“Can you give me advice on which host to go with to host my blog?”
It’s a question that I’m asked a lot – but one that I can’t offer a lot of personal advice on as my blogs have been successfully hosted on b5media’s servers for a couple of years now. We use LogicWorks at b5 but I’m interested to hear who you use and recommend to host your blog?
Who do you use to host your blog? Why do you use them?
No affiliate links in comments please – they will be deleted.
liquidweb
We sell web hosting, so our blogs are self-hosted wordpress blogs. Just costs us the price of the domain registration.
I’ve been using EngineHosting (http://www.enginehosting.com) lately for several of my internet properties.
I love the fact that they have a toll-free number and I can actually talk to a human being.
I use http://www.lotosus.com
I’m on Mediatemple. I had a $15 shared host a year and it crumbled as soon as I got some social media love. Media temple has been great so far. It’s only been down once for less that 15 minutes really.
The benefit is that you can be sure it survives major traffic spikes. But if you’re not sure you’ll be getting any of them you might as well try a cheaper host. I chose MT because I wanted to be sure I’m set for a long time to come.
I tried quite a few hosts during the years: Yahoo, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, A Small Orange and so on.
After I moved to Doreo.com, though, I have not moved further.
They are my sponsor, but all my sites are hosted with them, so its a honest endorsement.
I use hostmonster. It’s cheap, they have great services, and it’s very reliable.
I’m using BlueHost for all my websites and am satisfied.
I use HostGator for my smaller sites that really are not going to go anywhere (just experiments). And then I use http://www.servint.com for a VPS for my bigger sites.
Sorry…ServInt.net
I use go-daddy and I love them. Their plans are cheap, reliable and the customer service has always been great. The biggest downside is that their control panels aren’t the most well laid out for someone who isn’t very savvy. That’s the only negative thing I can say about em though!!
I run a small web hosting company and that’s where I have both Marketingfactor.com and Copywriting.com
In case you’re interested in checking it out it’s at:
http://thirdsphere.com/
I’ve used Godaddy for all my sites. I’ve never had a problem with them, and it’s only 4 bucks a month. Can’t complain
Media Temple (mediatemple.net)
and
Magics Hosting (magicshosting.net)
I’ve had great experience with Network Redux
I’m hosted at Lunarpages dot com. Great services and wonderfully fast support for relatively low prices.
I personally use http://www.holdfire.net, they are good, cheap, very reliable and have great support.
I use bluehost. It is my first ever hosting company, so I do not have prior experience to compare it against. It seems to be doing fairly well, though I’ve never had the opportunity to test it out with a traffic spike.
I use both Media Temple and Mosso depending on which blog of mine you’re looking at :)
I use HostGator. It is cheap, up and running all the time (never went down even for a couple of minutes) and their support department replies as soon as possible!
I have used Dathorn for 4 years now. This is shared hosting, but extremely reliable. If you have a small blog it is more than adequate. They do not allow over selling on their accounts, and shut down any abusive sites which keeps their servers in top notch shape. I run about four sites on their smallest package. For mega volume sites you obviously need a dedicated server which they do not provide.
http://www.dathorn.com/
I use HostGator for my smaller, personal blog. I’ve found them to be faster than my previous MediaTemple-hosted site.
Also, I like the ability to pay by the month. It’s significantly more expensive over the course of a year, but also easier on my budget.
I use the hosting service from Media Temple. Personally, I love the Account Center feature, all of the things I need are neatly arranged there.
The System Status feature is also the first explanation of things when anything goes wrong.
I’ve just this week moved my hot hatch blog from Squarespace to a WordPress installation at Bluehost.
They’re considerably cheaper than Squarespace and you get full control over your blog’s appearance and structure.
Squarespace is a good site for the less technically experienced blogger, but as my blog has grown I’ve been craving more control.
Now I’m up and running with WordPress and a pro-designed theme and I’m much happier, apart from some teething troubles after the move.
http://acornhost.com
GREEN hosting – 100% powered by renewable energy!!
ari
Well, before I used who ever was cheapest. Eventually I realised I needed more than a standard web host company could offer so I went and got a virtual private server. Now I have complete control over everything; just like a dedicated server. I have a tonne of bandwidth left over, which I just sell to other people.
Most of mine are located at Wired Tree on a VPS. Fantastic service if you need a VPS or bigger. The rest will be moving there on a second VPS in August.
Surpasshosting.com Good support. 1 Week of issues(intermittent problems not 5 days of no service) in 4 years of hosting (shared hosting)
I’m not really sure there is a right answer to that question. No matter who you choose, there is always a few horror stories to go along with any recommended host.
Me personally I’ve had a few sites on different hosts (Netfirms, Site 5). But I’m currently with Mediatemple. It costs a bit more than most, but so far I haven’t had any major problems with them and I’m quite happy with the service and uptime.
Just switched to BlueHost and really like them. Tech/customer service is 24/hrs and has always been very friendly and helpful, especially considering most of the screwups were on my end. :)
I use HostICan and I’ve been very unhappy. I went through a 60 day period of really bad uptime. More recently, it took customer service over 8 hours to get my site back up after I resolved the main issue.
Make sure you look for coupons at http://www.RetailMeNot.com. You can save a good bit.
-Alex
http://www.alexlcohen.com
Media Temple on their VPS, great service and they provide international numbers for overseas support which is great as I’m in the UK.
I was on GoDaddy for a bit, OK for very basic stuff, but not so good on pricing and other stuff. Then I switched to HostGator, and they’ve been great so far. Support has been really really good most times i’ve called, but really lousy twice. Pricing’s pretty good for shared hosting, and I have a pretty decent amunt of flexibility with what I can do
Moved from Dreamhost to Media Temple Grid about 6 months ago and never looked back. Service and uptime is fantastic.
GoDaddy primarily. After using smaller hosts for several years I finally moved almost everything over to GoDaddy about a year ago. The pattern with the small companies is almost always the same – great price and service to start with, usually very personal service because it’s a small shop. Then service on issues starts to deteriorate. Then uptime starts to suffer. Then your site is down for two or three days and the only email answering is the sales one, usually with no idea that there’s a problem as they continue selling.
The last one customers were calling his home phone, faxing, leaving messages on the support forums and even contacting the datacenter where the servers were located to try to get help. So, the rule for me now is no one who doesn’t have a toll 24/7 phone number for support prominently listed on their website and a huge customer base. If GoDaddy goes down, I won’t be the only one with a problem.
I’m on Media Temple and I love it. I had a very short run on two other hosts, before finding them. They’ve been perfect.
I am with Hostgator as they are cheap, reliable and have a good support team.
I hate typing in little boxes…That was supposed to say “toll free or at least 24/7 phone number”
Since I run a hosting company (http://www.blacknight.com) I host everything with us
I use HostICan.com. Very WordPress friendly. Their customer service is so good it frightens me.
I personally use Tiger Technologies for my blog, design business, and cupcake site. I love the fact that I always receive a response by e-mail within 1-2 hours for support… which is important to me.
I also refer them to a lot of my web design clients.
I use http://www.ixwebhosting.com who provide great service, and at a great price. However, I have had issues with hosting my mail accounts over there, as many of my emails get treated as spam by my readers! This seems to be an issue with US hosting in Aus, as a lot of them are ‘blacklisted’ by ISP’s I would like to hear someone elses view on this, as I am considering changing hosts to solve this problem?
I use hostgator
very pleased with them
I use [aff link removed] BlueHost, which has amazing customer service and uptime. Good price and features too (easy WordPress install, etc)! I highly recommend them!
Have been with Compunet Communications http://www.compunetcom.com for about 8 months. I pay $39.95 per month and have 32 websites running there on my host account. They have been great. The only issue I have with WordPress Blogs is that the Fantastico installer doesn’t create an .htaccess file that works. I always have to go back in and fix the .htaccess file. It only takes seconds but it is a bit annoying.
i’ve been using westhost for about a year and never had any problems. really good 24/7 customer service.
I use Yahoo! Small Business. It has a lot of limitations (e.g. no access to htaccess and limitations on emails sent via the php mail function as well as SMTP), but the service has been reliable and fairly fast. They also gave me the option for unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage, but I’m sure there are caps on that.
Laughing Squid–they’re an independent little company out of San Francisco. They are smaller so the communication and costumer service is great. The price is reasonable too! :)
I have a VPN at Liquid Web but am looking to move to a dedicated server soon.
For smaller sites I like to use A Small Orange, Host Gator, and Media Temple (mostly for blogs w/ social media).
I use Blue Host with wordpress.org platform.
Couldn’t beat the price they include registration of your domain name with your hosting.
Wishing all light and love
Danielle
Modern Musings