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The Truth About BlueHost
BlueHost Hosting Facts, Host Profile &
Hosting Reviews
Disclosure: We are a professional review site that
receives compensation from the companies whose products we
review. We test each product thoroughly and give high marks
to only the very best. We are independently owned and the
opinions expressed here are our own.
By Mark Shroyer
We researched over 200 web hosts and narrowed
it down to the best Web hosts called the "Web Host
'Straight A' HOT List." To qualify for this list we
required each web host have an A rating with the Better
Business Bureau (BBB) at the time of our review. BBB ratings
indicate how well companies have satisfied their customers
and resolved complaints. The BBB rated BlueHost
with an A.
But we did even further research.
Next, we emailed BlueHost twice with 40+ tough
questions about their shared Web hosting. We wanted to check
out their response time and the depth of their answers.
Both times were during "off" hours. (i.e., First
set of questions were emailed on a week night somewhere
between 7 PM to midnight. The other set were emailed on
a weekend.)
It took BlueHost 1 hour and 15 minutes to answer our first
set of questions and 9 hours and 35 minutes to answer our
second set. 24 hours or less for a response is considered
quick by industry standards. BlueHost made the cut.
Here are the answers to our questions
straight from BlueHost themselves:
- Question: How long have you been in business?
Answer: 1996
- Question: What are all the different ways I can
contact technical support? (i.e., Email? Support ticket?
Help desk? Chat? Phone?)
Answer: Ticket (which
is email), Phone and Live Chat from our website.
- Question: Do you offer a simple user-friendly
Web site builder for beginners to make creating web pages
quicker and easier? (i.e., WYSIWYG online HTML Editor
or something similar?)
Answer: Yes we include
several site builders including Concrete 5, Soho Launch,
Live site, and trendy site builder.
- Question: On average how long should I expect
to wait before I get a reply back from technical support
on an urgent high priority request?
Answer: For a ticket,
we try to answer it in less than 30 minutes.
- Question: Will I share an IP number or will I
have my own?
Answer: By default
you will be on a Shared IP address unless you order a
Dedicated IP address. Those are $30 a year.
- Question: How many sites are currently running
on the server I would be on?
Answer: You can host
unlimited sites.
- Question: How many sites do you normally put
on one shared server?
Answer: Well there
are probably about 500-1400 accounts on a server. It could
be a few thousand sites.
- Question: How do you decide what constitutes
a full server?
Answer: There are
many things that contribute to deciding a server's capacity.
We take number of accounts, number of websites, the server's
hardware profile, and many other factors into account
when determing the maximum for the server. Due to the
variability, I won't be able to give you an exact number,
but we do take the server's capacity very seriously. We
would never overfill a server.
- Question: Will I be contacted in advance about
routine maintenance?
Answer: I am sorry
we don't always send out a notification. The reason being
is that maintenance might come up as a result of an update.
I wouldn't want to mislead you to believe that we always
send out a notification.
- Question: What is your bandwidth, transfer, file
or hit limit?
Answer: We have no
hard number limit on bandwith. Our performance target
goal for file count on an account is 50K files. The actual
limit is 200K files. There is no hard limit on visitors.
- Question: Can I have telnet access?
Answer: No I am sorry
you wouldn't.
- Question: Is a CGI directory included?
Answer: Yes there
is.
- Question: Can I run CGI scripts outside of the
CGI directory?
Answer: Yes you sure
can!
- Question: Is there a limit to how many scripts
I can install?
Answer: No there is
no limit as how many scripts you can install per say.
- Question: Do you provide full shell access?
Answer: It is not
enabled by default. To enable SSH do one of the following
to send a copy of the account holder's government issued
photo ID (i.e. driver's license, passport, etc):
* Fax - 1-801-765-1992 (make sure to include your main
domain name on the document).
* E-mail - Open a ticket attaching a photo ID. Click
Here to open a ticket. Select the Sales option.
* Upload your ID file to your hosting account and give
us a link to the picture file with a ticket opened with
above link.
- Question: What version of Perl do you use? Does
it contain a full set of modules?
Answer: Perl v5.8.8.
Yes it contains a full set of modules.
- Question: Do you offer a Web statistics package?
Answer: We have AWStats
and Webalizer you can enable from cpanel>logs>choose stat
programs to enable. To view cpanel>logs>AWStats or Webalizer.
- Question: Will I have access to the raw statistical
log files?
Answer: Yes you do
have access to the raw log via cpanel>logs>raw files.
Also you have the option to enable site stats AWStats
and Webalizer.
- Question: Does the space used by my logs count
against my allotted disk space?
Answer: Yes they do
factor in the overall file count.
- Question: How much space am I alotted for databases
such as MySQL?
Answer: Total database
size should be under 3GB. Total number of tables should
be under 1000 tables. A single database cannot be over
2GB
- Question: Do you offer Frontpage extensions?
Answer: Yes we do
support Frontpage extension.
- Question: Do you offer Secure Socket Layer?
Answer: Yes we do.
- Question: How many email accounts, forwards,
and email aliases can I have?
Answer: You can have
unlimited email addresses and forwarders (aliases).
- Question: Is sending to opt-in email lists allowed?
(i.e., e-newsletters, autoresponders, etc.)
Answer: Here are our
email rules:
1) No purchased lists. All people you send to MUST
have contacted you directly & asked for the information
you are sending.
2) The list must be double opt in.
3) You must have an automated opt out link.
4) Any addresses that send a bounceback must be removed
from the list.
- Question: How many emails can I send out per
hour and day?
Answer: The default
email per is 150 email per hour. You can request to
be raised to the maximum of 750 email per hour. No extra
charge.
- Question: Is your package upgradable and what
should I expect if I ever need to upgrade to a larger
package?
Answer: We only have
the one package. We do not have different tiers or levels
of service.
- Question: Do you have a money-back guarantee?
Answer: Yes, anytime.
If you cancel in the first 30 days it should be a full
refund less the domain if canceled after 3 days. Day 4
the domain is officially registered, so you would be refunded
the hosting minus the $10 for the domain.
- Question: What are your billing and cancellation
policies?
Answer: See 3. "CANCELLATION
OF SERVICES - REFUND POLICY" under our terms of service
at our web site. This explains our cancel and refund policy.
- Question: What is your acceptable usage policy
in a nutshell?
Answer: See 07."UNLIMITED"
USAGE POLICIES AND DEFINITIONS under our terms of service
at our web site.
01.What "Unlimited" means
This describes it best:
"Bluehost.com does not set an arbitrary limit or cap
on the amount of resources a single Subscriber can use.
In good faith and subject to these Terms, Bluehost.com
makes every commercially reasonable effort to provide
its Subscribers with all the storage and bandwidth resources
needed to power their web sites successfully, as long
as the Subscriber's use of the service complies with
these Terms. By not setting limits on key resources,
we are able to provide simple, consistent pricing to
our Subscribers as they grow their websites. As a result,
a typical website may experience periods of great popularity
and resulting increased storage without experiencing
any associated increase in hosting charges."
- Question: Are there any penalties or fees for
exceeding basic allocations and what should I expect if
it accidentally happens? (i.e., Going over my bandwidth,
etc.?)
Answer: There are
no fees associated with exceeding limits. If you reach
the file count limit you will be notified by our Terms
of Service Department to reduce the number of files.
Our cpu limit is 7% of cpu. If you exceed the cpu limit,
the site will remain up, but the site will be throttled.
Throttling means their account would be moved to a single
cpu core, instead of sharing from the cpu pool of 16
cores. This allows the customer’s site to remain up
without affecting other sites on the server.
If user is causing a serious performance issue on the
server they have the potential of being suspended until
they resolve the issue that is harming the server.
- Question: Can I set up a free trial period?
Answer: Billing is
due upon sign up. You do have a 30 day full money back
guarantee. No cancel fee. No contract. If you canceled
early you would be refunded for any unused time.
- Question: How soon can I expect to obtain access
to my Web site after I submit my order?
Answer: Literally
with in a few minutes.
- Question: Do you impose file size upload limits
and, if so, what are they?
Answer: We do not.
- Question: Do you impose any limits to how many
files can be stored in a single sub-directory and, if
so, what are they?
Answer: It is not
recommended to have more then 2500 files in a single directory
just for the sake of your FTP client as it may make it
time out.
- Question: Do you impose a size-load limit that
a directory can have and, if so, what is it? (i.e., 100
MB worth of files per directory)
Answer: No
- Question: Do you have any CPU, RAM, or Inode
limits that I need to know about and stay under and, if
so, what are they?
Answer: We have a
200,000 inod limit (file/item). You can utilize up to
7% of a 16 core cpu. Which is an immense amount of power.
- Question: Is there a limit to how many simultaneous
HTTP connections there can be and, if so, what are they?
Answer: There are
no preset limitations
- Question: Is there a limit to how many simultaneous
PHP connections there can be and, if so, what are they?
Answer: There is not.
- Question: Is there a limit to how many simultaneous
database connections there can be (i.e., MySQL, etc.)
and, if so, what are they?
Answer: It is 20.
- Question: Is there a limit to how many simultaneous
FTP connections there can be and, if so, what are they?
Answer: It is 8
- Question: Do you offer IMAP and, if so, is there
any limits to how many IMAP connections I can have and
what are they?
Answer: There is no
limit
- Question: What should I typically expect to happen
if any of the limits above accidentally went over their
limit? (i.e., Would my visitors see a message saying "account
temporarily suspended" or what should I expect? Please
elaborate.)
Answer: No you would
be throttled, nothing would be shut down you would just
be jailed (limited) to a single core until your abuse
stopped.
- Question: Do you offer ffmpeg for video conversion
and video sharing? If so, are there any limitations and
what are they?
Answer: No that is
not meant for shared hosting.
- Question: Do you host adult content or web sites?
Answer: No.
- Question: How can I ensure your network and my
(shared) IP address you give me won't get blocked or blacklisted
as spam by ISP companies when I send and receive emails
through your server?
Answer: You can enable
a service called sitelock.
- Question: Do you automatically make back up
copies of all my files and, if so, how often, and is there
any limits?
Answer: We do make
backups, WE do not guarantee to have a backup or the content
of them. We should not be your only source of backup.
- Question: What is the typical procedure you recommend
that I take (other than companies like PayPal) if I want
to accept credit cards from my web site, and what do I
need to know to make it happen and how much extra will
it all cost?
Answer: That is not
something that we assist with. We have links to 3rd party
merchant providers that you can work with.
- Question: How long will you give me to retrieve
all my files if, for any reason, either one of us decides
to terminate our service with each other?
Answer: You would
always be given 15 days.
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