Bluehost was founded in 2003 and has since grown to become one of the world’s largest providers of…
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Bluehost was founded in 2003 and has since grown to become one of the world’s largest providers of reliable and cheap web hosting.

Bluehost offers a range of products and services to help you get started with your website or online shop: from shared and WordPress hosting to website builder tools. They have a special focus on meeting the digital marketing and training needs of small businesses.

Their value-priced hosting packages come with unmetered bandwidth, free global CDN and SSL certificates, and free daily, weekly and monthly backups on a powerful and proven platform that is built to scale and optimized for speed and security. Their cheapest hosting plan is $3.95/mo, FROM HERE.

ENDORSED BY WORDPRESS

If you’re planning to create a website or blog, you’ll want to check out Bluehost because it’s one of only three hosting companies endorsed by WordPress.

Their cheapest shared hosting plan for a single domain costs only a few dollars a month. For a little bit more money, you can add unlimited domains and subdomains.

But Bluehost isn’t solely for beginners. They are staunch supporters of the Open Source community and they provide advanced developer tools like SSH Access, FTP, and a fully-customized Linux kernel.

Their corporate vision is to create “a better safer web for everyone.” Bluehost supports this vision by investing in open source projects, promoting web civility, and making their service easy for people of all ages to use.

Why is it the most popular?

Founded in 2003 in Utah, BlueHost powers more than 2M websites and employs over 750 people. It hasn’t stopped growing since they first started. EIG, a company who owns many more web hosting services, decided to buy it in 2010 — and many say this was when things started going south.

Ease of use

Bluehost offers cPanel-based solutions with a lot of common features (e.g., FTP accounts, a file manager, email accounts and PHPMyAdmin).

You can even enable CloudFlare (a popular CDN) easily with bluehost.

Bluehost’s backend is intuitive and easy to use, it’s a custom cPanel version.

– Hosting features

There are many features you should take into account while checking out a hosting provider. But in my experience these are the most relevant for shared hosting:

Storage — How much space you’ll need?

This is always an essential factor to take into account. You’ll need to choose a hosting plan with enough storage for your project(s), and a little bit extra.

Bluehost

Entry level plan

50GB

Middle plan

Unlimited

Higher plan

Unlimited

SSL & HTTP/2

To enhance security and improve your SEO rankings, having an SSL enabled (https) and running your site over HTTP/2 is a great help. So hosting providers that offer these out-of-the-box, are one step ahead of their competitors.

And Bluehost offers free SSL (via Let’s Encrypt) and HTTP/2.

Bluehost’s pricing page: the promotional price is highlighted here too

· Basic for $8.99 a month: Host 1 website, 50GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth.

· Plus for $11.99 a month: Unlimited websites, unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth.

· Choice Plus for $16.99 a month: Same as the Plus plan with the advanced backup solution.

· Pro for $26.99 a month: Same as Choice Plus and dedicated IP.

ONE-STOP-SHOP FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Digital marketing services can easily cost five figures per project. There’s plenty of false and outdated information on the web about marketing tactics you should use. Add to the mix the numerous solicitations that small business owners receive and the result can be frustration and lack of progress.

Affordable Results

The good news is that some critical digital marketing services can be commoditized and delivered at bargain costs. That’s a core part of Bluehost’s strategy.

These are some of their services:

· Websites: You can use their easy DIY site builder to create your own or you can get their design pros to build a site for you.

· SEO, advertising, social media marketing, and local business visibility: Bluehost provides professional marketing services, including creating content for your site. You can get monthly consultations with a marketing professional. And they measure progress so you can see your ROI.

· Domains, email, and helpful tutorials: Including how-tos on website management, hosting, and marketing topics.

Additionally, Bluehost boasts of excellent uptime, a clean intuitive control panel (called cPanel) that allows you to create attractive and functional pages for your business.

So, if you have a business website, or need one, Bluehost is a solid web host that’s worth checking out.

Looking for a great hosting deal? You can currently save up to 65% on Bluehost plans. Use our Special discount link to get this deal. Includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.

HOSTING TYPES, FEATURES, AND PLANS

The company provides you with more than what you can normally expect from bargain-priced hosting plans.

Here are the top Bluehost features:

1. Easy-to-use, customized cPanel

2. Dozens of site tool add-ons

3. Free site builders

4. Free domain-specific email addresses

5. 99.99% uptime

6. Technology to support fast page load times

7. Cloudflare integration (speeds your site loading)

8. Free SSL certificate

9. Above-average security features.

10. BLUEHOST SHARED HOSTING COMPARISON

Regular Price

$8.99/mo

$11.99/mo

$16.99/mo

$26.99/mo

Discounted Price

$3.95/mo

$5.95/mo

$6.95/mo

$13.95/mo

Looking for a great hosting deal? Our readers can currently save up to 65% on Bluehost plans. Use our special discount link to get the deal. Remember: Your package includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.

EXTENSIVE ONLINE SUPPORT MATERIALS

But whatever the case, we believe Bluehost more than makes up for its shortcomings with a very helpful user support portal. This portal includes a wide range of how-to-guides, video tutorials, FAQs, and articles on a wide array of web hosting topics.

This extensive knowledge base can be used as a reference to solve a wide range of possible issues that users may experience. Therefore, you’ll not even need to take your questions/issues to Bluehost’s customer support staff.

CONTACTING THE CORRECT BLUEHOST TEAM

One way to ensure that you get the fastest possible response is to contact the correct Bluehost team from the get-go.

· The Sales team helps those with general inquiries, potential customers, as well as customers new to Bluehost.

· The Technical Support team is who you want to talk to if you have any support-related questions.

· The Account Management team handles inquiries related to billing, the terms of service, and account verifications.

MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. It’s vital that you read all terms and conditions because this is not straightforward. When you first sign up, you’ll get a promotional hosting price. But the promotional price only applies to the first term. Then it changes back to the regular pricing.

NO QUESTIONS ASKED

If you cancel within 30 days of joining, you get a 100% refund. If, however, you decide to cancel after that, you’ll only receive a pro-rata rate for what’s left on the term.

The money-back-guarantee only applies to the hosting plans. It does not cover most add-on products, including domains (see below).

Your account has no terms that you commit to following. There are no other penalties or hidden costs if you need to cancel your plan early.

DOMAIN FEES ARE NOT REFUNDABLE

You may get a free domain name with your hosting. If you cancel the hosting, you’ll be charged for it. But you will still own the domain name and be able to do with it as you please. After the obligatory lockdown period, you can transfer it. It remains yours as long as you keep renewing it.

There are no term commitments associated with your Bluehost account. There are no hidden fees or penalties for ending your term early should you elect to do so.

BLUEHOST EXTRAS AND ADD-ONS

Bluehost has several extras. These include:

· $150 worth of credits that you can use for Google Adwords, or Bing/Yahoo advertising.

· Free domain name registration or transfer. This offer allows you to pick from 15 different domain extensions include .COM, .ORG, and .NET.

· Free new drag-and-drop site builder.

· No charges when it comes to upgrading to a better plan mid-contract. (With other host companies, you’ll normally have to pay the difference between the current plan and the new one you want to upgrade to.)

· A few security and management features such as anti-spam filter, shared SSL, and CDN services which are rare to most hosting companies come standard with Bluehost.

WHAT DOES “UNLIMITED” REALLY MEAN?

Bluehost’s policy indicates that the company does not enforce any usage restrictions on plans and packages featuring unlimited websites, domains, and/or email accounts and that customers are free to utilize these features as desired.

However…

Customers must be operating within the Terms of Service set out by Bluehost. The company claims that those who do not abide by the Terms of Service will come up against limits for some of these features.

Translation: there is the potential for some users to exceed the unstated scope of “unlimited,” and they may need to opt for a bigger and more expensive plan depending on how they are using their plan and what they are using it for.

WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS?

Before selecting any hosting provider, do your due diligence to make sure you’re getting the best possible deal to suit your needs. So, is Bluehost any good?

PROS

· Over 2,000,000 sites worldwide are hosted by Bluehost so the company is obviously doing something right

· Offers a wide range of web hosting options

· Easy to upgrade your plan to VPS or dedicated server without having to move your website

· Offers free anti-spam solutions built right in cPanel

· Provides you with integrated Cloudflare support

· Includes several security features such as unique IPs, SSL, & SiteLock protection

· Allows a 30-day (no questions asked) money-back-guarantee for all hosting plans

· 99% uptime guarantee.

CONS

· Does not offer month-to-month shared hosting options

· A few users have complained that tech support wait times are long and that the staff does not give customers much personal attention

· Charges a fee to have your site migrated from a different hosting company to Bluehost. Most hosting companies offer this service at no cost

· Bluehost only offer servers in Linux, Windows hosting is not available

You must do your own daily backups for full security

WHO OWNS BLUEHOST?

One of the 20 biggest hosting companies in the world, Bluehost was founded in 2003. Since 2010, it has been owned by Endurance International Group (EIG). EIG also owns Arvixe, A Small Orange, Bluehost, Dotster, iPage, HostGator to name just a few of its web hosts.

WHAT ARE BLUEHOST NAMESERVERS?

In order to change your web hosts, you must change the nameservers for your website to point to your new host. To manage your domain (not registered with Bluehost) you need to use Bluehost’s name servers. Change your nameservers to: ns1.Bluehost.com and ns2.Bluehost.com.

WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT DO YOU GET?

Bluehost support is available via live chat, toll-free phone calls, as well as email. These are all available 24/7. They provide customer service only in English so if you prefer a different language, you should look for a different host.

CAN YOU REGISTER DOMAIN NAMES WITH BLUEHOST?

You can buy domains from Bluehost through your account dashboard. Domain Who is privacy is also available for a small yearly cost. Also, you can get one free domain name registration for one year with all of their hosting plans. (If you cancel your hosting, you will be charged for it.)

CAN YOU AUTOMATICALLY INSTALL WORDPRESS?

WordPress can easily be installed for free with the MOJO marketplace. There is a range of other web applications that you can one-click-install, such as Joomla, Drupal, Magento, PrestaShop to name just a few. If you opt for Bluehost’s Optimized WordPress hosting, WordPress will already be installed for you.

WHICH BLUEHOST PLAN IS BEST FOR WORDPRESS?

Bluehost offers three different WordPress plans. The cheapest is the regular WordPress shared hosting plan. This will work fine for most people. They also offer WP Pro, managed WordPress hosting for demanding users. And for e-commerce stores, they offer WooCommerce plans.

Bluehost is dedicated to WordPress. They are an official host recommended by WordPress.org. They host over 1 million WordPress websites, support full-time WordPress Core developers on staff, and sponsor WordPress WordCamps worldwide.

Summary

Bluehost makes it easy and quick to get a website up and running, has an easy-to-use cPanel interface that’s ideal for beginners, features a wide array of great features, is generally fast, has reliable servers, and has some pleasantly surprising security features for a budget-friendly web host.

Bandwidth: Unlimited

Thank you for reading.