Mainly because of 2 reasons SG have stopped operations in India:

1. Poor performance indicators
2. Regulatory and tax complexities

Unfortunately, as per Siteground, due to a combination of poor performance indicators and the growing regulatory complexities in some regions including India, it has become ineffective to continue doing business there.

1. Poor performance indicators

Siteground closely monitors KPIs such as an accounts’ lifetime span, account value, and renewal rates, which determine the ROIs from their services in a particular region.

Unfortunately, the latest analysis indicates that overall, the sales coming from India have deteriorating KPIs, including among others alarmingly low renewal rates, higher cancellation rate, and short life span of the accounts.

2. Regulatory and tax complexities

Another negative trend that Siteground has been monitoring in India and several others is the heavier regulations and growing tax complexities that impose an additional financial and bureaucratic burden on them.

All these factors impose a growing financial risk for them and they can no longer guarantee the sustainability of the hosting services in the long run.

That is why they have taken the hard decision to discontinue operations in India and several others.

Looking for the best WordPress hosting in India in 2024?

Well, look no more. Siteground is sure one of the best web hosting service providers in India. And I am not just saying, it is the best I have used for my WordPress blogs and websites that are targeted to India.

Read this Siteground India review and decide for yourself.

However, if you’re looking for a budget-friendly hosting provider then read these reviews instead: A2 Hosting India Review or Bluehost Review. 

Anyways, below I have also shared a list of the best WordPress hosting providers in India for a blogger:

The Best WordPress Hosting in India:

1. A2hosting – Another company that accepts payment in INR, and has servers in Asia; that makes them a very good choice for an Indian blogger. I have been using their services, and trust me it is very good. Checkout A2hosting Plans
2. Bluehost – This is one of the WordPress recommended web hosting providers. I haven’t personally tried them yet, but I have heard great reviews about them. Checkout Bluehost Plans
3. Hostgator – Very good for new bloggers. If you’re looking for cheap WordPress hosting in India then look no further. it is affordable, you get unlimited disk space, they have servers in India, and charges are comparatively less and the best thing is you can pay in INR. Checkout Hostgator Plans
4. Inmotion Hosting – A little expensive for a newbie. But their services are great. So, if you can shake your budget a little higher then you can surely go with this one. I had bought Inmotion Hosting for a client, and I haven’t got any complaints ever. Checkout InMotion Plans
5. Dreamhost – Another WordPress recommended hosting. One of my niche sites is hosted on this hosting. So, my personal recommendation after Siteground, go for it without thinking much. Checkout Dreamhost Plans
6. Siteground – SG used to be my first recommendation, even WordPress itself recommends it, along with Bluehost and Dreamhost. With their dedicated WordPress hosting and amazing support, it’s a great pick for anyone.  The only reason I don’t recommend it anymore that’s coz it’s very costly now for a newbie. Checkout Siteground Plans
7. WPengine – this one is a high-end hosting provider which comes with Genesis Framework & 35+ StudioPress Themes. Their services are top-notch. But not recommended for small sites. This is great for a heavy site, maybe an eCommerce site. However, on the second thought, if you have a big budget just go for it, you won’t regret it. Checkout WPengine Plans

Depending on your budget you can pick any of those web hostings, they all are good to my knowledge. But If you want my personal recommendation, then go with A2hosting. This blog is hosted on A2hosting itself; so I am not just saying.

And if you’re a beginner, very tight in budget, you can try any of these hostings as well Bluehost, Hostgator, DreamHost,  or Inmotion Hosting;  they are comparatively cheaper than the Siteground and WPengine.

Okay, now check out the best WordPress hosting plans in India that I recommend from each of the service providers; if you find them expensive then check out their other (starter) plans by visiting the links below.

If you still can’t decide, Instagram me @bloggingventure. I will surely help you out.

Now that you have seen the other hosting providers in India, let’s look at the best-recommended hosting:

Siteground India Review 2024

So, you’re planning to start a WordPress blog or website?

Maybe it’s a blog you want to start or maybe you run a service in your city and now want to take it to the world by using the internet, increase your reach to everyone out there.

But do you know what the basic needs for starting it are?

The first step in starting an online presence is finding a suitable domain name and reliable hosting. A domain is the address of your online website and hosting is a place where all of your data stores and then deliver to your readers or customers.

Finding a domain name is very easy, goto to Namecheap.com, type in the domain name you want to register; if it is available then just follow the on-screen instructions and buy it. That’s it. You don’t need to know anything more.

But while buying hosting, there are a lot of factors that you have to keep in mind. You also have to know about the type of hostings like shared, VPS, Dedicated, cloud, etc.

So, if you’re from India (or anywhere else in the world) and looking for the best WordPress hosting provider for your blog or website then this post is for you.

There are so many hosting providers you will find out there. But not all are good. There are a few dominating the whole website hosting industry for a reason; Performance !!

I hosted my first site on Bigrock.com. After experiencing it, I would never recommend that to anyone.

I have used many of the local hosts as well; mainly for the clients at my job. But never had a good experience with any of those.

Last year when I started this blog I had hosted it on Godaddy.com. I didn’t get what I was expecting.

That’s why after reading so many reviews I decided to move to Siteground. Fast forward to 7 months from then, I am in love with their services.

The best decision ever made. It’s giving me exactly the kind of performance and support I was expecting and needed.

Anyways, today I am going to review by far the best WordPress hosting provider that I have used in my career.

It’s none other than SiteGround. And in this review, I will provide all the required information you want while choosing the right WordPress host.

Well, SiteGround is one of the most famous web hosting companies. SiteGround is known for its always uptime servers, fastest loading time, and 24/7 customer support.

No wonder why WordPress itself officially recommends SiteGround Hosting.

I don’t just say for no reason it’s the best WordPress host for your upcoming project. SiteGround has almost everything that you want from a web host.

Before moving to its features, let’s talk a little about SiteGround.

A brief About Siteground India

SiteGround is a Bulgarian-based hosting company which was founded in 2004 has employed more than 400+ employees.

It has so far hosted almost 800,000 domains worldwide on their servers.

SiteGround has its offices situated in 6 places in Bulgaria, but it has served globally, including India, and has data centers in three continents across Europe, United States, and Asia.

SiteGround provides different types of hosting services such as Shared, Cloud, Dedicated, WordPress, and even reseller hosting. So, you can buy the hosting as per your needs.

Okay, let’s move to the pros and cons of this hosting, and after that, We will talk about if it is worth investing?

Pros and Cons of SiteGround WordPress Hosting India-

Like every other hosting, SiteGround also has some plus and minuses, and today I am going to introduce you to every single one of them.

Let’s start with the pros first.

Pros of SiteGround Hostings-

Uptime-

SiteGround Hosting promises that its servers are 99.79% uptime while many reviews say that it is much better than that. Last year, its hosting had only nine outages, and, it was resolved very quickly as well.

Also, SiteGround doesn’t use any readymade software as they have created their own which checks its hosting every 0.5 seconds.

honingbird.com uptime status since hosting:

uptime status recorded by Siteground uptime status recorded by Uptimerobot.com

Speed –

When someone tries to visit your website, it goes to your host and asks for the files. Now it’s your web host’s duty how fast it sends that files to your viewers.

The thing that works here is the Time to First Byte. It means that what is the quickest time that server takes to send its first byte.

In my test SiteGround performs well for this. The Fastest Time to First Bytes(TTFB) was just 0.390 seconds while accessed honingbird.com from India.

Apart from that, it offers a SuperCacher technology made by SiteGround itself which adds several layers of caching which helps in loading sites faster.

The great part of SiteGround is, it is the only hosting provider that is currently providing this service for shared hostings.

24/7 Top-Notch Customer Support-

Customer support is the thing where SiteGround pays so much attention. It is the reason why they have hired more than 230 people for customer support only.

They offer 24/7 phone, ticket-based, and live chat support. Also, they usually manage more than 1500+ tickets, 800+ phone calls, and 2000+ live chat support daily.

After creating a ticket, in just 15-20 seconds their knowledgeable customer support will connect with you and assist almost every possible question.

Unlike other companies, Siteground doesn’t have any wait time, your calls get picked up right away.

One of the recent incidents that made me love Siteground even more:

I was trying a new plugin, and accidentally I flushed all the cache. Next thing I know my whole site was broken. And unfortunately, I didn’t have any backups.

I deleted the plugin, deactivated all the plugins and reactivated one by one, disabled Cloudflare, and literally tried everything I could. But no luck.

For a moment, I thought I have lost my website and I would have to recreate the whole site again.

My last hope was the Siteground’s support, I initiated a live chat and after trying for one hour the guy on the other side finally brought my site back to normal.

In such situations, an excellent support system is the best thing money can get you; especially, if you’re not technically strong.

High-Performance WordPress Hosting-

Since WordPress is one of the most used content management systems for bloggers, SiteGround has added all the required features for WordPress CMS.

SiteGround has all of the features integrated into its well-managed hosting. That can be the term of speed, optimization, security, customer support, or almost anything that you want.

The great part of SiteGround hosting is they have moved their infrastructure to Google Cloud, which is supported by their own built caching tool SG Optimizer, Cloudflare CDN, and other software that checks their servers regularly to give the best performance at your side.

If I know anything about Google Cloud, is that they are fast, some might say superfast.

With Google Cloud, Siteground is now able to processor all server queries with 40% faster speed. Script executions on all plans have become even more efficient and this results in faster website load and less resource usage for all customers.

Siteground regularly checks for vulnerability and the security of your WordPress site. That’s why they make daily backups of your site for free, so if you face any issue, you can restore that backup and instantly make your site live again.

Free SSL Certificates-

As you know Google is very strict about its user’s security, that is why it is very important to run your site on HTTPS.

So, an SSL certificate is definitely one of the must-have features in any WordPress or Shared hosting.

And here, SiteGround offers a free SSL certificate from LetsEncrypt. Almost every new user will receive it pre-installed. You just have to enable it from the settings, and that’s it.

Free Site Migration Tool for Existing websites-

Siteground used to provide one free professional site migration done by their experts for each GrowBig and GoGeek hosting plan purchased.

But as of May 20, 2024, all manual migrations have become a paid service of $30USD per site.

Although, in place of the paid service they have now introduced a free automated WordPress transfer tool, called WordPress Migrator. It is available on all plans for free.

I know transferring a site sounds a little bit risky because with a single mistake, you will drop your rankings from SERPs. But with SiteGround, you don’t need to worry at all.

The site migration plugin is very simple to use, and it is being successfully used by hundreds of their customers to move their WordPress sites to SiteGround with just a few clicks.

If you still find it difficult to use the tool, just raise a ticket with their customer support and their smart support team will help you transfer the site.

Free CDN: 

Siteground has partnered with Cloudflare to provide a free Content Delivery Network (CDN) service to its customers. A CDN helps speed up your blog’s load time for visitors from different geographical locations.

The most important tasks of a CDN are it speeds up the delivery of the pages or posts of your blog, caches the content, auto-minifies images, exploits RailGun to speed up uncacheable dynamic content, blocks malicious traffic, and even reduces SPAM.

And the most basic way a CDN can help you is – it stores a cached version of your blog/site on many of its servers all across the world. So, whenever a reader visits your blog from anywhere in the world, the CDN loads the site from the closest server to the reader.

For example, if a user tries to access your blog from let’s say, the US, what the CDN will do is it will show the user a fresh cached version of your blog from the US itself, given they have servers in the US. which will tremendously increase the load time of your blog.

The Cloudflare CDN network has 152 locations and is growing.

So, it’s a no-brainer to use a CDN. But it usually costs a lot to signup for a CDN separately and also you’ll need some technical understanding of the tool.

With Siteground you can minimize both, the price and technical hassles.

Free Security Add-On-

SiteGround offers some free security add-ons for their customers. Some of them are IP Address Blocklists, Leech protects, SpamAssassin, SpamExpert, and Hotlink Protection.

Almost every plan offered by SiteGround comes with free LetsEncrypt SSL included. Also, you can add HackAlert monitoring which checks if your site has been hacked or compromised.

Although The HackAlert is not free it charges around $1 per month but it’s worth the buck.

Easy E-commerce Installation-

If you are buying hosting for your e-commerce business, then SiteGround can be the perfect choice for you. Installing e-commerce software is a little bit difficult for those who don’t have enough knowledge of it.

But SiteGround offers you more than 18 e-commerce applications and that too with just one click install feature. Isn’t that sound great?

Also, they provide servers in many locations, free CDN, and advanced caching solutions, and for security purposes, their client accounts are isolated by a custom solution.

This means even if, let’s hypothetically presume, one of your sites gets hacked despite Siteground’s strict security; your other sites will still be secured.

Transparent Pricing-

The plans for SiteGround are not very cheap, but if we talk about its features, investing in SiteGround worths every penny.

The plans of SiteGround start at just $6.99 and vary according to your need. Investing in a good hosting like SiteGround makes total sense because you can make $$$ from its cheapest plans itself.

30 Days Money Back Guarantee-

Like other hosting companies, SiteGround doesn’t offer any free trial, but they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

So you can test their services, and if you like them you can keep on using them or else, you can simply raise your hand and get your money back.

But, you have to follow a few conditions before applying for your money back. Below I have mentioned a few of them, but  I will suggest you visit their website to find the full detailed conditions.

• You must have to post a service termination request through the User Area of your hosting.
• Initial orders for the hosting services are going to cover only within thirty days from the day you have started your plan.
• The renewal orders will not cover the money-back policy.
• If you bought a domain from SiteGround, you can’t apply for the amount of domain or the WhoIs protection. This refund policy is only applicable for hostings.
• If you bought any dedicated or cloud hosting service or any paid support, then you can’t apply for money back. Also, other third-party services will not be covered by the money-back guarantee.
• Your Reseller packages will only be covered if you will cancel the whole hosting package. This guarantee does not apply to the termination of a single account in a reseller package, either.

So, those were some of the terms and conditions that you have to consider before buying hosting from SiteGround or before applying for their money-back policies.

PHP7 Supports-

If you are a blogger, then you must have to know that WordPress needs MYSQL and PHP to run blogs. But many of the web hostings are still using PHP 5.6 whereas PHP 7.1 is the latest one.

If you upgrade from PHP 5.6 to PHP 7.1, you can boost your website performance by almost double. You can upgrade it in SiteGround using its free plugin, SG Optimiser.

Global Oriented-

The last professional advantage with SiteGround is they contain their global orientation.

SiteGround is mainly based in Bulgaria, but they have their clients worldwide. Also, they accept almost all international currencies such as USD, AUD, GBP, EUR, etc. Also, they have multiple toll-free lines for their customer support with no wait time.

Compare The Plans

Cons of SiteGround Hosting

Like any other web hosting company, SiteGround also has its downsides too. So, here are the cons that I have faced while using SiteGround Hosting.

Overall pricing-

If you compare SiteGround with other hostings, you will see that it is a little bit costly. Well, I am not talking about its introductory prices.

I am talking about its renewal prices, as it costs around $24.99 per month for the Startup plan (a Hosting plan offered by SiteGround) which is limited to 10000 visitors/month and supports only a single domain.

Although, you can still get a discount by initiating a support call and ask the team for a discount on your renewal.

The intro price is pretty impressive, but the renewal is a little bit costly compared to other hosting companies out there.

I know that you are paying for the quality, but still in my opinion, if you consider other reputed hosting providers like A2Hosting or Bluehost, SiteGround is obviously costly.

Plan Limitations-

If you look at their plans, you will consider the fact that their plans are not managed properly. for instance, if you look at its StartUp plan, you’ll see that they are providing 10GB of Storage and 10000 visits per month; which is not managed well.

If you are a newbie blogger, probably a 5 GB web space would be enough, given you use fewer images and compress them properly, but you need a server that can handle around 30-50k visitors per month.

And on the other hand, if you have a media-rich blog then it is not that good as you might need more web space to store images, audios, and probably videos.

However, the good thing about SG hosting is the number of visits per month can be increased by enabling the SuperCacher that comes with the higher Siteground plans.

According to Siteground, with the SuperCacher enabled, the server can handle up to 230000 visits per month. Which is huge at this price.

I know that no host can provide you with unlimited web space or unlimited bandwidth, but they can manage it according to the needs of the customers.

That’s a downside I believe Siteground needs to work on. Otherwise, it’s always my first recommendation.

Setup fee for Monthly Billing-

If you are thinking to choose the billing cycle to be monthly, then there is a setup fee that you have to pay. This setup fee starts from $14.95 depending on the plan you pick.

But if you buy their hosting for a long period, like for a year then you don’t need to pay the setup fee. Which is in any case recommended.

And besides, you get the one-month money-back guarantee; so if you’re not happy with their services you can leave within 30 days.

So, my point is, I recommend you to buy its annual plan and if you don’t like it, simply raise for money return. But make sure that you have read the terms and conditions of their 30 days return policy carefully.

Again, going for a long period is anytime a good idea.

Compare The Plans

SiteGround Hosting Plans, Pricing, and Other Facts

SiteGround offers many types of web hosting such as dedicated servers, shared hostings (WordPress hosting), cloud web hosting, and reseller hostings.

Since I have only used shared hosting or the so-called WordPress hosting, I am going to talk about those plans only.

Before we go any farther, here’s a thing – Siteground doesn’t support Indian Rupee (INR). So, you will have to pay them in USD; which is not an issue nowadays.

However, that could be an issue if you don’t have a credit card or international payments enabled debit card.

No worries I have a solution too.

Sign up for a FREE zero balance Kotak 811 bank account. It hardly takes 5 minutes to open an account with the bank, you just need an Aadhar Card and a Pan Card in your name.

Just download the app from the Google play store or Apple app store and sign up with your details.

Once signed up, you will get a virtual debit card instantly which could be used to purchase not only Siteground hosting but anything you wish to buy online (including Facebook ads).

Sign up For Kotak 811

SiteGround offers three different types of Shared or WordPress hosting plans.

Let me get you through all of those:

You can also check out the detailed comparison of Siteground Plans Here >>

StartUp Plan- 

It is the first, and the cheapest plan of SiteGround shared hosting which costs around $14.99 per month. Good for beginners but before you make any decision check out the other plans as well.

Although for the first time, you can get it for the introductory price, which is around $6.99 per month.

You might still manage to get a 20% bargain on your renewals if you talk to the support team.

This plan comes with 10GB of web space and it’s perfect to start a blog or website with around 10,000 visitors per month.

Apart from that, It comes with all the basic features included such as 24/7 customer support, Free LetsEncrypt SSL, Unlimited Emails and Database, Free CDN, Free Daily Backups, and Free Site Migration Tool.

Buy This Plan

GrowBig Plan –

The GrowBig plan comes with 20 GB of web space and can easily handle more than 25000 visitors per month.

It is good for a single more heavily trafficked website or multiple average-size websites.

The great thing about this plan is that in addition to the essential features you get a few premium features that the StartUp plan lacks.

The pricing is $9.99 for new customers while for renewal, you will be charged $24.99 per month. Just like the above plan you can get a 20% to 30% discount by getting in touch with the support team.

Also, the SuperCacher comes in three layers which means the loading time of a website will be faster than most websites on the internet. Apart from that, the other features are the same as StartUp plans.

Buy This Plan

GoGeek Plans-

If you’re planning to host a high-trafficked or resource-intensive website or average-sized e-commerce website then this is the plan for you.

Also if you’re planning to sell hosting to your clients, you can use this plan from Siteground which comes with white label rights.

GoGeek plans cost $14.99 per month for new users while the renewal will charge $39.99 per month. Again, you can get a 20% to 30% discount by initiating a chat with the support team.

This plan also comes with unlimited domain hosts. This plan provides 40 GB of web space and can easily manage more than 1,00,000 visits per month.

The plan comes with almost the same packed-up services listed above in the other hosting plans, plus few more productive features.

So, those were the shared hosting plans offered by SiteGround, and they are good though.

Buy This Plan

My Recommendation: Go with the GrowBig or GoGeek plan, especially if you’re planning multiple sites & thinking long term.

Why?

Siteground Startup vs Grow Big and GoGeek

Opportunity to host multiple websites – the StartUp plan allows you to host only one website, whereas if you’re interested in hosting more than one website under the same account, the higher hosting platforms would be a better choice.

SuperCacher – Only level 1 cache available with the Startup Plan – this is an in-house tool developed by Siteground that manages to trigger the website speed several times, and also increase the Google ranking and helps you with the SEO optimization. With the Growbig or GoGeek plan, you get the level 3 SuperCacher.

Priority Support – even though Siteground has an amazing response time on each channel – Phone, Live Chat, Ticketing System, their GrowBig and GoGeek clients are handled with a priority which might be something you should consider before making the buying decision.

So, my best suggestion is, buy any of the higher plans and buy them for at least 2 or 3 years (at the same rate as the first year).

Check out the Detailed Plans

Now, if you’re still confused between Siteground and the other popular hosts out there then let me ease some pain for you.

So, which hosting provider should you pick?

As you know that SiteGround is not the o

The post Siteground India Review 2024: Best WordPress hosting in India? appeared first on Blogging Venture.

Well, then look no further.

Today I am reviewing one of the most famous and affordable web hosting for a blogger, especially if you’re from India.

On the other hand, if you are already familiar with Bluehost’s Services and you’re here just looking for a discount link then here it is: Bluehost India Deal

Bluehost, it is one of the most popular web hosting solutions company. They offer services such as shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and WooCommerce hosting. Bluehost was founded by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in Provo, Utah, and it is now owned by the Endurance International Group.

Recommended by everyone, from WordPress themselves to Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, to John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire.

Bluehost has become synonymous with web hosting and has effectively become the world’s go-to web hosting service!

AN INTRODUCTORY BRIEF of BLUEHOST:

It is one of the 20 largest web hosts, collectively hosting well over 2 million domains. Bluehost’s facilities are world-class. The company operates its servers in-house in their 50,000 square feet Utah facility, employing over 750 people.

Their servers are powered by PHP 7, HTTP/2, and NGINX+ caching. They have their own custom-built 20,000-square-foot data centre with enough backup generators to power a city!

Bluehost was one among those studied in the analysis of web-based hosting services in collaborative online learning programs.

Since its founding in 2003, Bluehost has continually innovated new ways to deliver on its mission to empower people, to fully harness the web, by providing comprehensive tools to millions of users throughout the world so anyone, novice or pro, can get on the web and thrive with their web hosting packages.

THEIR UNPARALLELED COMMITMENT TO WORDPRESS:

They proudly state, “We believe in WordPress and our partnership has allowed us to support it for over 10 years. Our in-house team consists of dedicated WordPress experts to provide the best customer support whenever you need answers. We even dedicate engineers on our development staff to full-time WordPress CORE development. No one powers WordPress better or understands it more than we do. Bluehost is constantly driven to be the number one web solution provider.”

CORPORATE HISTORY:

Matt Heaton first conceived Bluehost in 1996. However, he first created two other web hosts, 50megs.com and 0catch.com, before finally settling on Bluehost in 2003.

It was in 2010, that Bluehost was acquired by Endurance International Group. In June 2011, company founder Matt Heaton announced on his blog, that he was stepping down as CEO to focus on the company hosting platform’s design and technical structure, while COO Dan Handy took over as CEO.

In January 2015, Endurance International Group appointed Mike Olson as CEO of Bluehost, while Dan Handy moved to enterprise-wide mobile development for small businesses.

Suhaib Zaheer is the current GM/SVP/CEO of Bluehost, since 2017.

Bluehost is now officially located in Burlington, MA.

Alright, now let’s get into their detailed specifications to get a clear idea of how great, average or poor this hosting service appeals to us.

Let’s begin with the edges first…

BLUEHOST INDIA PROS:

CONSISTENTLY DEPENDABLE UPTIME 99.99%:

What is your top priority when searching for a dependable web host?

For most entrepreneurs /web developers, it is bound to be the ‘uptime’. Uptime is undoubtedly the most important aspect when choosing a web host because after all if your site is down, how do your users even access your product/service?

Luckily though, it’s hard to find a hosting provider with better uptime than Bluehost.

Bluehost offers a super-competitive uptime guarantee of 99.98% and is known to post month after month of 100% uptime. If and when the service goes down, it is only for minutes or even seconds.

While there are a few complaints from users about several server outages and a server team that is slow to respond, a great number of Bluehost users claim that the company has a solid server performance, praising their stability and reliability.
And according to whom, Bluehost scores a 99.99% uptime on average and occasionally outdoes itself to deliver a 100% uptime.

The company itself also allows you to cancel your hosting agreements because of downtime without having to pay any cancellation fees.

(However, you should keep a check on the way you are designing your website. A lot of WordPress users end up using too many plugins, which might eventually lead to a server crash.)

RESPECTABLE SPEED

The speed of your website is more important today than ever before. Users’ expectations have grown and patience shrunk. If a website loads too slowly, they would rather move on to the next site, than wait a few more seconds. Even if they don’t quit, the slow load would definitely have a bad impression on their overall image of your site.

Furthermore, Google has clearly stated that the speed of a site will affect its ranking in the search results. So in order to keep both your users and Google happy, your site speed needs to be paid due attention to. Hence after uptime, your host’s page loading times are the second most important thing that can literally make or break your site’s success.

In spite of having an acceptable speed, in 2017, Bluehost made some updates and changes, focusing on increasing its page-load speed. And today, they rank among the top 10 web host providers in terms of speed, offering load times that hover in the low 400s (milliseconds) and sometimes even less.

FREE DOMAIN WITH FREE SSL CERTIFICATE

Bluehost waives off the domain name registration fees when you sign up for a web hosting service. Even if you pick up the most basic package for as low as $2.95, you are entitled to get a free domain (for a year). This obviously comes in pretty handy, when you are just starting a small business with a tight budget.

The best indication of a secure website is an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. SSL certificates let users know that any information they share on your site will be safe, and these certificates are indicated by the padlock icon and the “HTTPS” at the beginning of your domain.

So along with the free domain, you also get a free SSL certificate, which enables encrypted communication between a web browser and a web server, meaning your website will be more trustworthy and secure at no extra charge.

DOMAIN NAME EMAIL ADDRESS

When it comes to building brand awareness and establishing trust and relationships in business, a domain name email address can go a long way.

When you purchase a hosting plan from Bluehost, you get an option to sign up for your own domain name email address. These domain name email plans start at just a few dollars per month and add significant value to your hosting plan.

FREE PREMIUM CLOUDFLARE CDN

Here are the benefits that you’ll get for Free, which usually costs $20/month:

Site Performance Improvement- CloudFlare has proxy servers located throughout the globe.  Proxy servers act as an intermediate.

What it basically does is when a user let’s say from India tries to access your site, now instead of loading your site directly from a Bluehost’s server in the US (which will take more time due to the distance), Bluehost will connect the user to a Cloudflare proxy server that is located closer to him/her, which will result in fast delivery.

So, it’s a great feature to have. And the best part is Bluehost is providing it for FREE with any hosting package you chose.

Having this feature will visibly improve the page load speed of your site because the cached content will be delivered from the closest caching box rather than directly off the Bluehost’s server.

Since Proxy servers increase the speed of your site your visitors are likely to stay on your site for a longer period of time.  Which will eventually improve your Google Search Rankings.

Bot and Threat Protection- CloudFlare uses data from Project Honey Pot, other third-party sources,  and its community to spot malicious threats online and stop the attacks before they even get to your site.

Spam Comments Protection- CloudFlare leverages data from third-party resources to scale back the number of spam comments on your site.

Alerting Visitors of Infected Computers- CloudFlare alerts human visitors that have an infected computer to wash up the malware or virus on their machine. The visitor will have to enter a CAPTCHA to get access to your site.

Offline Browsing Mode: For whatever reason, if a Bluehost server is unavailable, the visitors should still be able to access your site since CloudFlare serves the visitor a page from its cache.

Lower CPU Usage- As fewer requests hit the Bluehost server, this lowers the general CPU usage of your account.

New Site Stats- There are tools that help you analyze human traffic coming to your site, but no insight into bots, crawlers, and threats. With Cloudflare, now you can analyze the mysterious traffic that is coming to your site.

BLUEHOST INDIA FOR WORDPRESS

Bluehost is a recommended host by WordPress itself, and is currently hosting more than 850,000 WordPress websites!

If you’re worried about WordPress being a little complicated to use, BlueHost is the solution. Its seamless integration with WordPress.org makes hosting your site a piece of cake, saving you time, money, and a whole lot of stress!

Learning how to install WordPress with Bluehost is extremely straightforward since it comes with a one-click WordPress set-up to get your site up and running in no time (and effort).

Already satisfied and want to buy the hosting right now? 

Here is the link: Bluehost India Deals

WOOCOMMERCE HOSTING – Bluehost India Review

Bluehost has partnered with WooCommerce to provide a complete shopping cart solution to online businesses.

WooCommerce is powered by WordPress which is one of the most trusted and versatile website builders today. And with the collective services of WordPress, WooCommerce, and Bluehost, users have everything they need to build their dream sites.

Especially so because it is equally suitable for novice and experienced webmasters alike. Even a beginner will be at ease building their stores with the straightforward point-and-click interface.

While knowledgeable pros will appreciate having the freedom to edit their sites’ PHP and implement more advanced customizations at the back end.

Another exciting part is, that you get a promotional offer of Google advertising credits with every new Bluehost account. Enabling you to start driving traffic and hopefully get some sales in a matter of hours with your new store!

EASY TO USE CPANEL

Most of the cPanels implemented by hosting companies are more or less the same. Though some of these hosts are good only for advanced users.

LiquidWeb, for example, is great if you know what you are doing. But they lack a user-friendly interface for non-technical people. So if you are a beginner, you would have a tough time getting your site live without support.

But Bluehost has made a few nifty little tweaks and upgrades to make their version simple to use for website newbies. And that is their real selling point. They enable complete novices to build great websites in a jiffy. The very layout of Bluehost’s control panel makes it incredibly easy to use, so much so that you just need to point and click in most cases.

It also has features for advanced users, but beginners too can easily install and start WordPress there. Or, they can use the Bluehost website builder tools too (such as Drupal, Weebly, etc.) to start with a template that they can customize by simply dragging and dropping.

As an added bonus, Bluehost users enjoy access to in-depth support via their self-help and how-to resources.

SOUND SECURITY

Every Bluehost plan comes with a free SSL certificate, so you don’t have to worry about your visitors getting warned, about your site being insecure. For even advanced security, you can also get a premium SSL certificate for $49.99/year. (This would be a worthy investment for eCommerce sites or others where users will be logging in with a username and password and providing sensitive information like their credit card details.)

Bluehost uses SiteLock to scan your website daily for viruses and malware and also performs 24/7 network monitoring on its company servers.

This company does not reveal information about its data centres, their locations, or their security measures, in order to protect its infrastructure. However, what the Bluehost website does state is, that they have a UPS power backup, diesel generator power backup, and 24/7 network monitoring.

If you opt for their dedicated servers, you’ll get what’s known as “RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) Level 1” support. This means that your data is mirrored to multiple disks which effectively increases the reliability and security of your data.

Bluehost’s security features offer three antispam tools – Apache Spam Assassin, Spam Experts, and Spam Hammer, as well as hotlink protection and Secure Shell access. They also offer Cloudflare, which further enhances the performance and security features.

In addition to going out of its way to ensure the security of your website, Bluehost also allows you the freedom to take whatever security measures you want. You can create IP address blacklists, password-protected directories, manage private keys and digital certificates, create filters for email accounts/users, and so on.

Bluehost includes more than enough security measures to get a standard website off the ground, but if you’re looking to scale your site or sell online, you may want to invest in a few extras. They offer a lot of additional security measures to choose from, but they can add up to get expensive, so choose wisely.

BLUEHOST CLOUDFLARE WITH ADVANCED DDOS PROTECTION

Bluehost protects your site with a cloud-based, always-on DDOS protection, powered by the intelligence harnessed from Cloudflare’s always learning global network. Cloudflare’s layered security approach combines multiple DDOS mitigation capabilities into one service, preventing disruptions caused by bad traffic, while allowing good traffic, keeping websites, applications, and APIs always available and performing.

BACKUPS ARE COMPLIMENTARY

Your data is backed up. But the only possible downside to Bluehost’s security is that the company does backups at its own discretion.

Therefore, for full-on security, you must do your own daily backups. In their knowledge base, they clearly state, “We do offer complimentary backups for our customers. They are created on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. These backups are not guaranteed in any way. We highly recommend all Bluehost customers create and manage their own backups.”

And for this purpose, Bluehost recommends that you use the control panel to access the third-party software tool called Site Backup and set them up to be stored offline. You can also purchase the “Pro” version of Site Backup for a fee.

24/7 CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Bluehost’s knowledgeable in-house, expert team is always on hand to help answer your questions, get you started, and grow your presence online. They offer 24/7 telephone support, online webchat, and a knowledgebase— that maintains a huge library of articles, FAQs, step-by-step guides, and video tutorials.

Also in order to ensure that you get the fastest possible response, they have categorized their team for you to choose from.
‘The Sales team’ helps those with general inquiries, potential, and new customers.

‘The Technical Support team’ is who you want to talk to if you have any support-related questions.

‘The Account Management team’ handles inquiries related to billing, the terms of service, and account verifications.
(Please note that Bluehost’s normal 24/7 phone support is reduced to 8am to 9pm EDT during the COVID19 crisis.)

INEXPENSIVE PLANS

Bluehost’s cheapest shared hosting plan starts at Rs.199/- per month, (and renews at Rs.499/- pm). WordPress optimized hosting also starts at the same Rs.199/- pm, while WooCommerce hosting starts at Rs.459/- pm. VPS plans are Rs.1159/- pm to start with, and dedicated plans are Rs.6499/- pm.

All Bluehost plans come with discounts for new customers. In fact, you can save up to a whopping 64% per month with their promotional offers! (Like most other hosting providers, Bluehost offers discounted prices for new customers only. This reduced price lasts for your first term, and then renews at the regular price once the period is over.)

All the above packages mentioned are monthly prices, for a 36-month contract.

Being totally upfront, Bluehost’s prices aren’t the cheapest in the market. However, it definitely does offer great value for money.

You can also check out the plans on Bluehost’s Site itself; here is the link: Bluehost India Deals

MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE – 30 Days

You can cancel your hosting plan within the first 30 days for a full refund. There would be no questions asked.

Their website quotes, “Your satisfaction is our top priority and we’re confident you’ll be pleased with our services. Still, if you try us and decide your account does not sufficiently meet your needs, you can cancel within 30 days for a refund as follows:

If you cancel within 30 days, you’ll receive a full refund on your hosting service only. The money-back guarantee does not apply to most add-on products, such as domains, given the unique nature of their costs.

If you cancel within 30 days and your plan includes a free domain, there will be a fee to retain that domain. Bluehost will deduct a non-refundable domain fee from your refund, at the regular cost of your domain.

Bluehost does not offer any refunds for cancellations that occur after 30 days.”

OK, so is Bluehost this flawless? Unfortunately, not! Listed below are the disadvantages that come along with their package…

BLUEHOST INDIA CONS

SPEED & UPTIME ARE NOT THE BEST IN THE MARKET

Their speed is fast but not the fastest. Similarly, their uptime is decent but not the best. Well, given its cheap price, these cons can be overlooked.

Although Bluehost is cheap, but not the cheapest. So, if you’re willing to pay some extra bucks then you can always look for other potential hosting options like A2Hosting or Inmotion Hosting, on the basis of performance and loading times.

If Interested you can also read the review of A2Hosting

POOR BACKUP:

Their default backup solution is fairly limited. Plus, they don’t guarantee them and recommend you to do your own daily back-ups. Or get their paid services to solve this hassle.

NO FREE SITE MIGRATION:

Unlike most of their competitors, they would not migrate your site for free. In fact, dedicated IP addresses and website transfer fees on shared hosting plans are overly expensive! This is a bummer since a lot of other hosting services offer at least one site migration, even with their cheapest plans, for absolutely free.

HIGH RENEWAL RATES AND LONG COMMITMENT PERIODS:

The cost of renewal rates on the Basic and Prime plans are over twice the introductory discounted price. Also, in order to avail of the lowest prices, you need to commit to a long period of 3 years (36 months) in a go.

Having done with the cons let’s now look into what plans we have to consider…

BLUEHOST INDIA PLANS & PRICING: A Quick Look

Before we begin, please note that all the prices mentioned below are in USD and for a month’s time (per month/pm).
Each of their plans comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee along with promotional offers/discounts for new customers.

SHARED HOSTING – Bluehost India Review

Bluehost’s shared hosting, which is the most common and cheapest, costs Rs.199 to begin with, and Rs.499/- at renewal. So if you happen to be on a tight budget and need just basic hosting for a single site, shared hosting is your best bet. Though a very limited kind of hosting, it is extremely affordable and works fine for up to a basic level, such as personal, hobby, and brochure sites.

For a WordPress site I recommend their WordPress Hosting; check out below.

You get four shared hosting plans to choose from, each providing different levels of performance and features. The more you pay the more advanced features you get.

Visit Bluehost for further details on the shared hosting plans.

Here is the link: Bluehost India Shared Hosting Deals

WORDPRESS (SHARED & MANAGED) HOSTING – Bluehost India Review

WordPress has been recommending Bluehost to its users since 2005, describing it as “the ultimate WordPress platform” – and it is easy to see why. An incredible amount of features are packed into its plans, to help you build and grow your WordPress site efficiently.

Visit Bluehost for further details on the shared WordPress hosting plans here. You can use the links below to quickly go there.

Bluehost has three managed WordPress plans too, ranging from Rs.199/- to Rs.299/- as discounted starter prices. These plans are best for WordPress users aspiring to go pro.

Visit Bluehost for further details on the managed WordPress hosting plans.

Here are the links: Bluehost India WP Plans & Details

WOOCOMMERCE HOSTING – Bluehost India Review

For those who are selling stuff online Bluehost has three WooCommerce hosting plans too. And you won’t have to splash out your hard-earned money either, with their affordable prices ranging from Rs.459/- to Rs.759/- (with the initial discounts).

Visit Bluehost for further details on the WooCommerce hosting plans.

Here are the links: Bluehost India WooCommerce Plans & Details

VPS HOSTING – Bluehost India Review

VPS hosting is the next step up in both features and price – yes, it costs more, but also comes with better security, speed, and performance. If you have a regular website, this is usually the best type of hosting, that combines sensible prices with solid features.

Visit Bluehost for further details on the VPS hosting plans.

Here are the links: Bluehost India VPS Plans & Details

DEDICATED HOSTING – Bluehost India 2021

Dedicated hosting is the big (or biggest) hitter of the hosting world. It is designed for sites that need the ultimate of everything – speed, performance, control, security, and technical features. There is no compromise here! Meant for massive sites with tons of traffic, even with a discount, the prices start at Rs.6499/-, while at renewal the regular prices begin with Rs.8495. This is definitely a big hosting for big websites with big budgets!

Visit Bluehost for further details on the dedicated hosting plans.

Here are the links: Bluehost India Dedicated Hosting Deals

Wrap Up:

It is understood that choosing a hosting provider for your blog is tough, not because there aren’t enough hosting providers out there, but because there are too many!

Now that you have a thorough knowledge of all the advantages, disadvantages, plans, features and pricing, (along with your unique needs and expectations) you are in the best position to judge if Bluehost is the best fit for you.

There is no denying that Bluehost is a strong contender in the market full of hosting providers. In fact, it is one of my top 3 recommendations to start a WordPress blog.

Its easy-to-use interface and affordable introductory prices, make it worth trying out. Especially so, if you are someone who has just started and would appreciate a stress-free, simplistic environment that doesn’t look too intimidating for a beginner.

Bluehost is also much recommended since it offers a complete starter package for newbies – a cheap discounted plan, an easy Cpanel, WordPress integrated one-click installation set up, an extensive knowledge base, great 24/7 customer support, free domain, free SSL certificate, and domain name email service.

But if you happen to be more advanced and are more concerned about getting nothing short of the best possible speed and performance in the market, you might as well want to check out your other options.

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