I am not going to tell you that there is only one “best” hosting service for WordPress blogs but I will tell you that some are considerably better than others especially with the release of WordPress 2.7

What are you looking for when you look for hosting for a WordPress blog?

For the most part the same things you will look for in any reliable hosting service:

• Lots of storage space
• Lots of bandwidth
• Fast reliable support
• Very little down time
• Low cost

This are the common factors you want to look for when you are looking for hosting for any site but when it comes to a WordPress blog there is one other feature you might want to look for, suPHP.

Right about now most of you are saying, “What the heck is suPHP?”

I can give you a very technical definition that I barely comprehend myself or I can tell you this. It is a php code that lets you run files and folders on your site with different permissions.

Permissions (CHMOD) are set to let the server, user or anyone modify a file on your site and are usually represented by numeric values such as 777 (let anyone in the world modify this file) sometime files need to have the permissions changed to a value that is not secure and invites hackers into the site, such as the 777 above.

Once you have suPHP installed the site will use different permissions to have the files modified without opening them up to every body in the world.

So why does this affect WordPress blogs?

With WordPress 2.7 new features were added that will let you automatically update your version of WordPress or automatically download and install plugins. If you have suPHP running on your server these features work very well without modification or the need to FTP into your site to change permissions.

If you don’t have suPHP on your site you will have to change the permissions of files and folders to make sure everything works correctly. With some hosting you might have to set the permissions at 777 and this could just be inviting hackers to your blog.

How do you know if your host is using suPHP?

The easiest way to find out is to ask them?

If you aren’t already hosting with them this would also be a good way to find out how well their support system works before you purchase.

Just go to the support section (make sure your request goes to technical support and not sales) and ask them if they are running suPHP. If it takes them a week to get back to you then you probably don’t want to use this service. If they get back to you in less than 4 hours it is a reasonable response anything under one hour is good.

One thing that might happen to you that will point out that your server has suPHP running on it is, if you ever change a file or folders permissions in a PHP script and you get an error, specifically a 500 internal server error that usually means you are running suPHP. To fix this error set all your folders at 755 and all your php files at 644 and it everything should work for you.

I am sure there are a lot of reliable hosting services that offer everything that has been mentioned here but one that I have worked with and have personal experience with their support and service is HostGator. For blogging purposes I haven’t found a better hosting service for Blogging Beginners.

If you know of any other services that have all the features listed above go ahead and leave a link as a comment to this post. But do not put in more than one or your post will go to moderation.

I have been playing with the newly released WordPress 2.7 trying to decide if I like it or not. The functions that they have added are nice once you get them working.

What did I say? Did I say once you get them to work?

Yes, I did. I personally had a problem using the new feature which automatically installs plugins from the WordPress Plugin Directory. It took a lot of testing on different blogs to see if it was the host or my site or the script running WordPress 2.7.

Here is what was happening, I would find the plugin I wanted and click on the install link. The plugin would download to my site but when it started to unpack it would freeze and the plugin wouldn’t be installed.

It didn’t matter if my site was running suPHP or not, if I lost you with that, suPHP is a protection program that runs on your site. This makes running WordPress much easier because you don’t have to set permission for every folder or file it is changing and you don’t have to add your FTP information to the script to complete the process.

It didn’t matter if I used the automatic install or if I was using the upload and install feature it would freeze when it was unpacking.

I tried it on three different hosting services so I was getting to the point where I thought it was a scripting error in WordPress 2.7 and I hit the WordPress Support Forum. There were tons of comments and problems about 2.7 but I didn’t see anything about the automatic plugin install.

I posted my problem and then did a search of the support forum to find there was a similar problem with the automatic plugin upgrade that was part of the WordPress 2.5 and to my surprise it was related to the WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin.

So, logged back into the admin area and deactivated the plugin and boom everything worked fine for the automatic plugin installer.

If you have the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin installed deactivate it when you install WP 2.7.

Besides this plugin is officially retired and WordPress 2.7 has the feature built in.

Like I said there were a bunch of other problems at the support forum but most of them were like mine personal to the person.

One that seemed to affect a lot of people with different plugins was losing all the links in the admin section. This happens with some of the admin navigation plugins that work like WP Admin Bar (although this one seems to work fine) the problem is you need to deactivate the plugin to get the links to show and you need the links to deactivate the plugin.

There are a couple of ways around this:

One is to FTP to the plugins folder on your site and rename or delete the plugin so that it won’t be activated.

The other is to go directly to the plugin page in your admin area after you login and deactivate it there.

To go directly to the page you will go to the admin section and log in.

Once you are logged in go to the address bar in your browser and where it says index.php change that to plugins.php and hit enter or go.

This should bring you to the plugin page and you should be able to deactivate the plugin. Once it is deactivated you should be able to see your admin links again. Just in a different spot.

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous blogging or to take arms against a sea of niche bloggers, and by opposing conquer them?

OK, that is enough of my poor paraphrasing of William Shakespeare.

This is as you might have guessed about blogging for profits or just blogging for attention or to get the word out about something special to you or just blogging to vent.

The real question is should you use a free blogging service or spend a little money and set up your own blog on your own domain?

The answer to this question, as with almost all internet marketing questions, is “It Depends”.

If all you are doing is providing your personal opinion about celebrities, politics, your personal life, what your group or organization is doing and not actively seeking to make money with your blog. You will do find with the free blogging services like Blogger.com or WordPress.com

If you are planning on doing blog marketing to create a profitable blog you should really look at this as running your own business and this means you will have to spend a little money.

How many of you actually believe you can run your own business without spending any money?

Seriously, if you try to start a business offline you better have thousands of dollars and a good line of credit.

To start a business online, especially with a blog, is a fraction of the cost of starting an offline business.

For under $50 per month (a high estimate here) you can get your own business up and running online. What offline business can you run for $50 per month?

I told you that $50 per month was a high estimate and what does that include?

• Domain Name= $0.83 per month (based on $10.00 per year)
• Hosting = $10.00 per month. Yes, you can get it cheaper but this is for a reliable hosting account with room to expand and no additional cost.
• Autoresponder = $20.00 per month. This is the best way to stay in contact with you customers and potential customers, without getting your site shut down for spamming.

As you can see that comes up to $30.83 per month and the autoresponder is optional (though highly recommended) when you are first starting out. The $20 that is left over from the $50 estimate can be used for other things like education and advertising.

There are other expenses that you will have but I am guessing you already have those expenses, such as; a computer, internet access and an email account.

Why do you want to set up your blog on its own domain?

The answer to that is because it will make it much easier for you to turn up high in the search engines and get traffic to your site.

With blogs, particularly WordPress blogs, you have these things called plugins that you can easily install that will optimize your blog for the search engines, set up RSS feeds, allow others to bookmark it and many, many other things.

These options are available with most of the free services.

I won’t tell you that you can’t make money with a free blogging service but I will tell you that it will take a lot more work and a lot more time to get where you want to go.

What does this boil down too? Basically, if you are planning to make money blogging you should plan it like a business and budget some money to get your business started.