If you are looking for the best WordPress hosting I have made a research for you. However #1 page on Google or Bing might not even show you the best results. It is an interesting topic as these techniques may be used in other niches. Here I will break down how results are manipulated.
Table of Contents:
Best WordPress hosting phrase break-down
Search results are manipulated for such a competitive keyword. There are about 330 000 hosting companies around the world which, you may guess, all want to be number one in the industry. Source: enterpriseappstoday
Another part of this phrase is the most popular content management system, there are around 820 million websites using WordPress as of 2023. Source: colorlib
Best WordPress hosting Reddit
Many people already know that the best Wordpress hosting phrase may show wrong information, so at the end they add reddit. Guess what ?- bloggers and companies screw this search term as well. In the first place we can see post from Themeisle (company that sells WordPress themes and plugins) and the real source to reddit pushed to the #2 position. If you scroll even more you’ll find more affiliate sites, trying to rank for this term.
BTW did you know: anything you search on the web you can add reddit at the end. It should direct to real people discussion about the topic.
Monetary value of the keyword
12000 people looking after this query every month and CPC (cost per click) for advertisers is valued at $2.85 at the current moment.
As you can see this is a high value keyword for every hosting company big or small. Strange enough, but at this point even using adblocker in my browser I see several advertisements. I have a feeling Google paid adblocker to make an exception for this term.
What Google likes to see in organic results?
Google loves and gives credit for high authority websites when it is a listicle type of article.
Here are all websites on the first page of Google.
| Website name (Top 10 organic results) | DA (Domain authority MOZ) | Article word count | Visitors a month (similarweb) |
| Wpbegginer | 83 | 9401 | 2.8M |
| Themeisle | 66 | 3195 | 1.6 |
| Codeinwp | 55 | 6361 | 325.4K |
| Forbes | 94 | 3059 | 112.1M |
| Techradar | 92 | 4582 | 24.6M |
| Pcmag | 92 | 2620 | |
| Wpforms | 55 | 3216 | 902.4K |
| Neilpatel | 89 | 7142 | 5.2M |
| Quicksprout | 72 | 5403 | 293.8K |
| Cybernews | 67 | 7668 | 3.6M |
All articles updated their content- the date of publication updated to 2023 to be more relevant in visitor eyes. Also all of them include affiliate links.
Visitor intent is to have many choices and to pick one.
Most likely beginners looking for this term, that being said all referred prices are based on cheapest shared hosting plans.
P.S. WP beginner and Wpforms owned by the same company, which is Awesome Motive founded by Syed Balkhi.
One more little coinsidense that both posts on themisle and codeinwp written by an author Karol K.
What is shared hosting?
Shared hosting is a type of web hosting service where multiple websites are hosted on a single server. This means that all of the websites share the same server resources, such as the CPU, RAM, and disk space.
Shared hosting is typically the most affordable type of hosting, as the costs are shared among all of the websites on the server. It’s a popular choice for individuals and small businesses who don’t need a lot of server resources and are looking for an easy-to-use, cost-effective hosting solution.
One of the main advantages of shared hosting is its simplicity. The hosting provider takes care of the server maintenance and management, so users don’t need any technical knowledge or skills to set up and maintain their website. However, the downside of shared hosting is that the performance and security of your website can be affected by other websites on the same server. If one website experiences a sudden surge in traffic or a security issue, it can impact the performance and security of other websites on the same server.
How to define the best WordPress hosting
From my perspective it is really hard to define which is the best wordpress hosting. Why?- it’s because of the perspective you look from:
- Price- number one factor new people looking at when making decision (IMHO)
- Easy website management for administrator- CPanel and one click WordPress install or other custom solutions.
- Customer support- how responsive and effective hosting support sorting out customer problems.
- Best because of overall performance e.g. ping, loading speed, website optimization, CDN included in the package, other additional features.
Just a thought: In order to define the best performing one you have to test them all. What if in the next month or year the company will get new fast hardware or open a new hosting center in another country. The improvements can be made as hosting companies invest back to stay on the top and meet customer needs. I don’t think any of those authority blogs run tests every year and post updated results for the public.
You might also like: 12 Tips To Secure WordPress Website
Most mentioned hosting companies by authority websites
| Hosting company name | Company founded in(years) | Package starts fromprice/month | Trustpilot reviews stars/number of ppl |
| Bluehost | 2003 | $2.95 | 3.7/5500 |
| Dreamhost | 1996 | $2.59 | 4.7/3900 |
| Hostgator | 2002 | $2.75 | 3.8/3000 |
| Siteground | 2004 | $2.43 | 4.6/11100 |
| Hostinger | 2004 | $1.99 | 4.6/14000 |
| Wpengine | 2010 | $19.54 | 4.5/410 |
| Kinsta | 2013 | $7 | 4.2/530 |
| Ionos | 1988 | $1.22 | 4.1/16800 |
| Godaddy | 1997 | $7.32 | 4.7/65200 |
| A2 Hosting | 2001 | $2.99 | 4.4/1930 |
All of them offer free SSL, have several server locations CDN, some offer website optimization out of the box. Sadly, there are no Google reviews, probably for a reason. I specifically used one of the more popular review websites to gather what people say about the company and services. This might not be super accurate but any independent data source with information is helpful.
Absolutely all authority websites added Bluehost on their list.
P.S. Did you know that Bluehost and Hostgator are owned by the same company NewFold Digital?
As you can see from the table Bluehost and Hostgator are rated worst, however all authority websites are still adding them as a good option to host a website. This is because it is easy to hook up beginners with a relatively small price, easy to use interface on admin dashboard and at the same time get high credits rewards as an affiliate.
I personally used Hostgator for several years. Also built several websites for clients in the past on bluehost servers and can confirm exactly the same experience.
What other techniques are used to manipulate the system?
First of all bidding on a variety of exact match competitor company keywords. When the new company wants to enter the market and is unknown they start advertising. There are no easy ways to appear on Google search results unless you pay to be there. Another way is to find someone in a relative niche with high authority (person or company) who’s got an audience and can promote a new hosting company.
SEO tactic used to jump on page #1 for best WordPress hosting
Not long ago there was a discussion on twitter started by Gael Brenton from AuthorityHacker. He found out that top ranking site for a query best WordPress hosting was sfgate (generic newspaper) article, published as a sponsored content by Norcal Marketing and has a ton of backlinks. This is called parasite SEO. Strange enough Google was tricked to push that article on the top of all other more relative websites. You can find this twitter post here.
Wrapping up
You may not have the best product or service in the industry, but if there are people or companies referring to you as a best WordPress hosting provider you will have customers and the business will be rolling up, just make sure you reward your affiliates better than competitors do.
