My Bluehost hosting had a few significant outages in the past two months and server status was not looking good during that time.

Fortunately, things are improving slowly by now.

If you check Bluehost (from my account) recent server status you’ll see some alert on the server load as well as disk storage usage. The server load is still normally high (>1) during peak hours but I don’t find any obvious slow response time anymore. In fact, although the red/yellow indications look ugly, the figures are actually improving from the previous readings.

From my previous contacts with my Bluehost supports, I was told that their engineers are working on the high server usage issue – I guess they are not bull-shiting on me. Hopefully things will turn better in next month – I’ll keep you posted.

Right now, I don’t see any other big issue with Bluehost hosting thus they are still recommended in my book. In case you are looking for a cheap but yet reliable hosting, have a look on Bluehost.

Is Bluehost server reliable?

From my user experience (I’ve been hosting with Bluehost for the past 4 years) and according to tons of other websites tracking on Bluehost server response – yeah, Bluehost hosting is very reliable. As you can see from the image below, 99.8% server uptime is quite a record and I salute folks at Bluehost for achieving this.

Bluehost hosting uptime tracked by WebHostingGeeks. If you wish to learn more about Bluehost server performance in the past, you can read my post here and here. Or, you can learn how to check Bluehost server status yourself.

What’s Bluehost customer’s say about Bluehost hosting service? Check out Bluehost customer’s feedbacks I received as well as user’s comment I found from the other hosting websites.

Tibbst from Dallas, TX: Satisfied Customer for 2yrs

I’ve used a few hosting providers and researched a lot. BlueHost may not be #1 on many reviews, but it’s been on the top 5 or 10 ever since I found them, at least, while others come and go. I monitor my service for 3 organizations with Nagios, and I reconfig’d Nagios with 1min granularity.

I get 99.7% uptime. I thought that was pretty good for the price, but leadership for one of the orgs had us switch to a new provider due to my data. After switching, we got 99.3%. We’re switching again. BTW, .3% downtime is rarely noticable.

Mail has a few outages, but also barely noticeable (sorry don’t have %s). The “customer” support is great. I make my way through the queue pretty fast, if there is any. Tech support usually can’t provide me specific details for recurring issues (detected by Nagios, usually), because I think the actual admins work for another company (maybe BlueHost resells?) But, I’ve had many excellent experiences w/ tech support, otherwise. I would highly recommend BlueHost.

Marci Briggs rate Bluehost 93/100

I have selected Bluehost as my hosting provider for my advertisement site and it has worked well for me. They also use cpanel, which is the most popular and highly user friendly control panel for many users. That is another factor which prompted me to use Bluehost. For just $6.95, we will get the hosting plan for one month along with unlimited bandwidth usage and unlimited storage space.

Bluehost has been a loyal and true service provider of mine and they have sophisticated mechanisms to ensure smooth functioning and they use the widely chosen cpanel.

Awards won by Bluehost

Bluehost won numerous awards since they started their business back in year 2005. A quick glance on the recent ones include:

• Most Reliable Web Hosting by WebHostingYes.com
• Top Pick Host 2008 by TopPickHost.com
• Best Blog Hosting 2008 by WebHostingClue.com
• Editor’s Choice 2008 of BestoftheWebHosts.com
• Best Support 2008 of Top-10-Web-Hosting.com

Is Bluehost good or bar?

Well I bet half of you guys might read thousands of good words on Bluehost but still feeling unsure about their service quality. Web reviews, after all, are often full with biased reviews and one have to be very aware of catch-22 behind every marketing talk.

To learn whether Bluehost is a good (or bad) hosting, the best way is to try it yourself! Signup Bluehost here, 30 days free trial period.

As what we had previously discussed about Bluehost Refund Policy, shoppers are advised to take advantage on Bluehost refund policies and try Bluehost hosting services for free!

Bluehost offers one set of hosting features and you have five options for the payment terms – 3, 6, 12, 24, and the new 36 months payment terms. All hosting accounts are required to be paid upfront. For 3 and 6 months hosting plan, a one-time setup fees of $30 are charged; whereas setup fees for 12, 24, and 36 months are waived.

To order Bluehost, click here (special promo: $6.95/mo)!

Refunds at Bluehost

Bluehost’s trial period is set as 30 days. All Bluehost hosting account can be fully refund in the first 30 days without questions. The setup fees and domain registration, however, is non refundable. An extra $10 will be charged on the free domain you get from Bluehost; while in case you’re buying the 3/6 months hosting plan, the $30 setup fees are not refundable.

Refunds after the first 30 days trial period

One thing that impressed me is that Bluehost is willing to refund their customers even it’s after the trial period. From what I’ve learn with their Helpdesk, all Bluehost accounts canceled after 30 Days of service qualify for a prorated refund at the monthly rate.

Example of prorated refund

Two Year 24 Month Account is $7.95 a Month x 24 months = $190.80 paid at sign up. If you cancel two months into it then you would be reimbursed at the $7.95 a month rate for a period of 22 months. Your prorated refund would be $7.95 x 22 = $174.90.

Take advantage of Bluehost refund policy!

Don’t be foolish by those who advise you to try for one or two months before getting long term with your hosting company. The advice simply sounds ridiculous with Bluehost and I’ll show you why.

Maths for Bluehost 3 months plan refund

Imagine that you go with Bluehost 3 months hosting plan. The cost you pay will be $69.85 ($9.95/mo x 3 + $30 setup fees + $10 domain registration). Say that you’re unhappy with Bluehost and decide to ask for a refund within the first 30 days, the refund you’ll get back: a domain registered under your name and $9.95 x 3 = $29.85. Loses = $40 ($69.85 – $40).

If you refund after the trial period, say the day 31st, your refund amount will be $9.95 x 2 = $19.9. Loses = $49.95.

Maths for Bluehost 24 months plan refund

Now if you read my post and go for Bluehost’s 24 months plan. The dollars you pay upfront will be $190.80 (Official price $7.95 x 24, domain fees and setup fees waived). If you refund within the first 30 days, here’s what you will get: a domain registered under your name and $180.80 ($7.95 x 24 – $10 domain registration). Money lost = $10.

Now what if you refund your 24 months plan after trial period, say again, day 31st after your purchase? Here’s how much you can refund under Bluehost pro-rated refund policy: $172.85 (7.95 x 23 – $10 domain registration). Money lost = $17.95.

Conclusion: Go for Bluehost 24 months term!

Note that the money lost in 3 months hosting plan are 300% more than a 24 months hosting plan – regardless how long you waited before you cancel your Bluehost account. My advise to all of you is to take advantage of Bluehost pro rated refund policy.

If you think United States hosting company, Bluehost, is only known within the States then you’re wrong.

Singaporean searched BlueHost the most!

Recent analysis shows that the demand outside U.S. for Bluehost is much greater than in U.S. A quick check on Google Trends reassure the statement as Singapore, Vietnam, and Taiwan are well above United States in Bluehost related search.

Usage of language

While Singapore/Vietnam/Taiwan are the top 3 countries that searched for Bluehost; English, however, remain as the dominant language on Bluehost related searches.

This is much understandable because the web hosting company’s running on an English-oriented websites. More over, most web marketers or bloggers affiliated to Bluehost are English speaking/writing.

These factors pretty much limit Bluehost to expand only in the English speaking/writing community.

However with Chinese and Spanish coming in second and third most used languages for Bluehost related searches, I suspect the hosting company will break the language barrel very soon.

Google Trends on Bluehost

More graphical trends for the nerds:

Point A:
BlueHost and HostMonster Surge Ahead with Q4 Growth Resulting in Over 700,000 Domains Hosted — FastDomain Announced

Point B:
BlueHost – Knocking on the Door of One-Million Domains

Point C:
BlueHost and HostMonster* – 1 Million Domains Hosted and Still Growing

*Do note that Hostmonster and Bluehost is run by the same management thus the stats are combined together during the press released.

What does this means to you as consumer?

Basically nothing except that the analysis shows Bluehost is trusted worldwide. And with million domains hosted with the company (Hostmonster and Bluehost), you can be assured that your web host is trusted by many other experienced webmasters from all around the world.

Thousands had chosen Bluehost, why shouldn’t you?

So there you go, here’s a quick view on BlueHost server status today:

To learn more about Bluehost features, visit here for my personal review; or you can check them up at Bluehost official website.

Needless to say, I am one of their happy customers.

In fact I am keen to talk about BlueHost, mainly because of the good experience I had with them as well as all the good things I heard about them from other customers.
If you’re looking for an affordable yet reliable web host with *real* quality customer support, then BlueHost is your choice. Quality customer support, minimum (nearly zero for all packages!) server downtime, reasonable pricing; they are quite perfect in my scoresheet..
My personal rating on BlueHost service

Consideration	Rating
Server uptime	Excellent
Server loadtime.	Excellent
User-friendly	Excellent
Customer support	Excellent
Security of order page	Excellent
Customer support	Excellent
Web hosting features	Excellent
Get BlueHost Promotion Now: $6.95/mo!

Further Details: Real Customers Feedback

I would like to offer you further details on BlueHost service but there’s already nothing much to talk about as I have so far, zero complaints on them. Thus I had found some other useful customer feedbacks on the hosting company for you here:

“Bluehost excels in customer service. In fact, their customer service alone makes them worthy of one’s business.They are also stable, reliable, offer very good pricing, and a great feature set. Highly recommended.” — May 23rd, 2007 by Sophia @ Web Hosting Jury.

“All and all, BlueHost seems like a good web host. The company certainly has their act together and by all means can be labelled as a top quality web host with great features and support.” — by Douglas Hanna @ Click Fire.

“My wife and I have recently subscribed to Bluehost, and as the individual working on the site etc etc all I can say is that Bluehost is a 15 out of 10 for service, space, bandwidth, ease of use, etc etc! No host compares….not even close!” — April 29th, 2007 by Dan Lirette @ Web Hosting Stuff.

Wrapping up…

I had been hosting websites with BlueHost for years and I’m still doing that by now. The reason behind this is simple: Because they are good.

So in case you’re thinking of ordering a BlueHost plan, don’t think – just do it. You won’t regret to have your website hosted with them.

Everything seems fine except that one of the storage, Disk/dev/sdc1 (/home), is pretty loaded up. But still, it’s not overloaded and everything’s just working fine on my websites (I host 6 websites with them at the moment).

This post, “The Many Advantages of BlueHost”, is the first guest article. It’s an article I got from my ghost writter Shan and I find it’s a very good read. I am sure you’ll benefit from this if you’re shopping for a web host.

The Many Advantages of BlueHost

Whatever requirements you may have with regards to top quality web hosting, BlueHost is the hosting provider that couples excellent service and highly affordable rates.

For an inexpensive rate of 6.95 US dollars monthly, you can already host your own site. This comprehensive web hosting source caters to a wide range of clientele, from start-up businesses to the more developed companies.

BlueHost recognizes the need for exceptional web hosting, and the features of their hosting services are a testament to this. With its round-the-clock customer support services, superior technology, efficiently designed hosting tools, and assurance of security and privacy, this hosting provider definitely knows what committed service is all about.

There are more than a few advantages that can be said for this highly efficient hosting provider, making it an outstanding choice for small to medium scale entrepreneurs and those who rely on the Internet for the operations of their developing companies.

List of BlueHost Advantages

1. BlueHost provides excellent service all for reasonable rates.
2. The technical service is efficient and on the spot. No endless waiting or false promises from this web hosting provider.
3. Their offerings are always innovative and state-of-the-art. When it comes to product and service features, they’re always a notch higher in the face of rigid competition.
4. If you want to have additional information through articles and blog posts, visiting their blog will provide you with what you need.
5. Whatever your requirements are, they do everything they can in spite of hectic situations.
6. Your online business will be steered to success with the efficient maintenance provided for by BlueHost. All these first-rate features can be had at reasonable prices.
7. You no longer have to keep worrying about highly technical stuff, because they safeguard the interests of your business by monitoring space and bandwidth, so you can anticipate changes earlier and better.
8. They treat each customer and their queries with consideration and importance. No problem is ever too small for immediate attention; problems if there are any have to be solved ASAP.
9. When you choose BlueHost, your web business will experience a level of seamless organization as never before. You will have a professional and credible website, efficient e-mail system, and file storage. It matters very little if you know a lot about hosting or not. They make sure to provide the best assistance possible.

BlueHost goes beyond simple web hosting. They know how to maintain client relations and to nurture it by providing outstanding support and immediate attention to matters. Whatever it is that you need for your site, from the simplest elements to the more complex and advanced features, you’re definitely not bound to be disappointed.

Conclusion

In hosting, as in any business, building lasting relationships with the clientele is what makes it survive even the fiercest in competition. BlueHost is the web hosting provider that builds market trust along with their growing success.

In fact there’re real people who thinks BlueHost is dead. As said in the blog post, a great web hosting simply means:

…zero downtime, fantastic customer support, a simple admin UI, bandwidth to spare, proper CPU and RAM allocation to handle high traffic peaks (like front-page DIGG articles) etc…

Apparently the blog author doesn’t think BlueHost is not good enough to fit in ‘great’ web hosting – and as a consumer, I would advise you to read further on that particular blogpost. That’s right! Even though I’m like giving A+ rating and recommending BlueHost like crazy here, I do not disencourage you to read more feedbacks from other users. I mean, I am writing what I experienced with BlueHost here - and so do others. Speaking of someone’s trash is always someone’s gold huh?

Oh, by the way, if you’re curious how “my” BlueHost doing at the moment, all I can tell is that they are doing GREAT. Server loads are stable and I have no problem with their bandwidth at all. Have a look on the printscreen I just captured, things’re looking good isn’t?