Web Hosting for WordPress

Edited Aug 20, 2011: I had a few affiliate links and even sold a few Hostgator packages (thanks to those who clicked) but thought I make a new affiliate-less post instead:

VIRTUAL:

I haven't had a virtual account since years but Hostgator.com appears to be decent for a huge virtual hosting provider.

VPS:

BytesForAll is now hosted at Wiredtree.com. They have a good reputation for managed VPS (Virtual Private Servers).
Other well known reputable VPS providers are Knownhost.com, Liquidweb.com, Servint.com and Futurehosting.com. All these also offer managed dedicated servers.

ROOT (unmanaged) DEDICATED:

Webnx.com if you need Hardware SAS Raid. (Bytesforall was there 3 years but didn't need the HUUGE server anymore). Best prices worldwide for HUGE servers (CPU, RAM, Drives) I'd say. Also decent people to deal with. Check their offers on webhostingtalk.com

Hetzner.de if Software SATA Raid is enough. The prices are awesome for the hardware, best bandwidth prices worldwide I'd say, they are a solid, down-to-earth company but they are "holier than the Pope" when it comes to issuing additional IP's. No offers, only official pricing.

SUPPORT:

Cyberwurx.com has been around for VERY long and might have one of the best support setups in the hosting biz. I had a virtual account and they used to send paper invoices around 10 years ago. Not sure if they still do this. Once I logged myself out of MySQL and their tech fixed it within minutes right there and then, without asking me questions back and forth. I paid $10 for that fix if memory serves right.

Root server: with or without control panel

I managed many, many servers with Webmin & SSH, on Redhat, Centos and FreeBSD. Looking back I'd say it wasn't worth the trouble. Now I am using CPanel and happy with it so far. Better to focus on the core business I'd say. DirectAdmin is probably good as well.

Not so good and unnecessary:

Things I dislike about providers: Asking for copies of ID's (or even front/back of credit cards - which is not even allowed by Visa & Co.), being very tight about issuing IP's, long contracts instead of month-to-month.

Keep domains & hosting at different companies

Get your domains from domain registrars and your hosting from hosting providers, or else the hosting provider might put you under pressure when you're about to leave. Bandwidth overage bills might pop up out of the blue, and your domains might be locked until you pay. Don't put yourself into that position. There's a huge discrepancy between the value (once it is established in Google, bookmarks etc.) and the price of a domain. Don't try to save $3/year here.

When leaving, move everything first, wipe your account or server clean, and cancel THEN

Don't give the hosting provider the chance to mess with you no matter how friendly they were or how much business you brought them. You've spent $10,000 there and they were always friendly? Don't bet on it when you send the cancellation email or click the cancel button. Don't even mention the word cancellation before you haven't finished the move and deleted everything (logs, databases, files) in your account.

Choose your domain registrar wisely

You might be there for 10 years. Or 20 years. You switch hosting but rarely do you switch the domain registrar. Moving an established fully active domain can be a pain. Your domain might hang between the sending and receiving registrar for days. Registrars have to pay $6.20 (or was it 6.25?) themselves for a .com. So if a .com domain costs less than that something is wrong. There are fishy registrars. Read up on registerfly. And it takes a lot to get the license revoked by ICANN. So someone who still has a license doesn't have to be tops. Moniker.com appears to be decent and claims that stealing domains is harder there than elsewhere. Their DNS updates are slow though (if you use their free DNS). Namecheap.com has a super fast and nice admin area but their email forwarding is basically broken (if you use it, just tested Aug 15 2011). Enom.com is huge and might be o.k.. I had tons of domains there but remember having issues with one or two. But at least they never suspended a domain like Godaddy apparently does (see Wikipedia).

I cannot recommend you THE perfect registrar. Don't look at the price here though. Whether the domain costs $8 or $13 shouldn't be an issue at all considering the importance a domain can have for your biz after years. Putting your eggs into 2-3 different baskets might be a good strategy here. Whois privacy and DNS is usually included at this day and age. Some include Email forwarding as well. Some even POP3 accounts.

Offers:

I'd suggest you check the VPS, Dedicated and Virtual ("Shared") hosting offers at webhostingtalk.com