Personal website hosting suitable for 'noobs'?
 

Hello DigitalFAQ! I'm here to ask a question about website hosting: I'm interested in starting my personal blog and I would like to purchase a domain and a hosting package for it (I want to go a little bit beyond Wordpress blogging). I picked 1and1 and I want to use their site-builder features to make a decent looking webpage, it looks like it can be handled by a programming/web design/hosting noob as well, but I want your input about this: is it a hassle to use a professional hosting service for someone who doesn't have any experience with hosting services or can I just go for it?

Hello, welcome to the site. :)

And it's always nice to see somebody that wants to learn more about hosting, not fall victim to those bogus "top 10" lists. :congrats:

Unfortunately, 1&1 is a terrible host. It's right up there with Godaddy, Yahoo, and the EIG brands (Hostgator, Fatcow, Justhost, etc). The biggest issue if that they overload the servers. And as such, your site is slow, and has lots of micro-downtimes (a couple a minutes here and there, all day, every day).

To learn more about overloading, read these:
- Overselling vs. Overloading: What Is Overselling? (Part 1)
- Overselling vs. Overloading: What Is Overloading? (Part 2)

The other big problem, which is unique to 1&1 especially, is that they make a lot of billing mistakes! Domains are lost, customers are overcharged, taken to collections unjustly, etc.

They also tend to make canceling an account a hassle, often requiring signed/mailed documents, faxed documents, etc. There's also some "gotchas" that can result in making customers pay for extra months they don't need or want. This stuff is well documented online.

Beyond all of that -- yes, there's more! -- it's an "unlimited host that seriously limits how the account can be used via the fine print.

If you free of that mess (1&1), perhaps you could muddle along. It won't be easy, however. There's LOTS of ways to hack servers, and it happens daily, resulting in amateur site admins losing their data. So you really need to learn not just how to make it, but how to protect it once it's there.

You can use WordPress (the CMS script at wordpress.org). The WordPress.com hosted sites also use WordPress the CMS (script, program, what you want to call it). WP is great, but just realize it's easy to hack if you don't stay on top of the themes and plugins, as well as updating WP when a security patch version is released.

I don't want to scare you, as it can be done, but it takes quite a bit of learning. Just making the site is about half of what you should do.

Have you ever considered making the site, the hiring somebody to update and audit it?

Another option is "WordPress hosts" like WPEngine, if using WP.

(Note that we also help folks maintain their blogs, one of our services, so ask if interested. We host it, as well as give advice. Most hosts DO NOT give advice. We'll help advise you, so it's an easy process for you. There's always going to be somebody that you can ask, if you get lost!)