Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Best Wordpress Hosting
-
I've had a horrible experience with the security on wordpress hosting with GoDaddy. Someone recommended Blue Host as my next option. Does anyone have any experience with BlueHost and what other hosting companies would you recommend for wordpress hosting?
-
Have been very disappointed with Bluehost. LOTS of downtime in the last 6 months.
-
My vote goes to WPEngine as well. Great people there.
-
I just moved my sites from Hostgator to Media Temple...I saw an increase in search traffic w/ in days of the move for what it's worth.
-
WPengine is by far the best host for Wordpress in 2012
-
HI Christine
Even i have many issue with godaddy and so as with hostgator, lately i am able to find a data center in India named as CTRLS,
these guys are very focused on just one business that's hosting, nowdays i am having 3 VPS with them, its little costly, but definately worth every penny i have spent.
just google for them
** Please note i am not trying to promote them by any means NOR receiving any benefits from them ******
-
What sort of penetration testing? Any suggestions for places to do this?
-
Wordpress and PHP both have inherited vulnerabilities that help intruders. And When you add extensions, it adds. For Security, only Host can not do any thing.
Either, you make a penetration testing from some reasonable security company, and you will get save from 99% of amateur attacks.
Or make your Wordpress installation always updated, and use as less extensions as possible.
Its better to use some backup plugin, and keep on taking daily automatic backups. So In any such case you can instanlty bring your site back to life.
I am using http://me.wisnetsol.com for last 3 years, and never get hacked.
-
Well, I don't believe even Amazon will help much about it. There are certain vulnerabilities inherited with Wordpress, php that helps hackers to intrude. And when you add extensions, it adds.
I suggest you get proper penetration testing, and remove those vulnerabilities. And you can run your blog on any reasonable shared host without any issue.
-
GoDaddy's cheap accounts are hosted on Windows, and you have no access to the server to do 301 redirects, etc. There's also some kind of caching so changes might not "take" immediately. Overall it's a real pain, and not Wordpress-friendly at all.
-
GoDaddy is horrible and they are not as helpful when help is needed for changes, fixes with site.
HostGator is awesome for hosting and customer service. I can be on the road, call in and they fix it immediately for me. Godaddy's response --- "Sorry, we are not allowed to do that for you."
-
I use Bluehost a lot. They're a great value for a basic (shared) hosting package, with good support. No complaints.
I'll second what EGOL says if you have more than a few thousand users per day. In that case you'd probably want to go to a CDN.
-
Wordpress operates on PHP. If someone wants to hack or website, it is the hosting companies job to limit them but its your job to make sure all of your passwords are considered strong passwords
First thing i would recommend is to make sure all passwords to any admin area are changed.
Read the article Gyi suggested http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress
For these reasons I have recently launched my own web hosting company because I want to offer the most secure environment for my customers.
If you need any help or have any questions with your wordpress securing, PM me and I would be happy to assist you.
-
+1 for hostgator, also, not sure if this was in the thread, but worth looking at: http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress
-
Wow! Thank you for all the insight! I am going to look at HostGator as I've heard several good things about them. With regard to udpates, the Wordpress platform has been udpated at every opportunity and, in addition, I've updated with "patches" through GoDaddy as well. Unfortunately, this is the third site that has been hacked. I'm overseeing 150+ sites so I need to consider another option as I've also had bad experiences with GoDaddy in other areas. Thanks again for everyone's input! Very much needed and appreciated!
-
I have a few sites that I have set up using Wordpress - I always use Hostgator - it's cheap - quick - seems reliable and they have that great Fantastico Deluxe thing where you can easily upload Wordpress without using FTP and that kind of thing. Always runs very smoothly and I've never had problems!
-
Hi Christine
I've used Bluehost a couple of times for small WP sites and found it very straightforward to operate and good value. The one-click WP install makes it particularly attractive for beginners. I can't comment on security as I haven't had any issues.
-
You are coorect
they have php5 but after checking, i find that they have dicontinued mysql used by wordpress i believe, I am not famialer with WP much myself.
-
Agreed Godaddy is terrible. I use Bluehost and find them OK, but I do get a better service with Just Host ( bit.ly/iw8cpo)
United Hosting is also very good.
-
Very good point about updating WP promptly to avoid security holes. It may not be the hosting company at all.
-
(First... have you been updating your WP promptly when updates are issued? I assume that you have but just askin'.)
If you have a tiny site with very little traffic this host might be OK. However....
Be careful as they offer: "UNLIMITED GB of Site Transfer" (their CAPS, not mine).
With this type of offer once your visitor counts get up to a few thousand per day you might see service outages because instead of throttling your BW they instead limit your "processing units" or some other parameter.
UNLIMITED BW is often true but there will be another variable that will throttle your site.
Some sites require a dedicated server and terrabytes of BW per month. No host will give you that for $6.95/month.
-
Alan, Christine is looking for a host for a wordpress site. discountasp (.NET hosting) doesn't strike me as the right choice.
-
Our WP site has been hacked just about on every possible host and platform from shared to dedicated server. Entry points were different, sometimes through entire server, sometimes via plugin weakness. We're thinking about Amazon right now, still undecided as one of our staff gravitates towards hosting the site on our own box in the office.
PS: Found this presentation: http://blog.rochenhost.com/2010/06/joomla-and-wordpress-hosting-and-security-presentations-cms-expo/ I haven't heard of this hosting company before but anyone who is presenting on wordpress hosting security must be worth investigating further.
-
I am not sure what security problems you had, but the main thing i would be looking for is load speed. this is a factor in ranking.
I host my own sites in Australia, but i do host a few at discountasp. they seem to have all the featuers and they are great value.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Switched from Wix to Wordpress dreaded hashtag URL
Recently took over managing a site for a non-profit which was using the dreaded Wix. Switched over to Wordpress but now Google still has the old URL's with the hashtag. Can't forward them in .htaccess and don't want to add javascript for fear of slowing down load time. I found a solution that seems like it will take hours and hours of work. I found the solution at http://www.thedriversgarage.com/web-technology/redirecting-hashbang-urls-wix-urls/ but it seems like it would take hours with all the URL's. I submitted an XML sitemap in Google webmaster tools. My question is, how serious could this effect SEO for my site? Google accepted the new sitemap but still has the old URL's in SERP. How long does this generally take to remove? Will the hashtag URL's penalize the site for duplicate content? If so is there a way to tell Google the homepage without hashtags is the page with original content? Sort of like the rel=canonical tag which I know wont work as the hashtag URL's all redirect to the homepage so they will all have the tag. Does Google ignore the hashtag? Could there even be a benefit to this, possibly the homepage getting more page authority due to the redirects? How serious is this? Thanks in advancing.
Web Design | | limited70 -
Internal Linking: What is the best practice for pages not included in Nav bar?
I never quite understood why internal linking was such a big deal for SEO, but now I'm having second thoughts and perhaps understanding it more. I always thought since most websites have a navigation feature--usually the menu bar located at the top and often another one in the footer--that internal navigation was usually already built in to most websites and therefore, a silly topic to make a fuss over; however, I may be the silly one after all. I am now creating pages that are not included in the navigation so.... What is the best practice for this? If I am creating say, pages for certain locations and those location pages begin to number in the hundreds, it makes my navigation bar a little too cumbersome to have all those pages in a drop down menu. So I made a Locations page and just link to all those pages from that page (and from nowhere else). But now I'm wondering if this could be a bad internal linking practice and perhaps hurt my online visibility as an SEO ranking factor. Is this a crawl problem? And if so, is there a better option that provides a good visitor experience while appeasing the search engines.
Web Design | | Dino640 -
Will having two wordpress themes installed hurt seo?
We currently have 3 sites built on WordPress that have little to no blogging capabilities. Currently, all published posts show up on a /category page which does not resemble the traditional blog format and is not aesthetically pleasing. We would like to have a more traditional blog and are considering installing a second wordpress theme on the site which will strictly be used for /blog and all the posts. My question is will having the second WordPress installation on the sites hurt us in any way on the SEO front and if we go this way should we place the install in a subfolder or on a subdomain? Is there anything else we need to worry about with making this transition? Thank you in advance for the advice! Patrick
Web Design | | PlanetDISH0 -
Yoast focus keywords for portfolio post types in WordPress
This one is for the WordPress optimization crowd! Portfolios are used to display work. I have a question about best seo optimization techniques. 1. Portfolios can be used to display many different types of work, for me it either original web designs from scratch, WordPress redesigns, or importing a current website into WordPress. What is the best practice for keywords for multiple portfolios that are in one category. for instance WordPress Redesign. If I have 5 WordPress redesign portfolio posts is it good practice to use WordPress redesign for all 5 portfolios or should they use variations? Yoast gets angry when the same focus keyword is used multiple times. 2. Should portfolios even be indexed? Since this is how I attract new customers I would think yes but am I giving too much exposure to my client and not enough to my business. I guess this will depend on titles and meta descriptions. A discussion on best practices here is what I am really looking for. What is your advice and opinion on the matter.
Web Design | | donsilvernail1 -
How to know if a wordpress theme is coded correctly for Seo
Hi, So I am curious if there is a tool to see if a site is coed properly for Google? I am running Avada, a standalone theme, yet I am also using a cache plugin. But when I search my code, its all like on one huge line. So I am curious if there is a way to verify or check if a theme is coded correctly? Thank you
Web Design | | Berner1 -
Best Webhosting Suggestions??
Good morning my fellow Mozzers! I am currently looking at adding some diversity to my current web hosting and I was hoping I could get some suggestions. I dont currently need a VPS or Dedicated Server, I just need some shared hosting, you know, packeges that are sub $20 a month...i mean i will pay more than that, but so far everything i look at that meets my needs(basic hosting, email, ect...). This is for client sites and they are growing in number somewhat rapidly. I currently host with GoDaddy and they are amazing in the support department, but I do question whether their servers are causing slow page loads ect...but all in all I am happy with them. I have used Netword Solutions in the past, but left them because i was not a big fan of talking to support people in india and malasia. I do think that their servers might have performed better than GoDaddy so i am not ruling them out at this point i am looking for a provider that has excellent support and who has servers that are not so overloaded the can render pages and content slowly. Performance is very important to me. I am not looking for the cheapest, I am looking for the overall best. Thanks in advance SEOmoz family!!!
Web Design | | WebbyNabler0 -
Self hosted or YouTube Hosted Videos for SEO?
I am trying to plug holes in my site and the one thing that is lacking is unique videos. I was wondering what is the best way to go about videos for seo purposes? Should I just post onto a youtube channel and then embed into my site or should I look to just place videos on my site with software or should I use any of the other venders out there like Vimeo? Not sure which is the best route. Any tips?
Web Design | | bronxpad0 -
Changing from Squarespace to Wordpress - Will I Lose My Rankings?
I have a friend who has a squarespace site that is giving him lots of trouble. For one, even though it is supposed to redirect to GreenSpaceConstruct.com...Bing and Yahoo don't seem to recognize this domain. Instead, they show greenlightconstruct.squarespace.com in the serp's. Oddly, Google shows the site as GreenSpaceConstruct.com. The site is ranking well for some terms. I'm afraid that converting to wordpress will hurt his rankings in the short term. If bing and yahoo are crawling this squarespace domain, and he moves it...is there a way not to just completely lose the rankings? Thanks for any thoughts. Much appreciated! Josh
Web Design | | JoshTurner0