UPDATE **27 April 2009**
I’ve been using AN Hosting since December 2008 and am still very happy. Everything I said below is still reliable 
feedback.
Just to let you know that their latest campaign offers hosting for 23 cents per day. A year’s package is only $107.40 with no set up fees.
That’s $6.95 per month for a basic plan and $7.95 per month for a Supercharged Unlimited Plan with unlimited storage, bandwidth transfer, databases, email etc.
Both packages include the following features:
- 500 GB Reliable Web Hosting Space
- 5000 GB Powerful Monthly Bandwidth
- Host up to 20 Web Sites
- One-Click Installs
- Free Domain Name!
ORIGINAL POST
AN Hosting has an amazing Year-End Special on their Professional Web Hosting Package
Until 11:59pm Wednesday 31 December 2008 – you can get unlimited bandwidth, unlimited web hosting space, host unlimited web sites and get a FREE DOMAIN NAME.
Comparing Web Hosting Packages
My current hosting package is provided by Webcity in Australia (in AUD). I thought I got a great deal at $9.95 a month , with a $9.95 set up fee – on a 12 month plan, payable in advance. This plan gave me the following highlights:
- 500 GB bandwidth per month
- 5 Add On Domains and unlimited MySQL databases
- cPanel with Fantastico Self Install Scripts (what you need to run WordPress for example)
- DIY Site Builder
While I thought this package was quite good, it has its drawbacks:
- Fantastico is not updated as often as it could be. On a few occasions I have had to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress manually – what a bother for a self-taught novice coder.
- PHP4 PHP5 is what they are running at the moment, not the latest (I’m told that PHP 5 is much better to make sure your scripts all work properly).
- 500GB of bandwidth/traffic pales in comparison to the average of 1,000 – 2,000 GB plans being advertised at the moment for a similar price.
My Thoughts
What happens if just one of my blogs “goes off” (aka visitor numbers spike)? I will have to transfer to another host as this is the maximum bandwidth my current host offers. Bother!
After between 2 and 4 months of being active, four of my blogs use about 3.5 GB a month. As I’ve been working on getting the design and functionality right, there’s been little effort with regards to growth or promotion. So, I am expecting some sort of spike in visitor numbers in the near future.
Multiply my traffic by 10 and my bandwidth needs will jump to 35 GB per month. Multiply my traffic by 100 to an average 100,000 visitors per month and I will need 350 GB. At this conservative estimate, with extremely limited promotion, I would max out at about 285,000 visitors a month in total. As I have recently started to grow and promote my blogs, I may hit this number by the end of 2009, if not earlier.
I read on WordPress.org that perezhilton.com gets 5 million visits per month. Until I have been in this business for longer it is hard to know how much bandwidth is enough. Time will tell I guess. In the meantime, bigger sounds better to avoid the hassle of transferring hosting providers. At the moment I’m paying double for at least half as much bandwidth!
AN Hosting Package Is Amazing Value
The End-Of Year Special gives you…
Consider AN Hosting For Your Web Host
I just signed up for the above special for 3 new blogs I am launching soon. When my hosting package expires for the other 4 blogs I intend to transfer them across and run all 7 blogs off the one WordPress installation. NOT SURE HOW TO DO THIS YET – but plugins are available. No worries about maxing out the bandwidth – unless one of the blogs goes MEGA.
Chris Pearson, esteemed developer of Thesis Theme recommends AN Hosting…
…is the best shared server package on the planet—the one that not only satisfies my strict criteria, but also gives you more stuff than you will ever use!
When considering who your hosting provider will be, Chris recommends:
- The latest version of PHP
- As many MySQL databases as you can get
- Ruby on Rails
- Reliable and responsive service
- Fantastic developer support e.g. Fantastico with updated versions of WordPress and other installations
AN Hosting’s packages give you all of this and more.
Usual Monthly Cost of AN Hosting Plans
The usual cost of a plan with AN Hosting is about $6.95 a month but then the offer is about 10 domains and 500GB of bandwidth. Other specials they have are sometimes less per month and/or more domains and bandwidth. So, if you can’t grab this package now, look out for their specials.
Have a look at their site and bookmark it for future reference if you aren’t ready to buy now. For less than $80, including a domain name registration and a fantastic site statistics function that tells you everything about your visitors, it’s worth grabbing now – even if you have to wait a few months before jumping into your blog or transferring across from your existing host.
It took about 3 hours for my plan to be activated and within 5 minutes of getting my AN Hosting Welcome Pack via email, I had turned on my WordPress blog and changed to welcome page to read “Coming Soon”.
Final Words
Compare AN Hosting’s End-of-Year Special with your current hosting package.
If you aren’t hosting your own blog – meaning you are still running a FREE.wordpress.com site – OR you are yet to jump into the world of blogging, consider AN Hosting’s Plan. They are an affiliate of MidPhase who are actually more expensive and seem to offer less for more $ per month?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
i will review it on my free host review blog
As long as it’s a Paid Hosting, all of the above features are normally included regardless whose hosting company you are with. Free hosting is not a wise decision, as the uptime is poor, and your website can vanish all of a sudden. Not to mention that you do not receive good technical support.
Considering also having dedicated IP address, it greatly helps getting index and rank on Search Engines.
thanks i’ll check them out
Jeff’s latest artistic creation..Best of the best web hosting ecommerce sites
Hostingiso is a reliable hosting company. Live setup and cheap. You can try.
Web Hosting
Free Image Hosting
Great info.. very useful thanks!
Web Hosting reviews”>
http://blogebay.com
We offer free wordpress blog hosting, which is a free web page publishing and syndication service that allows users to quickly share information, such as news, reviews, blogs, journals, weblogs, diaries, and photos. With the wordpress blog system , you can easy to customize your blog theme and plugins to make your blog a popular success.
undoubtedly it competes very well with other established player like bluehost, godaddy etc . But the service is really good. I am with AN hosting from last 8 months.. never had a problem
.-= Living online´s last blog ..Travel Business looks promising for Home Based Business =-.
Your hosting service provider is something that you must not just willy nilly pick. Research the companies you’re considering carefully, and read informative blog posts such as these to help you identify what to consider in your decision making process. You don’t want to make the wrong decision, suffer the consequences and then have to go through the chaos of changing hosts. No thank you!
107.40 a year isn’t that expensive? I haven’t tried AN hosting before that’s why don’t know much about it. Maybe the package is much better than others so it is much expensive. I will look on it.
thank for the information. very nice sharing