Home » Computers & Electronics

Best Webhosting for Big Blogs: Shared, dedicated or managed server?

Ranked #23,433 in Computers & Electronics, #441,133 overall

What if your blog grows and your hoster says NO?

This is a real life story. I run a successful business blog at www.conserio.at which is written in German and gets about 2000-3000 visitors a day. Not too much compared to other big business websites, but quite ok and the result of two years of hard work.

While I enjoyed watching the number of visitors grow, my local hosting provider didn't at all - he grew very angry with me. Exceeding 10 GB of traffic a month made him nervous and so he asked me to switch to another hoster as soon as possible. You know, local business websites are supposed to stay tiny and small, and local hosting providers are supposed to do so, too.

I'm pretty sure any big blog administrator got such a call one day, or experienced a slowdown in site performance, or users wrote emails about not being able to reach the site, etc. Using WordPress, one of the most popular Content Management Systems in the World, makes it even worse, as this platform is very resource consuming with many database queries and puts heavy load on the server CPU, sometimes causing the whole server to shut down.

Sooner or later you will face the question: Should I switch to a new shared hosting plan, or get my very own virtual or dedicated server? Or is there something I can do about the heavy CPU load and resource consumption of my blog?

Contents at a glance

  1. The Solution
  2. Recommended Webhosts for growing blogs
  3. How to increase your blog speed
  4. You don't need a server for under 10000 visitors per day
  5. Big Blogs on Amazon
  6. Reader Feedback

The Solution

There are cheap and easy alternatives to expensive Webservers!

If your web hosting provider tells you to go, first look for cheap and unlimited hosting plans that allow you to consume as much bandwidth,/traffic, space and other resources as you want. Below you'll find a list of providers I know and I can recommend to you.

Recommended Webhosts for growing blogs

These are some hosting providers with cheap and unlimited hosting plans suitable for growing blogs. Exceeding certain limits will not make them nervous, and they'll also help you with the technical part to keep up with your visitor numbers. A more detailed destription and table of good webhosts can be found at HostingSelector webhosting comparison.
Justhost.com
Justhost webhosting, starting at $ 3,95 a month
Bluehost
Bluehost Webhosting, starting at $ 3,95 a month
Hostgator
Hostgator Webhosting, starting at $ 4,95 a month

How to increase your blog speed

How to speed up growing blogs on low-cost hosting plans

Of course, running your blog on a cheap hosting plan means there are a lot of other websites on the same server. Luckily, the above mentioned providers work with cloud computing or similar solutions to reduce the overall server load, resulting in a better performance of all hosted sites. If you receive 5000 visitors a day or less, this will work for you.

But there's also something you can do about your blog performance, especially if you are using WordPress. First and foremost you should use a blog caching plugin like WP Super Cache by Donncha O Caoimh. This plugin will temporarely save blog sites as static html pages, severely reducing mysql queries and loading times of your homepage. This will enable you to run websites with up to 10000 visitors per day for $4 a month.

That's exactly what I did: Switching to a low-cost hoster that runs lots of servers and therefore is experienced in dealing with big websites, and using a cache plugin. That's it, and my blog grows and generates revenue without any further and annoying hosting headache.

You don't need a server for under 10000 visitors per day

But you're exceeding this number?

Well, congratulations, then your earnings should be quite good, and you will be able to afford a server just for your blog. If caching is enabled, one average dedicated server should do the job until you exceed 20000 visitors per day. If your site grows even further, there are professional server management solutions. The first will be to split servers: one for your database, one for your files. Really big blogs like Techcrunch run lots of servers and use load balancing tools. They do earn a fortune with their sites, so it's easy for them to hire professionals who manage load and security of their servers.

Wouldn't it be great to get there, too?

Big Blogs on Amazon

Some great books about Big Blogs, WordPress and Hosting:
Loading

Reader Feedback

submit
Show All

by

thebukmaker

I run a big business blog and am also a freelance webdesigner.

Feeling creative? Create a Lens!

Related Tags