WordPress Hosting

HostArmada Review- Best Cloud Hosting With Blazing Speed

By Ashutosh Jha → Sunday, September 20, 2020

We at TricksRoad have reviewed many web hosting providers so far in different spaces like budget, SSD, WordPress, and others. Today we are continuing this journey and going to talk about a cloud hosting provider called HostArmada.

In this HostArmada review, we will talk about the various features of HostArmada, the pricing of HostArmada, and much more. We have personally tried this and found it a wonderful hosting in the budget. You can consider HostArmada as a budget cloud hosting provider and one of the best SiteGround alternatives as well.

HostArmada Review

Let's start and look for the different aspects of HostArmada which can be beneficial for you if looking for great cloud hosting for your business. Even we are using HostArmada for one of my WordPress blogs and I am enjoying it.

About HostArmada

HostArmada is a web hosting provider who started this journey in 2019. Although they are new to the market but have made a great impression in terms of service and quality. It provides domain and hosting to clients across the globe.

One of the major reasons why HostArmada made so much buzz in the short period is- it offers fully managed and WordPress-optimized Cloud SSD hosting services.

Before using HostArmada shared hosting plan, I personally tested from all the aspects and decided to write a detailed review. It offers the following hosting solutions to the clients-

• WordPress Hosting
• SSD Shared Hosting
• SSD VPS Hosting
• Dedicated CPU Server Hosting
• Open Source Hosting
• Development Hosting
• WooCommerce Hosting
• Magento Hosting

Many of these are specialized hosting for WordPress, Magento, WooCommerce, and more. HostArmada focuses on the following customer services-

They also maintain the-

• Transparency to the relationship with the customer
• Keep focusing on innovation
• Creating a highly tolerant system
• Amaze customer with the experiences

Which HostArmada Plan you should buy?

HostArmada plans vary depending on the kind of hosting you're looking for. The shared hosting plan starts at $1.20 per month while VPS starts at $41.21 per month. In this post majorly we will focus on the shared hosting.

In shared hosting also, HostArmada offers managed cloud SSD shared hosting. All the shared hosting plans include-

 Free cPanel
 Free SSL for all sites
 Web Server Cache
 Daily Backups
 Cloud SSD Storage
 Support 24/7/365

Apart from the above features, HostArmada also keeps a low number of clients per server with 99.9% uptime. Also, you can enjoy 24x7 support with all their plans.

In the shared hosting, HostArmada offers three plans depending on the configuration of the server and the sites you need to host. Below are their shared hosting plans-

I personally recommend going with the Speed Reaper plan which costs $2.69 per month. In this plan, the company offers you to host unlimited websites. You will get 6 cores CPU and 6 GB RAM with unlimited bandwidths. The best thing with the hosting is, they offer free domain names and you can have 120K monthly unique visitors as well. Another great thing with this plan is, your site will be backed up almost every hour, around 21 times a day.

HostArmada Features

Here are some of the top features that HostArmada offers-

Moneyback Guarantee

The company offers 45-days money back guarantee on all their plans and so you can try freely.

99.9% Uptime

HostArmada gurantees for 99.9% uptime on all of their plans and so there are rare chances of the website getting down.

Free Site Migration

If you’re currently hosted on some other hosting provider, then the HostArmada team can migrate all of your site one-time for free to HostArmada hosting.

No Cancellation fees

If you cancel any service with HostArmada, there is no charge associated with it.

1-click installer

With HostArmada's 1-click installer, you can install all the apps like WordPress, Databases, and more on your server.

Web Server Cache

With the caching technique, your site will load faster with minimal resources

Enhanced Security

HostArmada uses AI-based security which takes care of very possible security concerns.

Free SSL Certificates

With any plan of HostArmada, you can get free SSL certificates for all your sites free. When many hosts are charging $10 or so for the SSL, here you can get for free.

Free Domain Name

With HostArmada you can ger a free domain till the time you're hosting with HostArmada.

HostArmada Datacenter

HostArmada is pretty rich when it comes to the datacenter and has a global presence. From the USA to Australia, it has got many data centers across the world. Below are the network of datacenters HostArmada has. Depending on the location where you're doing business, you can probably, select the nearest datacenter.

HostArmada Hosting Performance and Speed

Speed is one of the best factors while deciding which host you should go for. HostArmada's hosting services offer you the blazing speed for all their plan. I quickly checked the hosting speed using Bitcatcha.com and see what I found below-

So, HostArmada offers amazing speed for all their plans and is categorized as A+ which is rare with any hosting provider. Also, as said above, the company offers 99.9% uptime and so, you can rely on them. Further, I checked the Mobile speed score and desktop speed score using Google Page Speed Insights and see what I found-

So, I got a dazzling speed of 97 on both Mobile and Desktop which is considered a pretty good score. And let me clear here, website speed is one of the important SEO factors as well. Although this speed score will vary depending on the site you are testing.

HostArmada Support

The next part of this HostArmada review is about their support system. As said above, HostArmada offers 24X7 support to all its customers. It offers support via Live chat, phone, and ticket along with the huge knowledge base. Usually, a technical support ticket needs just 10 minutes for the resolution. You can look for the below in their technical support-

• Website Support Service: Website Transfer, Application Setup, Website Optimization, Website Common Errors (403, 404, 500, 502 ... etc.), Hacked website assistance.
• Domain Support Service: Domain Registration, Domain Transfer, DNS Modifications, Nameservers Modifications, Domain forwarding
• Email Support: Mail Client Setup, Mail Accounts Management, Newsletter Setup, Mail IP
• SSH Support: SSH Information, SSH Client Configurations, SSH Command Line assistance, File Operations assistance, Local Binaries usage
• SSL Support: SSL Installation, SSL integration with your website, SSL renewal, SSL Issues investigation
• cPanel Assistance

HostArmada Pros:

Here are some amazing benefits of using HostArmada-

• Managed cloud SSD storage
• Easy to use cPanel
• Free SSL for all sites
• Web server cache
• Daily backups
• Unlimited email accounts
• Lighting speed
• Reliable security
• More Data server Option
• 1-Click Application Installer (WordPress, Magento, WooCommerce, Joomla & more)
• More programming application support (Perl, Python, Node.js, PHP)
• 45 Days Money-back Guarantee
• Support 24/7/365
• 1st year pricing at 85% off

HostArmada Cons

Renewal cost is high

Conclusion- HostArmada Review

This was all about HostArmada Review which we experienced while evaluating. I personally found it as one of the best hosting providers in the budget. Even for an unlimited sites with 120K unique visitors, you need to pay just $2.69 per month which is pretty cheap compared to other hosting providers.

Along with the pricing, free domain name, and SSLs, 21 times backup in a day, multiple data centers, are something that impressed me a lot.

What do you think about HostArmada?

If you are looking for a new host, you should try HostArmada at 85% off.

WordPress Plugins

How to start a blog on UKHost4U in 5 Minutes- Step by Step Guide

By Ashutosh Jha → Monday, November 4, 2019

If you’re looking to start a WordPress site with cheap and reliable hosting, then this article is for you. Here I am going to talk about how to start a WordPress blog on UKHost4U in less than 5 minutes.

I will be sharing the exact method I have used while hosting one of my new domains and you can do so just by following this guide.

UKHost4U review

Before going into the step by step method to host WordPress blog on UKHost4U, let's talk little details about the company.

UKHost4U is one of the leading hosting providers across the globe, especially in the UK region. They have all kind of hosting available like-

1. 1. Web hosting
2. 2. WordPress hosting
3. 3. Enterprise Hosting
4. 4. Reseller hosting

So, depending on your needs and budget you can select any of these.

Along with the above, they also have the server and you can buy-

1. 1. VPS server
2. 2. Dedicated server

UKHost4U is an all-in-one web solution where it offers domain, VoIP, and security solutions like SSL certificates as well.

If you follow TricksRoad, you must be knowing that I keep on trying different hosting companies from time to time. Earlier I was on DreamHost (check step by step guide to host a blog on DreamHost) and later I tried HostUpon, BlueHost, and Namecheap as well.

Recently, when my existing hosting was getting over, I started looking for some other hosting providers. I talked to multiple hosts like A2Hosting, PowerUp Hosting, Digital Ocean, UKHost4U, and Orange hosting. After going through all, I found UKHost4U matching the kind of requirement I had.

While selecting the best WordPress hosting, the following were the major parameters I focused on-

• Uptime
• Cost-efficient
• Better Support
• Free SSL
• cPanel
• Unlimited traffic
• Free site transfer

When I talked to almost all the hosting mentioned above, I found UKHost4U satisfying all these factors and I have decided to go ahead with them.

UKHost4U Features

Here are some of the amazing features of UKHost4U which attracted me to buy and you may also look for these-

1. Free Site Migration

If your existing hosting uses cPanel, just open a case with their support and be sure of the smooth migration. I opened a case with them on Oct 23 just by sending an email with the details like cPanel URL, user id, and password of existing account.

And within a day, all my sites (7+ WordPress blogs and sites) were transferred to the new hosting. Below is the email confirmation from their support team.

2. 24X7 Technical Support

This I found interesting!

If you'll look into the major hosting providers, they usually provide chat support for sales. But UKHost4U provides 24X7 support for technical issues. And this is very helpful. I felt some SSL related error with one of my sites and within no time, they resolved it. You can see the response and resolution time from below email screenshot-

3. Free SSL Certificates

This is another feature for me to consider. My last hosting provider Namecheap had this limitation. Although Namecheap allows 50 free SSL certificates but it will be only valid for 1 year per domain and from next year you will have to buy. But UKHost4U is different here and allow free SSLs as long as you will be with them.

4. Flexible Plan

Another great thing about UKHost4U is, they have different plans to suit everyone's needs. Here are the three major plans by UKHost4U which you can check-

And similar to this, there are many other features of the hosting that you can check form the above pricing table.

Along with all these, UKHost4U allows 30-days of money-back guarantee. The company is in service since 2001 and had got 4.6 average ratings on Trustpilot.

How to start a WordPress blog with UKHost4U step by step

Here is the step by step by step guide to starting WordPress blog with UKHost4U. We will go through section from buying the hosting to making the site live.

Section-1: Buying hosting

Head over to the site and looking for the different hosting plans with cPanel. I personally recommend hosting with cPanel as it is standard across the industry. Also, managing and transferring are a lot easier with cPanel.

You can check the different UKHost4U hosting plans here. Now depending on how many domains you are looking to host, select from the plan. As I had 12+ domains and so I selected "the business" plan which offers to host up to 20 websites. It comes at 8.34 Euros per month.

Tip: You must check with them for the offers and there is a high chance that you can get around 10%-20% discount easily. You can either wait for the popup box or can ask in the chatbox as well.

Once you will click on the buy here button, you will be redirected to a new page where the system will ask for the domain options.

As I was already having the domain name with some other cheap domain name registrar and so I selected the third option where I just need to update the Nameservers.

Just put your existing domain name here and click on the use button.

Next, it will show the configuration page where you can select the plan and make the payment.

Just click on Continue in the above window. This will take you to the payment page where you can apply the coupon code as well.

Once done, just click on the checkout button and make the required payment. In the checkout page, you'll be asked for some personal details like email id, password, etc. Just fill those and make the payment. Once done, you'll get the confirmation email.

That's all, you have successfully bought the required hosting and can log in to your account using email id and password.

Section-2: Change Nameservers to Existing Domain

As we selected, the 3rd option to change the nameservers to the existing domain and so we need to change the nameservers of the domain.

To do that, just log in to your domain registrar and make changes to your nameservers. If you have the domain on GoDaddy then you can sign in to your account and select DNS option.

This will take you to a new page wherein the lower section you'll find Nameservers section.

Just click on change and add the following nameservers so that your domain can point to UKHost4U.

1. 1. ns1.ukhost4u.com
2. 2. ns2.ukhost4u.com
3. 3. ns3.ukhost4u.com
4. 4. ns4.ukhost4u.com

Once you have changed the existing domain nameserver, you need to wait for some time for the change to take place. Finally, it should look like below-

Section-3: Install WordPress on UKHost4U Hosting

Now we are all set to install WordPress on UKHost4U Hosting. For this, we need to access cPanel. Please follow the below steps to do that-

Step-1: Login to your UKHost4U account and you will get the dashboard something like below-

Step-2: Click on your product and you will be taken to a new page which will be like account details with various useful information like- link to cPanel, Email accounts, disk space, file manager, databases, etc.

Step-3: Click on login to cPanel to access cPanel. This will take you to cPanel and here you can add new domains or create a new email account or directly install WordPress if domain is already added.

Step-4: Let's add a new domain name here. For this, just scroll to Domains section and select addon domains

Step-5: Just add your domain name click on add domain. Make sure your domain nameserver is pointing to UKHost4U.

If the domain will be added successfully, you'll get a successful message like below.

Step-6: Now move back to the cPanel home page where we'll install WordPress. Just look for the Softaculous Apps Installer section and select WordPress from the list.

Step-7: Here click on "install now" button to install WordPress

Step-8: In the next step, we need to select the domain name on which we have to install WordPress along with other details like the name of the blog, and some configuration details.

Note: Please make the highlighted section empty else WordPress will be installed on domainname.com/dir/. If you want to install WordPress directly on domainname.com then simply leave that field empty. Just fill the required details and at the end of the page, you will find the install option. You may also select the theme and can get the notification of installation by putting your email id.

Step-9: Once the installation will be done, you'll get a successful message with the admin login information.

Step-10: You can now login to your WordPress admin and customize it as required.

All done now!

You've successfully installed WordPress on your domain. Now you can use any new WordPress theme or can add the required WordPress plugins as required. You may also want to check what kind of websites you can create with WordPress.

Section-4: Create a Professional Email

It's always good to keep your email professional. A professional email is nothing but a domain-specific email. For example, for this blog TricksRoad although I use Gmail id much but have professional email like ashutosh@tricksroad.com which I use for business communication.

You can create such professional emails from cPanel. Just go back to the cPanel home page and look for the email section and select Email accounts.

This will take you to a new page where you can create a new email account as shown below-

On the next page, you need to select the domain name for which you want to create the email. Followed by the email id you want to choose, password, and space you want to allocate.

Once done, simply click on the create button, it will be created. Now just look for the email id and you will find link to access the email.

All done by now!

We have successfully bought the required hosting, installed WordPress, and created email id for the required domain name. Just follow these steps and you'll be able to start a WordPress blog in minutes.

Conclusion

This was all about how to start a WordPress blog on UKHost4U hosting in less than 5 minutes. If you're looking for cheap and reliable hosting, you should definitely check them.

Also, if you experience any issue while using or have any queries, feel free to comment below.

WordPress Hosting

5 Things To Know Before Starting Self-Hosted Blog

By Ashutosh Jha → Monday, January 28, 2019

For months you’ve been contemplating starting a blog, as a way to showcase your interests and talents while teaching people about a topic that you are passionate about. Unfortunately, it isn't enough to throw a ton of content on a page and call it a blog.

5 Things to know about starting a self-hosted blog

Let’s start and see what all you should consider before starting a self-hosted blog. If you are serious about a career as a professional blogger, there are a few things that you need to know.

#1 Set Goals

While you may have already decided on the niche that you'll be blogging about, you still need to have a clear understanding of your goals for the blog. Without establishing achievable and quantitative objectives, you won't accomplish much. Setting goals gives you both long-term vision and short-term motivation, according to MindTools. When you think about the goals for your blog you want to be sure to set goals with measurable quantities, set deadlines for completing your goal and try not to consider failure as an option.

#2 A Self-Hosting Blog is Best

If you want your blog to provide you with an income eventually, then you need to get a self-hosted blog. Even though you will need to buy a domain name and pay for hosting, it will be worth the investment when you start to make money from your blog. The best hosting 2019 companies make the entire process simple with easy setup and installation. You’ll also need to factor in the expenses for your theme, testing, and marketing.

#3 Google Analytics is Vital

Google's free analytics tool can be your new best friend when you learn how to use it correctly. It can help you come up with new blog topic ideas and lets you see if a subject that you've already blogged about is worth revisiting. The tool also provides you with the data that you need to find out where your visitors are coming from, how long they spend on your site, and the platforms they are accessing it from. According to the site Yola, having access to your site analytics will help you understand your visitors' behavior, so you can better optimize your website.

#4 Keep your Quality Consistent

When you start a blog that you are hoping to earn an income from, it is essential that you provide posts that are relevant and filled with value-added information. If you've committed to writing a new post every week, each of those posts must give value to your audience. Your readers want to know that each post that you provide will be as insightful and engaging as the last one.

#5 Patience is Essential

Your favorite blogger didn't just start to write one day and end up with hundreds of followers the next. Each one worked hard to get where they are today. It is essential that you are patient when it comes to your blog. When you first start, take the time to focus on your visitors by looking at their comments, social media shares, and emails to determine how you can continue to improve your site.

Wrapping it up!

Starting a blog can be incredibly time-consuming and challenging. There are a lot of steps that you will need to take before you can even publish your first blog. Avoid common mistakes, and you will be well on your way to a long and happy career as a blogger. If you’re just starting with the blogging, you may check how to start a WordPress blog from scratch. Or if you’re looking for the free blog, check how to start a free blog on blogger platform.

WordPress Hosting

HostPapa Hosting Review- A Leading web hosting services

By Ashutosh Jha → Tuesday, November 6, 2018

HostPapa is not just another web hosting but it is one of the largest web hostings of Canada. The company is currently hosting over millions of websites.

This Canadian based web hosting company started their operation way back in 2016 and since then they have become of the leading hosting company. Their features like uptime and performance guarantee are the major attractions. In this HostPapa Hosting review, we’re going to talk about the features, working, and uses of the hosting.

HostPapa Hosting Review

As said, HostPapa is a leading web hosting company offering wide ranges of hosting solutions like- WordPress hosting, VPS, reseller hosting etc.

Pricing and value for money

Hostpapa’s pricing is quite competitive but the benefit is when at the same price another company allows you to host only one website, Hostpapa allows you to host two websites. The basic pricing starts at $3.95 per month where you can host two websites. Here are the 4 kind of web hosting Hostpapa provides-

• Web hosting
• WordPress Hosting
• VPS Hosting
• Reseller hosting

Apart from these four major hosting the company also provides dedicated hosting for the forum, CRM, analytics, and another specialized kind of hosting.

While the other web hosting’s price is also the same. But if you’ll go with their web hosting plan, currently the business plan is at the sale and comes at just $3.95 per month where you can host unlimited website. Please note this is the discounted price and usually comes at $12.99 per month. And so, you can take the benefit of the discounted price.

If shared hosting is not enough for you then you may move to VPS hosting. VPS is for the moderate traffic website and the price starts at $19.99 per month. The pricing of VPS hosting greatly depends on the configuration you need for the servers.

• So, if you have a blog with limited traffic then you should go for the WordPress hosting if a WordPress blog. Else go with the web hosting package.
• If you have a website or a blog with moderate traffic, you should try VPS hosting
• And for a very high traffic site or the site needing high availability, a dedicated server is for you.

Customer Support

Customer support is an asset for the Hostpapa team and they’re available 24x7 through different communication modes.

You may reach out to them through phone, email, or chat. You can also raise a support ticket and wait for the response.

Along with that, I really liked their knowledge base where they have a solution for almost all the generic problems. You may follow those for the common problems and get in touch if those are not sufficient.

Along with it, Hostpapa has a dedicated status page where you can find how their servers are working. If there will be any specific issue from their side, it will be highlighted here.

Reliability & Performance

Hostpapa claims to have 99.9% uptime which means you won’t find any downtime on your websites. This is an amazing number as claiming for 100% is not possible practically. So, if you’re thinking how much time your site will go down with this uptime then it will be around 1-2 hrs per year. I believe this time usually go with the server maintenance. Else you won’t find any kind of issues.

Free Website Migration

Hostpapa also migrates your websites from the other hosting services if you want to move to Hostpapa. So, you don’t have to worry about the technicities involved. The team will ensure a smooth transition and will ensure your site downtime is minimized.

Website Builder

Nowadays no one wants to write a piece of code or design something in a complicated way. And that is why website builders are in great demand. Hostpapa also has their own website builder which you can use to develop your own website. This helps you get rid of designers who charge some heavy amount for the same.

If you want to use their website builder separately then it will cost around $2.99 per month for 3 pages. Unlimited pages design price starts at $9.99 per month. Here are some of the features of the website builder.

Other web hosting features

Along with the above features, here are some other web hosting features included-

• Free SSL certificate- Your domain will be enabled with a free Let’s encrypt SSL certificate. Although this is a free SSL provider site and anyone can get it free but Hostpapa has made a direct integration.
• Firewall- For security, you can add an extra firewall for added security
• Automatic Backup- This is limited to business pro plan only. For others you need to take backup manually
• Unlimited bandwidth- Each of their plans come with unlimited bandwidth and so you don’t have a think for the resources being consumed.
• Free Domain name- You can also get a free domain name
• Money back guarantee- Hostpapa allows 30-days free money back guarantee

Is Hostpapa good for you?

Well, we have reached at the end of this Hostpapa hosting review and hope you got a detailed idea about it. If you’re thinking, if still Hostpapa is right for you or not then you should check below points-

• Looking for high uptime and zero downtime
• Transparent pricing
• Looking to host more than a website
• Need free domain
• Excellent support who can solve technical and business-related cases as well
• Performance optimized server

If the answer to the above question is Yes, Hostpapa is for you. Go and try their services. Also, if you’ve used Hostpapa earlier, please share your experience with us.