Author Topic: Best place to host a blog / start a website?  (Read 6282 times)

dontwannaworkforever

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Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« on: January 15, 2016, 05:46:39 AM »
I'm looking to get my own blog going, throw some ads on there, and get a bit of passive income. I actually used to build websites with Wordpress many years ago and I'm looking to get back into it and I was looking for some recommendations. Additionally, I used to have Hostgator but I heard bad things about them lately.

Also not sure what my blog is going to be about yet but I'm sure its going to be Finance related.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2016, 07:17:35 AM »
Be prepared to put an insane amount of time before you get any money. Building traffic is hard. There's nothing passive about it.

But to answer your question, A Simple Orange is a well liked and reasonably priced host with good service.

Daley

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2016, 07:39:08 AM »
But to answer your question, A Simple Orange is a well liked and reasonably priced host with good service.

The love for ASO (A Small Orange) is well over and dead for myself at least at this point. It's been coming for a while since the EIG buyout a few years back, and it genuinely looked like they ultimately were going to actually let them keep quality up, but...

I've had a couple billing and support matters come up the past few months with them, and they were painfully slow to respond or fix the issue at all (48+ hour response time on average, worse on billing). I was starting to see slower performance and significant load spikes occur on my shared hosting instance, too. I did some research again and finally migrated to Hawk Host back at the beginning of December. Good sized independent shop, good prices, responsive support. Load times on Technical Meshugana dropped by about 30-40% on average, and spending half of what I was at ASO. Overall, glad I left at the end of the day.

As the final bit of salt in the wound, ASO took two weeks to close out my account and started sending me automated billing threats for lack of payment. Was rather sad to see it happen.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2016, 07:46:40 AM »
Bummer. I haven't done any hosted sites in a while so my info was obviously out of date.

Daley

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2016, 07:52:34 AM »
Hey, I was kinda shocked to see how quickly they slid myself. After all, I was hosting with them up until about six weeks ago.

mozar

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2016, 03:11:07 PM »
What's your level of coding ability? I like Jimdo if you're doing something simple.

AZDude

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2016, 03:31:28 PM »
Also not sure what my blog is going to be about yet but I'm sure its going to be Finance related.

This is probably more important than where you are hosting. Since the actual hosting costs money, you will want your content, etc... prepared well in advance.

Fuzz

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2016, 04:55:39 PM »
Squarespace makes it easy for you to get something good up there and then focus on the content. I like WP Engine and Flywheel for managed wordpress installs. But spend all your time on content. Hosting is a commodity.

aFrugalFather

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2016, 05:04:51 PM »
I use powweb.  They are ok, I don't have much complaints.  I have a few blogs on there for their flat monthly fee.

La Bibliotecaria Feroz

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2016, 05:10:11 PM »
I don't pay for hosting. I overestimated the amount of time I would have to spend on my blog. I put up articles... occasionally... and some people read them, but I don't make money. (Well, my grandfather sent me a thousand dollars because he liked my post about getting out of debt, but I wouldn't count on that :-).) You might want to test your commitment level with a free service before you commit to paying. I'm glad I did!

swick

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #10 on: January 15, 2016, 07:52:20 PM »
I have used Godaddy, Ipage and BlueHost. I would stay away from GoDaddy and Ipage. Go Daddy is a PITA to use and always trying to upsell and makes their payment terms really obtuse. Ipage is a PITA for downtime and I have never spent so much time on the phone with support for the same problems in my life. I'm talking countless hours every time I noticed my site was down, which was sometimes multiple times a week.

Bluehost was easy to switch to, easy to set up, hasn't had any signficant downtime that I have noticed. I think it's a good solution if you are just getting started for shared hosting.

johnny847

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #11 on: January 15, 2016, 07:57:56 PM »
I second the vote for Bluehost. Cheap and easy to set up.

Syonyk

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #12 on: January 15, 2016, 08:15:59 PM »
Blogger/Blogspot, though you have to spend a while creating content to prove you're not a spammer before you can stick ads on it.

joninnyc

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #13 on: January 18, 2016, 04:55:38 PM »
I've been using Dreamhost for over 6 years and have never experienced significant downtime. Customer support is always very responsive and I'm happy!

the_gastropod

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #14 on: January 18, 2016, 05:56:24 PM »
If you're reasonably comfortable using Git, and can get by with a static website, you can host at GitHub Pages for free. https://pages.github.com

Programming 'til FIRE

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Re: Best place to host a blog / start a website?
« Reply #15 on: January 18, 2016, 06:19:35 PM »
I'll cast a vote for Godaddy, but man do they try to up sell everything times five.  I've setup many WordPress and woocommerce within the Godaddy hosting platform and it was easy. But if your just starting out why not try WordPress for hosting?  If you decide to go with a different host, just backup your files and push them to the new host.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!