BlueHost Web hosting for $6.95 per month with a free domain name

As I mentioned in my last post I have been busy starting up my first ever 'real' site. I can now unveil my new sites address which is http://affiliatescamguide.com and yes, you guessed it; it is going to be a guide to the affiliate program scams that are out there, with a few personal recommendations from me of sites that are not scams.

If you are reading this on the day I wrote this post then the site isn't even up on the net yet, if you are reading this a couple of days after my posting there are probably a few posts on the new site. I am aiming to have it well developed by the end of the month. It would be amazing if I can get Affiliate Scam Guide up to a Google Page of 4 by the next update (which is probably in about 1 months time) but I am doubtful that I can achieve this.

I will start the site by writing a single post for each affiliate program I already support, e.g. CashCrate; and then a post about the programs I know to be scams, or have serious doubts about e.g. Wealthtoolbox.

After that I will be opening the gates to you all who want to know if a site is a scam or not. If you ask me a question about whether a site is a scam, I will conduct some research about that site. If it is free, I will join up myself and have a look around. I will then write a post about the site with my conclusion about where it is a scam or not.

but where did I go for web hosting and what about buying a domain name?
The answer to both those questions is BlueHost. Jennifer from My Life recommended them to me and I am very glad she did! Bluehost provide web hosting and a free domain name for just $6.95 per month providing you sign up for 2 years; which is what I recommend because Google favours sites that have a domain name registered for 2 years or more. (this is because it shows Google you are serious about your site and are going to stick at it for 2 years, which moves you up the rankings bringing you more traffic from Google searches).

You can visit BlueHost and find out about the intricate details of the service rather than me explaining every little thing to you, but before you do I must mention their amazing customer support. I know this sounds like I am just sucking up, but they really were very impressive; allow me to tell the story:

When registering my free domain name with them, I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake. I made a typo without realising it (I did check... but somehow I still missed it). This meant my domain name for a couple of annoying hours was 'affilatescamguide.com' instead of 'affiliatescamguide.com'. When I realised my mistake you can imagine I was kicking myself, because I thought I would have to buy a domain. (you get the first one free, you can get up to 6 on the same account for $20 each for 2 years). I was about to do this when I thought it was worth asking if I could change it for free, after all I hadn’t done anything with it yet. On BlueHost's homepage there is a great big 'LiveChat' button. I clicked on that and it opened a chat window. I asked my embarrassing question and a friendly admin called Tom replied in seconds, solving all my problems. He reset my account for me, and I got the domain name I wanted after all!

Now if that isn't great customer service I don't know what is. A word of advice, don't deliberately misspell your domain name just to see if they really are that nice.

Another important point to make about BlueHost is that the installation of Wordpress is dead easy with them. It takes a few mouse clicks. Once you have an account, log in and at look for 'fantastico auto-installs' beneath the heading 'Addons/plugins'. You then select Wordpress from the list on the left and you are away. I was worried about this, I didn't really understand how domain name + web hosting + Wordpress all fitted together but believe me, one you try it you will be wishing you had done it earlier.

I have one final positive thing to say about BlueHost and that is that they do have an affiliate program. I can assure you though that this has not made my review biased, in fact you will love their affiliate program too. They pay a flat rate of $65 for each person who signs up through your referral link so it's almost worth signing up just to be able to make such lucrative referrals!


So that was my experience with setting up my first ever web hosting, I hope you found it useful. It does look like quite a one sided review, but I honestly cannot find a single thing bad about them. I am interested in what site you used for paid web hosting, so let me know!

If you want to use BlueHost then sign up here.