WordPress® Bible

Appendix D. WordPress Hosting

IN THIS APPENDIX

• Features and requirements of Web hosts

• Types of Web hosts

Finding a host for your WordPress blog is not hard. Because there are so many Web hosts available (it is a thoroughly saturated industry), there are a lot of options.

Many years ago, I partnered with Blog Marketing author Jeremy Wright to provide Web hosting at a discount. Many individuals and companies still do this, as the barrier to entry for low-end Web hosting is very low.

This is not to say that Web hosting is easy to provide reliably. Competent hosts will not try to put too many hosting accounts on a single server, for example. Competent Web hosts will also provide backups, 24-hour support, monitoring, security patching and, of course, PHP 5.

As someone who has been in the industry of providing WordPress solutions to clients, both businesses and individuals, for years, I am frequently asked for recommendations of WordPress hosting providers. Of course, there are many options depending on need.

Features and Requirements of Web Hosts

First, it is important to look at the features and requirements of each potential Web host before making the decision to host your blog with them.

The most generic requirements for WordPress at the time of writing, is PHP 4.3 and MySQL 4.1. Regardless of which operating system is used, or which Web server is provided (most hosts are of some Linux variety and use Apache), all Web hosts must provide PHP 4.3 or MySQL 4.1. The better offerings provide PHP ...