Who is Hosting This has put together a great little study into the blog hosts of the top 100 bloggers (according to Technorati).
On top of the list is Media Temple, Datagram, BlogSpot and Six Apart.
Yes you heard it, 8 of the top 100 blogs use Blogspot and 4 use Six Apart to host their blogs. It goes to show that while most (including me) would advise you set up your blog on your own hosting and with a platform like WordPress that you can actually grow a successful blog on a hosted platform like Blogspot.
Of course keep in mind that many of the blogs in the top 100 are in networks so they just go with who everyone else is with in their network and some of the services that the bigger blogs use are probably out of the range of what most bloggers can afford.
If you’re looking for a blog host you might also want to check out ProBlogger Readers Blog Hosting Recommendations (in the comments of that post).
Wow!
It’s really surprising to see a hosted service like BlogSpot out there!!
Conclusion: The most important thing for a successful blog is to have passion for the subject so that you can create quality content every day, day after day.
That’s the best SEO trick….
Very informative post! I use my own domain and WordPress. Much more flexible and configurable but I can understand the draw of simply using a hosting company.
BlueHosting is very affordable and very nice. There might be cheaper ones but they provide free wordpress installation and ecommerce items.
Their customer service is also very nice. Responsive and helpful.
Correction: bluehost.com
I’m fortunate enough to have a brother-in-law that is a hosting reseller. So I get my hosting for free.
If I didn’t have this option, I would probably go with blogspot or wordpress.com though.
Thanks for passing that on. I actually find the list of the top blogs just as informative as who their hosting company is :)
I was surprised to see the absence of a lot of highly-recommended hosting companies that I looked at when I was setting up my blog. And it seems that a large number host their own sites, despite the hassles.
The people still on Blogger or TypePad focus on their content more than bells and whistles, witness Seth Godin. It just goes to show ya’.
I use WordPress and the popular HostGator service: 100% uptime so far (knock on wood).
I also use host gator and they have been great. I’m shocked to not see them up there anywhere at all.
Wow, so many of the world’s top blogs are squishy DDoS targets. :P
Wow, Media Temple killed it. What is so good about them?
I use hostgator for my blogs and webcity (an Australian one) should I be changing?
Thanks for the info, I just signed up for media temple, their grid-service sounds interesting so I’m gonna try it out.
Basically, media temple has the “cluster” effect working for them. They can scale to as much server power as you need (in theory). Why is this good? Digg effect, or if you’re trying to pull off a bigfoot hoax. Either way, media temple has you covered. Of course, a good implementation of caching (wordpress super cache, for instance) would do the same … and for free. But yeah…. They have a nice looking website. That counts for something!
The only problem with building for years on a free hosted platform is what happens if and when you decide you need greater flexibility and want to go out on your own …. lots of had work wasted.
Six Apart has hosted my site since its inception. I know several bloggers who pay a considerable amount for a dedicated server. They spend countless hours dealing with their site’s infrastructure instead of creating for their blog.
Six Apart has provided me with quick and competent technical support from the outset, and they handle all the boring background stuff like backups and platform upgrades. Best of all, I pay substantially less than the cost of having a dedicated box in someone’s data center and my site is extremely robust on high traffic days.
Why would I want to walk away from that?!
It just goes to show that if your blog is one of the biggest in traffic out there, you’d really need a kick-ass host.
Anyone here hosted on Yahoo! Small Business? ;)
I think the reason that they are using self-hosted blogs (and many of them are on dedicated servers) is because they are successful, but not the other way around! I.e. self-hosting your blog won’t make you successful.
There are also errors in the report. For example it claims no top 100 blogs use WordPress.com. I just had a quick glance through the list and I can see Scobleizer there with LayeredTech next to it. Well, LayeredTech is a dedicated server company, and Scoblelizer is actually hosted in WordPress.com’s infrastructure.
Neil makes a good point, but allow me to present this counterpoint: If you blog about Web technologies, then you will certainly benefit from knowing firsthand how a server works.
Some of that information is incorrect.
Ars Technica’s main servers are housed at ServerCentral. They also use Cachefly as a CDN for their static content (CSS, media files). It’s on the thumbnail they included of the Ars main page, FFS.
blog.wired.com isn’t hosted by Akamai. Akamai is a CDN, not a webhost, so while Akamai may be serving as the front for a great deal of Wired’s traffic, they aren’t actually “hosting” them per se. It’s the same situation with Microsoft, and the way everyone gets a little giggle when they visit netcraft and omg! MS is using Linux! Lolz!, when the case is really that they’re using Akamai to do a lot of their fronting and really they’re using IIS buried way several layers behind Akamai.
Dlisted is using choopa, not “R. Palondikar (huh?)”
daringfireball is hosted by Computer Sciences Corporation, not level3 itself.
Yahoo Small business is just regular shared hosting like Host Rocket or anyone else.
To their credit, Rian, Yahoo hosting is supposedly very DDoS-resistant. They claim to have withstood attacks of up to 20 GBps. Most shared hosting providers will kick you off at a thousandth of that attack strength.
Sadly, they don’t support .htaccess. Migrating a WordPress blog there is a nightmare.
That’s Yahoo for you: a misguided powerhouse.
I’m honestly kind of surprised by the posts that say “Wow, XYZ Shared Webhosting is great, why aren’t they up there?”
Is this really a question? These sites are doing millions of pageviews per day in some cases. Is it really so surprising that they need more than a crappy $7.99 shared webhost can offer them?
Just, mind-boggling. Has the Problogger audience’s relative knowledge-level dropped that far in 18 months that these are even legitimate questions? I realize that as something becomes popular, the relative knowledge level shifts left on the Bell curve, but come on. Level3, Rackspace, et al are the cream of the crop. There’s a reason these sites are paying megabucks to host with these companies: scalability, reliability, SLA guarantees, and top-notch support 24/7. Beyond that, even trying to run a site like Ars Technica or b5media from a bluehost account or whatever is utterly laughable.
Typo: Gbps.
I still prefer to host my own blogs. Imagine what would happen if one day they pull the pin, what will those bloggers be left with. Hopefully they keep backups of all their posts.
Bluehost is a good one .. I prefer having one server for all websites.
I actually use two hosts because I don’t like putting all my eggs in one basket.
I transferred my blogspot blog to an FTP server hosted by hostmonster, but have used blogspot since I signed up for it back in 2005 with no knowledge of how to promote a blog. I’ve grown very attached to my design, however, and I hate the standard WordPress look. Can you link me to something that would convert my blog to wordpress technology without sacrificing my design? I don’t think i have enough CSS experience to tweak it successfully on my own.
@Ethan Their is no reason why you should stick to the standard wordpress theme as their are hundreds of free themes available on the net. I am sure that you can find one you like. Many can be configured to some degree without having any knowledge of css by changing the header image etc. May take some time but it is definitely worth the effort.
The report is misleading. WordPress.com does not own its own data center but there are among those listed hosted on WordPress.com VIP hosting e.g. icanhascheezburger.com, Giga OM, Robert Scoble.
@ Sire and Ethan,
As a beginner blogger I used a free template for my blog but since it’s free, the developper of the templates tends to place links and ads spread out on the template, with his referral links instead of yours. I had little to nothing knowledge of HTML editing, but when I read those codes for the links it just said: Ads.com/ref: (code). Be sure to have a good look at it , else you are just making him rich instead of yourself.
I would recommend buying a proffessional one for like 5 euro or a bit more, and you wouldn’t have any problems.
I am glad that I have my blog on my own domain name. Most people who see “Blogspot” in a domain name will think “Can’t be bothered to make better arrangements”
Dave
Thanks Ezine, I have actually removed those links from the themes except for the last one which I am considering purchasing so that I can remove those as well.
Word Press and Aiso.net solar powered
I truly understand and before I started blogging I wondered if I should start with a free blog or a paid one, I realised that starting with a free one understand the basics of blogging, and get well versed with how to get traffic to the blog and then get into a paid and a quality blog where I can customize it to me need. And anyways while I write on E-BUSINESS i have to focus on content rather than the look and feel of it.
Cheers
Technorati rankings is based on what? I think it is not based on rankings but based on something.
Thanks for the great idea. I will try to research about this things. Keep it up darren. Dont let other bloggers leave you behind.
http://www.resourcesandmoney.blogspot.com
I use godaddy. I been considering bluehost and host gator but not worth the trouble to migrate everything over.
the beauty of blogspot is you can have ablog up within minutes. The other service providers you actually have to do some where like picking the right host OS and installing wordpress. Installing wordpress on godaddy involves 4-5 clicks steps, then you have to wait 20-30 minutes for it to queue and install. If you’re not computer savvy it make seem intimidating. Bloghost, all you have to do is register and go.
Nice to see that Blogger is up there! Thanks Darren!
That’s very true about not hosting high traffic blogs on bluehost or something like that.
For my blog, it’s cataloging my summer of driving on a road trip to California and the fun pictures…. In the end I wanted more control over the pictures and the content to be able to take away. So I chose to go with bluehost. Only 107 a year with unlimited bandwidth usage. Obviously that doesn’t mean high simlutaneous bandwidth necessarily but if people decide to refresh the page many times each days downloading big pictures, I didn’t wanna have to more up to higher price plan.
Thanks for the wonderful advice. I am surprised that nobody mentioned 2Leaf. They are what I use and are great. They even offer unlimited bandwidth which is a huge plus. I also have some experience with Dream Host, but they are not as good. Both companies seem to be very environmentally friendly though which is important to me.
Hmm..that is very interesting, I always look at it this way, not hosting a blog on your own domain, is like remodeling an apartment you’re renting, it will never be yours. I have tried many hosts, and Hostgator is the absolute best with the best service and NO down time.
Thanks Darren,
JR
if you want a free blog site, you may consider WordPress (http://www.wordpress.com) . You can easily setup your first online blog site within 10 minutes.
If you want to have a professional layout of your blog (just like problogger.net), you may consider getting BlogEngine.NET tool from ASPHostCentral (http://www.asphostcentral.com)
Hope this helps.
Since I have multiple blogs/websites I need a hosting service that takes little time to start as well as minimal cost. GoDaddy seems to work for me and until they prove otherwise I will be their customer.
I’ve also heard quite a lot about mediatemplate. Sites like csszengarden use them I guess.
I’ve been using Lunarpages as my hosting for several years now on multiple accounts. They’ve got the best support ever and I’m very happy with their service so far.
PS: And No, I’m not a Lunarpages’ representative
I agree with United Voices. CSSGarden is hosted on MediaTemple and they are an excellent host. One ‘not-so-good thing’ about them is that their price seems to be a little bit pricey…:)
I would just stick with ASPHostCentral.com. The pricing structure looks excellent and the performance and reliability of the servers are excellent as well.
I use blogger for now and I am wanting to host it on my own website. I have enjoyed blogger tremendously, but its lacks the pages and control I want.
I like a lot of wordpress themes and have learned enough css through modifying my own blogger blog template that I think I can make it look like I want. The issue is my content is adult oriented and I don’t want any downtime due to traffic surges or just the fact there is adult content.
Seems like the best option for me is to grab my own domain, install wordpress and modify away. This will be my first time trying to host, so I assume I have to upload everything. I guess once I get it all set-up I would have time to post, but I am not looking forward to spending alot of time messing with programming and sorts.
Any recommendations?