#1 Web Hosting - BlueHost Review
This is the most comprehensive review about BlueHost that has been written. The Author, me, has been monitoring BlueHost as a real customer for more than 4 years. I've seen how BlueHost came from no where to become one of the most successful web hosting company out there. In this review, you will understand the advantages of hosting with them and you will also learn new ways to evaluate a hosting company.
Click Here to activate BlueHost Special $X.95 Pricing Now! Limited Time!
(Click Picture To Visit BlueHost Website)Homepage : http://www.bluehost.com Plan name : All-In-One 12 month plan : 4.95 $7.95/month 24 month plan : 3.95 $6.95/month 36 month plan : 3.95 $6.95/month Disk Space : Unlimited! Bandwidth : Unlimited! Websites : Unlimited! Rating : HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! (show all features...)
Multiple Domain Hosting - Host Unlimited Domains under 1 Hosting Account!
I have been following and using BlueHost for more than 4 years now. The reason why I love them so much is because they are always the leader in the industry. They always lead the industry with the higher and better offer. Other players merely follow their footsteps.
For example, they are always the first to increase disk space and bandwidth while other players follow suit. But what make them the leader is that they are the first host that offer multiple domain hosting to the customers. While this might be an old topic now as most web hosts is offering it right now, one must not forget it is BlueHost that light up the first fire few years back.
You might not believe it but less than a year ago, multiple domain hosting is uncommon. Most hosting accounts come with incredible amounts of disk space and bandwidth but only allow you to host 1 domain per account! That makes the offered disk space and bandwidth totally useless because I need to pay for a second account if I need to host another website even I have only used 10% of the disk space and bandwidth of my first account.
BlueHost is the first genuine web host where the large disk space and bandwidth offered is not a mere marketing gimmick. They are making sure that you have the ability to exhaust the allocated resources by allowing you to host UNLIMITED websites under the same hosting account!
I used to predict in this review that in the future, most other web hosts will have to follow BlueHost's lead by offering multiple domain hosting accounts. And the future has already arrived, almost all other web hosts have follow suit and are offering multiple domain hosting.
Unlimited Disk Space and Bandwidth
We are now in the 'unlimited' era of hosting where we no longer need to bother about disk space and bandwidth. When I started a picture site a decade ago, I was given only 1GB of bandwidth and I had to pay $24.90/month for it! Today, you can get unlimited bandwidth from BlueHost and other web hosts for under $10/month. There's no more limit.
However, don't focus too much on bandwidth and disk space when picking your host. Focus on customer support and server reliability. Bandwidth and disk space mean nothing if you web host is consistently slow or even down! And you don't want a web host that can't solve a technical problem in a week.
Important Highlights of BlueHost
Host Unlimited Websites with 1 Hosting Account
(along with Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth)
I've already taken the time to explain this in the previous section. I also want to add that you can fully control your add-on domains directly yourself. You do not need to send in any request to BlueHost support. You manage your add-on domains directly in your web hosting control panel. Some web host require you to email support every time you need to add or remove an add-on domain, making simple task complicated.
Also, the add-on domains are absolutely free. No setup fee or monthly fee is required. The reason I need to mention this is that I have noticed some other hosts are also advertising the ability to host multiple domains in 1 account. However, they never tell you that they cost extra! What they offer is the 'ability' to host multiple domains but for each extra domain you want to host with them, you need to pay extra, says $2.50/month per add-on domain. Becareful!
CPanel Control Panel (Demo)
They are also using our favorite CPanel control panel which we have introduced in ourLunarPages review. CPanel beats the other control panels in terms of speed, features, and user friendliness. My advice to you is to always make the CPanel control panel your first choice (e.g. BlueHost, LunarPages, midPhase, etc). Try not to use Plesk and H-Sphere as they are extremely slow based on my experience.
Fantastico & SimpleScripts Library
Fantastico is an add-on to the powerful CPanel control panel. It allows you to install 48 popular scripts with just a few clicks. These scripts include blogs, content management tools, forums, polls, guestbook, shopping-carts, picture galleries, mailing lists, Wikis, etc. With Fantastico, you no longer need to manually install each script yourself, which by the way, could be a nightmare for non-savvy users.
To install a script the traditional way, you will usually need to download the script from the source website, unzip the files, edit the configuration file with a text editor, create a new directory in your site and upload all your files to it. You also need to set some permissions for the files and directories, create new databases and add user privileges to the databases for the scripts to be able to connect to the database... If you don't understand what I am saying, then Fantastico will be your best friend. It does all of this with just a few clicks of your mouse.
While Fantastico is already very 'fantastic', there is still a downside to it. Fantastico has a big scripts library but it is slow is releasing new updates to their scripts. That means you may have WordPress 2.8 out for a few weeks but you can only install version 2.7 with it.
So what does BlueHost do? They developed SimpleScripts and you can have new versions available almost immediately after they are released! If WordPress 2.8 comes out today, you can install/upgrade it within 24 hours using SimpleScripts! Not only that you can install the newest version, they are even making a few versions available for you to choose from if you decided to use an older version. Fantastico only provides 1 version for each script.
A leader is always a leader and BlueHost will always the leader in the web hosting industry.
69 Video Tutorials!
BlueHost provides you with 69 high quality video tutorials that you can watch online! The video tutorials will teach you how to use CPanel, how to setup your email account, how to configure your email program, how to setup spam protection, how to FTP your files to them, how to use Fantastico, how to install Wordpress, etc. This will be very useful to you. You can watch the tutorials at tutorials.bluehost.com.
100 MySQL Databases Included
You can create up to 100 MySQL databases! Even if you do not have an idea what is a MySQL database or you do not plan to use it, it is still very important that you have as many of them as possible. This is because most free scripts, including most of them in Fantastico, require a MySQL database to function properly!
By having 100 MySQL databases, you can install as many scripts as you want through Fantastico! Since Fantastico currently has only 48 scripts, you will still have plenty of MySQL databases left after installing and trying out all of them!
Free Domain Name For Life
You will get a free domain name if you sign-up as a user for at least a 12 month plan. And this domain will be FREE FOR LIFE as long as you continue to host your website with them! If you choose to sign-up for 3 or 6 months only, you will need to pay $10 for a 1 year registration of your domain. If you have already registered your domain name somewhere else, transfer your domain name to BlueHost and get 1 year renewal for free. All you need to do is sign-up under 'Transfer Clients' and they will assist you in transferring your domain name. No coupon code or promo code is needed for this offer.
Even if you do not wish to transfer your domain name, you are still entitled to the FREE domain. Instead of signing up for your hosting account with the existing domain name, sign-up with a brand new domain name. Since you can host unlimited websites with the hosting account, you can then add your existing domain by utilizing one of the add-on domains. :)
Free Private Whois Service for Your Domain Name
Every domain that is registered requires for some contact information to be made available to the public. This is called the domain 'whois' information. This information allows others to contact the domain owner easily. However, marketing companies and spammers have abused the whois information by harvesting email addresses and making use of them. Although this is illegal, it still happens as it is hard to control.
One way to fight this is to have the information of a third party shown up in the whois information, like a 'trust'. So, in order to reach the real domain owner, they have to go through the 'trust' and if it is a legitimate contact, the 'trust' will then forward the message to the real owner. It protects your email address from SPAM.
Currently, BlueHost is waiving the fee on private whois service which usually cost $8.95/year! Now you can get that for free. You will still own the full rights of your domain name and have full control over it. If at any time you wish to change the whois information or the DNS settings, you can do it via the domain control panel.
Excellent Customer Support
Personally, customer support is always my first criteria for picking a web host, it comes before price, size and everything else. This is because I have had very bad experiences with some hosts that offer a lot in terms of price and size but were unable to solve simple issues.
The first thing I always do to test a web host is actually to mass-mail them with a lot of questions even before I buy! The host which deserves my money would be the host that will patiently reply to all my questions in a prompt and detailed manner. The most disgusting hosts are those which are unable to resolve simple issues for days, or are unable to keep track of the client's history and repeatedly request you to describe the same issue. Some even keep bouncing your requests between different departments.
So far, I have never been disappointed by BlueHost customer support. They are simple fast, effective and reliable. Please bear in mind many web hosts are outsourcing their customers support to a third party company or even outsource it offshore! This is where the nightmare comes from when you host with such host. These third party companies compete for businesses and charge a low fee to provide customer support service to the web host. You can imagine host good the customers service are when they are outsourced.
BlueHost first business priority is to provide the best customer support their clients. That's why they never outsource their customer support. All their customer support staff work directly inside their BlueHost office in Utah.
PHP 4 And PHP 5 Ready
If you are a PHP developer, you should already know that PHP has 2 major versions now, that's PHP 4 and the new PHP 5. PHP 5 is a big upgrade from PHP 4 with significant changes. Both versions cannot co-exist together in the same server. Thus many web host are still sticking to PHP 4 because they worry that upgrading to PHP 5 might affect some PHP 4 scripts. Although PHP 5 are made to be backward compatible with PHP 4, but the risk of pissing off customers that their scripts suddenly stop working doesn't justify the upgrade. This is a BIG challenge for all the web host and PHP developer.
The good news is that BlueHost has both PHP 4 servers and PHP 5 servers! Depending on the customer request, they can choose to host on a PHP 4 server or a PHP 5 server. Initially when you sign up, you will be place to a PHP 5 server. However, for any reason you need a PHP 4 server instead, you can email them and have you entire site moved to a PHP 4 server.
BlueHost's Promise to Our Visitors
I have been communicating with BlueHost's President Matt Heaton for a very long time now and I know he is very committed in giving the best to his customers. If there are any issues arising from our visitors, he has promised to give first priority to resolving them. So far, I have zero complaint that needs me to rectify on their behalf.
30 Day Money Back Guarantee and Prorated Refund after that!
Because they are so confident with their business, they are the ONLY web host that will give you a prorated refund if you choose to stop anytime! If you choose to cancel within 30 days for any reason, they will give you a FULL refund, if you cancel after the 30 days, you will get prorated refund depending on how many months left in your contract.
For example if you sign up for 24 months to lock in the discount price of $3.95 per month. You pay a total of $94.80. And you choose to cancel after using it for 6 months, you will get back 18 month of hosting fee, that is $71.10! They do really give a refund as I have tested it myself.
Because of this, hosting with BlueHost is risk free! I fully respect their way of doing business and I believe this will win the hearts of many customers.
Signup Process & Instant Account Activation
The one experience that I will never forget is BlueHost's signup process. I have signed up with more than 20 web hosts and all of them take the manual verification approach. What that means is that I will have to select a domain name, enter my billing information and click the 'submit' button. Then I will have to wait a few hours and even at times up to a few days before I can start using my account. This is because their billing team needs to verify and process my payment manually.
But with Blue Host, the experience is both refreshing and enlightening! As usual, I will have to pick a domain name, enter my billing info and click 'submit'. The next page contains a thank you note along with the 'Login to the Control Panel' button. This means my account is created instantly and I can start using it immediately! You can watch the sign up video I made to know what I am talking about!
You will get what you pay for instantly. You won't need to repeatedly check your inbox and wonder when your account will be created. You will also receive your 'welcome email' immediately. It contains a lot of precious information about your hosting account. However, my welcome email was delivered to my JUNK mail folder. So you might want to check that folder too if it doesn't show up in your inbox. :)
Secret $108/$72/$36 Off Coupon Code ($3.95 $6.95/month)
So finally, the most important question, how do you magically turn $6.95 into $3.95 when you are still seeing $6.95 at their website? The secret is not a 'coupon code', it is a special link given to us that will activate the offer. Every link that you use to visit BlueHost from my website will activate the discount. You will notice immediately from the screen that the price is slashed to $3.95 from $6.95!
Order Type Normal
Price OFF BY You Pay! 12 Month $95.40 $36 $59.40 24 Month $166.80 $72 $94.80 36 Month $250.20 $108 $142.20
The promotion is temporary given to a small group of webmasters (including me) for them to test the market respond before they decide what to roll up in larger scale! Don't miss the opportunity! If you don't know how long to sign up for, I suggest 24 months because the discounted price of $94.80 is almost the same as the non discounted 12 month price ($95.40). So you are like getting an extra 12 months free.
http://www.bluehost.com
This is the most comprehensive review about BlueHost that has been written. The Author, me, has been monitoring BlueHost as a real customer for more than 4 years. I've seen how BlueHost came from no where to become one of the most successful web hosting company out there. In this review, you will understand the advantages of hosting with them and you will also learn new ways to evaluate a hosting company.
| Click Here to activate BlueHost Special $X.95 Pricing Now! Limited Time! |
(Click Picture To Visit BlueHost Website) |
|
Multiple Domain Hosting - Host Unlimited Domains under 1 Hosting Account!
I have been following and using BlueHost for more than 4 years now. The reason why I love them so much is because they are always the leader in the industry. They always lead the industry with the higher and better offer. Other players merely follow their footsteps.
For example, they are always the first to increase disk space and bandwidth while other players follow suit. But what make them the leader is that they are the first host that offer multiple domain hosting to the customers. While this might be an old topic now as most web hosts is offering it right now, one must not forget it is BlueHost that light up the first fire few years back.
You might not believe it but less than a year ago, multiple domain hosting is uncommon. Most hosting accounts come with incredible amounts of disk space and bandwidth but only allow you to host 1 domain per account! That makes the offered disk space and bandwidth totally useless because I need to pay for a second account if I need to host another website even I have only used 10% of the disk space and bandwidth of my first account.
BlueHost is the first genuine web host where the large disk space and bandwidth offered is not a mere marketing gimmick. They are making sure that you have the ability to exhaust the allocated resources by allowing you to host UNLIMITED websites under the same hosting account!
I used to predict in this review that in the future, most other web hosts will have to follow BlueHost's lead by offering multiple domain hosting accounts. And the future has already arrived, almost all other web hosts have follow suit and are offering multiple domain hosting.
Unlimited Disk Space and Bandwidth
We are now in the 'unlimited' era of hosting where we no longer need to bother about disk space and bandwidth. When I started a picture site a decade ago, I was given only 1GB of bandwidth and I had to pay $24.90/month for it! Today, you can get unlimited bandwidth from BlueHost and other web hosts for under $10/month. There's no more limit.
However, don't focus too much on bandwidth and disk space when picking your host. Focus on customer support and server reliability. Bandwidth and disk space mean nothing if you web host is consistently slow or even down! And you don't want a web host that can't solve a technical problem in a week.
Important Highlights of BlueHost
Host Unlimited Websites with 1 Hosting Account
(along with Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth)
I've already taken the time to explain this in the previous section. I also want to add that you can fully control your add-on domains directly yourself. You do not need to send in any request to BlueHost support. You manage your add-on domains directly in your web hosting control panel. Some web host require you to email support every time you need to add or remove an add-on domain, making simple task complicated.
Also, the add-on domains are absolutely free. No setup fee or monthly fee is required. The reason I need to mention this is that I have noticed some other hosts are also advertising the ability to host multiple domains in 1 account. However, they never tell you that they cost extra! What they offer is the 'ability' to host multiple domains but for each extra domain you want to host with them, you need to pay extra, says $2.50/month per add-on domain. Becareful!
CPanel Control Panel (Demo)
They are also using our favorite CPanel control panel which we have introduced in ourLunarPages review. CPanel beats the other control panels in terms of speed, features, and user friendliness. My advice to you is to always make the CPanel control panel your first choice (e.g. BlueHost, LunarPages, midPhase, etc). Try not to use Plesk and H-Sphere as they are extremely slow based on my experience.
Fantastico & SimpleScripts Library
Fantastico is an add-on to the powerful CPanel control panel. It allows you to install 48 popular scripts with just a few clicks. These scripts include blogs, content management tools, forums, polls, guestbook, shopping-carts, picture galleries, mailing lists, Wikis, etc. With Fantastico, you no longer need to manually install each script yourself, which by the way, could be a nightmare for non-savvy users.
To install a script the traditional way, you will usually need to download the script from the source website, unzip the files, edit the configuration file with a text editor, create a new directory in your site and upload all your files to it. You also need to set some permissions for the files and directories, create new databases and add user privileges to the databases for the scripts to be able to connect to the database... If you don't understand what I am saying, then Fantastico will be your best friend. It does all of this with just a few clicks of your mouse.
While Fantastico is already very 'fantastic', there is still a downside to it. Fantastico has a big scripts library but it is slow is releasing new updates to their scripts. That means you may have WordPress 2.8 out for a few weeks but you can only install version 2.7 with it.
So what does BlueHost do? They developed SimpleScripts and you can have new versions available almost immediately after they are released! If WordPress 2.8 comes out today, you can install/upgrade it within 24 hours using SimpleScripts! Not only that you can install the newest version, they are even making a few versions available for you to choose from if you decided to use an older version. Fantastico only provides 1 version for each script.
A leader is always a leader and BlueHost will always the leader in the web hosting industry.
69 Video Tutorials!
BlueHost provides you with 69 high quality video tutorials that you can watch online! The video tutorials will teach you how to use CPanel, how to setup your email account, how to configure your email program, how to setup spam protection, how to FTP your files to them, how to use Fantastico, how to install Wordpress, etc. This will be very useful to you. You can watch the tutorials at tutorials.bluehost.com.
100 MySQL Databases Included
You can create up to 100 MySQL databases! Even if you do not have an idea what is a MySQL database or you do not plan to use it, it is still very important that you have as many of them as possible. This is because most free scripts, including most of them in Fantastico, require a MySQL database to function properly!
By having 100 MySQL databases, you can install as many scripts as you want through Fantastico! Since Fantastico currently has only 48 scripts, you will still have plenty of MySQL databases left after installing and trying out all of them!
Free Domain Name For Life
You will get a free domain name if you sign-up as a user for at least a 12 month plan. And this domain will be FREE FOR LIFE as long as you continue to host your website with them! If you choose to sign-up for 3 or 6 months only, you will need to pay $10 for a 1 year registration of your domain. If you have already registered your domain name somewhere else, transfer your domain name to BlueHost and get 1 year renewal for free. All you need to do is sign-up under 'Transfer Clients' and they will assist you in transferring your domain name. No coupon code or promo code is needed for this offer.
Even if you do not wish to transfer your domain name, you are still entitled to the FREE domain. Instead of signing up for your hosting account with the existing domain name, sign-up with a brand new domain name. Since you can host unlimited websites with the hosting account, you can then add your existing domain by utilizing one of the add-on domains. :)
Free Private Whois Service for Your Domain Name
Every domain that is registered requires for some contact information to be made available to the public. This is called the domain 'whois' information. This information allows others to contact the domain owner easily. However, marketing companies and spammers have abused the whois information by harvesting email addresses and making use of them. Although this is illegal, it still happens as it is hard to control.
One way to fight this is to have the information of a third party shown up in the whois information, like a 'trust'. So, in order to reach the real domain owner, they have to go through the 'trust' and if it is a legitimate contact, the 'trust' will then forward the message to the real owner. It protects your email address from SPAM.
Currently, BlueHost is waiving the fee on private whois service which usually cost $8.95/year! Now you can get that for free. You will still own the full rights of your domain name and have full control over it. If at any time you wish to change the whois information or the DNS settings, you can do it via the domain control panel.
Excellent Customer Support
Personally, customer support is always my first criteria for picking a web host, it comes before price, size and everything else. This is because I have had very bad experiences with some hosts that offer a lot in terms of price and size but were unable to solve simple issues.
The first thing I always do to test a web host is actually to mass-mail them with a lot of questions even before I buy! The host which deserves my money would be the host that will patiently reply to all my questions in a prompt and detailed manner. The most disgusting hosts are those which are unable to resolve simple issues for days, or are unable to keep track of the client's history and repeatedly request you to describe the same issue. Some even keep bouncing your requests between different departments.
So far, I have never been disappointed by BlueHost customer support. They are simple fast, effective and reliable. Please bear in mind many web hosts are outsourcing their customers support to a third party company or even outsource it offshore! This is where the nightmare comes from when you host with such host. These third party companies compete for businesses and charge a low fee to provide customer support service to the web host. You can imagine host good the customers service are when they are outsourced.
BlueHost first business priority is to provide the best customer support their clients. That's why they never outsource their customer support. All their customer support staff work directly inside their BlueHost office in Utah.
PHP 4 And PHP 5 Ready
If you are a PHP developer, you should already know that PHP has 2 major versions now, that's PHP 4 and the new PHP 5. PHP 5 is a big upgrade from PHP 4 with significant changes. Both versions cannot co-exist together in the same server. Thus many web host are still sticking to PHP 4 because they worry that upgrading to PHP 5 might affect some PHP 4 scripts. Although PHP 5 are made to be backward compatible with PHP 4, but the risk of pissing off customers that their scripts suddenly stop working doesn't justify the upgrade. This is a BIG challenge for all the web host and PHP developer.
The good news is that BlueHost has both PHP 4 servers and PHP 5 servers! Depending on the customer request, they can choose to host on a PHP 4 server or a PHP 5 server. Initially when you sign up, you will be place to a PHP 5 server. However, for any reason you need a PHP 4 server instead, you can email them and have you entire site moved to a PHP 4 server.
BlueHost's Promise to Our Visitors
I have been communicating with BlueHost's President Matt Heaton for a very long time now and I know he is very committed in giving the best to his customers. If there are any issues arising from our visitors, he has promised to give first priority to resolving them. So far, I have zero complaint that needs me to rectify on their behalf.
30 Day Money Back Guarantee and Prorated Refund after that!
Because they are so confident with their business, they are the ONLY web host that will give you a prorated refund if you choose to stop anytime! If you choose to cancel within 30 days for any reason, they will give you a FULL refund, if you cancel after the 30 days, you will get prorated refund depending on how many months left in your contract.
For example if you sign up for 24 months to lock in the discount price of $3.95 per month. You pay a total of $94.80. And you choose to cancel after using it for 6 months, you will get back 18 month of hosting fee, that is $71.10! They do really give a refund as I have tested it myself.
Because of this, hosting with BlueHost is risk free! I fully respect their way of doing business and I believe this will win the hearts of many customers.
Signup Process & Instant Account Activation
The one experience that I will never forget is BlueHost's signup process. I have signed up with more than 20 web hosts and all of them take the manual verification approach. What that means is that I will have to select a domain name, enter my billing information and click the 'submit' button. Then I will have to wait a few hours and even at times up to a few days before I can start using my account. This is because their billing team needs to verify and process my payment manually.
But with Blue Host, the experience is both refreshing and enlightening! As usual, I will have to pick a domain name, enter my billing info and click 'submit'. The next page contains a thank you note along with the 'Login to the Control Panel' button. This means my account is created instantly and I can start using it immediately! You can watch the sign up video I made to know what I am talking about!
You will get what you pay for instantly. You won't need to repeatedly check your inbox and wonder when your account will be created. You will also receive your 'welcome email' immediately. It contains a lot of precious information about your hosting account. However, my welcome email was delivered to my JUNK mail folder. So you might want to check that folder too if it doesn't show up in your inbox. :)
Secret $108/$72/$36 Off Coupon Code ($3.95 $6.95/month)
So finally, the most important question, how do you magically turn $6.95 into $3.95 when you are still seeing $6.95 at their website? The secret is not a 'coupon code', it is a special link given to us that will activate the offer. Every link that you use to visit BlueHost from my website will activate the discount. You will notice immediately from the screen that the price is slashed to $3.95 from $6.95!
| Order Type | Normal Price | OFF BY | You Pay! |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Month | $95.40 | $36 | $59.40 |
| 24 Month | $166.80 | $72 | $94.80 |
| 36 Month | $250.20 | $108 | $142.20 |
The promotion is temporary given to a small group of webmasters (including me) for them to test the market respond before they decide what to roll up in larger scale! Don't miss the opportunity! If you don't know how long to sign up for, I suggest 24 months because the discounted price of $94.80 is almost the same as the non discounted 12 month price ($95.40). So you are like getting an extra 12 months free.
http://www.bluehost.com
