Finding A Host For WordPress - Is HostGator And WordPress A Good Option?
If you are looking for a hosting service for your WordPress site you should consider using HostGator and WordPress. There are a great many hosting providers offering Linux hosting (which is best for WordPress) and most are capable of running WordPress.
According to WordPress.org to run WordPress a hosting provider currently needs as a minimum:
But they also say "Just like flowers need the right environment to grow, WordPress works best when it's in a rich hosting environment".
As a user you should also be looking for easy installation of WordPress, trouble free operation and, most importantly, good support. Only once these criteria are met should you look at price.
So why should you choose HostGator?
All in all HostGator and WordPress do go together well and represent a great way to establish your WordPress site.
According to WordPress.org to run WordPress a hosting provider currently needs as a minimum:
- PHP version 4.3 or greater* MySQL version 4.1.2 or greater
- Allows remote connections
- Preferably the Apache or Nginx web server.
But they also say "Just like flowers need the right environment to grow, WordPress works best when it's in a rich hosting environment".
As a user you should also be looking for easy installation of WordPress, trouble free operation and, most importantly, good support. Only once these criteria are met should you look at price.
So why should you choose HostGator?
- HostGator host many WordPress sites for both personal and business purposes. Their personal shared hosting plans (Hatchling and Baby) differ only in that the former is limited to a single domain. All plans are sold on an unlimited basis which covers, many items including disk space, bandwidth, databases and email addresses. For customers with higher demands, there are several packages for reseller hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting and dedicated server hosting. So there is an upgrade path if your site gets busy.
- The basic Hatchling plan starts at $4.95 per month (based on 36 months upfront) but unusually HostGator do actually allow monthly payments, which avoids an upfront cost and makes it easy if you want to cancel. You can in fact sign-up for $0.01 with a coupon code (see links below). You are not locked into a contract on any plan so you can cancel at anytime and for the first 45 days there is a Money Back Guarantee.
- Support is available 24/7 by email, fax, phone and live chat and is an area which HostGator see as key to their service and have hence acquired a good reputation in this respect.
- HostGator offer cPanel with Fantastico De Luxe which makes it easy to install WordPress even for someone with no technical knowledge.
- Looking at user feed back this is very positive about the service itself and the support. You do see some negative comments but given the size of the business it would be very surprising if this were not the case.
All in all HostGator and WordPress do go together well and represent a great way to establish your WordPress site.