BlueHost Best Quality Web Hosting
Why? Respected, reliable host for 12 years, pro-rated refunds (rare), host unlimited domains, 15,000 GB transfer, 1500 GB space, 24/7 phone support, easy cPanel, low prices, 52 awesome scripts for blogging, online stores, galleries, and more.
BlueHost has been around for a century in Internet time, or 12 years in reality. They are known for providing toll free, person-to-person support, lots of features, and smooth, reliable hosting. They offer just one, powerful, feature rich plan at a very affordable price. When you sign up for BlueHost’s plan, you also get a total of $100 in marketing credit with Yahoo and Google ($50.00 each). And they have a lot of partnerships with cool companies so you can get a variety of goodies. Visit BlueHost and try out their cPanel demo.
BlueHost is the same company as HostMonster. And this is nearly the same review.
Satisfaction
BlueHost has a 30 day money back guarantee, but they do something very rare for a hosting company: they pro-rate your refund if you cancel after the 30 days (but read further for details). This is a very, very rare policy among hosts and it generated a lot of trust for us. Nearly all hosting companies list their lowest price per month based on pre-paying for 1-5 years of service (some 10 years!), BlueHost is 1-2 years. It’s good to know that if after the 30 day trial period, say a year down the road, if you decide to change hosts, you can do so without loosing all the money you pre-paid. Most hosts keep this money. As you can see from the Live Chat transcript, our question didn’t go into depth. To make sure that this awesome policy (which has been part of their policy for for years now) is still in effect, visit BlueHost and click on their Live Chat. Always see for yourself.
On February 17, 2008 at 12:36 PM we asked the follow question through BlueHost’s Live Chat:
Light M. [[11:28:50 AM]: Hello how are you today? Please give me a moment while I review your question.
WHA [11:28:50 AM]: If I sign up for 2 years and after 1 year I decide to leave, what is the refund? Is the difference pro-rated?
Light M. [11:28:58 AM]: It is pro-rated
Cost
BlueHost has one feature rich plan suitable for nearly all business situations and ecommerce. Their plan comes with 15,000 GB of transfer (bandwidth) and 1500GB of space to store the files that make up your website. Nearly all hosting companies list their lowest price per month based on pre-paying certain lengths of time. The reason why BlueHost is one of our top two picks, besides the fact that their package is awesome, is because they provide a pro-rated refund if you cancel past the 30 day trial period*. This is a rare thing as we mentioned earlier. Below is a breakdown of your total upfront costs. There are no additional, hidden fees.
- 12 Months - $7.95/mo + FREE Setup = $95.40
- 24 Months - $6.95/mo + FREE Setup = $166.80
*There may be a set up fee that you will be required to pay if you cancel before 12 months (since 12 months is their min. plan) and if you got a domain registration through them, that would not be refunded (this is normal). Always confirm in writing before you sign up with any host.
Support
BlueHost has a 99.99% uptime at the time of this writing, this is independently verified. They do not have and uptime guarantee, which is no big deal — the companies who offer an uptime guarantee make you go through hoops to collect. An uptime guarantee really is a useless thing and BlueHost knows it. Good support is available 24/7/365 by phone or online. This support is done here in the USA. In our experience they are always courteous and follow through. Certain times of day are busier than others, but the Live Chat is terrific for getting through fast! Visit BlueHost
SSH
Secure Shell (SSH) access is standard with the BlueHost plan, but you have to activate it with proof of who you are. This is very important so that they trust you. SSH gives those who are technically inclined the ability to use UNIX/Linux command line instructions to administer their web site. It is a very, very handy feature. Not to worry for those who don’t know how to use SSH — FTP is available. Plus with cPanel, you can also load files through the File Manager — super easy.
Getting a Web Site Up
Site builders are good for “do-it-yourselfers” who want a brochure based site that they can update and set up themselves. Not everyone needs this service, especially if you have web designer or are moving your current site because your previous host sucks. Some hosts come out better than others with respect to their site builders. BlueHost’s site builder leaves much to be desired — to put it frankly. To get a decent web site up and going fast, you’ll need to get a web designer/developer to create a site for you or you can use BlueHost’s Fantastico auto installer for many types of sites. For example, with this installer you get 52 of most powerful open source applications out there — all FREE! If you want to create a blog, a content managed web site, a photo gallery, a forum/bulletin board, or an online shop, you can easily install these scripts in a few clicks. For low or no cost, many of these scripts have themes, skins, or templates so that they look really clean and professional. Visit BlueHost
If you need a host that provides you with a professional site builder, so you can create your own small web site site without technical skills, check out: WebHostingPad, HostPapa, and HostGator.
Unlimited Domains in one Account
With BlueHost you can host unlimited domains under one account. These are called addon domains and a number of hosts charge 2.00 - 5.00 extra per month for them. They are extremely handy for web developers and business people with more than one domain registered. You cannot resell these add on domains due to security and a variety of other reasons, but you can host multiple blogs or have different web sites for members of your family or different areas of your company. They also allow unlimited sub domains too, like “sales.yourdomain.com”. You also get unlimited MySQL databases too, so if you have a lot of blogs or different stores, you can also feel free to add databases as you need them.
Space and Bandwidth Information
BlueHost’s plan is packed with features and comes with plenty of space and bandwidth. BlueHost offers 1,500 GB (that’s huge!) of space to store the photos, text, and other files (like flash or pdf files) that comprise your web site. They also offer 15,000 GB of bandwidth, which is based on the amount of traffic coming to your site: how large your pages are, how many page views, etcetera. Read more about bandwidth here, if you're interested.
Most sites don’t need more than 1-2 GB of bandwidth a month (usually less). Visit BlueHost
E-commerce / Online Storefront
BlueHost has a nifty autoinstaller that allows you to install any of the following, popular, powerful, shopping cart packages on your hosted account: OsCommerce, ZenCart, CubeCart and AgoraCart. BlueHost provides a shared SSL certificate. A dedicated IP address is 39.00 a year as of this writing.
Please read more about e-commerce hosting.
Datacenter Location
BlueHost Datacenter — same as BlueHost
Orem, Utah
Summary
BlueHost is a great choice for small businesses. They’ve been around for ages (actually 1996) and have a solid, consistent track record for excellent support and reliability. They pro-rate their refunds, which is very rare and shows that they are not going to make money on you if you are gone (most other hosts do not pro-rate refunds). The BlueHost plan has loads of features and benefits that anyone can use, for example: BlueHost’s cPanel control panel makes it easy to manage your account, install a wide variety of scripts, and take care of your email without an IT degree.
