WordPress Hosting Compleat

WordPress hosting comes in a very wide variety of forms, from the totally roll-your-own-bedroom server, to a soup-to-nuts cloud-based service.

As soon as a blogger moves from hosted blogging platforms such as Blogger or Typepad to self-hosting, a wide range of choices for hosting services suddenly appears.

The paradox of choice, disconcerting.

Fortunately, if you’re just starting out, you almost cannot go wrong with a simple, inexpensive shared hosting service such as Bluehost or Hostgator.

We’re going to take a good look at shared hosting right away, and if you’re impatient, you can stop reading right there.

On the other hand, if you have been on shared hosting a while, and think it’s about time to step your game up, we’ll be taking a look at several other hosting options which will give you better performance.

Benefits

Here’s what you find in this article:

• Table breakdown for hosting alternatives.
• Range of pricing for various services.
• Recommendations for when to upgrade hosting.

Since you’re better looking, better educated and smarter than the average bear, I’m going light on the benefits of any particular hosting company or technology and dig further into the features.

Also, we’re going to poke around in a few dusty corners, and, we’re going to hang out on the sharp, bleeding edge of technology, out past WordPress.

Let’s take a look at shared hosting first. It’s the most common self-hosting solution, for good reason: it’s easy, inexpensive and very good value.

Shared hosting

Typically, most people’s first experience with self-hosting will be shared hosting. Shared hosting means all your files and data live on a machine with other website’s files and data.

That is, your website has roommates.

The first, and most important thing to understand about shared hosting is that all shared hosting services have similar technical strengths and weaknesses.

Sort of like having roommates; there’s certain things which are always true about having roommates. For example, no two roommates can occupy the same point in space at the same time.

Likewise, on a shared host, your web pages are going to be served in their own turn.

The primary differentiators between shared hosting services are 1. the competence of the technical staff, 2. standard services such as addon accounts, server space, etc. and 3. customer service.

It’s the difference between, say, a well-run cooperative, and a not-so-well run frat house.

Having really good technical staff matters because keeping an operating system and web hosting service secure and up to date requires diligence as well as intelligence.

This really matters when your roommates are slobs. I mean, when your hostmates are jerks and attract unwanted attacks from spammers, scammers, hackers and other elements of the internet underground.

When things go pear shaped (which will happen), the strength of customer service is what will keep customers. For example, long time readers of Website In A Weekend recall a 9 day distributed denial of service attack on the shared server. For whatever reason, one of the websites on that server was being targeted. Website In A Weekend was, as they say, collateral damage.

Bluehost was forthright during this period, and I even spoke with engineers a few times, which is very unusual. Their assertion was this was one of the worst DDOS attacks in several years. This level of customer service is why I’m still with Bluehost for many of my websites.

Bluehost

Bluehost is one of the best-known shared hosting services available. Your Bluehost account comes equipped with a huge amount of disk space, the cPanel interface for managing your account, the ability to addon domains (which can cost up to $35 per domain at other hosts, if they allow it at all).

Bluehost also invests in the open source infrastructure necessary to operate massive share hosting services. Over the years, Bluehost engineers have developed and released code for both the Linux kernel and the MySQL database. This is socially responsible. Without Linux and MySQL, Bluehost would not likely exist, and you would not likely be reading this.

If hosting with Bluehost has any caveats, it’s likely that they oversell their service. Likely, all shared hosting services do this. Normally, it doesn’t matter: most people use very little of their hosting resources. Overselling isn’t unique. Your university parking service almost surely oversells it’s permits with respect to parking spaces, and most of the time that doesn’t matter either. But overselling is something you need to know about and now you know about it.

Another thing to be aware of is that all shared hosting services get a lot of bad press from a very few disgruntled users. In one example (I don’t mention by name, you can find similar on any forum) someone’s website was booted from Bluehost. They claimed this hurt their business of serving 100,000 visitors monthly. However, if you looked up their website using Alexa and Compete (as I did), you might find their traffic numbers at 1/20th of that. 5000 users is a far cry from 100,000 users. Upshot, while this Bluehost was very angry and very loud, they were also full of crap.

Hostgator

Hostgator is almost as well known as Bluehost, and may have an even better reputation for customer service and uptime.

GoDaddy

I’m not linking to GoDaddy for two reasons. First, I don’t have an affiliate relationship with GoDaddy, because of the second reason: GoDaddy doesn’t have the best reputation. Here’s what Srinivas Rao has to say about GoDaddy:

GoDaddy makes me feel like the Jack Bauer of blogging. I feel like I’m constantly under a terrorist attack, and my sites are on the verge of disaster. After a few too many days like this, I knew it was time for a change.

On the other hand, Gabe Young of Free Blog Help reports:

GoDaddy has provided me with excellent customer support time and time again. Most recently, not only was I able to get my sites back up and running after a malicious attack on my server but they also walked me through the recovery process step-by-step.

Read more about Gabe’s adventure in I’m back! Thanks Danica GoDaddy!

If you’re using GoDaddy and have a story good or bad to tell, I’d love to hear it.

There are many other shared hosting services. I still have two Siteground accounts which are dormant. At some point I need to set up a WordPress site on each to collect some longevity on domain names I own. Just a few solid pages of content each, with appropriate links, will also provide some SEO benefit in the long term.

There’s one more huge advantage to shared hosting: easy administration of your accounts with web-based tools such as cPanel and Plesk.

Now, you don’t have access to the system, but within your little playpen, you’re generally free to go hog wild.

Cloud hosting

Computers in the cloud? What means?

Think about it this way: you’re a growing business, and sometimes you need some temporary or contract help. You don’t want to purchase your own building because you’re going to outgrow it anyway.

Furthermore, you need a place where everything Just Works. That is, the janitorial service is provided.

Solution: you rent the space you need in an office building.

Cloud hosting is like that.

Instead of worrying about computers, roommates, all that jazz, the hosting company assigns you a certain amount of memory, disk space and bandwidth, and you’re on your own.

In an office building, furnish it as you want. Do it yourself or hire it out.

In cloud hosting, build your own servers (compile from source), or hire a contractor do grunt for you.

One big difference between physical office space and the cloud is that your office can’t physically grow to accomodate an instant riot.

But a well-run cloud service can. Triple your web traffic between 11:57 and 12:01? No problem. You will see the extra cycle show up on your invoice. Easy peasy.

[image Giants parade from http://www.sacmidtown.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/parade1.jpg]

Another benefit of some cloud services is having backup and storage close by. If you run a VPS or collocated machine, you might backups a bit more difficult.

Not all cloud hosting services are operated the same way. Let’s check out a few, and dig into some details.

Rackspace

Rackspace provides you with bare hardware and a selection of operating systems.

You read that correctly.

Before you can use a Rackspace server, you’re going to have to install an operating system, then install the web server, the database server and any other software you might need. Want to run WordPress? You’ll have to install PHP as well.

Clearly, not a task for the complete amateur.

However, if you know your way around a Linux system, Rackspace is a beautiful thing.

Rackspace offers industrial grade hosting, and when your site gets a lot of traffic, especially traffic spikes, hosting on Rackspace makes sense.

It’s also a pay-as-you-go system. You pay according to how much storage, memory and bandwidth you use.

Here’s a few more benefits:

• Total control: you are free to operate your hosting account any way you please, within the bounds of the law.

• If you want to run experimental, heavyweight or uncommon servers, this kind of hosting makes it easy. For example, setting up Django (a Python-based web application framework) is non-trivial on Bluehost. Same with Ruby on Rails. But if you want to run Yaws or node.js, hosting such servers on Rackspace is as easy as hosting on your Macbook.

• Control panel: for system level operations, Rackspace provides a control panel. Need to change domain name servers to Rackspace? Adding your A, CNAME and MX records is easy. Same with memory or storage, add to your system with the push of a button.

• Get some notes from the Cloud Server web pages. Note that Rackspace has this trademarked as well.

Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Computing) is one of the earliest and best known
cloud services. EC2 is part of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) family of products. Readers following Big Time Internet Marketers (BTIMs) are likely familiar with Amazon’s S3 storage, always a popular choice for delivering marketing videos.

So what does Amazon have for us?

Mediatemple

Mediatemple pitches it’s cloud service as “(gs) Grid Solution.” From the MediaTemple website:

(gs) is a cluster-based, modern hosting service powered by hundreds of servers working in tandem to power your websites, applications and email with unrivaled power, burstability and reliability.

As it turns out, Rackspace has some serious trademark action going on with the whole “cloud” hosting thing. So. Whatever. Grid Solution.

Six of one, half dozen the other.

However, for a little more money, MediaTemple might offer you most of the advantages of a Rackspace Cloud Server… without having wear the propeller beanie.

Features:

• git. Makes everything super easy to deploy. I’ve talked about git before, right? No? Count on me talking a lot about in the future.

• Low cost: about $20 per month, which is a pretty good deal considering the convenience of having push button installation and maintenance.
  Rackspace is half that, your savings, of course, a result of the decade you spent learning Unix systems administration…

• Domain registrar: you can buy your domain names right there, right now, and have them hosted immediately. No need to wait on those darn name servers to propagate silly zone files. Handy.

• Nice control panel:

• Active forums.

• Offers Django and Rails “grid containers” through the administration interface. (This is good and bad.) As WordPress people, we may not be interested in these frameworks. Yet.

• Sends out a handy email about downtimes, etc.

Many, many others

The cloud hosting business is growing very, very quickly. For example, Heroku, a company specializing in Ruby on Rails hosting, just sold itself to Salesforce.com for $212 million dollars. Not bad.

EngineYard and SliceHost are great companies for cloud or grid hosting. Compare their offerings with Rackspace, MediaTemple and Amazon, choose accordingly.

Cloud hosting recommendations for you

• If you need bigger faster, and you can handle a little bit of tech, go with MediaTemple.

• If you’re primarily going to run WordPress, go with MediaTemple. (I have a network of sites planned for the future, and they’re most likely going on MediaTemple.)

• If you’re comfortable banging around a virgin Linux system, go with Rackspace or Amazon. If you want to move to the cutting edge of blogging: Rackspace.

• If you have a team of propeller heads and they advocate Amazon, I’d be inclined to listen to them.

Dedicated hosting

As usual, there are several business models which can be grouped under the rubric “dedicated hosting,” and there is overlap between them. Here are some useful working definitions.

• Virtual Private Server (VPS): The hosting company has lots of computers, and lets you rent one for your own use.

• Colocated server: You have your own server, but you don’t want to run a $300 per month fast internet line into your spare bedroom. Instead, you tote your server down to the collocation facility, they plug it in and charge you for electricity and bandwidth.

• Application-specific server: You get a server (or part of a server) which only runs one thing, for example, WordPress.

Virtual Private Server (VPS)

Typically, a virtual private server is a machine owned by the hosting company, which is rented exclusively to you.

Colocated

Colocated hosting means you own your own computer, but it sits in someone else’s closet to leverage their big fat internet pipe. As it turns out, I have an inside track on colocated hosting: my colleague Erica Douglass started, built then sold Simpli Hosting for a tidy profit. However, unless you’re a real web server and network guru, this is probably not your best bet. Here’s Erica’s opinion, in her own words:

We offered this service at Simpli Hosting, but I wouldn’t recommend it for most customers. The issue is that if your server goes down, you have to drive to the datacenter and fix it. I’ve built hundreds of my own PCs and servers, but even I don’t want to drive to the datacenter to fix my server.

Also, if your server has a hardware failure, you will need to have replacement parts on site to fix it yourself.

For most people, I would recommend a managed VPS (when you’re getting started) or a managed dedicated server. In both cases, the hosting company should fix issues as they arise. I’ve had great success with ServInt for my hosting*.

As a blogger, you probably won’t find a business case for colocation any time soon. But if you do strike it really big, you might find that Rackspace or Amazon EC2 hosting becomes surprisingly expensive, surprisingly quickly. If your plans include World Domination (TM), you might want to keep running your own datacenter in mind, however far in the future that may be.

Application specific hosting

Using an application specific host is almost, but not quite that the same as being hosted. The big difference is that you’re limited to, say, a single WordPress installation, but what you do with it is your business. Make money, lose money, whatever.

Typically, hosts offering application-specific hosting focus on less than a dozen web applications (WordPress, Joomla, etc.), and provide really fast and very secure hosting. They won’t let you poke around in the system, your disk space will be constrained (you will have plenty for reasonable use), and if your bandwidth gets excessive, you will be billed for it. But they’re liable to pick up the telephone when you have a problem.

These services typically run between $20-$80 per month, depending on the amount of bandwidth your server uses.

Some application-specific hosts may offer free hosting. For example, Heroku offers free hosting for low traffic Ruby on Rails applications. There may be services for WordPress, check into it.

Hybrid hosting

With the advent of cloud and grid technology comes another hosting model, which we can refer to as “hybrid.”

One way this model works is that you, the customer, purchase server space from a hosting provider. The hosting provider in turn sets up your server on a cloud service such as Rackspace, and turns over limited management to you.

The benefit to you is vastly reduced maintenance for essentially the same service, including the ability to handle traffic spikes. The hosting company makes a fair chunk of money from very low traffic websites.

One well-known company in the San Francisco Bay Area, Laughing Squid, has been tremendously successful with a hybrid model. Laughing Squid is a sort of “cash and carry” host. You get one domain per account. You pay $8 monthly. In turn, they focus on providing uptime and customer service.

Summary Table (under development)

Some examples:

• Amplify – WordPress MU installation.

Planning for growth

Smart bloggers and other website operators will plan for growth in advance. Planning for growth means:

1. Anticipating future increases in periodic costs such as monthly hosting fees.

2. Budgeting the expense of moving the website seemlessly from one host to another.

3. Scheduling the move well in advance.

4. Planning the move in enough detail to meet the schedule, while allowing for the usual unforeseen issues which invariably pop up during moves.

Developing your business case for hosting

If you’re new to self-hosting, you’re likely going to be susceptible to all the usual sales tactics. You may already have purchased less-than-optimal hosting.

That’s ok, it’s a learning experience.

Here’s some good news: hosting is becoming a commodity service. Most hosting companies have far more in common than in difference. You can immunize yourself against sales pages by simply running the numbers. Compare the cost versus the features you need. You might find that an initially more expensive host is more cost-effective in the long term.

Conclusion

In the end, choosing your hosting comes down to 1. the business case, and 2. personal preference.

For example, Rackspace provides me with an inexpensive about $11 per month) solution for Ubuntu Linux, an operating system I feel perfectly at home with. All other things equal, I’ll choose Rackspace.

If running sudo on a command line isn’t your thing, you might be more comfortable using Mediatemple’s grid, which has a more novice friendly user interface.

Both cost about the same for the same level of traffic.

The Rackspace server will probably cost a bit more in maintenance time. The user is, after all, responsible not just for WordPress, but for the whole system. However, on Ubuntu, this isn’t that big of a deal.

Why this matters to you

The only constant in technology is change, and the change has been accelerating for years. That is, changes are happening faster and faster.

Changes in how we host websites are inevitable.

Changes in web publishing platforms (blogging) are inevitable. WordPress is the hot thing right now, who knows what will be hot in 5 or 10 years?

Here’s what I think we count on:

• Content and relationship marketing aren’t going away. If anything, they will grow in importance.

• HTML markup knowledge is going to be considered a core skill, like writing and doing arithmetic. Other markup is going to increase in importance.

• Web servers will be faster, and probably easier to install and operate.

• Shared hosting is probably going to go to the cloud. That is, hybrid models are going to become far more common. At some point, it might make a lot more sense for Bluehost, Hostgator, etc. to not run their own servers in favor of renting time on a cloud service.

• Technology you probably haven’t heard of, you’re going to have to learn. Next up is very likely distributed collaboration. This is not passing MS Word files around! Google Docs is a good place to start.

• Further in the future (I’m going way out), hosting may well come right back to you. We’ve had super-small webservers embedded in microelectronic devices for close to (if not more than) 10 years. If you have a bunch of apps on your smart phone, it’s likely one or more of those apps also has a webserver. There’s no reason not to push hosting back to your office in the future. This is less a technology problem than a political problem, although the technology to do this easily and securely is still a few years away.

Your role and responsibility

Let’s divide ourselves into 3 groups:

1. Do not want to operate any of this technology.

2. Willing to operate some of this technology as necessary.

3. Willing to hump the learning curve to operate whatever necessary.

In Case 1, you’re operating all of the technology at about the level of Microsoft Word. This isn’t a bad thing. However, you have another decision to make: Are you willing to learn enough about your information infrastructure to make intelligent business decisions? Sometimes, MS Word isn’t the right tool. Likewise, WordPress might be the right tool now, but not in the future.

Or are you willing to trust in others to make those decisions for you? This is your call. Nobody can decide for you.

Action: stay abreast of the technology

by reading whitepapers and attending business-oriented technical conferences.

Case 2 requires digging a little a deeper, but you have decide at what level you stop digging. Technology is usually displayed as a “stack,” where technology at the bottom of the stack supports technology above. For example, you might want to learn how to design websites, which require being served by a webserver. But it’s not necessary for you to learn how to operate a webserver. (But it would’t hurt either.)

Action: It’s probably smart to dig into

HTML and CSS at a bare minimum, followed by learning a collaboration tool such as git. PHP and MySQL would come next.

Case 3: Down the rabbit hole we go. Let’s pick on PHP and MySQL, which provide technology to solve a specific suite of problems. As usual, there are other ways to solve these same problems, some of which are much better. Suppose you invested heavily in PHP… but now, newer, far faster webservers don’t support PHP very well? What then?

Email me. I’m going places, and it’s

fun to have some company along the way. WordPress is far from reaching the extent of it’s market, but it is pushing the technology way out beyond it’s design. Something will have to give at some point. Currently I’m deep in Rails, node.js and dabbling a bit with Yaws, a webserver written in Erlang to exploit concurrency (website go fast. very fast). Blogging applications exist for each. Is one of them the future? If not, then something like them.

* Affiliate link for Erica Douglass.