BlueHost Review

BlueHost has been providing web hosting services since 1996. They are well-known with reliable and affordable web hosting plans. Overall rating and features highlight for BlueHost can be found as below. 

BlueHost Overall rating

BlueHost Inc. Website: http://www.bluehost.com Features : Support : Pricing : Reliability : Overall Rating : B+ *Recommended!

What’s good about Bluehost Hosting?

Unlimited domain in one hosting account

The top reason why BlueHost stood out from other web hosting companies is because of their unlimited disk storage, bandwidth transfer, and number of addon domain. In other words, you can host ALL YOUR WEBSITES in just one single web hosting account. That’s just $6.95/mo hosting expenses for all your websites.

Free domain name for life

BlueHost customers will get a free domain name when they sign up their hosting account for one or two years. More over, this domain name will be free for life as long as you are hosting it with BlueHost. For example that you register your domain for 5 years with Godaddy, you will save roughly 5 x $10 = $50 instantly on domain registration fees.

Fantastico, Simple Script, cPanel

BlueHost’s offering cPanel for their customers and more over, offering Fantastico and Simple Script.

First I have to stress that how much I like cPanel as my server control interface – they are fast, reliable, and user friendly. While for Fantastico or Simple Scripts – they are our good friend that enable you to install web applications in just a few clicks. Blogs, content management tools, forums, polls, guestbooks, picture galleries, Wikis, or even shopping carts – with Fantastico or Simple Scripts, you don’t have to install these scripts manually in your website.

It’s also note worthy that the Simple Scripts features are not offered much in other hosting. The feature offers extra valuable choices in web applications like MODX and e107.

Anytime money back guarantee

You can always ask for a refund when you are unhappy with the services at Bluehost – yes, even if you do it after the trial period. Bluehost is one of the few web host that allows customers to refund on pro-rated basis. Such protective policy is a huge plus to all customers and we have nothing to lose when signup with the hosting company.

What might goes wrong with Bluehost hosting?

Well, the recent Bluehost/Hostmonster’s recent CPU throttling policy might sounds discouraging for certain group of webmasters. When your website on a shared server is pulling “too much” CPU resources at one time, the CPU will freeze (or slash down) your account CPU usage. Such policy is a double-edge sword to the hosting users; on one end your website on a safer environment by limiting others not to overuse the CPU resources; on the other end, such policy can be conveniently used by the hosting provider to slash down your CPU usage and request for extra money.

Anyway, as you can read from my post, the problem is coming mainly from Hostmonster and so far I’m not having any major CPU throttle issues with Bluehost. Let’s hope the bad experience with Hostmonster will not repeat here in Bluehost.

Besides this, I don’t see any potential drawbacks with BlueHost.

Bluehost Uptime Review

I’m amazed when I first read about Bluehost uptime record for the past 4+ years. According to the report (tracked since Dec 2005), Bluehost achieved an all-time 99.8% server uptime – that’s a really great figure for a web host that offers unlimited hosting with just $6.95/mo.

For your reference, the dynamic image on your right indicates Bluehost server uptime for the past 7 days.

Bluehost Promotions

Bluehost hosting comes with tons of great addon promotions. From CPC marketing credits to discont for website templates – these promotions will definitely give a bigger bang for your bucks. In brief, here are the major promotions that come along when you signup with Bluehost.

5% Discount at Boxed Art	Free $40 PR Web credits
Free $25 Yahoo! Marketing credits	Free $50 Google Adwords credits

Bluehost Customers Reviews

Bluehost is my only choice! "I have been hosting websites with Bluehost since year 2004 and I have no problem with them at all. The last time I contacted them was in year 2004 as I need clarification on some presell questions and that’s all. Bluehost is definitely recommended!" – Teddy from SatelliteTVIssue.com @ Oct 20, 2008.

Thank you Bluehost! "I recently transferred my site from readyhosting to bluehost. After having been with readyhosting for 5 years, I was a little hesitant. I have now been here for a week or so, and must say that I am pleased more than I ever hoped to have been. Your sales staff was great at helping me get things transferred and ready to go. And your tech support has been amazing at helping to make sure everything is just perfect. My website and email run without a hitch, the stats and features you offer are beyond value, especially for the price you charge. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you and make sure you are aware of the great work your staff is doing. I will be hosting my site with bluehost for many years to come. And will be recommending it to others." -Jason Woznick @ www.FairWheelBikes.com

Bluehost is perfect for individual web owners! "I started my Internet faxing websites a few years back and am happy that I picked Bluehost as my hosting company. Their hosting plan is cheap yet features-riched! I like how they keep their software up to date and dealing with their customer supports is always a pleasure. I do have some minor email problem with the web host earlier but it’s all fixed now. All in all, I think Bluehost is a reliable hosting and I recommend them sincerely." – Gary from MyInternetFax.biz @ Nov 17, 2008.

Bluehost – bad for ecommerce websites. "I chose bluehost for the price and reviews out there. I then decided to host one of my ecommerce site and for several months the site is constantly going down. Bluehost support said it is my site scripting but were unable to identified which script(I have a similar site on godaddy and have absolutely no issues). The final kicker is when all databases got mysteriously wipe out(all tables are empty). Of course they remind you that they only have a courtesy back-up(the back-up they had is on the day the data got wipe out which has empty tables). I do not recommend Bluehost for any businesses, just for personal websites. Check it out if you don’t believe… I have created multiple ecommerce and content-management site and steer their owner away from bluehost…good luck if you chose them." – Ricky from NYC @ Oct 7, 2009.

Very happy with my Bluehost account! "I recently signed up for an account at Bluehost, after a not-so-good experience with WebHostingPad. I used a coupon/referral to get 2 years for service for $3.95/mo, which is a BARGAIN. I haven’t had any problems yet! I contacted tech support to get shell access, which they did for me at 3AM. I also had some questions about certain features. The tech support guy was very knowledgable, and available on a Saturday (with no waiting!!! :D:D) Cpanel is very easy to use, and I can also use SCP, SFTP, FTP, HTTP, Cpanel File manager, SSH, etc. I recommend Bluehost to anyone!" – Jared from Cubehomes.com @ Nov 14, 2009.

Is Bluehost recommended nowadays?

Hosting features for Bluehost Hosting are pretty the same with HostMonster or JustHost where you’ll get unlimited hosting capacity as well as domain names hosting – the only different is that Bluehost is much more reputable than most of them. I’ve been hosting websites at Bluehost for years and apart from the CPU throttling issue, it is a well-maintained web host that I would recommend to my friends and families.

So Is Bluehost hosting recommended? The answer is YES. Now go have fun running your website at Bluehost.

Order BlueHost online now (Special $6.95/mo)!