WordPress and Bluehost

So you are ready to host your WordPress blog on your own domain and you are in search to find out whether or not Bluehost is the right web host for you? You have come to a right place. This review however is far from being unbiased since this very blog, which is powered by WordPress, is hosted with Bluehost. In this article I will review some important elements of setting your WordPress blog: installation, updates and performance.

1. Installing WordPress with Bluehost. Bluehost offers installation script called Fantastico Installer, which enables you to install quickly and easily wide verity of scripts, content management systems and blog and forum platforms. With Bluehost WordPress is among those scripts available for easy installation via Fantastico Installer. If you are advanced user and feel no need to use Fantasctico Installer to set up your WordPress blog, Bluehost allows you to do that also. Using Fatastico you can install your WordPress on Bluehost in well under 10 minutes. UPDATE: BlueHost has recently introduced SimpleScripts, which similarly to Fantastico allows you to install scripts on your website, however with SimpleScripts Blue Host now offers updates to the latest versions within minutes of the releases.
2. Updating WordPress Installation with Bluehost. While Fantastico is an easy and probably the fastest way to install your WordPress, it is not true when it comes to updating to a newest version. As you may know, WordPress updates it’s versions quiet frequently, while providing some important security fixes and enhancing the platform in general. It takes few weeks for Bluehost to offer the update via Fantastico script. And if you are concerned about security risks or would like to get your hands on the newest version of WordPress as soon as it becomes available, you will need to install the updates by uploading the new files via FTP protocol to your server. Doing so, you need to read carefully the upgrade instructions and take the necessary steps to prevent the loss of your data.
3. WordPress performance on BlueHost. You should expect decent performance from “out of the box” WordPress installation. However some bloggers, including myself, reported CPU overload problems with WordPress that has number of plugins installed. Some of the plugins perform what can be called as a “heavy lifting” in order to accomplish certain things. Generally those plugins have to do with comments on your blog. For example, on this blog a plugin is installed that reverse the order in which comments are displayed- the newest comments are displayed first. Of course if there is only few comments on a particular post, it may not present a huge problem. The more comments, the more work plugin needs to perform- potentially increasing the CPU usage and event CPU overload. The good thing about BlueHost is that when CPU overload takes place, the access to your website is suspended only for a few minutes. Other hosting providers may suspend your account for a longer period of time or until the problem associated with CPU overload is fixed. Whenever you are installing additional plugins, widgets or third party scripts on your blog it is worth keeping an eye on your blog performance. And try to fix the problems as your detect them.

Bluehost is an excellent web host for your WordPress powered blog or website. However even the best web hosting providers do have some quirks. It would be in your own best interest to research well your potential web hosting provider before deciding on where to host your WordPress.