Why I Left Bluehost and Who I Chose Instead

So many new bloggers want to know; is Bluehost actually any good? In this post, I’m going to discuss, in detail, my personal experience of using them as my hosting provider and why I left Bluehost. I’m aware that many bloggers use Bluehost and are happy with the service. This post is subjective and not meant to cause offence to any parties involved. 

I first launched a self-hosted domain in the summer of 2018. Before that time, I’d been blogging on a very casual basis for a while, using the free version of WordPress (domainname.wordpress.com). I’d reached a point where I felt limited and hugely frustrated; I wanted to be able to have total control over the way my website looked and functioned. As things stood, I couldn’t even install a third-party plugin. Clearly, I was going to have to change things up.

Before choosing a hosting provider, I read many blog posts on the topic. The same name kept cropping up, over and over – Bluehost. Obviously, it was a common and well-liked choice. What’s more, Bluehost is marketed as the number one recommended WordPress hosting option. Therefore, opting to go with an initial Bluehost free trial seemed like the logical decision.

Getting Set Up

The set-up was a fairly straightforward and uneventful experience. My chosen hosting plan, Shared Hosting, was affordable, and I felt really positive about my decision. I hopped onto Live Chat a couple of times with basic queries and was satisfied with the help I received. The longest I ever had to wait was 15 minutes, which I figured wasn’t too bad. So far, the Bluehost free trial all seemed fine.

The First Red Flag

Around ten days after getting set up with Bluehost, the first bad thing happened. My website completely disappeared. In its place was a technical error message concerning Cloudflare. I had no idea what was going on and felt panicked. Was my site hacked? I figured, so Bluehost is down, but is this going to be a regular occurrence? I waited one whole hour, but my site was still nowhere to be seen.

I jumped onto Live Chat for help. Unfortunately, the agent was vague and seemed disinterested. I was offered no real explanation for why my site went down; I felt dismissed and made to feel like I was making a fuss over nothing.  

Gaslighting Live Chat Agents

For several weeks, I didn’t have an SSL certificate on my website. If you’re new to the blogging world and yet know, SSL certificates allow a website to move from HTTP to HTTPS, which is more secure. Without a certificate, a website will display ‘not secure’ next to the domain name, which looks unsightly and unprofessional.

At the time, I was inexperienced regarding all things SSL certificates. I didn’t even know what one was or if that was related to the ‘not secure’ message. I loaded up Live Chat and told the agent I wanted to get rid of the ‘not secure’ message. The agent advised that I would need to “look into changing PHP settings.” At the time, I thought this all sounded overly complex, and I certainly hadn’t heard of other bloggers needing to do the same. I followed the instructions given, but the message remained. I could sense that the agent wasn’t all that confident and not feeling hopeful that a resolution was coming, closed the chat.

The next day, I was determined to try and sort the issue again. This second agent had an entirely different opinion on the matter. He said that it was probable my website had been hacked and that had I considered purchasing SiteLock, a security monitoring service, for just $29.99 per month. I skim-read a couple of reviews of SiteLock on Reddit whilst still on chat and politely declined.

Increasingly frustrated, I opened Live Chat for a final time to try and resolve the problem. I was connected to a very cheery-toned woman who told me not to worry and that she would fix it for me immediately. Thank you, finally!

The agent returned after 5 minutes, telling me that it was sorted. Reload your website, and you’ll see was the advice. However, the message was still there. I replied that, unfortunately, it wasn’t fixed on my end. Cue lots of back-and-forth messages telling me to clear my caches and cookies, go incognito, sign out, sign in, etc. Needless to say, nothing worked.

The last part of the chat went like this:

Me: “I’m sorry, but I’ve waited for you to sort this out and followed all of your advice, but the ‘not secure’ message still shows. What needs to be done to resolve this?”

Agent: “It was great speaking with you today! I trust all is now sorted. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

By this stage, I was feeling tearful and wanted to scream. Everyone hates being gaslighted; this ended up being the key reason why I left Bluehost. In the end, I did what I should have done from the very beginning; I sorted it myself. I followed a YouTube tutorial and had my SSL certificate in place within half an hour. However, you would expect your hosting provider to, at the very least, be able to provide the correct information. I began to notice a clear pattern that Bluehost didn’t like claiming responsibility for anything that may be wrong with their hosting or service. And trust me, there was a huge amount wrong.

Bluehost Is Slow

Time passed, and I was getting annoyed by yet another issue – my website loading speed was slow. Sometimes I’d be sitting there staring at a blank screen for half a minute, wondering when on earth I would get to see my website again.

Once again, I loaded up the chat option. The agent left me for several minutes before coming back to declare, “your website is not slow.” Here we go again!

A few messages later, he admitted that, in fact, it did take longer than optimal to load. Finally, I thought someone is being honest about the fact that Bluehost is slow. He answered that I should consider upgrading my hosting plan. I was pointed towards the VPS or virtual private hosting plan for just shy of £15 per month. Reading up, not only was it too expensive, but also it wasn’t suitable for my new blog. I curtly thanked the agent and closed the chat.

The truth, as I know now, is that Bluehost overcrowds their servers. This means that you could have the most speed-optimised website possible, but it would still load really slowly. If you’ve read this far, it’s probably becoming pretty easy to see why I left Bluehost.

Leaving Bluehost and Who I Chose Instead

After several long weeks, I knew that I couldn’t deal with Bluehost any longer if I were to retain any of my sanity. This time around, I really did my research – I asked in blogger Facebook groups, looked on Reddit and devoured Quora for information. Part of the problem, and one of the reasons I initially chose to go with Bluehost, is that so many bloggers recommend them. When you look further into it, however, you’ll often notice that the blogger is taking advantage of Bluehost’s somewhat generous affiliate program or has written an actual sponsored post.

Sooner or later, it became clear who I was going to choose as my next hosting provider. Every blogger using this host could not stop raving about their customer care, which was my number one priority at this stage. So, I switched to Lyrical Host. I say I switched, but actually, everything was done for me. This included transferring my entire website to a new domain name, something I was so stressed about. The support is next level – immediate, beyond knowledgeable and completely transparent. Without exaggeration, I no longer worry about any technical aspects of blogging, as I know it could be sorted in minutes. Lyrical Host goes beyond hosting – they want to help with everything possible!

If you’re starting a new blog or looking to switch hosting providers and think Lyrical Host may be for you, you’re in luck. By using code ‘DISPELLER10’ at the checkout, you’ll receive 10% off your first hosting plan payment. After reading this blog, you’ll know that I have zero interest in recommending a product I don’t like (hello, Bluehost), no matter how lucrative their affiliate scheme is.

So, Why I Left Bluehost for Lyrical Host

I became increasingly frustrated and stressed using Bluehost as my hosting provider. My website took far too long to load because, yes, Bluehost is slow, and I resented the attempted manipulation into buying unnecessary services, the lying, gaslighting chat agents and the whole other multitude of technical issues I ran into. There was a new problem almost every single day!

If you’re currently with Bluehost and unhappy with the service provided, know there are other options. You’re not chained to a hosting provider, and switching may be the least taxing option. Don’t waste time worrying that the process will be too stressful or not worth the effort because the truth is that your new hosting provider will take care of all the tricky, technical parts for you, most of all Lyrical Host.

If you found reading up on why I left Bluehost and chose Lyrical Host instead helpful, check out how to write a blog post fast: 5 tips.