Cheap Web Hosting Blog

A couple of years ago I heard good stories about this host and always thought about recommending them but then came the first day of researching this host….

It was a couple of days prior to the writing of this post that I googled whether I could find any negative stories about Hostmonster (“Hostmonster sucks”). One of the first stories that caught my eye was this thread by someone who says he is leaving Dreamhost for Hostmonster. Read through this thread. Not everything this guy says is objective or even well informed but you really get the impression that Dreamhost messed up. The fact that Dreamhost is not necessarily brilliant at it’s core business (hosting websites) occured to me earlier when I did a search for “Dreamhost” and found the “Anatomy of an ongoing disaster“. It makes for an interesting read to say the least. This was not a disaster. Dreamhost’s failure to prevent multiple downtimes over extended periods equates to a nuclear fallout in the web hosting industry. What finally prompted me to warn people about Dreamhost is my classic “Dreamhost sucks” query. Now what do we see when we run one of those on a good host? Very few relevant results. A relevant result is when you see your queries highlighted in the main page title and then the description below the title.

Now, the Dreamhost sucks query returns numerous relevant results. Normally you hardly get 3 or 4 good search results on Google’s first page with any other host. “Dreamhost sucks” returns results up to the 4th page (>40 results in Google!). So if up to 40 different people felt the urge to voice their dismay about this web host you should really steer clear. I have to say that I won’t consider to give Dreamhost space on this site anytime soon. If changes for the better become evident I may rethink my decision. But for the time being Dreamhost continues to suck until further notice.

Good affordable Windows hosting is hard to come by. Recently I added Easy CGI to my affordable web hosting review directory.

If you are looking for Windows hosting plans that support .Net, ASP and all the other Microsoft goodies the following hosts will suit you:

Easy CGI:
Advanced – 1000GB transfer, 100GB storage, $7.96/month
Advanced X2 – 2000GB transfer, 200GB, $15.96/month
Advanced X2 – 4000GB transfer, 300GB, $21.56/month

Dedicated – 250GB transfer, 15GB storage, $43.96/month
Dedicated X2 – 450GB transfer, 20GB storage, $55.96/month
Dedicated X4 – 750GB transfer, 30GB storage, $95.96/month

Startlogic Windows plan:
Windows Logic – 1000GB transfer, 100GB space, $8.95/month

Lunarpages:
Windows Hosting Services – 400GB transfer, up to 5000GB, $9.95/month

Yesterday another member at Bluehost asked me to test their download/site speed by downloading a 15 mb .wma file from his site. The download achieved an average speed of 140 kb/s (kilo byte per second) which is quite fast. My Internet connection is a 6 Mbit DSL line so it may be slower for other users with lower bandwidth deals.

For more info on bluehost’s speed and all other features please read my bluehost review or go to bluehost directly.

Crazy Egg is a revolutionary new web stats software that allows its users to track various aspects of your site and offers a wholly new visualisation of the traffic on your website. Lunarpages customers get a free trial of Crazy eggs web stats. Here is what you can do with crazy egg.

Create a test setup:

Lists – An overview of the all the clicks on your site

Heatmap – Where are your visitors clicking? Take a look at the heatmap.

Overlay – An exact overview of clicks and percentages of total clicks and where they occur on your site.

Blocking – Block your own IP and localhost

Automatic Archiving

RSS and email notifications – you can keep yourself updated about the activity on your site.

In this test version of Crazy Egg you can only track up to 6000 hits and 4 pages. Mind you that there are sites that create more or less hits. Although I don´t know how the tracking of Crazy Egg works exactly, a hit is usually caused by every file that is loaded on your server. I.e. if your page at Lunarpages contains 10 javascripts, and 8 pictures for your site design and another 2 in your page body you will get 20 hits with every page view!

I’m just warning you that you might burn those 6000 hits rather quickly if you have one of those sites. If this is the case I suggest you better get proper tracking of your most important page to get a bigger sample set. Check out my Lunarpages review and take a look at their hosting plans here to see what else you get with this award winning host.

Lunarpages increased the bandwidth and storage on its basic plan. The storage was increased from 250 GB to 350 GB and the bandwidth was increased from 2500 GB to 3500 GB. With these new specs you can really host a big site at Lunarpages.

There´s also good news for business customers as the bandwidth was also increased to 3500 GB. For more details on Lunarpages, it´s plans and technology please read my lunarpages review.

Transferring from one web host to another can be quite time consuming. You need to download and upload all files from your old host to your new host. If you have dynamic content you need to import and export all your data. Nowadays some hosting firms offer to make the transfer for you if you sign up with them. Some of the hosts I reviewed are offering to make the transfer for their new customers.

HostICan will buy out your previous contract up to $40 and do the site transfer for you.

Hostgator also offers a free website transfer service.

Lunarpages does not offer to do the transfer for you but they add on up to six months of your previous hosting contract for free!! In addition they offer a 90 days money back guarantee

Hostgator is one of the fastest growing hosting companies in the industry. They recently announced that they are renting an additional 1700 in their datacenters in Dallas and Houston. You can read more about their data centers in my hostgator review. In the future you can expect to see bandwidth and storage upgrade announcements from Hostgator.

Bluehost and Hostmonster are one and the same company as you can tell by their shared mailing address:

1215 N. Research Way, #Q3500
Orem, UT 84097

Both are run by the founder Matt Heaton but Bluehost is a lot bigger than Hostmonster. There has been some discussion on the Bluehost forum regarding the differences between the two. Hostmonster´s plan is about $1 cheaper a month but has pretty much the same features. Hostmonster has unlimited FTP accounts and twice the number of PostgreSQL databases and MySQL databases. In line with Bluehost´s upgrade Hostmonster now also has 300 GB storage and 3000 GB bandwidth. So what´s the difference between the two? Rumour on the Bluehost forum has it that Bluehost runs on better servers and equipment than Hostmonster. That is why some say that Bluehost hosts more sites per server than Hostmonster.

Subsequently here´s a quick overview of the features:

Bluehost:

Linux plan, 300GB storage, 3000 GB transfer, unlimited domains, 1000 FTP accounts, 50 MySQL databases, 50 Postgre SQL databases and more. For all the features and a more in depth description please take a look at my Bluehost review.

Hostmonster:

Linux plan, 300GB storage, 3000 GB transfer, unlimited domains, unlimited FTP accounts, 100 MySQL databases, 100 Postgre SQL databases and more. For all the features and a more in depth description please take a look at my Hostmonster review.

At the end of the day these two are both great hosts so it really is your call whether you go for the cheaper price at Hostmonster or believe the rumour about the better equipment at Bluehost. In any case you´ll end up with an excellent cheap hosting provider.

Bluehost recently upgraded its already pretty impressive bandwidth and storage allowances. Storage increased by 50% from 200GB to 300 GB and monthly bandwidth also went up by 50% from 2000GB to 3000GB. What´s more you can now also host unlimited domains on one account!

Read my bluehost review here!

If you are looking for adult web hosting there are three good affordable web hosts who permit this content. I became aware of this while browsing various knowledge bases for other stuff. HostICan, Lunarpages, and Hostgator are among the best affordable web hosts in the business and if you want more detailed info about their plans please go to my main webhosting review site.

Hostican states that you can host anything as long as it complies with US law. You may be asked to upgrade to a dedicated server if your site uses huge bandwidth or processor capacity. I have a more detailed analysis of this host’s features in my HostICan review.

Lunarpages is another cheap web hosting firm which has no problem with hosting adult content. On their site they state:

“Yes, we do allow adult sites to be hosted here. Lunarpages has no restrictions upon content of your website as long as it is legal as defined by California law.However, adult sites that require extreme amounts of server resources and bandwidth will not be accepted.

Please thoroughly read our “Terms of Service”, http://www.lunarpages.com

We allow all kinds of adult sites except, free tgp (thumbnail gallery posts), circular pop up sites and free image galleries. Other than that, feel free to be as adult as you can be under the law of California.”

For more info on Lunarpages please read my Lunarpages hosting review.

Update: Thanks to a post in the Hostgator forum I became aware that they offer adult web hosting as well. Check their knowledge base and T&C for specifics. Make sure you go to my main site and read my Hostgator review.