Posted on February 16th, 2011Bluehost is one of the oldest web hosts still in operation; started in 1996, Bluehost built a strong reputation and is well recognized throughout the industry. Website hosting is an extremely competitive business with constantly new competition, evolving technologies and customer expectations. The fact that Bluehost has not only survived such a competitive business, it has thrived which is worth mentioning when discussing Bluehost. They are arguably the largest shared hosting provider today as well.
Reliability and Uptime
In the realm of reliability and uptime, you will find that BlueHost is pretty standard for the industry. They offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee and also take their reliability very seriously. Where other hosts might not care much about backing up your site, BlueHost actually does it on a daily basis. That means that if the unthinkable should happen and your site went down, it can be back up very shortly, without the enormous headaches and hassles from other hosts.
Hosting Options
In website hosting there are two types of hosts, one that offer multiple options and those that are one-size-fits-all. Bluehost is a one-size-fits-all hosting service and is one of the best in its class. The single hosting option it offers is more than sufficient for a majority of users. Blue host offers all the standard features found in shared hosting providers; unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, add-on and parked domains, unlimited subdomains and FTP accounts. It also offers all the major programming languages and technologies for Linux based web hosting including MySQL databases, PHP, Python and Ruby on Rails. One standout feature for blue host is that they own and operate their own datacenter. This allows them to provide excellent service and fast response times for hardware issues.
Support
They advertise 24/7 support and hold times of less than 30 seconds. Bluehost also boasts an all U.S. based support staff. Their knowledge-base is a stand out. There are how-to articles on any topic that you might want here, as well as, numerous instructional videos that really show you how to achieve whatever you want. A user forum is also available, where you can pose questions to more advanced users or read existing answers.
Bluehost Overview
Bluehost is one of the most heavily marketed and most recognized names in the industry. Not all web hosts advertise the number of domains they currently host or are all of them accurate however many sources contend that blue host currently hosts the most websites. Certainly possible given its long history and brand recognition. Because of Bluehost’s age and number of customers throughout the years can be difficult to find a impartial review. I have used Bluehost a number of times over the years and it currently hosts one of my smaller websites. It is quick and easy to create an account and all the major services needed to run a website are available, cpanel is the default control panel for all accounts. Bluehost is a solid website host and an excellent choice if you’re looking to get your site up quickly.