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Watch over the course of Sunday, March 14 2010, as this article, the very first article published on Website In A Weekend, gets revised and updated. You can help with suggestions and comments.
Did this article appear in your RSS reader, and if so, which RSS reader are you using?
[Initially published February 7, 2009]
Finding a web hosting provider is the absolute first step for implementing your WordPress web site. You have two choices:
- Hosted: you allow someone else or a company administer all of the administrative details in return for giving up control of capability and being subject to the host’s business conditions.
- Self-hosted: you have a high degree of freedom (limited mostly by statute) to use your hosting account for whatever purpose you choose.
If you’re really serious about getting on the web, you’ve probably made the decision to use a self-hosted account. Since you’re here, you have also made the decision to use WordPress as your website technology.
Good choice.
Nearly all web site hosting providers now support WordPress, and most of these all have very easy-to-use installation scripts allowing to install your WordPress web site very quickly and easily.
There are many hosting services, including Siteground, GoDaddy, Dreamhost and Bluehost, but I like Bluehost well enough to give it an unqualified, 100% recommendation and to become a sales affiliate. Bluehost’s terms of service will not allow affiliates to provide any financial incentive, otherwise I would – personally – provide a money-back guarantee for your satisfaction. I feel Bluehost is that reputable. Since I can’t provide such guarantee, here’s both affiliate and non-affiliate links:
- Signup at Bluehost (Help support Website In A Weekend!)
- Signup at Bluehost (WIAW makes no commission).
Choose the link you feel most comfortable using.
You’re free to choose any other hosting service as well. If your choice of hosting services provides a cPanel administrative interface, that’s even better.
After you purchase hosting
Once you purchase hosting, you will get one or emails to:
- Confirm your purchase.
- Confirm your administrative username and password.
- Provide details for FTP accounts and other necessary services.
Save all of these emails! Label or tag them so that you can find them in the future. Print them out if you must, and put them into a folder or a binder.
Ready?
Great, let’s get started installing WordPress.
Would you like more? Send me a letter...
{ 8 comments }
In response to your question – yes, via RSS, Google Reader.
I have found learning about hosting to be the most frustrating part of the deal for me. So many people have worked their way to the top of the google search rankings with hosting “reviews” that are really just a pile of affiliate links. How the heck do you get unbiased information? I am essentially satisfied with my host, but learning where to take the next step has been baffling.
On a related note – not all problems are the host’s fault. It’s taken a while to learn some of the ins and outs but, as one example, we provide a lot of professional photos (of hockey goalies) on our site….when we grew to 5000 page views our served crashed and then we were throttled. When the service guy explained how much bandwidth we were consuming I quickly understood the issue. Now we host our images elsewhere and have handled over 30,000 pageviews in a day with no trouble at all.
David Hutchison´s last blog ..SportMask Tour with Tony Priolo
David, thanks, you have no idea how helpful your note about Google Reader.
This article will likely not show up in my Google Reader as it’s already cached.
Since it’s *really* hard to get accurate information about Google Reader, I’m having to run some live experiment, using my wonderful Website In A Weekend readers as test subjects… but never mind that.
Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Atahualpa Theme – Pixel Perfection, No Inca Required
Got it too, again Google Reader. Interesting.
Anyways, I’m actually hosted by a friend; great system really since it leaves negotiation open at all times (should I need to) and I know really quickly if the site’s down.
Heather´s last blog ..Webcomic: The Mayans Day 2
I suspect if I republished this next week, you would not find it updated in Google reader. It’s buried 288 articles down in my feed.
Infuriating.
It was an engineering-level design decision made years ago, apparently in partial response to the behavior of a then-competing reader.
I wrote a huge rant on this, which is posted privately until I get a chance to figure out a way to make some positive points. That is, until my fury passes. Could be a while. =)
Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Antti Kokkonen – When it has to be done right
Hm… actually that is pretty annoying; at least if I’m reading you right. Republish is update isn’t it?
If so, that could get very wearing. Ah well, I’ll keep an eye out for your rant. You know, when it appears, eventually =P
Heather´s last blog ..Webcomic: The Mayans Day 2
I’m another Google Reader user and this post showed up there for me. I just wrote a long drawn-out comment that turned into a rant lol I get like that sometimes. I’ll spare you and your readers and start over.
I use HostGator and I have no problem with them but it’s cool that you give a 100% recommendation for Bluehost. We don’t see solid recommendations like that too often. <= There, much better lol
Brian D. Hawkins´s last blog ..Do Banner Advertisements Work On Blogs?
Brian, thanks for both the comment and “getting it out of your system!”
What I’m finding is that many people simply don’t understand the nature of the shared hosting business.
Frankly, even for shared hosting provider that aren’t all that “good,” the value they provide is pretty amazing.
I do have the ability to bring up a complete system, from source, on a Rackspace unit running a bare linux kernel, any flavor. At $15-$20 month for my traffic, that would seem a bargain.
But I don’t want to be a webmaster…
Coders I know locally sneer at all shared hosting, Media Temple included. But they typically work for companies with resources to handle it in house, or outsource cost effectively. A few have the chops to run their own, and do.
I came to Bluehost from Site Ground. I won’t speak ill of Site Ground, but I find a lot more value with Bluehost.
I have also heard very good things about Host Gator.
Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Don’t Abandon Your Blog! Mothball it to preserve your asset value
Google Reader… But most of the time I go directly here to see what’s the latest. Hosting? Uhmm… Google? LOL…This doesn’t make sense, the fact is free hosted. Anyway, everything will be self-hosted in DreamHost before this month ends… Hopefully…
Bert Padilla´s last blog ..Pacquiao–Clottey Replay Video another SEO Game
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