Choosing the best WordPress hosting plan remains a mystery to most. It’s important to understand what to look for in a WordPress hosting plan as well as why it’s important. The following list offers basic criteria for finding a host.

1. WordPress only- older applications like oscommerce and phpbb are sometimes vulnerable to exploits that can affect performance of the entire server.  Using a host that only runs WordPress ensures that other app vulnerabilities do not affect your site.

2. Managed Hosting – Are you all on your own or is there someone there looking out for you? In a managed environment the server is maintained by the provider to ensure your account is kept humming along.

3. Knowledgeable Support Staff – Ever called support and had to listen to a 10 minute upsell for more services or worse yet the support staff cannot find the answer to your problem in their script? Make sure they’re answering your questions.

4. No adult content- The search engines are not a huge fan of gambling and adult sites. If these sites share a server or IP address with yours it may negatively influence how your website performs in the rankings. In other words, limited traffic to your quality site.

5. Reasonable Number of Sites Per Server- Wonder why your current website is slow? Some providers jam 1000’s of accounts on to under powered machines to maximize profit. There is no set maximum of sites per server but there is reasonable number each machine can handle.

6. Pricing – Rock bottom pricing is great if it also includes a complete solution. Watch out for deals that seem to good to be true. Chances are they host numerous site on one server and may allow adult content. Also, if the price is too low, what type of support do you think you’ll actually get?

7. Customer Feedback- What are their customers saying? Regardless of the companies marketing material, the customers are always talking for good and bad. It’s reasonable to expect a few disgruntled customers on every service.. but if it seems more people have bad feedback than good.. watch out.

8. Limited Contract – Payed up front for for a year and now want to get out? What are the terms of the agreement, can you cancel and get a refund. Or better yet do they offer a month to month plan?

9. Automatic Core WordPress Updates- WordPress updates help maintain security. If some sites are running on an old version of WordPress there may be potential for the spread of malware.

Disclaimer- Yes, page.ly provides WordPress hosting that practices the tips mentioned.  Page.ly is – better WordPress hosting.

WordPress released 2.9.2 today to address a few security concerns.

Page.ly customers rest easy.. hundreds of WordPress sites running on page.ly were updated to 2.9.2 today, about 10 minutes after the release annoucement.

This is what we mean when we say we got your back. No hassle updates.. and Automatic nightly backups come standard with all page.ly accounts.

Not a customer yet? Sign-up today, only 14.98/mo

Ever wanted to add template specific editable blocks to a WordPress Page?  Now you can with the Page.ly MultiEdit Plugin.

Read all about it here.

When we launched Page.ly in September, we made a very conscience effort to survey the WordPress community and identify likely partners that would be a good fit for our service and offer value to our customers. Premium WordPress themes are a true value add on top of a WordPress install, providing enhanced design and configuration options for beginners and experts alike.

After a bit of discussion, we came to an agreement with the fine team at StudioPress to offer their entire line of Premium WordPress Themes as an optional PowerUp to Page.ly customers. This early arrangement made Page.ly the first Authorized Partner of StudioPress themes and today we are happy to announce that the StudioPress Themepack on Page.ly now comes with Pro-Plus Level Support from StudioPress included.

That’s right! Page.ly WordPress Hosting service + All StudioPress Themes + StudioPress Pro-Plus Level Theme Support for $29.98/month.

Here’s how it works. Purchase WordPress hosting from Page.ly and the StudioPress themepack PowerUp option, which includes all StudioPress Themes (Genesis will be added this afternoon) and a Pro-Plus Level Support account will be created for you on the StudioPress support forum. Now in addition to Page.ly’s support for all things hosting and WordPress, you get theme specific support from StudioPress.

Creating a great looking and functional WordPress website or blog has never been easier or faster than it is now with Page.ly and StudioPress.com.

We have a bit more news to announce in the next few days.. Stay tuned.