Please see the Preface for the directory.

So you’ve made it unscathed through the previous summary of tools needed to build a website and you’re ready to look into hosting? Great!

As I mentioned before hosting your website yourself (and by this I mean using one of many paid hosting services) is an alternative to the kind of service offered by WordPress.com (not to be confused with WordPress.org), Blogger, Type Pad and others. The benefits include unlimited gain from ad revenue and maximum flexibility. Your host literally does just that: hosts your website on their server. Let’s get you set up in a few easy steps.

Choosing your host

I spent quite a while on this step when I was starting out. There are a tonne of hosts out there. If you ask 5 webmasters who they use you will most likely get 5 different answers. Massive websites either use dedicated servers or host themselves but you shouldn’t have to worry about that for a while.

In an attempt to be fair I’m going to outline some of the criteria that you should keep in mind, provide you with a list of hosts that I generally recommend and tell you who I use.

• By far the most important feature to me is free and toll free 24/7 customer service.  This is non-negotiable.
• A lot of hosts advertise that they host unlimited domains but cap your MySQL databases. Since you will most likely create a new database for each subsequent site and perhaps for each forum or gallery you add the amount of sites you host is essentially restricted by the number of MySQL databases you can create. They are right to say that you can host unlimited domains though – if all you are doing is hosting them.
• Make sure you have unlimited or very high gigs of site transfer. If someone Diggs you, you don’t want the whole thing to come crashing down!
• Some hosts throw in some amount (usually $50) of Google Adwords, or Yahoo Search cash. This can be a great way to promote your new site.
• Look for a number of add-on domains that is high or unlimited.
• Low domain registration fee. $10 is about right.

Keeping the above points in mind it’s time to shop around for a host. Here is a list of 5 hosts that are considered to be leaders in the industry.

BlueHost – I run 6 websites from a single BlueHost account. I think the yearly fee breaks down to a total of $6.99 a month if you commit to 36 months and slightly more if you commit to 24 or 12 months. You can see a full table of the pricing here. I’ve never had a problem with BlueHost and recommend it fully.

DreamHost – They claim to be a “green” host. They are very popular and offer essentially the same features and prices as BlueHost.

GoDaddy - Again, another one of the most recognized hosts.