This site’s web hosting history has a somewhat colorful background.
It all started back in May 2011, when I purchased web hosting through Bluehost for my first ever site – a niche site about child modeling (seriously). I used Bluehost for some time with no complaint, but a relatively disastrous customer service experience led me to leave Bluehost and move onto Westhost.
Westhost served me well for many months, but after a while I felt it was time to upgrade my hosting to a managed service – WebSynthesis.
I have been a happy WebSynthesis customer for many months, yet now I am going full circle and moving all of my sites back to Bluehost. I have more than one motivation for doing so, and I’m going to explain all of them in this post. If you have an interest in finding out why I now rate Bluehost so highly (despite past issues with them) or are interested in the affiliate angle, keep reading.
Sleeping With the Enemy
I’m not going to avoid the fact that I have a bit of a history with Bluehost. To be honest, I don’t remember the specific particulars of the incident that led me to leaving them, but I do recall that this blog was down for a day or so, and I wasn’t happy about it.
So why move back? Well, it’s a lot to do with what I have learned about web hosting since leaving Bluehost. You see, I don’t really have anything but good things to say about Westhost. They’ve served me pretty well, all things considered.
However, I can’t say that for everyone who has bought Westhost hosting through my affiliate link. In the 12+ months I have been recommending Westhost, I have received 2-3 emails from people who have had a negative experience. Most notably, one of those people is a good friend of mine, and I feel pretty terrible that I let her down.
But these complaints don’t make Westhost a bad company, per se, just as much as my experience with Bluehost doesn’t. What I realized is probably plainly obvious to most: no one gets it perfect every time. Even the best company in the world doesn’t always excel, and poor customer experiences and complaints are part of being in business. The key is in minimizing the number of poor customer experiences and dealing with them exceptionally well when they do occur.
And that brings me back to Bluehost. It had always bugged me a little that I wasn’t hosted with them, since they are WordPress.org’s most recommended provider and are pretty ubiquitous throughout the blogosphere. While I did have a bad experience, they do set the gold standard.
Furthermore, I did some digging and discovered that Bluehost’s customer service is much improved since I was a customer. I spoke to some customer service representatives and confirmed this to be the case, anecdotally speaking. It doesn’t hurt that their website has had a huge overhaul and is now far easier to use too.
So, perhaps Bluehost isn’t so bad after all…
Consolidation
Something else was bugging me too – I had websites all over the place.
Well, that’s actually an exaggeration, but my hosting situation was a bit of a mess. I had a handful of sites with WebSynthesis, and the rest (plus all of my email accounts) on Westhost. I was paying for two lots of web hosting, and I had begun to suspect that I didn’t really need the premium hosting that WebSynthesis offers.
I should say at this point that I have nothing but good things to say about WebSynthesis – they have offered a stellar service with top notch support. However, they don’t offer the full package. Their service is very geared towards WordPress web hosting and WordPress web hosting only, and they don’t offer many of the conveniences that companies like Bluehost do (such as email accounts, easy sub-domain setup, and plenty more). Ultimately, I’ve discovered that their service isn’t really practical for my needs.
I felt that it would make sense for all of my sites to be in one place, with one company that had the capacity and flexibility to facilitate my sites as they are and as they will be in the future (i.e. with greater traffic). Put simply, I wanted a simple solution that I could set and forget.
For the reasons I have already mentioned (brand ubiquity, much improved service, etc.), I decided that Bluehost was the way to go.
About My Bluehost Package
I mentioned above that I want a service that can adjust to meet the developing needs of my sites, and that is one of the main reasons I have chosen Bluehost.
I actually heard from a Westhost representative once that their hardware is rather outdated. Meanwhile, Bluehost seem to be on the top of their game.
They offer three main packages:
- Shared hosting
- VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting
- Dedicated hosting
I rang up Bluehost and a customer service representative happily spent 20 minutes discussing the options I had. Based upon the information I gave him (anticipated traffic levels, etc.), he recommended that I sign up to the Pro shared hosting plan at $19.99 per month. Based upon what we had discussed, that seemed like a good solution to me.
What I loved about this was that there was no attempt to push me onto a more expensive plan. I was certain the “budget” shared hosting option (at $4.95 per month) wasn’t going to be sufficient, but the next step up was. And best of all, if I feel that my sites are outgrowing the hosting plan, I can discuss my options with Bluehost and step up to the next level.
My sites could get absolutely enormous and Bluehost will still have me covered. I’ve got plenty of other things to worry about rather than web hosting, so the peace of mind that I have someone on the other end of the phone ready to discuss my options with me and move quickly is really rather comforting.
Affiliate Ramifications
It bears mentioning that at this point in time, Westhost is my top affiliate earner, bringing in around $1,000 on average per month. But because I am moving to Bluehost, my affiliate allegiance will be moving too.
In doing so, I am actually taking a drop in affiliate earnings in terms of commission per sale. However, in keeping with my ethical approach to affiliate marketing, I feel that it only makes sense to promote the web hosting company that I use myself.
By the time you read this post, my Resources page will have been edited to place Bluehost at the top of my hosting recommendations list. Westhost and WebSynthesis will still be there, as they are both companies that I have nothing bad to say about, but Bluehost now takes center stage.
In short, I don’t know how this will affect my affiliate earnings. I hope that Bluehost’s brand ubiquity and apparent investment in optimization to obtain the best conversion rate will benefit me, but only time will tell.
I feel that this is a long term play for me. From an affiliate marketing perspective, I hope that Bluehost and I can have a long and fruitful relationship, and that I can refer many future happy customers to them.
Making the Big Move
As we speak, all of my sites and email addresses are being moved from my two hosting accounts to Bluehost. This is all being done in the background, totally seamlessly, because I choose Bluehost’s Site Transfer service.
To be honest with you, I don’t want the headache of figuring out how to move everything myself, so getting it all done on my behalf is a godsend.
That service has been pretty fantastic too – although there were some initial teething problems in terms of determining which sites were where, it’s now all under way. By the time you read this, I may well be hosted exclusively on Bluehost, with my other accounts kissed goodbye and shut down!
The Commercial Perspective
I know very well that web hosting affiliate marketing can be very lucrative and I certainly don’t want to hide that fact. With commissions of potentially $100+ per sale at stake (depending upon who you work with and what number of sales you can offer), there’s a lot of scope for me to increase my income through improved affiliate marketing.
However, that doesn’t detract from what the simple policy of honesty and transparency that I always use as the basis for my actions in business. That’s exactly why I’ve written this post.
I mean, let’s be honest – if I felt that Bluehost was a better affiliate prospect, it would have been far easier for me to just slap a new link up on my Resources page and call it a day. But as I always aim to do, I want to do this the right way.
In making this move, I hope for two things:
- A consolidated and improved hosting experience with room for limitless growth
- Improved affiliate earnings
But I have been comfortable in making the move because I know it is all for the right reasons. I am recommending a product that I use and I am happy with. If that were ever to change – if I ever felt that Bluehost wasn’t the best solution for web hosting – you would be the first to know about it. That’s how I work and how I always will work, and I’d like to think it’s one of the ways I set myself apart from the crowd.
If you’re interested in Bluehost, please click here to find out more. As always, I appreciate your support!
When I first got started online a friend of mine actually had a small web hosting company. He was not big by any means so I decided to use his service for my first few sites.
He gave me service 100% for free because we were friends so of course it was a no brainer. Over time I ended up hitting bandwidth limits multiple times, always needing to email or text him finding he might take 1-2 days to get back to me if at all without consistent follow up.
I decided since so many people were signing up for Bluehost through Pat Flynn I decided why not jump on board? I wanted to have more of a consistent means to get support with my important sites.
Initially I liked the setup of everything, easy site setup, site management etc. I even added Bluehost to my resource page and set myself up with their affiliate program.
I found overall having 4-5 sites setup with Bluehost was ungodly slow after using them for 6+ months!
I knew I was on a shared server with multiple other websites, but my experience with Bluehost was absolutely terrible. I was paying almost I think around $75 for the year and all of my sites flat out took forever to load. I actually became upset many times just trying to post a single blog post.
I actually posted on a forum for some folks to check out one of my affiliate Amazon sites and a lot of people replied in my thread stating the site was so slow they simply would stop shopping just due to speed alone, let alone anything else.
I don’t know if I was just having bad luck, but I did find a lot of forums with people complaining about Bluehost for various reasons including speed.
Personally due to this I will never recommend Bluehost to anyone. I also happened to luck out, I’m friends with the CEO of the one of the biggest colocation server providers in Boston, MA. He now hots all my sites for free and my speed is 10x faster than it ever was with Bluehost.
I hope your experience with them is better than mine Tom, I hardly ever see anyone growing and moving “to” Bluehost though.. even Pat Flynn, big time affiliate promoter of Bluehost does not even host with them any longer due to his site growth.
Hi John,
If my sites start running slow, I’ll upgrade my hosting package. If my sites are still running slow after that, then I might be miffed. I’m not sure anyone with a well-established site or sites should be using Bluehost’s ridiculously cheap basic shared package.
Cheers,
Tom
I hope the larger hosting package is far superior to basic! The problem with providers like this is they just load up these servers with tons of sites so it bogs everyone down.
The advanced sharing package (what I’m on) limits the number of sites per server and increases bandwidth, and there’s also a dedicated server option.
Hi Tom & John,
I signed up with Bluehost over 2 years ago and in a total error, paid for 3 years in advance. I have to say that I will not be staying and am slowly moving everything over to be managed by a friend of mine in Australia.
Yes John – I have to agree that their operations are too slow. But even more annoying was the way they use for uploading WordPress onto a new website. Sorry but I just cannot stand it although maybe it is because technology and I seem to have a permanent misunderstanding.
The final straw came when one of my sites was hacked by Mr. Hacker – then one more, then another and eventually 6 sites had been hacked. All had different passwords generated by RoboForm, as was the master password. Rightly or wrongly, I thought the route in must be at the server end but do you think I could get any help from Bluehost??? Hence my move.
Cheers,
John
Hi John,
Sorry you’ve had such a negative experience!
I’m not sure what you mean about “the way they use for uploading WordPress onto a new website.” If you’re talking about the WordPress installation process, what aren’t you happy with? I think it’s great!
As for being hacked, I really doubt that’s a problem on Bluehost’s end.
Cheers,
Tom
Isn’t it a bit rushy to write this post up, and start recommending BlueHost to your fans, without ACTUALLY knowing how well your sites will do with them?
You’ve got no real experience with them, besides the crap they’ve given you in the past. Yet you’re doing good at your current ones, and quit them because just a few emails.
I’ve seen hundreds of complaints about BlueHost, days of major downtime discussed on forums, yet you’re disappearing over 3 bad experiences that didn’t even happen to you.
I’m confused :/
Hey Karl,
I’m not sure what you mean about me quitting my old hosts “because just a few emails” or “3 bad experiences,” but I thought I made the reasons for my move pretty clear in the post. The point here is that I’m moving to Bluehost and as such, my affiliate allegiance must change. If I’m unhappy with Bluehost’s service, I won’t promote them. But I’m feeling optimistic about how things will go. So far so good!
Cheers,
Tom
Tom,
Appreciate the transparency with which you present your reasons for moving your hosting services.
I understand your intent to be clear with your readers about your experiences (good and bad) with all three companies. I hope that the improvements that BlueHost has made over the years will benefit you and provide great, uninterrupted service for your sites as your community continues to grow.
Thanks, as always for your integrity, and your desire to not only do things right, but to do the right things.
Thank you for your support Steve!
Bluehost customer service has definitely improved in the past few years. I made a switch to Bluehost from hostgator. They are both pretty good services, but in the end I felt that Bluehost edged them out in terms of quality. I’m happy with the switch so far 🙂
Good stuff Josh, thanks for sharing!
Tom, your transparency is always so refreshing and inspiring. Thanks for sharing this behind the scenes look. It’s easy to forget all the details that running a business online!, but they’re hugely important!
Yep – web hosting is one of those things you wish you didn’t have to deal with, but is so important!
Respect that you’re changing affiliate alliances as you change hosts! Rock on =)
Thanks Alexis 🙂
Hey,
Nice move, I use Bluehost and Hostgator… and I’ve just upgraded my Bluehost to VPS.. Working nicely.. both offer pretty good customer service and support. My sites have grown to the stage where I needed to kick it up a level which was no problem.
I started with Godaddy. which just sucked arse…. I’m based in Australia, it was awful, something I would never recommend Godaddy hosting to anyone…..
Hey Darren,
I figured I’d be starting with a VPS, but Bluehost said I should be okay with the Advanced Shared package for now. It seems to have been good advice so far as things seem to be running smoothly!
I tried GoDaddy hosting literally for a couple of days, and immediately cancelled.
Cheers,
Tom
I have tried many different hosting services, including Bluehost. I had run into support people there that were far from knowledgeable. The thing about hosting is that most of them are OK, most of the time.
What makes a great host is how they deal with you when the s#$t hits the fan, and it always does. Sooner or later you will run into an issue when you need knowledgeable help and I did not get it from them.
We are using Rackspace for hosting. It is the best hosting company I have dealt with. Their support staff is knowledgeable. To me that is what sets a great hosting company form all the other commodity players.
I agree George, but to be honest, so far I’ve been very happy with the support I’ve received. Only time will tell I suppose!
I have one business partnership where we use bluehost and then I have my own websites that I host up on ipage.com. I honestly don’t have a bad bone for either of them. Ipage has been loyal to me and always provided superior customer service–both through chat as well as phone. I have never dealt with Blue Host Customer Service, but they page stays up pretty well.
As you mentioned everyone has different experiences and sometimes its just the luck of the straw when it comes to getting bad service. Best of luck w/ BlueHost!
Thanks Jear!
I have been with BlueHost since 2007 — hosting several blogs with moderate-to-high-traffic (shared server with dedicated IPs) and an ecommerce site (Dedicated Server – Premium.)
I always like that they were located in the US and found their customer service and support to be extremely helpful. Uptime was generally excellent. I recommended them to others for many years.
However, as of this week, I am terminating my BlueHost Dedicated Server and moving to LiquidWeb.
Why?
BlueHost continues to have serious reliability issues. We have experienced three major outages in the past eight months, including one in April 2014 that took our ecommerce site down for nearly 48 hours.
Yes, 48 hours.
Having your store-front down for almost two days is an eternity for a business that markets and sells online. Not to mention that your customers assume it’s YOU that can’t keep a website up, which causes reputation damage.
At that time, we were assured by BlueHost that they were making changes to prevent this in the future. We gave them one more chance.
On Monday, April 19th, the dedicated servers (all of them) went down again. This time for nearly six hours on a Monday morning, which is typically a peak Internet traffic and sales window.
That was the last straw.
Having worked in digital marketing for over 15 years, I understand that technology “breaks” sometimes. I’m probably more forgiving than most because I understand that there is no such thing as “always up.” Stuff happens. Things break. That’s life. That’s technology.
However, the frequency and duration of their outages — and the fact that they were occurring on their Dedicated Servers, which are their most costly packages (and thus are usually more mission critical to their customers) — is deeply troubling. Even more troubling is that after last month’s outage, it appears that nothing has changed.
Bluehost was acquired a few years back by Endurance International, which now owns dozens of formerly independent hosting companies, including HostGator, Dream Host, etc. BlueHost has also embarked on a major marketing campaign touting their reliability and uptime. It appears that the company has simply grown much too fast, and hasn’t been able to scale its infrastructure and personnel to keep pace with that.
I can no longer recommend BlueHost to anyone, unfortunately — especially if you operate an ecommerce site that needs to be up 24/7. I’m a bit sad about this, because I was a fan for many years. I feel bad for the Bluehost staff in Provo, because they are the ones taking the brunt of management’s inability to bring stability to the data center and infrastructure. Good people, stuck in a bad situation.
I hope they can get their act together again. But even if they do, it’s doubtful that I’ll go through the trouble of moving back to them. Migrating an ecommerce site is not a pleasant task. So once you move, you typically don’t move back unless you have to. I’m paying a bit more at LiquidWeb for my server, but it’s worth it to have the confidence that it will be up and operating.
“Wealth can always be recreated but reputation takes a lifetime to build and often only a moment to destroy.” — Warren Buffett
Hi Matt,
That really sucks. Sounds like you had a pretty terrible experience. I hope you find far greater reliability with LiquidWeb!
Cheers,
Tom
Hiya Tom, Very interesting post (as usual) – gotta ask though (apologies for asking a question in the comments rather than simply leaving a ‘comment’): why not a managed WordPress hosting plan like say WPEngine or Media Temple? And don’t say cost… 🙂 Brin
Hi Brin,
I tried WPEngine just before I signed up with WebSynthesis and wasn’t happy with the plugins restrictions and the support system. To be honest, I don’t think it’s something I need right now.
Cheers,
Tom
Sorry, Tom, I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid. Bluehost has always been, and will continue to be, the WalMart of webhosting. Oversold servers plus extensive outages and nearly non-existent customer service do not add up to a quality hosting experience . Good luck and all that, but I think you’ll be moving again soon.
Jear Sederio: iPage and Bluehost are owned by the same company. Google “EIG hosts” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. There are so many good hosts out there: don’t waste your time and money on garbage like Bluehost.
Hi JE,
It’s been nearly half a year now and I have no plans to move yet 🙂
Bluehost is outrageously cheap, and yes, it’s not the best hosting provider on the market. It’s also not the most expensive. You get what you pay for, and I say that in a positive sense. In my experience, Bluehost is the best budget provider out there, and still suits my needs perfectly well at this stage.
Cheers,
Tom
It took 14 seconds for my first comment to post. That’s quality?
Like I said, good luck.
Thanks for the feedback JE; I’ll look into this. Obviously it could be down to a number of different reasons, not necessarily the speed of Bluehost’s servers.