This is a paid review for WPDesigner.com.
For recent several days I’ve been busy on moving 梦.:如此短暂 to a VPS. And some friends asked my opinion on how to select web hosting plans provided by US IDCs. Coincidentally WPDesigner.com asked me to do a review on their “Best 10 Web Hosting Sites”. I must say that their list is almost the right one, though I do not approve 1&1, because there are too many complaints on WHT. And with my own experience I agree to kick DreamHost out of the Top 10. Notice that this list only includes small budget solutions (under $10 a month), so the famous MediaTemple is not on it. Beside this work, WPDesigner.com also provides hundreds of free WordPress themes and useful tips.
Usually US providers provide far more higher performance price ratio than Chinese IDCs. But due to poor language skills misunderstandings happen frequently. For example most providers on that list provide unlimited space – do they really have “unlimited space”? It is known that all spaces are limited – including the outer space. So what they give you is an account with no harddisk quota. And if you occupy too much space, there always be good reason for them to release the contract. And similar thing happens if your website generates a high traffic.
By so many words I just want to explain that disk space or bandwidth quota is not a good standard on reviewing web hosting plans. What we really need is a reliable IDC and a reasonable budget. That’s why no one recommends “$1 hosting plans”. For specialty in China, perhaps whether the plan includes SSH access or unique IP will become a more important factor. But I’m not going to talk about this here, because we still have a lot of work to do.
The first thing is to circle several providers, for example the top 10. Go to Promo-Code.net or Google to see if there are any coupons available. This gives us more accurate information to calculate the total cost. We found that there’s 20%off coupon for Godaddy, so the monthly cost becomes $3.792 if we pay annually. And that’s a bit more attractive than $4.74/mo.
Secondly see if the web hosting plan includes something else worthy to consider, such as free domains (that worths nearly 2 months fee each). And for those who share a plan with others, it’s time to dig out whether the control panel is suitable for multiple users. This is actually why there are that many people resell DreamHost on taobao.com – it’s just because that DreamHost’s control panel is too comfortable for multiple users and they are not real resellers but just someone who own a normal shared hosting plan.
Done those I believe there must be some providers who have been skittled out. Then go to WHT to read all recent reviews or complains about all lefted providers. Be ware that not all of them are true. You have to distinguish the fake ones by yourself.
Now, there’s only one thing I can suggest you to do – to make a choice.