So what do you look for when you are trying to purchase good webhosting to start a blog or website in India?
This question is quite important, but still would be the same for many users in different countries.
I had the same question when i started my first blog 10 + years ago and now I know much better after several hits and misses. To keep it short these are some factors you should be sure of before purchasing your website hosting from a company.
1. Good reliable hosting company (minimum or no downtime)
2. Affordable rates for hosting
3. Good support for your hosting and website when you need it ( chat , via email and phone)
4. Supports different scripts/website software like wordpress , photo galleries and forums with easy installing option ( prefer 1 click install)
Some of the factors are explained in more detail below
Reliable good hosting and cheap hosting:
The company should have good hosting which you can rely on and the servers should not go down. If servers are not good or not working properly, it means that your website will load slow or then not at all. The hosting providers below all have reliable hosting and good uptime guarantees.
Foreign company vs Indian hosting:
Many people will always tell you, always choose the hosting company which provides the server in the same geographical region as your region as it helps your website load faster and helps in SEO.
However this is not true, because when you start a website or a blog your audience are not only people in your region and country, but also viewers from all over the world. And so it does not matter much where you’re hosting is in India or in the US.
If your traffic is really 90% + from India only and you wish for it to stay that way, then you can choose a Indian hosting company and benefit from nearby servers. But I would suggest you start with a cheap reliable foreign hosting company and then when you know here your major traffic is coming from you could change your hosting provider to local or the make use of cloudfare or CDN service to make your website speedy for your local users.
Support for the hosting company:
Most of the companies I list here have good support via most traditional channels like, email, phone and also live chat. So if you run into a problem you can just go into live chat and talk to someone or pick up the phone and speak to someone.
How you can pay for the hosting:
Payment for hosting is another factor that some people run into problems with, unfortunately not all companies provide PayPal payment service in the hosting niche. However most of them do accept credit card and as payment is done in advance (yearly) for the monthly price that is quoted it’s just a lumpsum payment made once for yearly when you buy the hosting.
Below are some Indian as well as overseas hosting companies that do business in India
Get the cheapest & best hosting in India
www.hostingraja.in (Indian company)
Hostraja is a local hosting company and they sometimes have offers with upto 60% on Web Hosting.
Hostaraja prices
Hosting Raja is a government approved accredited registrar for .in and .co.in domains in India. They do a lot of business with domain names for .in
All their hosting-servers are hosted in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi, So your website can load faster without any latency problem.
The latency guaranteed by Hosting Raja is between 30 ms to 60ms (while this is great for local users, latency will not be beneficial for overseas traffic visiting your website)
www.bluehost.in (Foreign company- US)
The best web hosting
starts at only Rs. 239/mo
That is bluehost’s promotional price for Indian users at the moment. Click our discount link to get the most updated price. Bluehost is one of the most popular website hosting company for most popular bloggers and is also recommended by wordpress.org.
Bluehost India Pricing plans
They provide hosting services with unlimited hosting space, bandwidth & email accounts.
You can Buy a US or Indian Server (More Preferably) at Bluehost and then make use of CloudFlare’s Content Delivery Network. So, your site will load faster than your competitors.
Recently CloudFlare added three new Data Centers – in New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.CloudFlare will act as a Reverse Proxy for your Site and Cache all Static Files. If you’re not happy with CloudFlare’s Free Service, then Go for the Pro Service along with railgun to enhance your site’s load Time.Bluehost offers 1-Click Integration of CloudFlare Content Delivery Network.
For you to make the best decision, I would suggest that you find at least 5 top hosting providers and check their reviews and also check their facebook or twitter pages for review. In USA, I have heard that, Bluehost provides best support from many of the web developers.
www.bigrock.in/web–hosting/ ( Indian Hosting)
BigRock claims to be India’s #1 web hosting company and they say they have 99.9% uptime & 24×7 support. The good thing is that they haveprices starting with very low rates for hosting. You can check out their plans below starting at Rs 59 a month
GET WEB HOSTING FROM INDIA’S Top HOSTING COMPANY
Key Features:
· Unlimited domains, email and disk space
· 99.9% uptime with dedicated 24/7 technical support
· Fully equipped with cPanel / Plesk Control
· Rs. 2000* Google AdWords Credit
· 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
Price starts @ Rs 59 a month
[big rock prices above]
www.hostgator.in (Foreign company- US)
Hostgator is the leading web hosting services that is a US based company that also caters to the Indian market. They also focus on VPS hosting & dedicated server’s provider in India apart from the shared webhosting that they provide. They are also known for their world-class technical support.
Powerful Web Hosting Made EASY And AFFORDABLE!
· UNLIMITED Disk Space
· UNLIMITED Bandwidth
· 1-CLICK Script Installs
· 99.9% Uptime Guarantee
· 45 Day Money Back Guarantee
· 24/7/365 Technical Support
Starting At Only
Rs.222/mo
Coupon code: sunshine
https://in.godaddy.com (Foreign company- US)
Go daddy got both Linux plans and windows plans for website-hosting.
[wordpress godaddy hosting prices]
They are one of the biggest domain name registrars in the world and they provide a very big range of services from domain name registration, hosting , SSL security certificates, Domain auctions, website builder packages, Ecommerce, shopping carts, Online shop software, Microsoft online software and much more.
They also have a good affiliate commission and reseller program, that I am also a member off.
Check out their services over here at their website godaddy.com
Hostpapa is and international web hosting operator that also operates in India. They have an Unlimited everything plan for Rs 299 a month.
Hostpapa plans and prices
They have a Money-back & 99.9% Uptime Guarantee
If you are interested in using a web builder tool and templates, HostPapa Website Builder allows you to create a website even with no previous experience or knowledge in HTML/web design. A 3-page Starter plan is provided free with new shared web hosting accounts and can be upgraded at any time.
Hostpapa also has backup data facilities in a number of other data s in North America.
Make sure that your hosting provider has good cpanel or 1 click install options for your to easily get your wordpress website started.
(above image taken from registry.in)
In Registry is an information website about domain registration in India and all the requirements and policy in relation to registration and ownership of the Indian domain names. They also have information on how to register a Indian or .in domain name.
They also list all the accredited domain name registration companies that are allowed to sell Indian domain names in the market.
I do hope I have provided enough information to get you started on your wonderful website project or idea. If I have not covered anything you need let me know via contact page or comments.
If you’re looking to start your website journey, don’t delay and get started today. Time is money!
Good luck on your Blogging journey
Hi.
Good list. . I already got a blue host account.. but might try big riock for s second acoount
It says 20 year plan. . Isn’t it to long. .
Sushil
yeh that ones a bit long i guess !! it could be painful
Really a great Post