Is this Web Hosting Company worth Signing up? Bluehost Svn
Bluehost hosts over 2 million websites.
This is quite a lot.
Having such a vast customer base is enough evidence that they are doing something right. They provide reliable service, good server speeds, and all plans offer useful features for intermediates and beginners.
Bluehost provides live chat support and phone support 24 hours a day, and a 30-day money back guarantee.
However, there are downsides too such as higher renewal fees and restrictions on plans that are the cheapest.
We base all our reviews solely on real data like uptime, speed, and cost.
Let’s now take a look at Bluehost to see if they can offer the website hosting service you require. Bluehost Svn
Bluehost Video Review
>>CLICK HERE TO GET THE BEST DEAL ON BLUEHOST <<
General Info & Hosting Overview
Our Verdict: 5.0
SPEED: 688 ms (April 2020 to March 2021)
UPTIME: 99.95% (April 2020 to April 2021).
SUPPORT: Live Chat, Email and Phone Support Available 24/7
APPS: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, phpBB, and More Than 75+ Open Source Projects
FEATURES: Unmetered bandwidth, Unlimited Websites and Storage, Free Domain 1st Year, Free SSL Certificate and CDN, Spam Experts, Domain Privacy, 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee, WordPress 1-Click Install
HOSTING PLANS – Shared, WordPress VPS, Reseller and Dedicated Servers
SITE TRANSFER: One WordPress site for free starting at $2.75/mo (renews at $8.99/mo) Bluehost Svn
Pros of Using Bluehost Hosting
Bluehost has been around since 2003, so they have plenty of experience to know what makes a hosting service excellent.
Their introductory prices are affordable, customer support is easy to reach and helpful, and you get many useful features to go with your hosting plan. They provide high-speed server speeds and reliable uptime.
Let’s have a look at Bluehosts strengths in more detail. Bluehost Svn
1. Great uptime for 12-months (99.96%)
The most important aspect of choosing a webhost is uptime. Your users won’t have access to your site if your website is down. Consistent uptime should be a top priority when considering hosting services.
Over 40 web hosts were reviewed and our benchmark for “good” uptime was 99.93%. So ideally, we don’t want to see anything less than that.
Bluehost surpasses this benchmark easily, comfortably keeping our site online for 99.96% in the past twelve months (April 2020 to February 2021). The total downtime for the entire year was just four hours.
See Stats Bluehost’s average Uptime for the past 12 Months is:
March 2021: 100%
February 2021: 99.95%
January 2021: 100%
December 2020: 99.98%
November 2020: 100%
October 2020: 99.67%
September 2020: 100%
August 2020: 99.99%
July 2020: 99.98%
June 2020: 100% Bluehost Svn
May 2020: 99.90% (scheduled maintenance)
April 2020: 99.99%
2. Fast Page Loading Speed (688 ms)
Research conducted by Google “As page load time goes from 1s to 3s the probability of bounce increases 32%.” This translates to your visitors being 32% more likely to leave your site. It gets worse if page loads take longer.
Furthermore, Google is more geared towards mobile-first indexing.
Mobile users are the most important audience for your website. If you don’t, you will lose traffic.
Slow websites are almost always associated with lower traffic and consequently, lower sales. Page loading time, after uptime is crucial for website success.
Average load speed for Bluehost While it isn’t competing for the top positions, it isn’t bad either. Bluehost Svn
3. Low Introductory Pricing ($2.75/mo)
Bluehost’s default pricing is $3.95/month. This is an introductory rate from the $8.99/month rate.
Bluehost’s starting price has been reduced to $2.75/month. That is the good news. You get 50GB SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, an SSL certificate, and much more. So you’d be getting a pretty good value for the price, plus their consistent uptime and page loading speeds.
Even so, the cheapest plan comes with some limitations that we aren’t happy about – but more on this later.
4. Enhanced Security Options and Features
Bluehost is one the “cheapest” options available on the market. We’re happy to see they don’t compromise on key security options.
Bluehost offers a free SSL certificate for sites that have the cheapest plan. Additionally, you get great features like a Cloudflare CDN, a one-click WordPress installation, multiple CMS integrations, as well as additional eCommerce plugins.
Higher-tier plans include the Spam Experts addon, domain privacy protection and server backups. SiteLock, a malware-prevention tool, is also included in higher-tier plans.
Codeguard provides another level of protection. It offers daily backups that allow you to rollback previous versions of a website in case it is hacked.
Postini is a Google security tool that’s worth noting. It prevents spam from reaching your inbox and protects it from being accessed by anyone suspicious. Bluehost Svn
5. Easy to Use for Beginners
The best web hosts are not the ones we have found, but they can be if you’re a skilled user. Bluehost is great if you’re a beginner.
Their customer portal interface is simple and clear, though we have had some issues with it being slow at times. Bluehost is even more user-friendly because of the layout of their cPanel control panels. With cPanel, beginners can install and launch WordPress easily. You can install WordPress in most cases with just a click and point.
If you don’t want to use WordPress, you can also begin creating a website with a website builder tool (such as Weebly or Drupal). Simply drag and drop elements on your page to create a customized template.
Bluehost also provides advanced features for those who need to use their code in order to create their website.
6. 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
Bluehost offers a 30-day money back guarantee on all hosting plans.
To test the service, you can do so to get a feel for it and request a refund if not satisfied. However, we do have some words of caution.
Bluehost’s terms state that these are the conditions under which Bluehost will guarantee your satisfaction.
Refunds can only be made on web hosting costs.
Bluehost would take $15.99 off your bill if you get a free domain.
Bluehost does not offer a refund for any requests made after 30 Days.
It’s not precisely a no-questions-asked policy like we’ve seen from some hosts. Before signing up, make sure that you agree to these points. Bluehost Svn
7. 24/7 Customer Support
Bluehost provides 24 hour customer support through live chat, phone, or email. A vast knowledge base is available that contains answers to frequently asked questions as well as useful information.
We tried the live chat feature, which was very pleasant.
The representative was very knowledgeable and quickly provided answers to our questions. Although some of the responses felt a bit repetitive, the follow-up questions led to improvised, helpful answers.
8. One Free WordPress Site Transfer
This perk is available to those who already own a website and wish to switch to Bluehost’s web hosting plan.
Bluehost just recently began offering a site transfer for free with all of its plans.
There are a couple of terms to this free service, though. First, your site must be a WordPress website. You must request the migration within 30 days of signing up for a hosting plan.
Contact their customer support and follow their instructions. It usually takes around 1-3 days for the migration to be completed.
It is $149.99 for those who don’t have WordPress websites or have more than one. This covers up to five website migrations as well as 20 email account migrations.
9. The Official WordPress.org Recommended Hosting Host
WordPress is the most used platform for website creation – approximately 44% of the Internet’s websites are built with WordPress.
They are the authority in hosting solutions. WordPress only recommends three hosting partners that can be used in conjunction with a WordPress site. Bluehost Svn
For a WordPress site, you can use nearly any web hosting company. Bluehost is an official partner. This is encouraging.
>>CLICK HERE TO GET THE BEST DEAL ON BLUEHOST <<
Cons of Using Bluehost Hosting
We’re glad to see such low introductory rates, but the renewal rates can get a little steep.
Let’s look closer at these negatives.
1. Higher Renewal Rates
The best way to get the lowest possible price for hosting is to prepay for one, two, or even three years upfront. While the average monthly price of hosting drops, you still have to commit hundreds of dollars upfront.
To ensure your satisfaction, the 30-day money-back promise will be honored. However, once the initial plan duration is over, you can expect a steep rise in the rates.
Let’s say that you choose the cheapest plan for three year, which costs $2.75/month. After the initial period, the next period’s renewal price starts at $8.99/month with a three-year commitment.
The next period in this case is three times more expensive than that of the previous.
2. Cheapest Plan Restrictions
Bluehost’s cheapest shared host plan comes with severe restrictions.
You can only have one website. Your storage space is limited. And the only security feature you get, a free SSL certificate. If you have multiple sites or require additional security, the minimum pricing tier is required.
These restrictions on the cheapest plan can be quite common in web hosting. These companies are in competition to attract customers with the lowest pricing, and then upsell decent hosting services at higher prices. Bluehost Svn
Bluehost Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts
Here’s Bluehost’s shared-hosting pricing plan:
| Pricing | $2.75/month Renews at $8.99/mo |
$5.45/month Renews at $11.99/mo |
$5.45/month Renews at $16.99/mo |
$13.95/month Renews at $26.99/mo |
| Websites | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Storage | 50 GB | Unmetered | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Email Accounts | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Other Features | – | • Spam Experts | • Spam Experts • Domain Privacy & Protection • Codeguard Basic |
• 2 Spam Experts • Domain Privacy & Protection • Codeguard Basic • Dedicated IP |
>>CLICK HERE TO GET THE BEST DEAL ON BLUEHOST <<
Quick Facts
- Money-Back: 30-day money-back guarantee
- Website migration: 1 WordPress website transfer is free Other migrations: $149.99 up to 5 websites, 20 email accounts.
- Free domain? Yes, for the first 12 months. Then renews at $15.99 per year.
- Sign up is easy: It’s simple and straightforward.
- Payment Methods
- Hidden Fees & Clauses: No refund for domain names. Both domain names and hosting renewal rates are more expensive than the introductory rates.
- Upsells: Some upsells during sign-up, but nothing too aggressive.
- Account activation: In most cases, instant activation. If the information is inaccurate or there’s suspicion of fraud, activation might get delayed.
- Control Panel and Dashboard Experience – Easy-to use cPanel
- Installation of Apps and CMS (WordPress, Joomla, etc. Mojo Marketplace makes installation of apps quick and simple. Bluehost Svn
Bluehost: Can We Recommend it?
Yes.
Bluehost has done slightly better in the past but they still offer reliable service with good server speeds.
They offer strong security options, a great guarantee of money back, many user-friendly apps, multiple tiers of hosting packages that are suitable for different customers, and many tiers. Our special discount makes the price as low as $2.75 per month.
Bluehost isn’t perfect. The renewal rates of hosting plans will go up dramatically after the initial signup period. Additionally, the cheapest plan comes with some significant restrictions that can be compared to the other tiers.
But overall, Bluehost delivers decent performance and good value for your money.
Bluehost: Have you ever used it before? If you have, please consider leaving a review. Good or bad it doesn’t really matter so long as it helps our visitors. Bluehost Svn
>>CLICK HERE TO GET THE BEST DEAL ON BLUEHOST <<