Top 10 PHP web hosts

1. BlueHost are one of the leading hosting companies today. They offer those extra touches such as the latest version of cPanel and Fantastico, so that you can easily install and manage your WordPress blog. With a massive 300Gb of disk space and 3000Gb of bandwidth you can happily grow you blog content and readership without outgrowing your hosting package.


2. HostGator are the fastest growing hosting company on the internet. This is due to their excellent customer care and support response. With an incredible 600Gb of disk space and 6000Gb of bandwidth your blog can grow and grow and grow. HostGator offer unlimited domains and databases, so if you are looking to host more than one blog on your account HostGator are perfect.


3. Hostmonster, although cheaper than BlueHost and HostGator, offer excellent uptime and support. 300Gb of disk space and 3000Gb of bandwidth is more than enough for any growing blog. Perfect for anyone wanting to keep initial costs low.

1. Uptime - this is the amount of time your website or blog will be online. Because websites are hosted on web servers, which are just powerful computers, they experience the occasional problem. The problems are normally resolved very quickly. But, the time taken to resolve the problem normally means your website is not available for a short period of time. This unavailable period is known as downtime. All of the packages I have recommended have an uptime of more than 99.5%, which is as good as it gets.


2. Disk space - this is the amount of space on the web server disk drive that you are allowed to use. When you first create a blog or website you might use 100Mb of disk space. However, if your website is content and media rich you could use more than 1Gb of disk space quickly. Ensuring your hosting provider allows plenty of disk space prevents any potential problems in the future.


3. Bandwidth - this is the amount of traffic data that your website generates. Every time a reader looks at one of your web pages or images the content is sent from the web server to the readers computer. This uses bandwidth. When you post a blog entry or web page from your computer to the web server, this is also traffic. Popular websites generate a lot of traffic, which uses a lot of bandwidth. Having to change hosting providers because of a bandwidth limit is a headache you need to avoid. All of the hosting providers I have listed offer masses of bandwidth, which is enough for even high traffic websites.


4. Support - if you should encounter a problem with your hosting, or simply have a question you want the support team to respond quickly, accurately and professionally. The level of support provided is often the difference between a good web hosting provider and a bad one. I have used the support facilities of each of the providers I have mentioned, and have found them all first class.

If you are running a blog with Wordpress, or a CMS system such as Drupal, Joomla, Mambo or ExpressionEngine, then you should realise the importance of quality hosting.

When you receive thousands of visitors everyday, and those visitors have taken months to rally together, you do not want them to be met with a 'Page Not Available' message.

Choosing the right host from the start ensures your website is always live, is always responsive, and it means that you will not have to go through the painful task of moving all of your files and database to a new server when your host lets you down.

Choose once, choose wisely.

I hope this information helps you choose a web host for your website of blog. For more information check my best web hosting guide.