WordPress hosting - who to use ?

[Annette Curtain]

I'm looking into WordPress hosting and wonder who to use

Any useful/stupid advice greatly accepted

Cheers

AC

[Burbage]

It depends on what stage things are at. Is this something you're starting, or something that's outgrown ordinary shared hosting?

If you're starting out, then there's a bunch of choice, with lots of cheap deals and the suchlike. The bigger players, like 1and1, GoDaddy etc get a lot of complaints, but that's because they've a lot more customers, and most of the time everything goes fine. If you're willing to spring ?5 a month, I'd suggest United Hosting, who have good support and haven't let anyone I know down yet, or HostNine or, for that matter, my own dear self, who resells a modest bit of hosting from time to time. Some of them have built-in, ready-installed versions of wordpress, which I avoid like the plague - I suspect some of them are a bit customised, and it might not be as easy to move them to another hosting company as it should be, though I've no evidence for that, except for being old enough to remember the days when tricks like that were de rigeur.

Most problems arise when people try to swich provider later on (either they need better hosting, forget to pay a bill or the company fouls up). To guard against getting stuck, you want your eggs in different baskets, so most folk tend to register their domain name with one company (123-reg, for example, who are good at that but, like most domain name outfits, have rubbish hosting), get hosting with another, and put the email through Google. That means if you get annoyed with one aspect of the operation, you can switch about with ease, without having to do everything at once.

If you're beyond that, and are looking to shift an existing set-up to a host with more bandwidth, more space and/or better optimisation, then that's a different, and often pricey, game. If that's the case, then I may be able to put you in touch with the proprietors of some stupidly busy blogs, who should give you some pointers (though it usually ends up either with Wordpress' VIP hosting or a dedicated server somewhere, either of which cost a few hundred a month without breakfast).

[????]

Always use protection and don,t feel you have to do something you wouldn't want to with your normal partner. Hope that helps.

[mima08]

Hiya - I've been using bluehost.com, found it very usable, easy and great customer service: no question too stupid for their live chat team :)