I am planning to self-host two of my WordPress blogs [including this one] and recently did a lot of research online in finding some good web hosts, finding free WordPress themes [mostly magazine themes, my favourite] and ran into a lot of good information and useful tips and tricks. This is a brief collection of my web hosting wisdom obtained as a result of my research so far on web hosting for WordPress. This info will be useful for anybody who is not very technically endowed and wants to find a good web hosting to self host his/her blogs using the highly popular WordPress software.
The first important thing is to read about web hosting, web hosting FAQs, terminologies etc. on the internet if you are a layman like me. Please note that some web hosting companies themselves make websites to give you all the info and may dishonestly try to induce you into buying their service. So be careful while searching for information.
The forums at WordPress.org and wordpress.com will also come in handy. The FAQ/help section of the web hosting companies also have a lot of info. Their forums are also a good source of knowledge about the technicalities as well as the company itself. I found the FAQ and other information at web hosting choice useful and informative. You can also write or chat directly [and you must] with the various web hosting companies. I did talk and ask even silly questions to many web hosting companies such as Doreo, Hostgator, A small Orange and WPwebhost. All of them were prompt with replies to my web hosting queries.
You must realize that no web hosting provider will be perfect. Some people will suggest you to search ‘webhosting of xyz company sucks’ in Google [e.g.: GoDaddy sucks] and note the number of results returned to know how much some web hosting companies are hated by people. For example there is even a full-fledged website dedicated against Go Daddy called No daddy! I did find many satisfied customers of GoDaddy in India, just the same. Many web hosting companies have paid staff writing articles for their services or writing fake reviews of rival web hosting companies. Please do not get moved by such pieces on the internet [but that does not mean you ignore genuine reviews]. A simple Google/Yahoo search results will return a lot of results or find good article on major tech blogs like Makeuseof, readwriteweb, Smashing Magazine, Lifehacker, Techcrunch, Labnol and Mashable will also help. Must read the Webhostingtalk forums.
WordPress recommendations [they recommend 6 web hosting companies] are good to begin your research but please do not stick only to them. There are smaller companies that may better suit your needs. If you are looking for a cheap (read affordable budget) web hosting solution for your simple blog that does not attract a lot of traffic you can consider a small orange tiny hosting plan [Richard and Timethief of Onecoolsite recommend it].
Nearly Free Speech, a simple beautiful web hosting company, has a unique business design: the prices are based on your actual uses [so it's great for personal blogs that may not attract enormous traffic]. Read the documentation on their site and you will like them so much for their humour. Anshul’s cartoon site Brainstuck is hosted with Nearly Free Speech and works quite fine. WPwebhost,an Exabite concern [Malaysia] is also a good option for web hosting for WordPress users.
If you are looking for some offbeat and unique web hosting companies read this article on Free Speech hosting: a quick review of 11 web hosts that won’t dump you at the first sight of controversy.
It is recommended that you find out the web hosting company of any website or blog that you like by doing a WHOIS search about that website. For example if you think that Skeptic Geek is a good site which you always find on, then you can do it’s WHOIS search and easily find that it’s hosted on BlueHost. So if you are impressed by the uptime of some website, you can find it’s webhost and use the services after doing some more research.
A good idea before self-hosting will be to do some experiments with free hosting and free domain name if you think you are going to struggle with the WordPress installation! Read this article on Make use on setting up a WordPress blog for free. I am soon going to do that to learn the ropes in a better way. In the comment section of that article you will find links to free hosted blogs. It will be a good learning experience to do some trial and error before buying your web hosting space and working with your primary blog.
A lot of web hosting companies give you discounts when you register [but not all of them]. You can search for discount coupons on the net. Retail me Not is a good site for hunting discount coupons. I found there discount coupons for A Small Orange and some other web hosts. Some reviewing and affiliating sites [beware of shady sites] may also offer your coupon codes. I read somewhere that ‘WHOIS’ code will get you 50 $ discount on any Dreamhost account [I've yet to try that]!
You can get flat 50 per cent off on Justhost by closing the window while registering. A “live virtual agent” will appear [while also irritating you] and offer you 20 to 50 per cent discount [I tried it more than once; they'll always tell you 'it's an only today' offer!]. Update: Do not go to JustHost. They are not good hosts. Read more here.
Oh no!! I dislike commenting on self hosted blogs. Typing out name and email is tiresome!
What are the advantages of self hosting rather than this?
I think self hosting is better , similarly cheap web host is better than free web host, I am with http://shopaserver.com a quality web host with cheap price.
Getting you own domain is a much much better option. You seem to agree in your comment above too, but yet your blog sits on wordpress.com?
Also, you should enable the comments follow-up by email by default. Nearly missed it.
Stephen,
I am still on wordpress.com planning to self host. One has to subscribe to comment follow up by checking the option [that is how it is on wordpress.com].
I am aware of Vade, the popular Irish web hosting.
Fuzy, thank you for the suggestion.
i have a friend looking for a webhost. I will suggest Nearly Free to her.
Hey , you did good amount of research. Really very informative article for newbies. Keep up the good work. For those who don’t want to spend even a single penny and have the pride and proficiency of self-hosted blog along with a ad-free .com blog should visit – http://buddingbloggers.com – Don’t forget to read TOS.
A good amount of business can be lost if the website is not well designed and even a well designed website wont be able to serve the purpose, if it does not hold a good search rank. Web SEO Development companies in India provide 360 degree solution in web designing SEO optimization.
Be careful when using Justhost! I was amazed by their offers and pricing, but if you dig into their terms of use they don’t even allow you put pictures, videos, or other media on your site!
Nice research. I am very happy with my hosting company, Bluehost
Thank you for the information on self-hosting. I was looking into self-hosting too and did a bit of research, but I didn’t find anything I really liked. I did look up BlueHost and I thought they were pretty good, but the one thing that is keeping me from self-hosting is that I don’t know how to use the WordPress Program for it. It would take me awhile to understand it and learn it. I’m sure it isn’t that hard to learn or install, but I will at some point get around to really spending time to read it. This post is awesome. Lots of valuable information. Very well written and I hope you keep writing stuff like this. On the other hand, I do love your Blog overall. :O) Anyway, how you doing, Vikas? It’s been awhile since I came by to see if you were back from Hiatus; and, it looks like you are. I will be around catching up! Hope all is well. :O)
Loves & Huggles,
Briseis09
WordPress rocks in any way you ask. I have three self-hosted and several other wordpress-hosted blogs around. I’ve tasted both. Self-hosted blog makes me feel the joy of freedom.
But wordpress.com is still my favorite one because it’s free and I don’t have to worry about my data and files stored in wp.com blog.
Hmm…I thought JustHost was a bit dodgy too even though they were the cheapest. In the end I just went through blogger. WP was a bit too complicated for me and through blogger, a custom domain was more economical.
I wish I had read this article when I started searching for my hosting provider! I finally went with Godaddy because they’re the biggest and can’t be that bad.
I had a problem with them a couple of weeks ago. I was able to resolve it only by threatening to move – after which they fixed it in a couple of days. If I ever have more problems, I’m going with Bluehost. But I can see only one issue with Bluehost and that is you have to pay a year in advance. Like most Indians, I’m hesitant to do that!
One more thing – how do you enable threading in your iNove theme? I use iNove too but my replies come at the bottom of comment list…
Bhagwad,
I did a lot of research and hence this wisdom! Bluehost is okay. So is dreamhost etc.
You can go to a smallish but nice Irish company http://vade.ie or a small orange.
Comment threading is enabled on your blog and works like mine only. Mine is on free wordpress and yours is self-hosted.
Reasons for self hosting your own wordpress.ORG blog:
1. Build your own brand and credibility
2. Easy location for your readers/customers
3. Better search engine ranking
4. Your name is your own and it’s portable
5. Complete control of your template
6. Complete control over advertising
7. Email – multiple accounts on your own domain
8. Additional functions
Choosing a web host based on price alone can be false economy. The detailed web host reviews is what you have to look for when you need to find a web hosting provider. Only expert advice from unbiased review websites will help you to identify the best provider who can provide reliable service for you.
What To Look For In Cheap Web Hosting Providers http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/What-To-Look-For-In-Cheap-Web-Hosting-Providers/762388
If you are intending to self host a wordpress.org blog then I recommend watching these free videos:
http://www.becomeablogger.com/video-1.html
Video 1 – Why You Should Use WordPress
Video 2 – How To Get Your Own Domain Name
Video 3 – How To Get A Web Host
WordPress minimum requirements – To run WordPress your host just needs:
* PHP version 4.3 or greater
* MySQL version 4.0 or greater
* The mod_rewrite Apache module
Video 4 – How To Install WordPress
Video 5 – How To Upload Files To Your Webhost Using FTP
Video 6 – Choosing A WordPress Theme For Your New Blog
Video 7 – How To Install And Use WordPress Plugins
Video 8 – How To Create Your First Blog Post And Blog Page
Video 9 – What RSS Is And Why You Need It
Video 10 – How To Use Feedburner For Supercharging Your RSS Capabilities
Happy Diwali!
My comment was in the spam filter — tsk, tsk. It only had 2 links in it so if you have set your comments to contain no more than one then that could explain it. BTW the web hosting service I use is A Small Orange. They have support 24/7/365. The service is modestly priced and the features are excellent.
Nice.. this will help me shifting to self hosted domain! thanks for sharing the info
Thanks for the information..love it
Nice Post, I have bookmarked your site and will return again.
Host Business
Hmm, me too to some extent! There is some solace however! Your details will be automatically filled until you clear your cookies. I will take more time in shifting.
How about if they provided openid for comments? Would that be better?
Siddharth check out this article on One Cools Site: http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/how-and-why-to-get-your-own-domain/
In short, the answer is: better looks [theme uploading], more control on blog, ads [not a valid reason for me], javascript, professional look and feel, your own domain name gets more value from search engines, fun, learning [and it's not very expensive at all!].
Another option is that you buy a domain name and map it to your existing blog only. In other words I can buy a xyz dot com and can point it to xyz.wordpress.com [the address in bar will be xyz.com] in 10 dollars per year on wordpress [all WP TOS apply].
Thanks, wordpress must not want blogs to have a proper follow on conversation running.
Speedy reply on the blog too, nice way to run things.
Stephen,
WP users can suggest WordPress to make the comment subscription by mail option on by default. But you see that may be slightly unethical because one needs to confirm that he/she wants mail subscription or else people will accuse wordpress of spamming!
Thanks Robomaster for the info. I have read their TOS though it was difficult for me to understand it completely due to lack of tech knowledge. The TOS does seem to have some portions not in the TOS of other hosting companies.
BTW, I am with an Irish web host: http://vade.ie Reliable people. I am still testing things and having second thoughts on self hosting. I feel more comfortable here only.
Brisie,
Nice to have you back. I was seeing your updates on FB though of late I did not see any. I used to think you must be seeing my updates on FB and so I did not write you any mail etc.
You can read a lot on self hosting; there are a lot of articles on net. You can install wordpress software on your own or through one click install in the control panel. Read this article http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/how-and-why-to-get-your-own-domain/
Check out this post too http://www.skepticgeek.com/how-to/how-to-move-from-wordpress-com-to-self-hosted-wordpress-org/ There are three articles on this blog on moving from wordpress.com to wordpress.org
Read all documentation on the wordpress.org. You will struggle a bit as well.
You are right Sajib. For the same reason I am thinking of only domain forwarding! What is the address of your self hosted blogs?
My self-hosted blogs are pretty idle these days as I’m planning for some upgrade. Their links are stated below.
http://www.aisajib.com -Technology Blog
http://personal.aisajib.com -Personal Stuffs
And techiepost.com which is under construction.
On your zoo blog, you mentioned about stats counter and sitemeter. I’m getting confused which one to choose. If you have been using both, which of them do you recommend me? I need userfriendliness, and as many information as possible to track. In my self-hosted blogs, I use a plugin that tracks each and everything, even bots. Whoever came to my blog, how long they stayed for, which posts they explored, etc.
Sajib, such comprehensive info cannot be tracked on free wordpress.com You can try both: Statcounter is better.
Thanks Sajib for the links. I saw them. They look good.
You are right Psych Babbler. JustHost are not good people are hosts.
By the way your blog gave this error when I clicked on your blog link here:
Late Edit: It seems Blogspot is undergonig server maintenance or is down. Other blogspot blogs gave similar error.
Using blogger is a mistake many new people make. WordPress is definitely the way to go to have total control over your blog. Although I heard JustHost was terrible in customer service, GoDaddy and Blue Host have great reputations and the cost is comparable.
Gabe, I recommend a small web host http://vade.ie to others. I am going to self-host with them soon.
I do not recommend Justhost to anyone now. And WordPress is certainly way above BLogger!
Bhagwad, that’s a good viable option. WP could use it! You can forward a suggestion to WP. BTW, which web host are you using? I cannot find that in your WHOIS info!
Already answered in two comments in this thread further down
timethief, thank you for the elaborate comment and happy diwali wishes! Your comment had gone to spambox and I wonder why! I luckily spotted it!
Yep…it must have been the day when there were some problems with blogger…think it was on Friday. It’s all better now…
timethief, I had set it to have more than 3 links! So it is a WP error!
BTW, which small orange plan are you using for your personal blog: tiny, small or Medium?
Hope to see your self-hosted blog with your own domain name soon Avada!