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Bluehost Reviews -Affordable & Reliable Web Hosting Services For Your Business

Festus Otasowie

The Basis for Bluehost Reviews

In general, the key characteristics for any website hosting service review must focus on key elements such customer support, platform features, system uptime and customer value creation amongst other parameters.

This is what we have done.

These Bluehost reviews discussed below have been done using these key attributes.

Product ReviewedBluehost Web Hosting
SummaryBluehost web hosting service is one of the most reliable and affordable website hosting services available today. They rank at the top for performance (server availability), customer support, and a wide variety of hosting platform features
AuthorF. Otasowie
Rating4.8 (out of 5.0)

But first, why Bluehost hosting?

What we share in this review is based on our experience with the product. This website and a few others we also own are hosted on Bluehost and so we have first-hand experience with this service.

Secondly, we have also experienced a few other providers and so have the experience to make a fair comparison between Bluehost and one or two other hosting platforms.

Thirdly, while this review is not based on comparing any two sets of hosting platforms, all we have set out to achieve is to highlight the benefits of using Bluehost’s hosting platforms backed by our own pleasant experience which we have enjoyed since we started using their hosting facilities.

So we hope that whether you are a small, medium, large business or just a regular individual needing web site hosting services for your side hustle, you would find Bluehost’s shared Web Hosting suitable for your own needs as we have.

Finding a suitable website host

Unlike before, finding a website host has never been easier. One only now needs to search on Google and there would be tons of hosting providers to choose from.

So the question, therefore, is not just finding any website host, it is more about finding one that meets your needs.

And if you are thinking that is not hard at all, you are right!

That is not all there is to it.

Hosting needs also vary according to whether you are a small, medium or large-sized business or whether you are just a passionate individual looking to host a personal blog and so does not want to care about all the technical bits and jargons about web hosting for as long as it works.

This is why you are here.

A few years ago, building a self-hosted website was a big project that involved layers of people.

You would have needed a Web Designers, Web Developer, hardware engineers, network specialist, system engineers, content creators, etc etc. Then if you needed to create content (even as simple as creating a blog) you needed to have coding (computer programming) experience.

But thanks to the advancement in internet-related technology there are now loads of options to simplify building websites using website builders.

If you did not already know some of the popular web site builders are listed below:

  • WordPress
  • Wix
  • BigCommerce
  • Weebly
  • BoldGrid
  • Squarespace

Bluehost hosting provides flexible offerings that meet the needs of even the most demanding businesses (see the section on Bluehost Hosting Types below).

From the affordable basic Plan to their Business Pro plan and from their shared to the VPS or Dedicated server environments, Bluehost hosting provides a suitable, robust and reliable hardware and software environments to get your business up and running quickly and to keep it running smoothly afterwards.

Bluehost Pricing

As already mentioned above, one of the best offerings is the affordability of Bluehost hosting plans.

From our experience, one of the things that have endeared the platform to us is knowing we have the flexibility of starting with one affordable plan and migrating/upgrading to another as the need arises, and driven by our business growth. The huge benefit of this is that we only need to spend money on upgrade when we absolutely need to.

Furthermore and most importantly, the migration is transparent to the customer and done behind the scene with no service interruption whatsoever.

What is more, the introductory pricing comes with loads of discounts from:

  • Free Domain for one year (every web site needs to be hosted in a domain)
  • Free SSL certificate (secures data such as credit card details on your site)
  • Unlimited Website Hosting (Hosting several domains per hosting account)
  • Unmetered hosting (Not billed according to the volume of shared resource consumption)

In the final analysis, if you put into account the potential savings from these free features the current hosting cost of the basic shared web hosting service is a steal and very affordable.

To view the Bluehost pricing based on your desired web hosting plan click below on the Get Started Button.  Don’t worry as it opens in another window so can return to this page afterwards.

As you would see, it couldn’t be any easier taking that first step towards owning your website with a reliable and affordable web hosting service provider.

 

Bluehost Domain

Along with hosting services provided by Bluehost, they are also a Domain Name service provider.

A Domain name is a human-readable address which enables interconnectivity between all entities on the internet. To obtain a domain name or address, a company that is authorized to do so such as Bluehost must check for its uniqueness and then register it before it can be used for example as a server address for your web hosting.

This is akin to registering a newly built house or business premises with the post office in a municipality and obtaining a postal address.

Although the Bluehost Domain Name Service is usually a paid service (separate from the web hosting service cost) Bluehost however offers one domain name service registration free for customers for the first one year as part of its hosting service bundle.

Bluehost web hosting

Bluehost web hosting service is one of the most reliable hosting services available today. They rank at the top for performance (server uptime availability), customer support, and available hosting platform features.

Apart from just now being a consumer of the hosting service, as someone who has a system Engineering training and work background, I should know and indeed I can confirm this.

Bluehost is also the official recommended web hosting provider by the creators of WordPress if that is anything to go by. I am sure this does certainly means a lot in terms of endorsement.

As far as versatility is concerned, it caters for both small and large scale enterprises and offers rich server, management and support features

See the box below for some of the rich features offered to its shared hosting customers:

 

Bluehost reviews -hosting features

Website Hosting Cost

Website Hosting costs vary according to a number of factors.

The first of these factors is whether or not it is shared or dedicated hosting. And typically, there is also a difference between whether it is regular shared hosting or if it is Virtual Private Server (VPS).

As you might expect, dedicated hosting servers are more pricy due to the additional advantages these types of servers offer over shared ones.

Except you are a very big corporation, the trend is usually to start with a shared web hosting such as that offered by Bluehost and as your business needs grow you then migrate to a dedicated server environment.

Please note that while some people may consider using a free hosting service, it is not usually advisable for any serious business to start with a free hosted service.

The reason is simple: They do not offer the robustness, support, flexibility and functionality to meet an acceptable level of service for a small, medium and large scale businesses.

It is therefore advisable that you start with a basic shared hosting plan that at least guarantees your business and that provides a decent level of service for your potential customers.

Bluehost Mail

Amongst the many features that Bluehost provides is webmail.

This is a complimentary feature that enables Bluehost website owners to enjoy web-based email services on its hosting platform.

Typically a service like this would be a paid service offered by the likes of Google or Microsoft. Bluehost mail is a service compliment available in all its hosting plans and is free for up to five (5) business email accounts per domain.

A web-based email service would also be needed as part of a general email marketing business

Click on Get Started button below to have a first-hand experience of Bluehost’s web hosting services

Bluehost Hosting (Types)

Shared Web Hosting

Shared hosting means multiple websites sharing the same hardware such as servers, storage spaces, processors and memory. This arrangement makes it cost-effective for individuals, small and medium scale businesses to then be able to avail themselves excellent computing power by paying a small amount (a usually very small fraction) of the amount that would have been otherwise needed.

This then becomes a win-win both for these businesses and also for the shared hosting service providers.  Such business owners can then get a lot of savings in their start-up costs for their businesses as they would not need to invest in the purchase of server hardware.

In addition to the cost savings, using a shared platform means customers don’t have to bother about server support and maintenance tasks as these are taken care of by the hosting providers. Furthermore, if you also are using a content management system like WordPress, you can practically operate your website without learning how to do web programming or how computer codes work.

The shared hosting service provided by Bluehost is normally sufficient to meet 99.95% of the of all the small and medium-sized business web hosting needs.

Click below to watch the video to learn about the shared hosting service and how it works.

VPS Hosting

A second type of hosting platform is the VPS which stands for Virtual Private Server. It is another form of shared hosting and sometimes also called a virtual dedicated server (VDS).

The main difference between a regular shared hosting service and a VPS is that a VPS server gives you a dedicated slice of a server that is reserved just for you. So to all intents and purposes (at least from a technical perspective), you have a dedicated server with all the controls and benefits of a dedicated server without the associated premium cost. It more robust and also gives you lots of features that are not available with regular shared hosting.

The last benefit offered by VPS is the ability to customize the environment to your own specific business needs.

Having a VPS server puts you more in control of your server environment that if you were just using the shared platform. This, therefore, enables you to adjust and tune your servers as may be needed from time to time.

The only drawback, however (compared to regular shared hosting), as you would expect this is of course priced significantly more than the regular shared hosting service.

So while small and medium scale businesses may find this price a put off, medium to large scale businesses are able to weigh this additional cost against the benefits they derive from it and still find VPS hosting as a very profitable hosting plan for them.

Dedicated Hosting

This is the most advanced type of web hosting service and at a significant website hosting cost.

With dedicated hosting, a website hosting provider creates and reserves an entire server along with all its resources for a single customer’s use.

And depending on the type of hosting plan, the hosting provider may or may not do any support, maintenance or management and may leave this to the customer to handle by themselves. As you would already guess, this is not for the fainthearted. It is normal for the ‘big boys” as they are the people who would normally have the need for and wherewithal to manage such environments.

So why do people need this type of hosting you may ask?

My first answer is if you are asking then you don’t need it (that was a joke).

But honestly, the reality is that once a business kicks off business growth does come sometimes pretty quickly. What you then find is that your hosting infrastructure in your existing plan struggles to meet up with this accelerated growth.

For example, it takes one viral share to achieve sometimes a thousandfold increase in the amount of traffic that a site may normally get.

So what happens when that happens?

Everyone gets into a  frenzy and it becomes a race to scramble up additional resources to meet your customer needs.

So does that mean every small and medium-sized business needs to get a dedicated server in anticipation of when such unplanned he need arises?

The answer would be no. That would be too high a price to pay and too early too.

In reality, dedicated hosting is typically reserved for businesses with either complex business operations or that have strict requirements. This could include the need for extra secure transactions (financial, medical etc) or businesses and industries that require extreme confidentiality such as defense, research etc.

Linux vs Windows Hosting –Which is better?

The question of which of these two hosting operating systems is better sometimes comes up.

As always, we start with the easiest response. You really do not need to bother with this is you are a customer seeking hosting services for small, medium or an individual business.

Linux and Windows, are the two most popular server operating systems that power all hosting servers. Although Linux is more popular (free based on open source code) as compared to the paid alternative option from Microsoft. There is no specific visible advantage that it offers to the generality of end-users over the Windows-based counterpart.

A windows-based hosting platform provides a native environment to use Microsoft specific server tools and applications.

The good thing is as an end-user this technical knowledge is immaterial to you and so you should not worry about it.

See also Want Improved Marketing Results? Here Are The 2 Most Essential Internet Marketing Tools You Need

Bluehost reviews web server configuration in progress

Bluehost Control Panel

Perhaps you are still wondering how you can own and manage a website without coding experience.

One of the ways this is simplified is with the help of cPanel. CPanel is a graphical interface tool within the Bluehost control panel provided to all customers for the management of their hosting environment.

Once you create a web hosting account, you gain access to the control panel (cPanel) via the Bluehost login. Once logged in, you are then able to configure your hosting environment and also to view and monitor the status of the server, databases and other resources for your website.

Cpanel also shows the consumption and limits (if any) of any resources as may have been set by your hosting provider.

This is all backend stuff and the intuitive graphical interface ensures you are at home using it.

Bluehost Hosting Staging

One of the best features we have experienced so far from Bluehost hosting is their staging environment which is available in all its hosting plans.

Staging enables customers to perform and test changes on a copy of the existing site (production) without any service disruption.

Staging ensures that planned changes and the actual impact of such changes are evaluated and the outcome desirable before it is implemented in the production site.

Best of all this is not an add on service at an additional cost but integral to their hosting plan and available to all its customers.

Bluehost staging is so simple as it is done in a few clicks of the mouse button.  That means even if you implement a change and if after a period of time you experience undesirable effect, you can roll back to the previous version and all changes will be automatically undone.

Bluehost Web Hosting -Extras & Addons

Everyone loves that extra that comes like a cherry on top of the ice cream. Bluehost hosting is no exception. Bluehost provides an assortment of themes, plugins, and add-ons. And if you are a WordPress user, you can visit the Bluehost Marketplace, for every other tool you may need to for a wonderful web hosting experience.

Besides these, Bluehost hosting services also include an array of other optional internet marketing services such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). With this service, they help with all that is needed (keyword research, content writing etc) to get your website found on the internet from search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing. They also offer as an option Full-Service Website management where they help design and build your website from scratch and do all the day to day management of your internet marketing needs for you.

Summary

What we have shown from these reviews on Bluehost Web Hosting services that choosing a website host is no longer so difficult as it boils down to just a few considerations.

You must keep in mind that whatever hosting provider you choose you must ensure that its offerings are able to meet not just your immediate needs, but also any additional needs for your website and traffic to scale along with your business growth in the future.

Bluehost shared and dedicated web hosting services adequately provides for the needs of more than two million website owners.

As already stated above, these Bluehost reviews have been done based on our examination of their service offering and the satisfactory experiences of over two million users including ours.

If you would like to see a Bluehost review based on other parameters different from the ones we have used here please let us know in your comments.

If you have also experienced less than satisfactory web hosting service also let us know using the comments below.

If you are still looking to find a website host, based on our experience you need not look any further than Bluehost Hosting services.

Click on the Get Started button below and get a FREE domain when you subscribe to one of the Bluehost’s web hosting plans.

As you can see these are all very affordable starter plans.

 

Bluehost Reviews FAQ

  1. What is shared hosting?

    Shared hosting is a web hosting where multiple websites share common hardware resources such as servers, storage, memory. By sharing these resources they enjoy cost, support and maintenance economies of scale as they would only pay a fraction of what it would have cost to own dedicated hardware and have the hardware centrally supported

  2. What is Unmetered Bandwidth / Hosting?

    An unmetered web hosting means customers are not billed according to the number of resources such as disk space or bandwidth used. While this does not mean unlimited resources, every customer is, however, able to enjoy as many available resources to the limit offered by the shared platform.

  3. What is Bluehost Hosting Staging?

    Staging enables customers to perform and test changes on a copy of the existing site (production) without any service disruption. Staging ensures that planned changes and the actual impact of such changes are evaluated and the outcome desirable before it is implemented in the production site.

  4. Does Bluehost provide SSL for https?

    Yes, it does. A free version is available for all hosting plans.

  5. How good is Bluehost Web Hosting?

    Bluehost web hosting definitely ranks as one of the best shared and dedicated web hosting platforms available today. This is based on technical performance, customer experience and user support. Their WordPress shared hosting services is very popular as it hosts over two million small, medium and large-sized businesses.

  6. Does Bluehost use CPanel?

    Yes. The Bluehost control panel comes in two variants: A basic and advanced (enhanced) cPanel. The basic cPanel comes with the shared hosting plans while the enhanced cPanel accompanies the Dedicated and VPS hosting platforms. The enhanced cPanel thus provides more flexibility and control for these more advanced users to help manage other aspects of their server performance which is not normally required for the shared hosting plans.

  7. Does Bluehost Provide Email?

    Yes. Bluehost hosting provides free webmail accounts for up to five (5) business email addresses per domain

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