dirkthewebphoenix

Hmmm… Spammers… The rule of money really ruins the world (motivating spammers for example).

Is there perhaps a recommendable site or forum where hosting services are honestly discussed/evaluated with spamming effectively curbed? All I seem to have run into so far is marketing.

The first wall I have hit entering the WordPress-site-building world are hosting services. Not exactly what I expected. I am getting the impression that hosting services have all sorts of secret restrictions on WordPress that one only discovers within hours or days of setup. Underhanded, secretive dealing with clients is beginning to look like the norm, and online articles I came across recommending services were often spare in information and either erroneous or dishonest as well. An important point in all this is that I am not trying to start a new blog somewhere (which is easy enough on WordPress.com and possibly many hosting services as well). I am working on adding the WordPress platform to my web developer skills and have my first self-built site with plugins and custom-CSS to post as a demo for my portfolio.

Trying hosting services, I have come across things like file size restrictions blocking Duplicator plugin archives, or worse: not allowing any *.zip named files at all. I managed to work around these hurdles, but then came more: refusing the PHP mail() function one’s contact form needs, the UpdraftPlus plugin getting blocked, extremely long server response times such as from involuntarily imposed server-side caching (or so I suspect).

These were free accounts on hosting services which also offer paid accounts. I am not at all sure that paid-only services or the paid packages on those services with free trial accounts act any better. That’s why I am not keen on setting up payment paths (and making payments) only to run into more trouble and having to drop the service again. It’s also why looking for trustable online communities is part of my solutions search (aside from good forums being useful for all other sorts of problem solving) because people and institutions getting paid for recommending services are burdened with a conflict of interests. The fact that I am currently still struggling to get back into the workforce and am low on money doesn’t exactly make me eager to pay for a service either for merely posting my little demo site for my online portfolio. Paying money when one is not making money is a poor proposition. *sigh* (and a little demo site gets almost no traffic and uses little storage space, a perfect fit for a free trial, but does any hosting service offer it honestly I am beginning to wonder… their dishonesty hurts their chances of me advancing to paid services from them, odd…)

Thanks for both responses. I admit, that the forums page here on www.remarpro.com looks to me more than a product support page; and forum searches didn’t so far seem to me as effective as I am used to from other kinds of forums (no matches for “free hosting”, for example, and the searches don’t seem to be forum-specific either or have an advanced version, nor is there a “newbies” forum — and web searches on WP-related questions have never or rarely led to these forums). I have the impression that one is well served here as a tech-support needing blogger without coding ability and — in this particular forum — perhaps as an advanced WordPress builder and coder, too. I currently place myself in between, and hence perhaps a little out of place. Still, I am giving this forum a try, and appreciate the welcome messages. I should perhaps also check out the “Everything else WordPress” forum here.

While real life meetings may have their benefits, they are rare while online bulletin boards (the ancient name for forums *wink*) are available every day. ?? — To be precise, what I am looking for, forum-wise, are online meeting places for WordPress builders, PHP coders, designers, etc., of all expertise levels for relaxed conversations without “we” rules that exclude, for example, the sharing of personal experiences with free hosting places.

I myself, for example, have had good experience for several years with a service that has been hosting my non-CMS sites for free while I was out of the workforce. I can’t guarantee its benefits, but I can share with others that I have been really happy to park my old sites there for years without any problems and later to start rebuilding my skills on there since last summer, all for free while I wasn’t making any money. I could possibly install my WordPress demo site there too, but I prefer not to put all my eggs in one basket, and it might not be all that well-suited for WordPress sites that go beyond mere blogging.

I understand that purely free hosting services can probably not be trusted. What I am currently looking for is a freemium service that will host my tiny-traffic demo site for free on an entry level, providing convincingly good hosting for it (not term limited, not artificially slow, and ideally not blocking the PHP-mailer, but OK to restrict the storage space and traffic volume which — with a mere demo site — are small). It would simply be part of my growing portfolio while I am searching for employers or clients; and as a possible benefit to the hosting service I would be getting familiar with its qualities and possibly be buying its advanced services later for myself or clients when those upgrades (for high traffic, for example) become sensible and beneficial to all involved parties and the service has so far given me a good impression. — So, I am not looking for an organization’s official recommendation, just shared experiences from fellow site builders and good online meeting places for such exchanges. ??

As said, I am just rising from the ashes and looking around in the new world. ??