BlueHost Review. The Best Web Hosting Platform?
In this article, I’ll be going over this world-class website hosting company and stick in as much relevant information as possible.
I’ll go over the features, the pricing options, and anything else I can think of that I think might be of benefit, if you’re deciding to sign up to Bluhost and get your websites up and running.
So without further ado, let’s check it out.
Bluehost is one of the biggest web hosting companies in the world, getting both massive marketing support from the company itself and affiliate marketers who promote it.
It really is a massive company, that has been around for a very long time, has a big reputation, and is definitely one of the top choices when it comes to web hosting (definitely within the top 3, at least in my book).
But what is it exactly, and should you get its services?
Today, I will answer all there is you need to know, provided that you are a blogger or an entrepreneur who is looking for a web host, and doesn’t know where to get started, since it’s a great solution for that audience in general.
By the end of this Bluehost review, you should be able to decide if this company has the services that you need, or if there might be something else out there that could be better.
Table Of Content
What Is Bluehost?
Bluehost is a web hosting service provider. It provides hosting for your sites.
Let’s imagine, you want to host your sites and make them visible. Okay?
You already have your domain name (which is your site destination or URL) but now you want to “turn the lights on”.
You need some hosting.
To accomplish all of this, and to make your website visible, you need what is called a “server”. A server is a black box, or device, that stores all your website data (files such as images, texts, videos, links, plugins, and other information).
Now, this server, has to be on all the time and it has to be connected to the internet 100% of the time (I’ll be mentioning something called “downtime” later on).
In addition, it also needs (without getting too fancy and into details) a file transfer protocol commonly known as FTP, so it can show web browsers your website in its intended form.
All these things are either expensive, or require a high level of technical skill (or both), to create and maintain. And you can totally go out there and learn these things on your own and set them up…but what about instead of you buying and maintaining one…why not just “renting hosting” instead?
This is where Bluehost comes in. Your rent their servers (called Shared Hosting) and you launch a website using those servers.
Since Bluehost keeps all your files, the company also allows you to set up your content management systems (CMS, for short) such as WordPress for you. WordPress is a super popular CMS…so it just makes sense to have that option available (almost every hosting company now has this option too).
In short, you no longer need to set-up a server and then integrate a software where you can build your content, separately. It is already rolled into one package.
Is it safe to have Bluehost take care of your websites?
Well… imagine if your server is in your house. If anything were to happen to it at all, all your files are gone. If something goes wrong with its internal processes, you need a technician to fix it. If something overheats, or breaks down or gets corrupted…that’s no good!
Bluehost takes all these hassles away, and takes care of everything technical: Pay your server “rent”, and they will take care of everything. And once you buy the service, you can then start focusing on adding content to your website, or you can put your effort into your marketing campaigns.
What Services Do You Get From Bluehost?
Bluehost offers a myriad of different services, but the primary one is hosting of course.
The hosting itself, is of different types by the way. You can rent a shared server, have a dedicated server, or also a virtual private server.
For the purpose of this Bluehost review, we will focus on hosting services and other services, that a blogger or an online entrepreneur would need, rather than go too deep into the rabbit hole and talk about the other services, that are targeted at more experienced folks.
- WordPress, WordPress PRO, and e-Commerce – these hosting services are the packages that allow you to host a website using WordPress and WooCommerce (the latter of which allows you to do e-commerce). After purchasing any of these packages, you can start building your website with WordPress as your CMS.
- Domain Marketplace– you can also buy your domain name from Bluehost instead of other domain registrars. Doing so will make it easier to point your domain name to your host’s name servers, since you’re using the same marketplace.
A domain name, like we mentioned, is your URL. It’s your website’s name and it differentiates it from the rest and makes it possible for the internet to identify which website is which. In my case, that is Bazaarofmarketing.com.
You can check to see if your domain name is available here.
- Email – once you have purchased your domain name, it makes sense to also get an email address tied to it. As a blogger or online entrepreneur, you should pretty much never use a free email service, like Yahoo! or Gmail. An email like this makes you look unprofessional. Fortunately, Bluehost gives you one for free with your domain.
Bluehost also offers dedicated servers.
And you may be asking…”What is a dedicated server anyway?”.
Well, the thing is, the basic web hosting packages of Bluehost can only so much traffic for your website, after which you’ll need to upgrade your hosting. The reason being is that the common servers, are shared.
What this means is that one server can be servicing two or more websites, at the same time, one of which can be yours.
What does this mean for you?
It means that the single server’s resources are shared, and it is doing multiple tasks at any given time. Once your website begins to hit 100,000 site visits each month, you are going to need a dedicated server which you can also get from Bluehost for a minimum of $79.99 per month.
This is not something yous should worry about when you’re starting out but you should keep it in mind for sure.
Bluehost Pricing: How Much Does It Cost?
In this Bluehost review, I’ll be focusing my attention mainly on the Bluehost WordPress Hosting packages, since it’s the most popular one, and very likely the one that you’re looking for and that will suit you the best (unless you’re a huge brand, company or site).
The three available plans, are as follows:
- Basic Plan – $2.95 per month / $7.99 regular price
- Plus Plan – $5.45 per month / $10.99 regular price
- Choice Plus Plan – $5.45 per month / $14.99 regular price
The first price you see is the price you pay upon sign up, and the second price is what the cost is, after the first year of being with the company.
So basically, Bluehost is going to charge you on an annual basis. And you can also choose the amount of years you want to host your site on them with.
If you choose the Basic plan, you will pay $2.95 x 12 = $35.40 starting today and by the time you enter your 13th month, you will now pay $7.99 per month, which is also charged per year. If that makes any sense.
If you are serious about your website, you should 100% get the three-year option. This means that for the basic plan, you will pay $2.95 x 36 months = $106.2.
By the time you hit your fourth year, that is the only time you will pay $7.99 per month. If you think about it, this approach will save you $120 in the course of three years. It’s not much, but it’s still something.
If you want to get more than one website (which I highly recommend, and if you’re serious, you’ll probably be getting more at some point in time) you’ll want to make use of the choice plus plan. It’ll allow you to host unlimited websites.
What Does Each Plan Offer?
So, in the case of WordPress hosting plans (which are similar to the shared hosting plans, but are more geared towards WordPress, which is what we’ll be focusing on) the features are as follows:
For the Basic plan, you get:
- One website only
- Secured website via SSL certificate
- Maximum of 50GB of storage
- Free domain for a year
- $200 marketing credit
Remember that the domains are purchased separately from the hosting. You can get a free domain with Bluehost here.
For both the Bluehost Plus hosting and Choice Plus, you get the following:
- Unlimited number of websites
- Free SSL Certificate
- No storage or bandwidth limit
- Free domain for one year
- $200 marketing credit
- 1 Office 365 Mailbox that is free for 30 days
The Choice Plus plan has an added benefit of Code Guard Basic Back-up, a back-up system where your file is saved and duplicated. If any crash happens and your website data disappears, you can restore it to its original form with this feature.
Notice that even though both plans cost the same, the Choice Plan then defaults to $14.99 per month, regular price, after the set amount of years you’ve chosen.
What Are The Benefits Of Using Bluehost
So, why choose Bluehost over other web hosting services? There are hundreds of web hosts, many of which are resellers, but Bluehost is one select few that have stood the test of time, and it’s probably the most well known out there (and for good reasons).
Here are the three main benefits of choosing Bluehost as your web hosting service provider:
- Server uptime – your website will not be visible if your host is down; Bluehost has more than 99% uptime. This is extremely important when it comes to Google SEO and rankings. The higher the better.
- Bluehost speed – how your server response determines how fast your website shows on a browser; Bluehost is lighting fast, which means you will reduce your bounce rate. Albeit not the best when it comes to loading speed it’s still hugely important to have a fast speed, to make user experience better and better your ranking.
- Unlimited storage – if you get the Plus plan, you need not worry about how many files you store such as videos—your storage capacity is unlimited. This is really important, because you’ll probably run into some storage issues later on down the tracks, and you don’t want this to be a hassle…ever.
Lastly, customer support is 24/7, which means no matter where you are in the world, you can contact the support team to fix your website issues. Pretty standard nowadays, but we’re taking this for granted…it’s also very important.
What Are The Drawbacks Of Using Bluehost?
As with every product and service out there, there is always something that can be considered “disadvantages”. No product/service is perfect.
Keep in mind that these are my own opinions on the matter, so do take them with a grain of salt. With that said, I found mainly 2 things that bothered me a bit.
Renewal rates, are pretty steep.
Even though this is common with hosting companies…Bluehost I think, pushes it a bit.
When your yearly plan is over (depending on how many months you’ve purchased) the cost for renewals are…pretty expensive.
You’re going from the aforementioned $5.54/month (which is only available on the 36 month plan) to over double after the period is done. That is pretty expensive.
Site migrations are paid.
Unfortunately, migrating sites that you’ve gotten to host elsewhere, costs a one time fee of $149.99, which is pretty expensive. This allows you to migrate up to five websites, 20 emails and all of the other files.
So even though Bluehost does say that the process is stress-free, the mere fact of having to pay that amount, to have your websites sent over…is kind of irritating, to be honest. Especially since a lot of the other website hosters out there, will be happy to migrate them over for free.
What Is The Refund Policy?
There is a 30 day money back guarantee, in which you can test out the hosting services, and see if it’s something that floats your boat, so to speak.
BUT…
You’re only allowed to ask for a refund, on hosting plans. This means that if you decide to buy a domain or other add-ons, those can’t get refunded.
Also, if you’ve gotten a free domain with them, then there will be a $15.99 fee that will be deducted from the amount you originally purchased (I imagine this is because it kind of takes the “domain out of the market”, not sure about this, but there probably is a hard-cost for registering it).
Lastly, any requests after 30 days for a refund…are void (although in all honesty…they should probably be strict here).
So as you see, this isn’t necessarily a “no questions asked” policy, like with some of the other hosting options out there, so be sure you’re okay with the policies before continuing with the hosting.
Get A Free Domain
If you’re interested in starting your own website using Bluehost, you can get yourself a FREE domain, here?
Alternatively, you can click on any one of the buttons on this page, which should take you over to it.
Conclusion
So, is Bluehost the best web hosting platform? Well, it’s definitely one of the top 3 web hosting platforms in the world, for sure.
Bluehost has been around for many years. It has advanced systems that support blogs and online stores. If you use Bluehost, the effectiveness of your hosting service is the least of your worries.
With Bluehost, you can focus on optimizing your ads or creating your content to be able to sell, instead of having to tinker your website to make it faster.
The Bluehost service is also affordable—much more affordable than paying for hosting services of WordPress.Com or building a website from scratch in Shopify. If what you want is a dependable hosting platform, then Bluehost is something that I definitely recommend.
If you’re not convinced about the BlueHost program however, you can also check out this Bluehost alternative here. It another great option.
