Clueless Affiliate

Hosting Company Reviews

If you read my last couple posts you have learned about building a website and maybe even bought a domain but you still might be clueless about which hosting company to use.

First off, let me state that finding an honest review of which hosting company to use is very difficult. You may not realize it but many of those sites you found when search for “Hosting Company Review” or “Best Hosting Company” and find sites with star or number ratings supposedly comparing the hosting companies are just affiliate marketing sites that recommend the hosting company with the biggest payouts or make all the hosting companies sound good.

I have spent many hours figuring out hosting companies and what works,etc……

For most new internet marketers you are fine with a shared hosting plan. Hosting has gotten very cheap but there are some that are much better than others. The different hosting plans are for cheapest to most expensive are:

• Shared Hosting – most advertise unlimited websites and storage but the fine print will say there is a limit on the CPU % usage which essential means that if you have websites running lots of processes or getting lots of traffic then you could excced the CPU limits of the servers and have your account banned/frozen. Some shared hosts have very low CPU limits and some are more generous.(so even if they say “unlimited bandwidth that isn’t totally true because you are capped by CPU % of the server)
• Reseller Hosting – You can divide out your hosting account across multiple CPANEL(sort of like multiple users) and can adjust levels of CPU/Storage/etc..among each site or user. Many reseller accounts allow you to upgrade to more bandwidth/storage as your grow so a reseller account is more scalable than Shared account but they do usually have the same CPU limits as a shared and are capped on storage/files vs many shared offer unlimited storage. Realize though you are sharing the server with other resellers and your account is partitioned from the others.
• VPS(Virtual Private Server) – You essentially buy a portion of a server that is partitioned to you. So you have less users all sharing a VPS and can handle much more bandwidth. It is essentially a cheaper way of owning a server. Takes a little more tech Know-How so make sure you get good support.
• Dedicated Server – You literally lease a server just for you and you have to configure/setup everything. Essentially like having your own offsite server.

The important things  to consider are:

• What software is offered with your hosting account. If you use WordPress you want a Linux Based server with the most current PHP and MySQL software.Also most hosts use CPANEL for managing your account. If you decide to run autoblogs then check what it needs for operating. Generally you are fine with most of the well known hosting providers.
• READ THE FINE PRINT especially for shared account. Many shared accounts have avertise unlimited subdomains and storage but they significantly limit the CPU or bandwidth usage per account so it is pointless to have lots of sites on there and have your account frozen/banned when you actually get traffic to it. Look at the refund policy if you decide to cancel. Look at what type of sites they don’t allow(certain programs/industries not allowed)
• I would make sure they have good support (I prefer support that actually based in the country I live in USA, trust me on this tip !!!) as you will use it.

HOSTING COMPANIES I LIKE:

• Hostgator – For shared and reseller hosting I think hostgator is the best. They are one of the biggest and their uptime is the best I’ve experienced. They have higher CPU limits and won’t ban/freeze your account as quickly like other hosts if you happen to have a spike in traffic. For autoblogs they are very good and their support is the BEST………..I highly recommend them and I personally have 5 shared accounts with them (2 of which i had to transfer over to Hostgator from a crappy competitor)
• ProNet (now Cool Handle) - Good for Shared and Reseller account. Great support and quick service. Good uptime but honestly I think Hostgator is slightly better for the bandwidth/storage limits for comparable products, but ProHost pretty good.
• LiquidWeb – very good VPS host based in the USA with excellent support and reliability
• ServInt – Another highly recommended VPS / Dedicator Server host. Top notch. Big internet marketers use them !

HOSTING TO AVOID:

Super Green & Just Host (The shared hosting that I would absolutely avoid is SUPERGREEN/JUSTHOST. They are so aweful but unfortunately they have a good affiliate program so lots of people push it for the payout but their actual hosting product …….SUCKS ! They advertise cheap shared hosting and essentially that is what you will get. I had 2 accounts with them and only lasted 6weeks with them before I gave up on them. They had over 8 full days of downtime during that 6 weeks and on 4 different occassions they were down for at least 4-5hours. Honestly my sites were down almost every single day for long durations and the load speed was crap. When you contact support about it they send you to some place where you cant even understand what they are saying(I think it was India) and they are obviously not the most savy with tech help when you talk to them.

In fact they are so bad that when you cancel they send you to a webpage trying to offer you free year of service to keep you from canceling and I still canceled (what is the point of having websites that are always down)

There are other mediocre shared hosts that offer cheap hosting but if you are going autoblogs and running multiple sites per shared account then get a reputable/large hosting company  like hostgator

Hopefully this post will save you some time searching/understanding hosting. Realize there are tons of hosting companies out there but I just covered the ones I know are good and competitively priced and will deliver good service (there is nothing more frustrating than website downtime).

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