Although there’s no difference between blog hosting and web(site) hosting, i just want to put it here again but instead of talking about what to look for when choosing a web hosting like on my previous post, this time i’m going to give you a few tips on what to look for in a good blog hosting business (although mainly of this are for wordpress blogging platform, but i’ll try to make it general .. with the exception, this is for linux based server not for windows based server)

Check their Terms of Service - Well before starting to get a new blog hosting company, first you must check their TOS. Especially if you’re going to create blog that talks about adult material, illegal thing, or something like that because if they didn’t let you to put / create site / blog like that, you’ll see your blog has been deleted by them with/without telling you first.

Server Uptime & Money Back Guarantee- This is the mainly significant thing of all, because in order to get visitors for your site. Your blog must be accessible to everyone. And that means if you’re going to be serious about blogging, the first thing to do is search for a web hosting business that provides excellent uptime. But how do you check if their uptime is good? Because they’re not going to let you put something on their server without signing up first with them. That’s why I told you to check for their money back policy, if they’re actually a good and trusted webhosting company. They’ll give you 30 days money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with their service. As a suggestion, try to get a linux server instead of windows server to make thing simpler for you.

Check your server capabilities - Some blog software out there require a few module to be installed on your server, a few sql database, etc. and because you’re utilizing a Shared Server (server that’s being utilized by several other site), you must check your server capabilities first. And in order to do this, you can simply create one PHP file. Click here for more info about this

By the way, if you’re going to use Wordpress as your blogging platform, and going to use Permalink / Nice url (you can see it here on my site at the browser address bar). Your webhosting business must enable the modrewrite. (if they’re utilizing Apache Server, but don’t worry about this because mainly linux based server are utilizing Apache HTTP Server)

Also for maximum compatibility, you must get yourself a webhosting that’s utilizing PHP4 (not PHP5) with MySQL 4.1 as the backend for the SQL Database.

If your webhosting use FastCGI

Well there’s a few problem especially if you’re utilizing Wordpress on server with FastCGI especially about HTTP Header issue (don’t worry about this if you don’t understand what that means), by the way if you’re going to use Godaddy webhosting as your server, please be note that they’re utilizing FastCGI (well i always check everything when i use webhosting service from a few company) .. because i’ve been there before but they’re doing actually great at helping their customer :

Here’s one of the support email i received after asking about the HTTP Status Header issue from them (when i was utilizing Godaddy as my webhosting few months ago)

The fact is that all web hosting providers do not mention the CPU server usage which will be the main criteria when you look for a decent traffic website.  They will say Unlimited bandwidth, but will charge more for the CPU Usage which is very costly (sometimes more costly than a Dedicated server)

So, better go for a package / company who dont offer kind of  services - because they just want to attract you as they are very desperate.  Go for standard hosting company.

Stay tuned for more update on top hosting providers list.