This post is a review of Bluehost, WordPress Hosting
who by their own admission are the
‘Recommended choice for WordPress Hosting, because 2 million people can’t be wrong’
So if you are thinking about using or maybe switching from your current host to them, this post will give you enough information for you to make an informed decision on if they are right for you
Endurance International Group
Bluehost are now owned by Endurance International Group
Sounds impressive enough, but that is far from the case
Endurance International Group, or EIG as they are better known
Have an absolutely appalling record with companies they own
They are ‘specialists’ in buying companies
Then stripping away everything that made that company well known
This includes Customer Support
Favourable Offering
Now at first glance, they certainly seem to have a favourable offering
They have been hosting WordPress Sites since 2005, so that’s quite a long time & was one of the things that attracted me to them, when first looking at WordPress.
When you look at their various hosting plans, then again, they seem to have things covered in this respect, especially if you look at their home page which points to features
When you click on it, it takes you to this page
At first glance, they don’t seem to be to badly priced, competitive for sure & for the individual then yes you wouldn’t want any more than Shared Hosting
But then a glance at the top tab on their home page reveals that they have 3 other options as well as you will see below
Which as you can see vary in price, from $2.95, right up to $79.99 per month
The thing with Bluehost is that this is a bit misleading, because though the hosting prices are shown as monthly, Bluehost claim they don’t have any monthly subscriptions and you have fo pay for a years hosting up front.
As you will agree that can prove to be expensive
Installing WordPress
Installing WordPress is very simple, as it is with most WordPress Hosts, but before you do this, you have to have a domain on which it can be loaded
Bluehost do supply domain name for you and in truth, they are as competitive as most others, but in come cases slightly more expensive
What isn’t explained to you when buying your domain, is that this becomes your host domain, which effectively ties you into Bluehost for a year and in some cases more, so its best to have your domain name provider seperate to your hosting
Once this is done, installing WordPress, as with most WordPress hosting is a case of 1 click install.
You have to make sure you follow the instructions for this carefully, because if you haven’t installed WordPress before, it can be a nightmare trying to make sure its right
Bluehost do have WordPress Guides, but they are well hidden inside the site, so you are forced to call support. Though they do have a less than supportive chat box, so if your problem is above your head, you end up waiting for up to 30 minutes.
The support is not overly helpful and you should also make sure that you back up your blog.
If you don’t know what your doing with this, then Bluehost will help you, but they ‘can’ make a minimal charge for doing so
Now there have been cases where people have woken up one day and discovered that their entire blog has ‘disappeared’ I mean literally it is not there
When support have been contacted they claim it is due to a dodgy plugin
However this is open to debate as one customer, actually managed to trace his plugins and found that Bluehost themselves had actually taken the blog down, in an attempt to up sell him on further WordPress security
So clearly something to watch out for
WordPress Training
WordPress is and can be a minefield for a lot of people.
Bluehost do supply training, such that it is, but it is well hidden away and when you find it, it is at best minimalistic
Overall conclusions on Bluehost. Is it is best to give them a complete miss
I had heard some decent things about Bluehost in the past but after reading your article – I think I’ll take my business elsewhere! I’ve never used them before, but it does all sound a little ‘in house’ for my tastes.
So, once you’ve bought a domain with them you are essentially locked into their service for a year, and they don’t really make this public?
I don’t like the thought of that setup one bit!
What hosting do you use and why did you choose it?
Chris thanks for the comment, I appreciate it. One thing I haven’t mentioned in the post, is that the iniital domain you choose to put your blog onto, can’t be transferred elsewhere, UNLESS you pay for another years hosting up front to release the domain you want
That is a rip off in my eyes.
The hosting I use is Wealthy Affiliate
Why?… Because its not WordPress hosting per se,m but is hosted on one of the Worlds Premier Hosting servers, has great Wordress and Social Media training and a ton of other benefits to boot as well
The one thing that mainly puts me off using products or services which you are PAYING for is, if they are hiding charges or terms and conditions which you don’t know about when you sign up unless you read the tiny fine print on the terms and conditions page. You are paying them money monthly so the least they can do is give you what they say they provide and nothing less. Anyway, thanks for the review, its really helpful.
Thanks for the comments Joe and Glad you found it helpful
Thanks Dave, some things are just not as simple or as straight as they appear. One would have thought wordpress’ hosting would be one of if not the best. The initial price seems very attractive but after that you are not sure if you are paying for a monthly or yearly subscription. And they don’t even give you a clear explanation so you can made the right decision!
Thanks for your comment Julie, I’m glad you found it beneficial