Discount Web Hosts to Avoid for WordPress

Avoid them at all costs for any kind of hosting.  Here’s a list of some of the problems.  Unfortunately there’s no way to break most of them into layman’s terms:

• FTP/DNS confusion
• Slow Speed
• Says it supports WordPress but server is just too low on resourses
• Is that a Windows Server farm they are using, with Windows servers all running Linux on top of Windows?  Yup (That’s two operating systems on one machine.  One of which is a resource hog that unsecure).

A long time bad provider of web hosting.  Avoid them for WordPress, them seem fine for regular hosting of low traffic static HTML  pages.  Here’s a list of some of the problems.  Unfortunately there’s no way to break them into layman’s terms:

• Database connectivity / speed
• Excessive FTP caching / command dropping  (upload an image, maybe it’ll show on the server, maybe not)
• Uses “add-on” domains. Which are fine until you try to just about anything advanced.

Surprised?  GoDaddy is an excellent domain name registrar.  They really just suck when it comes to web hosting.  Why?  They don’t provide it. Not only is it the cheapest price I’ve seen yet, it’s provided by a third party.  We’ve used them several times, they’ve always, eventually gotten the WordPress website installed properly, eventually.  They’re tools and processes are so bad you may want to avoid them.  They also use “add on” domains which is fine for static HTML web sites, but the minute you do anything powerful you run the risk of causing excessive developer slow downs, scripts and programs just not working or worst case scenario a couple keystrokes making all of your websites no longer work.

Not only does this web host block common, modern website technologies to limit demand on their servers, they do the unforgivable.  They play game with website ownership and transfer.  If wish to have a domain name hosted to a different server that actually works, the common tools that most web hosts and domain registrars provide to do this don’t allow you to actually point the domain name to another server.   Can you imagine how trouble they’ll give you when it comes time to actually transfer a domain name.

DotEasy

Host Gator doesn’t have as many of the performace problems that some web hosts on this list do.  They not performance super stars by any means but not as bad as Netfirms for instance.  They still use add-on domains which can wreak havoc on a WordPress website or even regular HTML web sites with a little scripting.  The worst part about Host Gators are the unforgivables, like customer betrayal.

They will shut down your website automatically the second it gets a good bit of visitors and it can weeks (and of course more money).  It’s not about the bandwidth, it about the processors on the individual servers they use.  Hidden deep in the terms of service in language that most people can’t understand to let you know that if your web site starts using “too much of the servers processor they’ll shut your website down with out notice and the support is very slow to help with anything even this kind of issue.  Shutting down a website without notice is just unforgivable.

Of course Host Gator has it’s share of regular discount webhost problems in the past. Recently they went several weeks in April 2014 without any service for many of their customers.

In the past I’ve had these kinds of problems:

• Can’t log in via FTP
• Can’t upload images via WordPress’s image uploader
• Page load times far in excess of the 4 second rule. One simple page with no images took 18 seconds to load in one of my tests.
• Disappearing files. Yup, you put the images there one day and a couple days later their gone.
• FTP problems – Like where you upload a new version of an image and the server pretends to accepts this command but actually does nothing
• FTP instruction caching – Like when you tell the server to delete some files via FTP and it says it did, but it’s actually cached this instruction for later, when it’s not so busy.
• Uses “add-on” domains. Which are fine until you try to just about anything advanced, even a the simplest of custom forms.

Seriously, it’s just not going to work. There’s no way it can. Let think about why you want a windows server. There are only 2 reasons:

1. You need the more advanced functions in ASP.NET that help make development of your advanced featured web app that HAS to use a MS SQL database
2. You are so inexperienced that you think that brand recognition and high cost = quality and you only recently learned that Apple doesn’t do servers.

IF #1 above is why you need to host your web application on a Windows server, then you should probably know that Hostgator and JodoHost nor any other discount web server is going to let you have access to any of those functions and that Windows servers need so much RAM to run that a discount web host can only put a couple customers on a single machine. And that means that would have to charge prices that are far higher than a fe bucks a month and not provide any service to break even.