The Best Web Hosting List

By now you are probably wondering why we have so many of what we call the “best web hosting” providers listed on our Top 10 List. This is because all other top web hosting lists are wrong. They choose to evaluate each web host in relation to the other hosts and assign an arbitrary number to them to show they are the best or the worst.

Notice that we do not have any numeric values listed on our website and while one web hosting provider may be listed above another, this does not mean they are better or worse for YOU.

Instead, we decided to change things up a bit and rank each web host based on the values you care about most: Support, Features, Price, and Functionality.

So how is this different? Simple – each host is #1 for its own reason or we would not be showcasing them on our website. So each web host we provide information on has something they work best for, as we have discovered along our web hosting work and research that one web hosting provider is perfect to host a business or e-business, while they are very poor for personal web hosting or blogging. Then there are other web hosts who are best-suited for personal or family web hosting but really don’t have the features necessary for the business world.

Here is a detailed list of our current Top Web Hosting providers and what they are #1 for to help you find the perfect web host.

IX Web Hosting - #1 for Overall Web Hosting - IX Web Hosting is great for businesses, blogs, personal websites, adult hosting, and nearly everything else you can imagine to use your website for. Check out our IX Web Hosting Review for further details.

ThinkHost - #1 for Eco Friendly Web Hosting - ThinkHost is green hosting at its best, meaning they are conscious of the environment in everything they do. Use them for personal websites, blogs, and web hosting projects based on personal needs.

DreamHost - #1 Webmaster Choice Web Hosting - DreamHost is definitely one of the most popular web hosting providers on the planet and for good reason. Use DreamHost for music and media hosting, a simple green hosting solution, or blog.

EasgyCGI - #1 Advanced Web Hosting - Do you like Windows? You’ll love EasyCGI! They have various web hosting options for your small business, Fortune 500 enterprise, or dedicated server. Not for newbies, but great for professionals.

StartLogic - #1 Cheap Web Hosting - You need a website and you need it cheap, then StartLogic is for you. They have hosting for as little as $5.95/month, which can help you get your blog online ASAP.

BlueHost - #1 Secure Web Hosting - 24/7 Support was literally defined by BlueHost, so you can rest assured that you’ll be taken care of and your website will be backed up. This is great for ecommerce and big businesses who need the extra attention.

HostMonsster - #1 Professional Web Hosting - Business hosting, ecommerce, affordable servers, reliable support, and even personal assistance for your ebusiness needs. Easy to work with too!

FatCow - #1 Ecommerce Web Hosting - Ecommerce web hosting has never been easier with FatCow. You can create your ecommerce shop in 3 steps with online tutorials and design assistance. Perfect for beginners and work-at-home moms.

GoDaddy - #1 Domain Web Hosting - You need 50 domains and you need them cheap, hosted, and with plenty of email access. In that case, GoDaddy is for you! These guys are known worldwide for domain registration and secure hosting.

HostingZoom - #1 Reliable Web Hosting - 24/7 support backed by incredibly web hosting professionals means they are perfect for small businesses, enterprise solutions, and work at home corporations.

Because of the many misconceptions about what “web hosting” really is, many web hosting customers accidentally purchase their domain names in one place and their web hosting in another, without realizing the best web hosts give domain names away for free when you purchase hosting with them. Take IX Web Hosting for example – they offer 2 free domain name registrations with every web hosting purchase. That way, you do not have to worry about paying for services you should get for free and you won’t have to worry about getting cheated on pricey domain registrations later on – as long as you stay with IX Web Hosting, your domain names are free!

But what if you already purchased your domain name from a domain registrar and now you’re looking to host that domain name with a reliable web hosting provider? Simple – you need to transfer your domain name or point your domain nameservers to your new web host.

If you just purchased your domain name within 60 days or it is up for renewal within the next 2 weeks, you can’t transfer it. So all you need to do is purchase a hosting plan with one of our Top 10 Web Hosts and update your domain nameservers to point to that web host. Does that sound confusing? Check out our tutorial on How To Change Your Nameservers for more assistance there.

If your domain name falls between 60 days old and 2 weeks to renewal, you just need to contact your best web hosting choice and ask them to transfer you. Sometimes, web hosts charge a small fee to transfer a domain name, but many of the best hosting providers will do it for free if you host with them.

Once your website is online, you’ll need to let people know. Unfortunately, your website doesn’t magically appear in Google, Yahoo, or on various websites like you see when surfing the internet.

So how does your website get noticed? Easy – you tell people where to look!

The first step, of course, is getting reliable web hosting. I know it sounds like we’re beating a dead horse with this fact, but the plain truth is, without a website, your business will suffer. Your competitors already have the edge if they have a site and you don’t. So be careful when choosing and pick from our best web hosting providers on our Top 10 Hosting List! We’ve picked the best so you don’t have to worry.

Once you’ve purchased hosting, then you need an effective marketing plan. If you’ve never advertised online before, it can be really tricky, but luckily we can help! Plus, if you agreed with our decision that IX Web Hosting is the best web hosting around, they are giving you the tools you need to effectively market your website online. Here’s what they’re offering with every hosting purchase!

$50 Miva Network
$50 Google
$50 Yahoo
$50 BidVertiser
$100 ABCSearch
$25 Ingenio
$25 Enhance Interactive

$60 value for SitePal
$48 in free hosting Magazines

What does this mean for you and your new website? It means you are going to get noticed and ranked in Google, Yahoo, and major websites across the internet!! It means your business is going to grow ASAP, and it means your website is profitable.

If you need some extra advice about marketing your website and online advertising, check out our little tutorial on Web Hosting Advertising!

So you want a new website but you can’t afford the arm-and-a-leg costs some web hosting providers are throwing at you? Join the club, of which every single reader here is a member.

It’s very common to get confused as to what exactly you’re going to have to pay for website hosting, for how long, and how often. Sometimes, web hosts will hide payment details in the fine print or charge you extra for setup fees, shorter contracts, or ‘extra features’ that should be part of the main plan.

Because we’re here to help, here’s a few tips on purchasing reliable web hosting on a budget!

Shop Around

You wouldn’t buy the first car you come across, nor would you buy it without a test drive or two, right? Shopping for web hosting is the exact same thing, except you don’t have to deal with sleazy car salesmen or haggle for prices. Our Top 10 Hosting List offers the best web hosting providers in the world, along with reviews on each host, helpful tips on choosing the best host, and even coupon discounts. We recommend IX Web Hosting but that doesn’t mean they’re the best solution for your needs. Remember to compare web hosts side by side, look at the features, and rate them along with us.

Call, Email, Read

Call the web hosts and ask them questions, email them and pretend you have support issues to test their response times, and read through their FAQs to make sure you understand what they’re selling. It wouldn’t hurt to read their fine print, too!

Choose a Longer Billing Cycle

If you’re willing to purchase web hosting for 1 or 2 years at a time, you can save a LOT of money. For example, some hosts charge a $30 or $60 nonrefundable setup fee on month-to-month, quarterly, or half-year billing cycles. This means if you don’t like the hosting plan, you only get a small refund – that $30 or $60 is lost forever. The main advantages of choosing a longer billing cycle are that you don’t have to worry about payment for another year or two and you save money.

Web Hosting Discounts

Right now you can find amazing web hosting coupons on our main page! We’ve listed them below for your convenience. Simply click on the deal you want and you can buy instantly or choose to compare and shop around.

Good luck on your budget web hosting search!

Many people have asked us what it takes to actually build a website from start to finish: i.e. How long does it take and how much does it cost?

Building a website can be extremely easy and can take you less than a few hours if you plan the building of it ahead of time! Here are some tips and tricks for getting your website online in under 5 hours!

1) Write your content and get your images ready first.

Yep, before you sit down to purchase web hosting, domain name, and start building, come up with your text, save your images, and even get your videos, music, and other production tools ready in advance. Having these at hand will speed up the process of creating your website.

2) Choose your website builder or templates.

This may require doing a little research and you might need to compare web hosts in the process, but find out which content management system, website builder, or web design template you’re going to use to actually put your site online and make it look good. Our biggest recommendations go to:

* WordPress Web Hosting – For this, we would recommend IX Web Hosting, ThinkHost, or HostMonster. They can all help you get WordPress up and running with no programming or design experience required. Plus there a gazillion Free WordPress Theme sites you can choose your design from. Easy, easy, easy.

* Joomla Web Hosting – For this, we recommend IX Web Hosting, DreamHost, or BlueHost, all of which have Joomla tools that help you install and get started without having to know a thing about technology! Plus, sites like iJoomla.com offer Joomla Extensions and design tools that help you make Joomla work for you and look good to boot.

* Web Design Templates from DreamTemplate. These guys know website design, and their templates are super cheap. You only have to pay one-time and they can help you install them. These templares are compatible with all of our Top 10 Web Hosting providers.

3) Pick the Best Web Host and Build!

Once you log in, you can start building your website immediately. That means less time spent worrying.

Now for the best part – you can design, build, and host your website for under $100 per year. This is around $6.95 or LESS per month! That’s less than 25 cents/day. You really cannot lose with these easy website hosting deals.

You’ve bought the best web hosting plan you could find. You’ve registered your domain name and picked out a website template, added your site content, optimized your links and text and images, and even learned how to FTP in the process! Maybe you have even added an ecommerce storefront to help your customers purchase products with your company or you have begun blogging about your industry, customers, discounts, or philosophies.

Whatever you have done, none of it matters unless people know where to find your website. Period. This is why people spend a fortune on advertising (both online and offline) through SEO or search engine optimization practices.

But there’s one thing many professional SEO companies don’t want you to know – the simple fact is, you can advertise your website successfully yourself, without spending a dime. I’ll repeat that, as it’s extremely important – you can advertise and get your website noticed, for free! There are two ways:

1) Purchase Hosting From our Recommended Web Hosts

If you haven’t yet purchased hosting, we recommend the following web hosts to businesses, ecommerce ventures, or bloggers:

* IX Web Hosting
* ThinkHost
* Hostmonster
* StartLogic

These web hosts are considered the best web hosts in the world and are ranked highly in our Top 10 Web Hosting List as a guide to help you choose the best provider. We are telling you about them here because every single host mentioned offers a package of FREE online advertising credits! That’s right, 100% free advertising for your business. So sign up with any of these best web hosts and save big on SEO.

By advertising yourself, you will not only learn the best practices for your specific niche or industry but gain relevant experience in that industry. You are in charge and you don’t have to hire staff to assist you. You are the boss.

2) Use Google & Yahoo to Monetize Your Website

If you already have web hosting, you can simply signup with Google and/or Yahoo to advertising your website using what’s called Pay-Per-Click services: i.e. you only pay when a potential customer clicks on your advertisement. Plus, your ad shows up first in Google or Yahoo sponsored results, so you get better business and more of it!

A recommended budget is around $100-200/month for a small business or $200-1000 if you really want to drive those sales.

The good thing is, Google and Yahoo let you experiment, and there are multiple ways to advertise using their PPC (pay per click) technology.

What is so important about 24/7 web hosting support? I’m sure you have asked yourself that very question as you compare web hosts for your new personal website or business website. 24/7 web hosting is actually one of the cornerstones that makes a best web hosting partner, and it’s something no webmaster (that’s you!) should be without. Let me tell you why:

1. If your website crashes or you can’t access your email, you are going to want to call someone up ASAP, even at 2am, so that you’re not waiting 4 hours for an email response.
2. If you don’t understand some of the web hosting terminology for your webhosting account, you are going to want a live person to explain it to you.
3. What if you get overcharged or believe you are overcharged? Wouldn’t you rather call your web hosting company up to ask them to explain, rather than waiting for an email?
4. 24/7 Web Hosting support screams reliability. It means that the best web hosting provider is taking care of you at all hours of the day (and night) and that they have enough money and backing not to disappear in the middle of the night. All the web hosts on our Top 10 Web Hosting List are verified and reliable partners who have been in business over 5 years – hence how they can offer 24/7 support!
5. Trust. That is the most important factor in your web host. 24/7 web hosting support is something only reliable web hosts can offer.

Any of our Top 10 Web Hosting partners can offer you 24/7 technical web hosting support, but for the best of the best we recommend IX Web Hosting, with 24/7 Email, Telephone, and Live Chat Support. So any way you want to get help, IX Web Hosting can help you promptly and efficiently.

The Best Web Hosting List shows you the Top 10 Web Hosting providers worldwide, but some of the features may be new to you, so we’re here to explain those deal-breakers and give you the best definitions for the most common web hosting terms.

One of the main things you’ll see for web hosting providers these days is Storage Space. Storage (or Disk) Space just measures the amount of actual space on the web server that the web host gives you to be able to store pictures, videos, music, content, and etc. So everything that makes your website unique will be stored. That’s why it’s always dependent on what you plan to do with your site as to how much web hosting space you actually need.

Hint: you probably don’t need more than 1GB of web hosting space.

However, the best web hosts will normally offer “unlimited web hosting”. So what the heck does that mean to you? Basically, that you have “unlimited storage space” to play around with. You can host your videos, music, files, pictures, and everything else, and you’ll technically never run out of storage space!

The catch? Web Hosting space is only one thing you need to measure when hosting your website – web hosting companies can offer “unlimited web hosting” because they can catch you on other technicalities like CPU usage.

We recommend IX Web Hosting, because they offer Unlimited Website Hosting and Unlimited Storage Space and Bandwidth. And trust us when we say they really do mean UNLIMITED!

Plus, IX Web Hosting offers over $500 in free advertising credits, which is an offer we cannot find to beat anywhere else.

We have already explained some basic web hosting terms in detail, but it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty web hosting terms that come up literally everywhere you look! This ought to make it easier to choose the best web hosting provider for your business or personal website.

Control Panel – This is what you use to manage all aspects of your website. For example, you will login to your control panel to update your website, install a blog like WordPress, or to create an email address.

Database – You will likely never use them (either consciously or unconsciously) but databases are places you can store things like product or customers lists, scripts, or where automatic installations install important features. For example, when installing Joomla, your web hosting control panel will install modules into databases. You don’t need to know this, but it helps make Joomla function.

Domain – Your website URL that you want visitors to type in to visit your website. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our domain name here. Normally, you can get this registered for free with your web host.

FTP – FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and though it sounds technical it’s as easy to setup as downloading a file from your email! FTP Programs help you upload and download files, music, and videos from your webhosting account to your PC or vice versa.

GB – (gigabyte) Honestly, you don’t need to know what a ‘gigabyte’ is to enjoy your webhosting account and website. But a gigabyte (or GB) is a measuring increment. 1 GB is worth 100 MB (megabytes). Make sure you choose a web host who offers more than 5GB of storage space and more than 100GB of bandwidth. That’s all you’ll really need.

Money-Back Guarantee – Pretty self-explanatory, this is something every web host should offer. It’s a guarantee that, if you dislike their services, you can get a refund within a specified period of time. Most MBGs are 30, 60, or 90 days.

Subdomain – Yep, there are levels for domains. For example, thebestwebhostinglist.com is our primary domain. But ix-web-hosting-review.thebestwebhostinglist.com is our subdomain, devoted to explaining everything there is to know about IX Web Hosting. Using subdomains can help you build a new website without purchasing an entirely new domain name for it.

So, you’ve decided that your current web hosting provider just doesn’t cut it? Fly by night web hosting companies are all too common these days, which is part of the reason we created our Top 10 Web Hosting List, to guide you towards the best web hosting companies in the world. If you’re ready to move to new webhosting provider, we can help – here’s the best how to guide for moving from one web host to another.

Step 1: Purchase the Best Web Hosting

Take a look at our Top 10 Web Hosting List and choose the webhost that best suits your needs. We currently recommend IX Web Hosting, our most affordable and powerful web hosting company. Purchase a new account with IX Web Hosting for the best deal possible.

Step 2: Copy, Paste, & Upload

Copy all of your data (text content, videos, music, pictures, links, etc) from your old web hosting provider. DO NOT cancel your service with the old provider until you have done this or you will lose this information forever! You’ll need to upload the content using an FTP program or by logging in with your new host’s control panel. Once you have downloaded and copied and stored all your old information that you want to keep (including emails!), proceed to step 3.

Step 3: Verify & Review

Once all your content is uploaded, use a temporary URL (provided by your new web host) to view your website. If everything looks good, proceed to step 4.

Step 4: Change Your Domain NameServers

This is the part most people forget about or just don’t know they need to do, so pay close attention or your website will never be viewable online! You’ll need to find out who your domain name is registered with. Visit betterwhois.com and type in your domain name. Find where it states “domain registrar” and look up that company online – they are your domain registrar.

You may need to email this domain registrar to gain access to manage your domain name. You’ll need to ask them for your domain name username and password so you can change your nameservers. Or, you can always call your old web host to find this information.

Either way, just login and edit your nameservers (which look like NS1.yourwebhost.com and NS2.yourwebhost.com) to the new nameservers your new web host gives you. Your new webhost can give these to you over the phone as well, so if you lose them, no worries. Once you have updated the domain name servers, your domain name will propagate, which means it won’t be viewable as an online website for around 24 hours.

Step 5: Preview and Cancel

Preview your new website and make sure you have everything you need. Then, cancel your old web hosting account, and you’re set! Your site will be online in no time!