The Blogging.org recently surveyed bloggers about their hosting companies and published the results in an infographic, the Top 25 Hosting Companies for bloggers. The survey included bloggers using WordPress (43%), Blogger (35%), TypePad/Tumblr/Posterous (16%), and other platforms (6%).
While it’s great to know that these hosting companies were the most popular for the 5,600 bloggers surveyed, keep in mind that there are (according to the same infographic) 31 million bloggers in the US alone. Plus, there are lots of other things to factor in to the hosting choices made by these bloggers left out of this infographic including how much traffic the blogs receive, whether they are personal or business blogs, and so on.
So if you’re in the market for a new hosting company, here are some other things to consider beyond just the numbers presented in this infographic.
Hosting Distribution Amongst the Top Websites
BuiltWith, an information provider that tracks 150 million websites and the technology they use, share the following about hosting services used for the top websites. Top websites are defined by the most visited and the most well-known brands.
If you start with the top million sites, you’re most popular hosting choices are GoDaddy which starts at around $6 per month and Softlayer.
If you narrow that list down to the top 10,000 sites which are the ones with the most traffic, you’re most popular hosting choices are Rackspace and Amazon.
Hosting for WordPress
Since at least 50% of the top websites use WordPress over other CMS and blogging systems (again according to BuiltWith), let’s start by taking a look at who WordPress recommends.
- Bluehost starting at $4.95 per month.
- Dreamhost starting at $6.95 per month.
- Laughing Squid starting at $6 per month.
Then you also have to consider hosting companies build specifically for WordPress including the following.
- WPWebHost starting at $4.95 per month and shows you plans based on traffic.
- Web Synthesis starting at $27 per month.
Hosting for the Most Popular Blogs
Now, let’s consider the hosting choices of the most popular, trafficked blogs in the world (according to Technorati at least).
- Buzzfeed uses Datagram which starts around $49.99 per month.
- TechCrunch uses Server Beach which starts around $99 per month.
- Mashable and The Next Web uses Rackspace.
- Business Insider uses Datapipe.
Top 10 Cheap Web Hosting Providers
For those who don’t have a Mashable-sized audience and therefore don’t need dedicated server hosting, you can also refer to the list by TopTenReviews for reviews of the least expensive web hosting options, most starting at $4 per month. These include:
The Point?
So what is the point to all of this? If you’re in the market for web hosting, you’re going to have to do a lot of research based on the following factors.
- The amount of money you’re willing to spend for hosting.
- The amount of traffic you are anticipating to receive.
- The level of support you want (hint – look for sites that have chat, email, and phone support available 24 hours a day).
I would also suggest looking at hosting used by sites similar to yours. You can spy on some site’s hosting choices by going to http://builtwith.com/domain.com – just change domain.com to the site in question.
Also, chat with other bloggers about the hosting they use. You’ll find there will be a wide variety of opinions – while one person may love a company, another may have had an awful experience with them. And sometimes, it will just boil down to experience – no matter how much research you do and advice you get, your experience may be amazing or awful. Web hosting is a tough world to enter – just be as prepared as possible!
Oh, and sign up for Pingdom to get alerts if your site goes down and monthly reports showing your real uptime and downtime.
What is your experience with web hosting? Please share in the comments below and if you’re recommending a hosting service, add in some relevant details like how much traffic you have, how well they handle it, and what plan you use!