How to choose a web hosting provider

If you're about to put up your first website — a small business page, a side project, a portfolio for your kid — there are three decisions to make: where you register the domain, which host you use, and which plan to use at that host.

This article will cover all three of these.

1. Where to register the domain

A domain is what people enter in a browser to view your web site. For example, rickysays.com is the domain of this site. Once a domain is reserved and purchased, it's no longer available for others to use (unless payment expires later on).

So the first thing you need to do is check if your domain is available. You can check for availability at a Domain Registrar, and it's free to check.

There are dozens if not hundreds of domain registrars out there, but I recommend you pick an established and trusted registrars which I've listed below:

• GoDaddy is the largest domain registrar in the world and runs the biggest domain aftermarket and auction business. They also have a domain auction which is useful if you decide later that you want to sell your domain.
• IONOS is also well-established and offers domains at low cost.

• Bluehost is what I've used for about 3 decades and they also handle web hosting, which we'll take about later on.

In addition to the registration fee, you'll also have a choice of adding Domain privacy. This hides your name, address, phone and email from the public WHOIS record, which is worth having in place so you dont have your public information available to the entire world. It'll usually be a pre-checked box on the checkout page, so be sure to uncheck it if you don't want it.

2. What hosting provider to use

I've used all three of these listed here, and they each have their pros and cons.

Bluehost

WordPress.org has officially recommended Bluehost since 2005, and for a beginner putting up a WordPress site who wants a plain control panel and a phone number to call, it's a solid pick.

Bluehost is owned by Newfold Digital, formerly EIG, which also owns HostGator and a lineup of other hosts that look like independent competitors in review articles but share the same parent. The checkout page offers backups, SiteLock, a premium SEO tool and Microsoft 365, all pre-checked. Uncheck the ones you don't want before you pay.

My own VPS runs on Bluehost, and I shopped around quite a bit before landing on them. Their plans are solid and the support team is very responsive and can handle root-level questions, which was a pleasant surprise.

IONOS

IONOS owns its own data centers instead of reselling someone else's capacity, which is unusual at the budget end of the market. They have facilities in Germany, the UK, Spain and the US, which means European data residency and GDPR compliance are straightforward. They're also a very large domain registrar in their own right.

Their VPS and dedicated server pricing is also low for the specs you get. Against them: the renewal pricing jumps hard after the first term, and the control panel feels dated next to the American hosts.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a domain registrar that also sells hosting, not the other way around like IONOS. The brand is enormous and the 24/7 phone support is good. The hosting itself is unremarkable and priced about where you'd expect.

3. Which hosting plan to choose

There are 3 types of hosting plans that cover almost every type of website:

• Shared hosting works for a brochure site, a WordPress blog or a portfolio. Your site lives on a server with a lot of other sites and shares the same server resources while keeping your data private and separate. This is the most affordable and simple option and works well for most small sites. This is probably the best option for you starting out, and you can always upgrade later.
• Managed WordPress makes sense if WordPress is all you're running and you want the web host to handle updates, caching and security. It costs more than shared hosting and saves you from becoming a part-time WordPress administrator.
• A VPS is the right call when you need root access and are building something custom. This site and the other apps I run live on a VPS. If you don't know what any of that means, then this option is definitely not for you :)

Final Thoughts

Most of us look at the price first - I know I always do!

Beyond price though, look at whether there's a phone number and a person who answers it, and at what's bundled versus what's upsold. SSL should always be free; Let's Encrypt made that a solved problem years ago, and any host still charging for a basic certificate is not a serious option. Daily backups, a staging environment and a CDN are often not bundled, and they're worth more than most of the things that are.

One last thing... before you click the final button on the checkout page, read every line item. Pre-checked add-ons are where the bill grows, and the intro price is not the price you'll pay next year.

NOTE: This post was recently updated for 2026, and I kept comments from way back in 2010 when i first posted on this topic. Feel free to add your own comment as well.