WebHostingHub WordPress Hosting
Best Blog Host
I thought I would test out a WebHostingHub (Hub) account for myself to see if their web hosting measured up to their claims of being optimized for WordPress. I’ve installed WordPress on other hosts and right out of the box, with no posts or pages, both the Dashboard and the site itself ran like a dog. So let’s see how Hub hosting stacks up.
Migrating WordPress to Web Hosting Hub
On you current website, make sure you’ve upgraded to the latest version of WordPress and that your plugins are all up-to-date before you migrate.
Set Up Nameservers – I went to my domain name registrar account at NameCheap and added (NOT changed) the following nameservers:
ns1.webhostinghub.com
ns2.webhostinghub.com
By adding them at this time, it allows enough time for the servers to resolve so you have no downtime when you pull the plug on the old DNS nameservers.
Export the Database- All the posts, pages, tags, categories, etc. are stored in a MySQL database, not in the file system like a regular website, so you have to export the database. However, do NOT use the WordPress Export tool found in the Dashboard because it will not backup tables created by plugins.
Yea, you can export the database from myPhpAdmin in your control panel, but the easiest way to get a full export of the WordPress schema AND plugin tables is to install a free plugin called WP-DBManager. You can get it here from WordPress: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-dbmanager/ Besides, this is one of the most important plugins you can install on your blog to routinely backup your database.
After it’s installed, go to your WordPress Dashboard and you’ll see a new menu entry down at the bottom left called Database.
- Click on the Backup DB link.
- Click the Backup button.
- In the menu on the left, click on Manage Backup DB.
- Click the radio button on the right to select the database backup.
- Click on the Download button and save it to your hard drive.
Download Themes and Plugins – I FTP’d to the installation of the WordPress blog I wanted to move ( http://DontHaveACreditCard.com ) and downloaded the entire wp-content folder to my hard drive to grab all the themes, plugins, media uploads, backup folders and everything. The WordPress wp-content folder is sorta the equivalent of the My Documents folder on your PC.
On the WebHostingHub Hosting Account – I already have my hosting account, so logged into cPanel and created an addon domain for the blog I’m going to transfer, keeping the domain name the same, of course.
Install WordPress – In cPanel, I went to Software/Services and clicked on Fastastico Deluxe and installed WordPress on the addon domain.
Import the Database – In cPanel, I went to Databases and click on phpMyAdmin. I clicked on the database it created. It was _wrdp1. On the right panel, I clicked on the Import link and browsed my computer to the location of the .sql backup file I created. Then clicked the Go button and waited a few seconds. The import was successful.
Copy Themes and Plugins – Then I FTP’d to my WebHostingHub account. In the public_html folder, I located the addon domain I created. From my hard drive, I dragged the entire wp-content folder up to the server, over-writing the existing folder.
The End Result
I had some minor issues, but NONE of them were due to ANY fault of WebHostingHub.
It took between 1 and 2 hours for the IP address to resolve to the WebHostingHub web server. It takes longer to propagate an existing site than a brand new one. I left the house to get something to eat and it was resolved when I got back. I have my domain names at NameCheap and they usually resolve in about 20-30 minutes, so a couple of hours was unusual. Turns out NameCheap was having a brief, temporary issue with their upstream provider.
I had a couple of issues with the WordPress migration, but again, not any fault of the Hub’s. When you have a lot a plugins installed like I do (26 on that site and that’s on the low side for me), you better anticipate the unexpected. The more plugins you have, the more that can go wrong. I’ve migrated a good 40 blogs over the last couple of years and while most of them come quietly, there’s always a few that gave me grief, but like I said, it’s the plugins.
- There was a path issue with the WP-DBManager plugin because the configuration settings were brought over in the backup files from the old server. I had to uninstall the plugin from the Dashboard, Database, Uninstall WP-DBManager menu, then reinstall it. Then it got the path to the backup folder right, but I had to manually enter the path to mysqldump and the path to mysql which are /usr/bin/mysqldump and /usr/bin/mysql respectively.
- Then I ran into some permalink problems. I use the /%postname%/ format. When clicking on the post links, I got a page not found errors. I know the pages and posts were there because they loaded in the Dashboard. So I repaired them with the WP-DBManager plugin by going to the Dashboard, Database, Repair Database. BAMM! All posts and pages loaded fine again. I always wondered what that repaired. Now I know. LOL I’ll be honest with you, that was a stab in the dark. Glad it was easy cause I had no idea how’d I’d be able to fix that without doing a lot of research.
Faster Load Time
Ok, so this was my main topic of interest with the new Hub hosting account – was the load time going to be any faster than on my JustHost reseller account server? The Hub says their servers are optimized to run WordPress. Are they? Drum roll, please…oh HELL yes! My site always had sort of a tic (slight hang up at a certain spot) to it at JH when loading posts. Once it was up on my Hub account, I only saw a split second delay on the initial load (to be expected), but no way anything like at JH. Subsequent pages loads of the same page where so much smoother loading than at JH. The WordPress Dashboard also runs so much better. At JH, I was always waiting after I’d save something and so many times it would timeout on me.
And that’s why I recommend WebHostingHub for WordPress hosting. It really is so much faster than other hosts I’ve used.
Which host should I use for WordPress?
WebHostingHub for WordPress
Question from ahubb:
I am trying to decide between Webhostinghub.com, DreamHost, and HostGator. Which of those is the simplest/best to use?
Also considering Blue Host.
Answer:
Click here to read why I like WebHostingHub for WordPress.
If you decide to go with HostGator, here’s a 25% off coupon: HGFOR25LESS
Which is The BEST BlogHost?
The BEST BlogHost
Question from Magic: According to you, which is the best free blog host with lotz of uniQue facilities?
Answer: You’re not going to get unique features with a free blog host because they want you to upgrade to get those features. Also, what’s your definition of “unique”? Free blogging hosts have so many limitations like not being able to use your own themes – you’re stuck with their selection. Uploading plugins? Forget it. Putting ads or affiliate links on a free blog so you can make some money? No way, Jose.
The best blog host is WebHostingHub. I have an account with them and I’ve tested my WordPress blogs on it. Quite simply, I haven’t found ANY other web host where WordPress runs faster. The old host I was on was terribly slow, even the Dashboard ran like a snail in December. My Hub account is fast, almost like no one else is on the server. With WordPress, there are a lot of database fetches because that’s where the information on posts and pages are stored. Those database hits means another trip from the browser to the server and you’ve got to wait for the page to dynamically render. The Hub advertises that their servers are optimized for WordPress. Yup, I believe it. Like I said, no other host I’ve tried even comes close to matching their load time for WordPress.
Does a wordpress theme like my description exist?
Question: I am making our school NASA club website and I’m using WordPress. Everything is working really well, but I want a specific theme for our site. I have looked all over the internet for a FREE theme that suits my needs. What I basically want is this:
- A featured post slider (better if customizable)
- Three columns right below it (ability to put posts from different categories would be really epic)
- A sidebar only on the non-homepage pages
- Preferably a dark the (black)
- Free only (for now)
Any help is extremely appreciated.
Answer: It’s not the theme that does all of that, but rather specialized features. Sometimes a programmer will include it within a theme and then sell the theme at a premium price, but then you’re stuck with their idea of “good functionality”. You can do all of that special functionality for free with plugins by searching the WordPress.org plugin site. Plugins are your best friend.
Post Slider – You’ll find several sliders for images, but some with with posts, too. Posts are usually included in a slider by using either custom field values or by placing them in their own category. Smooth Slider will do posts, pages, and images. That one requires you to insert a tag in the page.php or single.php templates. Personally, being a former programmer, that sucks. See if you can find one that uses shortcode. OR, you could insert the php code right into the page with another plugin that allow for the insertion of raw HTML/PHP. There are many more slide plugins.
Multiple Columns – You can use a magazine-style plugin to create multiple columns, but those usually only work for continual text that flows from one column to the next. There is a plugin called WP Easy Columns that will allow you to create multiple columns. Then within each column you can use another plugin that utilizes short code to display posts from specific categories. It’s called List Category Posts. You can control how many posts to display, from which category, title, how much text from the post or no text at all, lots of parameters. I use it a lot on my blogs.
No Sidebar On Home Page – This one is a little trickier and it depends on your theme and the page templates available within it. I use Artisteer to create all of my WordPress themes and by default, Artisteer automatically creates a no-sidepage page template that can be selected from the page editor page so you can make a page with or without a sidebar. It’s really slick. However, you can roll your own page with no sidebar by following these instructions to create a no-sidebar page.
Change WordPress Theme Colors – This would require changing the CSS and Lord God Almighty, make a backup of your CSS files before you begin tweaking. In the WordPress Dashboard, go to Appearance, Editor then in the right sidebar you’ll find the Stylesheets on the bottom of the list. I would comment out (NOT delete) the lines of code for the color settings, and the insert the code with the new colors. This is a complex thing to do because there are color settings for the background, borders, shadows, widget boxes, titles, post body, text, etc. It’s a gigantic undertaking. I suggest making your own theme with Artisteer. There’s no code to write or jack up. The program does it all for you. You don’t need the Standard version. Just get the Home & Academic version for $49.95. Have a bake sale or car wash or something to raise the cash.
WordPress Web Hosting – Be sure to get some decent WordPress web hosting. On most web servers, WordPress is pretty slow. However, I recently tested a new web hosting account of mine at WebHostingHub to see how WordPress performs over there. Their servers are optimized for the demands of WordPress. You can read WebHostingHub WordPress Hosting here, but long story short, there was a significant increase speed in loadtime.
How do I get my blog to look like my website?
Question: I have an existing website and I’ve successfully managed to install wordpress into the website but it has made itself into a separate page such as domainsite.net/wordpress. And that’s fine and all but unfortunately the blog page doesn’t share the same layout as the rest of the site. So what I’m wondering is how I get my site layout onto my wordpress blog so it matches. Would I have to make the current site layout into a wordpress theme? And if so, how would I do that? Thanks.
Answer: First, WordPress installs where you tell it to install when you supply a folder name on install. If you don’t install WordPres into its own folder like “wordpress” or “blog”, then it will install in the root of the domain you selected, thereby conflicting with your website’s home page. It looks like you installed WordPress into a folder called “wordpress”, so it didn’t “…made itself into…” anything because you told it where to install.
You can’t get your website template into your WordPress installation, but you can make your own WordPress theme. You can exactly replicate the colors in your site’s theme by using a color picker to snag the color codes and then use them in the new theme. I used Filebird’s free Color Picker 1.0. It uses a little eye dropper to grab the color of any item displayed on your monitor. If you have header graphics and still have the original image files that made the graphics, with the help of an image editor (I user Real Draw Pro), you can create a header image for WordPress and even make your own background.
So, how do you make your own WordPress theme? With the only program of its kind – Artiseer. Click here to download Artisteer for free and try it out. I’ve been using it for several years now and the new version 3 is the best. I’ve completely stopped using Expression Web and started building WordPress themes instead. The new version also has a widgetized multi-column footer like those fancy Web 2.0 sites made so popular.
I can make a blog look just like an traditional HTML site by using pages instead of posts. With the help of a few plugins, you can really do some magical stuff with WordPress. WordPress’ new built-in menuing system is the bomb! No more screwing around with navigation menus. You can even make custom menus and use them in sidebar widgets.
You already have a web hosting account, but for anyone else who wants to start a WordPress blog, get some good WordPress hosting. For the best blog host I recommened either iPage with the vDeck control panel or HostGator with the cPanel control panel. Both have 1-click installation of WordPress.
How Can I Host My WordPress Blog On My Own Domain Name?
Question: I have a blog on wordpress and I have a .com domain registered already. I would like to move the wordpress blog to the .com domain name, but don’t know how. Any help will be appreciated.
Answer: There are two parts to a WordPress blog, the data (posts, pages, comments, categories, etc.) in a MySQL database and the external files on the web server. You don’t have to worry about the WordPress program files themselves, because the action of installing WordPress will install those. But, you’ll need your themes, plugins and images. You’ll find them in the wp-content/ folders. Normally, you would FTP them to your computer, but beats me how to get them off the WordPress.com site, because I’d pretty much bet they don’t give you FTP access.
To get your database, within the WordPress Dashboard, go to Tools to do an Export of your WordPress.com database. Then in your self-hosted blog, you can do an import of the export file you just created.
Make sure you’re running the latest version of WordPress. To find out, click on the Dashboard link. Right under Dashboard you’ll find Home, Updates. Go into Updates. It will tell you if you have the current version. If not, then do an automatic update.
For the best blog host I recommend HostGator. They have some of the best WordPress hosting around. They give you unlimited hosting space for unlimited blogs. WordPress is already found in the HostGator control panel under Software in the Fantastico 1-click software installer. HostGator is also an environmentally green web host. Their data center is powered by renewable wind energy carbon offsets.
Blogspot or WordPress: Which Is Better For A Professional Site?
Question: I want to start a blog about social issues, akin to the kind of content on Racialicious, and I hope to build it up enough to have as a kind of portfolio piece for future employment. Which would be better, Blogspot or WordPress for a beginner blogger to start up a professional site?
Answer: Without a doubt, the best blogging platform is WordPress with it’s large selection of themes and plugins, both free and paid. With the right plugins, there’s not a lot that you can’t do in WordPress. You can even make your own WordPress themes with Artisteer theme builder.
If you want a professional site, don’t even think about doing it with the free blogs at WordPress.com or Blogger.com. They are much too restrictive both for content, features and monetization. For a professional blog, you need a professional solution: self-hosted blog hosting from WebHostingHub is the way to go. You’ll be able to install WordPress right from the WebHostingHub cPanel control panel in the Software section from the Fantastico Deluxe 1-click software installer. With unlimited hosting space, bandwidth, addon domains, email accounts and so much more, including U.S. tech support
Moneyback Guarantee
I know you’ll be happy with their service, but just in case, they offer a FULL 90-day moneyback guarantee. That gives you plenty of time to explore.
Click here to get a WebHostingHub account now.
