WordPress Hosting: What To Look For In A Webhost

Posted by Chris Channing

June 29, 2008

by Chris Channing

There are quite a few options for bloggers in terms of what they use to get content heard. Of the masses, WordPress has arisen to the top of the bunch as one of the best platforms for blogging. To help keep up with popularity, webhosts are starting to offer WordPress-specific hosting options. But are special WordPress hosts worth the time and effort to try?

Features To Look Out For In WordPress Hosting

Before a blogger can get any work done, he or she needs to install WordPress. But doing that can be tough for those of us who aren’t exactly technically gifted. In that case, many webhosts, even the generalized ones, offer auto-installers that do the dirty work for us. So far, general webhosts and WordPress specific webhosts are neck and neck.

One big downfall for normal webhosts is their lack of support for recent upgrades. When an important security upgrade comes out, WordPress users need to upgrade their blogs as soon as possible. If they don’t, they may run the risk of losing their entire blog to hackers. With normal webhosts the upgrading can be delayed, since they aren’t specializing in any single product.

When a blogger needs to upgrade a blog, he or she will soon find that the “one-click” upgrade feature most webhosts have is very dangerous. These installers write over previous files: meaning that old themes, plugins, and other content can be lost for good. In this case, WordPress-specific hosts take the win as they allow for better upgrading options.

WordPress users will attest that blogs take up a nice amount of bandwidth. This is because blogs use databases to store the vast majority of their information, meaning multiple connections to the database could overload the backend of a blog. In this scenario, WordPress users need a host that allows for flexible bandwidth plans. The host should also have a sturdy hardware setup so that a bottleneck performance issue is not created at the database level.

Bloggers Get Added Bonuses

Whenever it comes to the normal webhosts, there aren’t many extra features they can offer for WordPress users. But with the WordPress hosts, there are usually a myriad of extra features to enjoy. This can range from special plugins and themes to other WordPress-specific services.

Interestingly, Wordpress hosts have an overlooked benefit: their exclusivity of their WordPress themes. Free WordPress themes are popular, but it seems that everyone has them. But thanks to the exclusivity of WordPress themes from webhosts, the problem of having a unique design is easily solved.

When a blogger gets a custom design laid out and coded, it becomes apparent that the webhosting route would have been much cheaper. Not a bad tradeoff, considering that there will be very few other blogs with the same theme as yours.

When we add the score up, it seems that the WordPress hosts come out on top. But be sure to get quotes from several sources before making your decision. After all, a website is only as good as its host!

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