Domain Services & Web Hosting

Domain Registrars

If you want to research and register a domain then a couple of registrars to look into are Moniker and GoDaddy.  We personally use Moniker.com for all of our domain services, and we own over 150 domains.  They are excellent, competitively priced and provide an array of features that make managing your domains much easier.

Website Hosting

Shared Hosting

We recommend BlueHost.com for most of our clients and use them ourselves before moving to VPS hosting.  If you are not already hosting with BlueHost.com, then here are the steps you can take to set up an account:

1. Goto bluehost.com and click the <Sign Up Now> button in the center of the screen.
2. If you already have a domain then enter it in the “I have a domain” area and click <Next>.
3. If you are registering a new domain then enter the domain you want to register in the “I need a domain” area and click <Next>.
4. Once you get to Step 2, enter the Billing information and click <Next>.
   note: clicking <Next> immediately sets up your account and bills your credit card
5. If you have a main website situated with a different hosting provider and will be setting up a BlueHost.com account for your blog, you also will need to set up a Dedicated IP address. Once your BlueHost.com account is set up you can use the “Dedicated IP” tab to order this.

UPDATE: While BlueHost.com still may be a good solution for initial, small traffic sites, we have had issues with what we consider over throttling of sites, to the point where they become unusable.  HostGator.com might be another shared hosting environment to look into as I see it mentioned on a lot of WordPress groups as good or go with a WordPress-only hosting provider like WPEngine.com or Page.ly.  We are VERY happy with our KnownHost.com VPS account.  There service is always Top Notch!

Virtual Private Server – VPS Hosting

All of JVHM, Inc.’s many websites are now running off of a KnownHost.com VPS, which is a very affordable managed VPS service. The post sales support has been just as good as the pre-sales support and we don’t hesitate in recommending them to anyone needing this type of service. Their uptime is excellent and their ticket responses are done in a human, non-canned, personal style. Their service also includes porting your existing site over to their servers.

WordPress-Only Hosting Services

These hosting providers have popped up over the past few years and provide hosting for WordPress-based websites.  They provide secure services with good performance and also may handle some of the administrative overhead, like updating WordPress core software and plugins.  One very popular service is WPEngine. Another is page.ly and is used by the East Bay WordPress MeetUp group. Another I’ve been exposed to, but think could be better, is zippykid.com, which has since changed to pressable.com. May be worth a look just to compare.

note: some or all of the above may be affiliate links

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