Dec 06 2007
Where to Host Your Blog
I’m often asked if I can refer a good web host. I’ve talked about the business of blogging, the pros and cons of moving your blog and documented my move from wordpress.com to my own domain. It seems timely, with so many bloggers expressing dissatisfaction with Blogger, to have another look at this issue.
My blog and other websites are hosted with Anchor (who cater mainly for business solutions) and I have a few dedicated servers (not because my blog gets so much traffic that it warrants it!). While I would be happy to recommend them for a business, they just aren’t geared towards the blogging market.
Having no first hand experience with another host (well, except for a secret blog I’m trying to find the time to kick start hehe), I am obviously reluctant to recommend something I know very little about.
What I do know is:
- hosting in Australia is, on the whole, more expensive than overseas
- now that Google Webmaster Tools allows you to target a geographic area, hosting in Australia isn’t the big deal it once was, nor is having a .com.au domain name – which can be awkward to get if you’re not a registered business.
What I have been suggesting to bloggers in the last month or so, is the hosting service that Snoskred is providing.
I had the opportunity to meet up (yes in person!) with Snos a while back, and what I learned was that she is extremely passionate about a few things (apart from her family and cats). One is her dedication to stopping people being ripped off by internet scammers, another is helping bloggers and also helping to raise awareness of the Australian blogging community.
When we met, Snoskred talked about the server they had, that had oodles of surplus capacity, and how she’d like to offer hosting to other bloggers at a reasonable rate.
Well, she’s certainly worked at making that goal a reality. Snoskred wouldn’t point you to these glowing reviews (she’s far too modest). But I had a little delve into her Technorati links and I’d like to offer her a little thumbs up (Rodney style).
- New Domain Notice (The Cerebral Mum)
- So How do You Like the New Place (The Journey – Rodney Olsen)
- A New Domain and Some Thanks (Burgo’s Blog)
- Welcome to Lightening Online (Lightening)
Lightening writes
Firstly, a MASSIVE thank you to Snoskred who has put in a MAMMOTH effort to get this up and running. Without her this would NEVER have happened. If you’ve not visited her site yet, please go and do that!!! And make sure you tell the world how wonderful she is because she truly deserves it!
Having Your own Blog Doesn’t Have to be Expensive
Cost of your own domain (approx, depending on the domain): $6-$30 pa
Cost of hosting (payable monthly): $60 pa
Cost of owing your own little piece of the internet: priceless
So what do you think? How much would another hobby cost? A gym membership? Craft supplies? A new pair of shoes? A beer at the pub every week? A dinner out? We are talking less than $2 a week.
Can I just add, Snoskred is providing much more than just hosting. She’s offering help with the set-up, migration, plugins…. That is truly a labour of love, and not a service you’d get anywhere else without paying an arm and a leg.
(That’s a round of applause, in case you were wondering).
If you are interested please visit Snoskred, and read more about the hosting service.
and if you think I’m getting a financial incentive for recommending this service – just look at the price 😉
13 Responses to “Where to Host Your Blog”
Oh Yay. i was wondering who I was sharing my new home with!
Snoskred is brilliant. I would recommend her hosting to anyone thinking of making the switch. When you’re deciding on hosting options, her expertise and value for money hosting fee makes it a very simple decision.
Setting up a new domain wasn’t particularly easy, especially since I’m the least technological person around!
But I’m happy with it now, and don’t have to worry about it until next August/September, when I decide to either stick with Blue Host or move elsewhere.
[…] WordPress hosting for $5.00 a month. This is a fairly good deal and one I am happy to recommend (as is Meg). I don’t have any vested financial interest in recommending you to her, just passing on the […]
Damn, that’s pretty decent hosting pricing.. I cant find any info on bandwidth usage and that sort of stuff.
Moving my blog over to a new domain name has been a frustrating experience on a couple of levels, my rankings for instance, not that I care too much about that but the actually physical act on my hosted servers was a pain because I had the domain parked on a sub domain that was also parked…????? I dunno it was all a little weird so things went bad all over the place. I did however stick a 303 redirect in and that has seemed to solve most of my woes now.
I host overseas because I just get a brilliant rate and I’m a reseller who doesn’t actually resell so I have a lot of control over my domains (except when they’re parked funny). So far I haven’t had any real problems except once when they were knocked out by fire and I lost my sites for about 8 hours.
Server times can occasionally be annoying when developing other apps etc (wordpress gives you the option to set your timezone) but it’s pretty minor.
Matt, that’s because we’re not limiting people. Most wordpress blogs won’t use the kind of traffic that we have to worry about putting in a cap on bandwidth usage. But if you did have a spike – say a digg or stumbleupon influx, then our server would be able to handle it. There is nothing worse than having a lot of traffic coming to your site only to find “this account has been suspended due to going over their limit”. We’re only hosting blogs at this stage.
We also allow you to have email with your domain and we set all that up for you. We haven’t put any kind of limit on how many email addresses you can have because that’s going to be different for different people and it is about 10 seconds work to set one up. If someone came to us and asked for 200 email addresses for every man and his dog they know, we might have to consider putting some kind of limit, but most people want less than 15. I’m going to have a talk today with The Other Half and see if we can put together some info perhaps with limits but we really are very negotiable on these things.
Thanks Meg for putting this together! 😉 I appreciate it. I’ve been a bit snowed under over the last 24 hours putting together a blog for someone, apologies for not replying to your email.
Cheers,
Snoskred
[…] to Meg for putting together this post – Where To Host Your Blog – with some comments from some of the people we’re hosting blogs for. Also thanks to Andrew […]
cerebralmum – you’re in some good company. I think the bonus is that you will always be in good company, as I’m sure Snos will be diligent about who she takes on. You wouldn’t get that assurance with many hosts.
Rodney – glad you’re happy with the service
alyndabear – I agree. When I moved I paid $50 to have it configured – well the WordPress install anyway. Importing all my old posts was quite a trial. I really would have appreciated a service like this. It can be tricky, but challenging.
Matt – Snoskred has responded to your question.
Lee – that does sound complicated. Glad you’re on top of it now! A fire – I suppose you’ve got to cut some slack for that.
Snos – no worries, you’re doing a great job 😀
I don’t understand it enough but it looks a brilliant deal. I will look into it alittle more over the next few weeks.Your post is going a long way to helping me understand it and Snos too.
Thank you Meg for giving my new site a mention BUT even more so for your kind words about Snoskred. I am still in awe that someone I’ve never met face to face would do all that for me! And I’m so excited about the end result that I keep staring at my new blog (that does sound rather tragic doesn’t it? LOL).
Hey Cerebralmum! Looks like we’re neighbours!
Cool! I’ll have to go check out those other 2 as well. I’ve not heard of them. 
I have been contemplating this ever since I read it on Snoskreds blog. By the time I actually make up my mind I would have probably missed the boat.
And it would be considerably less than a pair of new shoes
Whoa, Meg… thanks for the linky loveness!
Let’s not forget the role you played in helping me out as well!
Snoskred truly was fantastic helping me set up my new blog… I had so many noob questions, I really didn’t think she would be able to put up with it for long; but not only did she put up with it, but went out of her way and did far more to help than I ever would have expected.