the wrong company’s bank account.
We needed a clear identity so you always know you’re dealing with us—and a name that fits our purpose: helping your business be found online.
Your identity is your web address
I gathered the team. “What should we call this?” I asked. We needed a name that captured what we do—domain registration, email, and web hosting.
After a moment, James said, “How about WebAddress?”
Heads nodded. It felt right. The name has a rich history: it was one of the very first registrars authorized for the dot nz domain space and was part of the operation we acquired.
We even see our current clients using ‘web address’ to describe the things we provide them: domain names, emails, and their websites.
A tagline that states our promise
A name sets your identity; a tagline expresses a promise about the value provided. A great tagline sticks in the mind. Think: Just do it”, “Think different”, or “Finger lickin’ good.”
We chose “Be found” as our tagline.
“Location, location, location” used to be about an expensive address on a busy street. Today your customers find you at your web address. It’s where you tell your story and showcase your solutions. It is where you get to connect with your audience on your own terms.
Choosing a domain name
Once we picked the brand, we needed a domain – ideally the name plus a preferred top-level domain (TLD).
We recommend getting your country’s country-code domain (ccTLD). As a New Zealand-based business, that means a dot nz domain. Most of our current WebAddress hosting clients are based in New Zealand, and our current WebAddress servers are racked up in the Auckland-based 2degrees data center.
We already owned the .nz domain. For decades we used it for a website providing a wholesale domain name registration service to a select group of resellers.
But we don’t want to limit the rebranded WebAddress service to NZ. I made a decision early on in 2002 when we pioneered our RimuHosting VPS hosting service to be global from day one. If we are going to target a niche, we want to make it about the solution, not geography.
The obvious choice is dot com. But that name was already registered – way back in 1995 – and has sat unused since.
We searched for an alternative TLD. In addition to 300+ country code TLDs, there are 1200+ generic TLDs (gTLDs). Lots of choice.
A TLD can signal your business category (e.g., .app, .shop, .law, .bank).
We chose webaddress.host: short, clear, and it signals the hosting service we provide.
If you are also selecting a domain name for you new business, I’d advise:
- Secure a ccTLD name (e.g. dot nz)
- Add a fitting niche TLD. (e.g. dot host in our case)
- Register extra ‘defensive’ names, if the budget allows. Each domain is another regular bill.
- Pick a name you can easily say on the phone “webaddress dot host”.
A quarter of NZ businesses have not registered a domain name or are using an email address on a shared platform, like Gmail.
With WebAddress, we finally have a name that matches our aim: helping people be found. WebAddress will make it simpler to get a domain, a website, and an email on your own address.
Expect further announcements. Over the next few months we’ll improve the WebAddress service to make it easier to register and manage a domain name, get your website up and running reliably, and give you the privacy and control you need for your business emails.
Founder’s Note: How WebAddress began (1999–2004)
I started building websites in early 1999—knocking on doors, learning as I went with a free copy of Claris Home Page and Photoshop 3 from eBay. Designing sites was hard and not very scalable, so hosting looked like the better opportunity.
In April 1999 I launched interspeed.co.nz to offer hosting and domain registration. It was just me, working from a caravan on dial-up, living downstairs at my grandparents’ place with my partner (now wife) and our newborn (now 26). I’d learned SEO, Google “liked” the site, orders arrived, and we focused on speedy, responsive service.
We leased servers in the U.S., grew, hired, moved offices—and made our share of mistakes. We served two markets: direct customers and resellers (designers and firms hosting multiple client sites). Around 2002 we built our own server farm in an Auckland data centre. To keep reseller clients’ branding clean, I created WebAddress, secured .nz registrar status for it, and used it for reseller/wholesale registrations. We also moved DNS from interspeed.co.nz to nameserverz.com.
It was all bootstrapped—every dollar went back into the business. Capital was scarce; I financed the server farm with a Marac loan. Hiring strong sysadmins was tough, and by 2004 I was worn out. NetValue was interested, and we moved to a sale.
It was a wild ride. I look back on Interspeed and WebAddress with pride as early pioneers in the NZ internet ecosystem.
– Craig Beecroft