This is a go-to page with the most useful articles and resources I’ve published on ResearchAsaHobby.com
I’ll be adding new entries here. So, feel free to bookmark this page.
Hosting. In-depth view
As full as possible list of EIG companies and brands with details (beware EIG hosting!)
This is very popular go-to resource and it contains:
- The most complete list of hosting companies owned by EIG (e.g. HostGator, Arvixe, BlueHost etc)
- Other brands and companies that EIG Corporation owns (e.g. ConstantContact, VDeck etc)
My recommended list of hosts, including shared hosting, VPS and Dedicated
I’ve picked out the best performing, the most reliable and ethical hosts I could find. The article contains:
- My short reviews of the hosts I personally recommend
- Recommendations for choosing a hosting
- Live charts showing how the hosts perform (uptime, my test websites speed)
Real-time hosting performance charts and hosting performance historical data (speed, uptime, satisfaction index)
This useful page is basically a data-and-chart sheet which contains the following:
- Real-time performance charts (speed, uptime) for the shared hosting I’ve been monitoring
- Monthly data since February 2016 with average data (uptime, speed, satisfaction index) for each of the hosting I’ve been monitoring
What You Need To Know About RAM And CPU On Shared Hosting Plans.
Practical advice on how to treat CPU and RAM of shared hosting. The numbers that shared hosts advertise very often have very little to do with the hosting performance. Also, real life performance is rarely correlates with the allocated server resources on shared hosts. 3-year statistical data provided.
Hosts Can’t Have Zero Downtime, And Other Sad Truth About Hosting Uptime.
Breaking illusions that host can have 100% uptime. Both theoretical and practical points of view backed up with years of monitoring 15 hosts.
Is A2 Hosting Startup Plan Fast Compared To Other Great Hosts? 200K Tests
A whole year of non-stop monitoring results of hosting speed performance in this article.
Whether A2 Hosting Has Good Server Response Time (And Speed) After Millions Of Tests
A massive research on A2’s TTFB (Time To First Byte) performance during a whole year.
Which Host Is Faster SiteGround Or A2 Hosting. Real-Time Speed Reports. Data analyzed: Jan-Jun 2020. 52K Speed Tests.
This research contains the real-time monitoring speed data of the both hosts. I.e. this article contains the most detailed (raw) data on the hosting speed performance. 52,000 full page load time tests from January to June of 2020.
Cheaper (HawkHost) And More Expensive (A2Hosting) Hosts Compared From All Over The World.
The speed of your website is different from different locations. Also, the speed depends on your hosting quality. I tested two hosts 1800 times from 17 locations to see how speed for your visitors differs depending on where the visitors are.
Alternatives to SiteGround for different categories of website owners (SG’s renewal prices are too high).
I suggest some selected hosts as alternative for SiteGround. For each SG’s plan I explain why this or that alternative is advantageous.
WPX Hosting reviews look to good to be true and Why its support can start a new era in the hosting industry.
I’ve analysed reviews of WPX Hosting to understand as fully as possible why there are so little neutral and negative reivews. A combination of factors make the hosting clients write extremely positive reviews. I wanted to counterbalance it and you can read my analysis here. I also dove into WPX Hosting support analysis as it is one of the most prominent advantages of the host. I added some critical points to make this host look more realistic. You can find the article here.
Cloudways comparative reviewThis article will help you better understand whether you really need this host, even considering that it’s faster and cheaper than other host which can give you the same speed performance.
Hosting comparison table with prices and affiliate data
I’ve analysed affiliate programs for the most well-known hosting companies and the hosts I recommend. The purpose is to present the approach of hosting analysis from affiliate costs point of view and the risks connected with it.
This page contains:
- Table with pricing, refunds terms, per-sale affiliate values, evaluation of risk indexes
- My very short reviews on each analysed host
- list of hosts I like based on this analysis
Looking for an unlimited hosting? After all you’ll get a limited one! (Practical recommendations)
You’ve probably heard that there’s no such a thing as unlimited hosting. In this article I’ve shown on real-life examples what it really means.
Looking for WordPress managed hosting?
This article will help you analyze a WP managed host and make a better choice. In the article I analyze three hosts (Kinsta, WP Engine and LiquidWeb). you can use the same approach to find the best fit for you.
“My Hosting Is Slow, I Want To Migrate To A Faster Host. Read This Before Doing It” research
Some practical tips on how to test your new hosting speed fast.
“Is A2Hosting Turbo really worth it?” research
I show the results of my testing (4,176 tests have been run) and research on how much A2Hosting Turbo plan is faster than its normal plan.
Review on the hosting comparison “A2 Hosting vs Kinsta”
A2 Hosting vs Kinsta Advantages: Are They Really Competitors? Comparison Of A Fully Managed And A More Generic Host.
Hosting for E-commerce (WooCommerce, Magento, Prestashop etc) which take things seriously (deeper look at PCI compliance)
There are many hosts that practically suit for e-commerce. But few hosts make it really right.
Managed WP Hosting And Peace Of Mind. What’s the point?
My go-to article for introductory explaining about whether you need a managed WordPress hosting.
Looking For a GDPR Compliant Hosting? Forget It! (Practical Thoughts)
GDPR alters the whole Internet ecosystem, whether you have an online business or just a personal website. In this article I explain the problem from a practical point of view. Also, I share with you some suggestions on how to treat the new GDPR requirements regarding your relationship with your hosting.
Web hosting research
This article describes the process of finding a good hosting and explains how not to become a victim of marketing delusions.
It’s especially useful for beginners who are looking for a hosting.
Website Security
Protect your website from hacking step-by-step – easy, free and very effective
This is the essential resource and tutorial for making your site secure for free without using sophisticated plugins or website security products. It’s recommended as the first step for securing your WordPress site
The article contains:
- Introduction to WordPress security in very easy language
- Tutorial how to make your WordPress site as secure as possible with the least efforts
One best security plugin or combination of plugins?
The purpose of this article is to compare the most popular and the most efficient website security solutions. This article shows how you can protect your website in an advanced way (both free and paid).
It contains:
- In-depth comparison of free and paid security products: Sucuri, iThemes Security, BulletProof Security and WordFence
- Different strategies that you can use to protect you website
Is your host well-protected from DDOS attacks? And your website?
The purpose of this article is to explain the topic of DDOS attacks that becomes more and more important for website owners. Although it includes theoretical materials (easy to understand), my purpose was to make it very practical and useful. After reading it you will be able to make better decisions on how to deal with DDOS threats for your website.
Website Backups
My best way to backup a website to the cloud for free (plus other ways to backup a site for free)
This is a comprehensive go-to resource that explains how to create and manage WordPress backups for free.
The article contains:
- Tutorials how to create full and partial cPanel backups
- Tutorial how to setup free version of UpdraftPlus plugin to backup your site to GoogleDrive cloud
In-depth review of best website backup services for WordPress sites
This is detailed comparison of the most popular paid backup products for a website: CodeGuard, BackupBuddy, BlogVault and VaultPress. This article is very useful for finding out the hidden behind-the-marketing sides of each product.
Website Performance
The Best WordPress Caching Plugins Speed Test: W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache vs Sucuri Firewall (Cloud WAF)
This is my one-month non-stop test of two best free caching plugins and one paid security product with caching layer. More than 32K full page load time tests run to evaluate the performance of the caching solutions.
W3 Total Cache Settings Are Explained In-Depth And Recommended
W3 Total Cache is a very powerful and versatile caching plugin. But because of its lots settings and options this plugin is considered to by difficult. In fact, it’s not difficult, it’s perhaps just not clear enough for many users. And I wrote this article to make this plugin clearer.
Performance issues on your website: CPU, RAM, IO limits explained for non-technicals
This article explains how you can monitor performance issues on your shared hosting server using free cPanel tools. Maybe your website is super slow sometimes and you don’t even know about it? This article will help you.
“How fast is A2Hosting with and without free Cloudflare Service?”
I tested how faster or slower a website becomes when using a free Cloudflare service. To find it out I run more than 5 thousand tests from 17 location around the world, analyzed and compared the test results. The testing website was hosted on A2Hosting Lite plan (the cheapest).
“Can You Use Time To First Byte (TTFB) To Judge Hosting Speed (after 11.7 mln tests)?” research
I show the results of my testing (11.7 mln tests have been run) and research on if Time To First Byte can be a good measurement for hosting performance.
“Is Cloudflare with Cache-Everything rule effective? Tested on StableHost 6336 times from 16 locations”
I tested how faster a website becomes when enabling a free Cloudflare’s Cache-Everything rule as well as I tetd the website speed with and without a caching plugin. I run more than 6 thousand tests from 16 location worldwide, analyzed and compared the test results to find out the winning combination. The testing website was hosted on StableHost Starter plan (the cheapest).
“Does Cloudflare increase Time To First Byte (TTFB)? Tested on 3 hosts. 6480 manual measurements”
Many people say Cloudflare does more harm than good. My research looks into the aspect of Cloudflare affecting speed and Time To First Byte.
“The Best Free Online Tool To Check Website Speed (A2Hosting Tested 600 Times)”
I tested the website speed using several different free online tools to see which tool gives the best (the most stable and reliable) measurements. To find it out I run 600 speed test, analyzed and compared the test results.
Display Images Only When You Need Them (Make Your Site Faster With Lazy Load. 50 Tests)
I’ve run 50 tests to analyze the effect of using lazy load functionality. The article also focuses on how lazy load influences the following important user-experience metrics: Start Render Time and Visual Complete Time. You can apply the same technology (a free lazy load plugin) to improve the speed of your site.
How To Optimize Images: The Strategy To Make Your Site Faster For Free (52 Tests)
When to use what type of images. How to optimize images for free for better speed. Different image optimization techniques. Also, I’ve run 52 tests to see the effect of using image optimization.
Email Marketing And Opt-In Plugins
Best Opt-in Plugin: Why I Use ThriveLeads
This is my in-depth review of the best email opt-in plugin I could find for my use. And this is not just for getting more email subscribers!
Working On Your Website
How to migrate WordPress website to HTTPS the right way (including video tutorial)
This comprehensive tutorial is based on my practical experience. The article includes practical thoughts, advice and tips from A to Z on moving your WordPress site to HTTPS. There is also a video walk-through on fixing mixed content issues using different techniques.
How to create an interactive responsive image with highlighted areas which can be clicked (for free; use it in WordPress)
Creating images with highlighted clickable areas has been either difficult (required coding) or was not free (required paid and heavy plugins). But this detailed step-by-step tutorial solves the problem and let you do the job easy and for free (code word – “SVG”). And there’s one more tutorial which shows how to add interactive section in WP content to display information for a highlighted image area. Also, here’s a useful article that can help you if your SVG links for some reason do not work in your WP site.
How To Display Additional Information By Clicking Image Components? Easy And For Free (WP, SVG)
Creating SVG images in WordPress site so that a user could click on an image element and display some information in a single area.
How To Select Image Elements, Leave Multiple Elements Selected Or Remove Other Selected Elements For Free (SVG With CSS And JS In WordPress)
This tutorial revelas the power of using Javascript and CSS with SVG within WordPress even if you are not a coder. This tutorial shows how to select and deselect image elements.
How to migrate (and also clone) your website easily and for free even if your site is large (using All-in-one WP Migration plugin)
This is easy tutorial for beginners to help clone a website. This is useful for testing plugins or website development if large you deal with a large website.
How to clone your website for testing for free (using WP Clone plugin)
This is easy tutorial for beginners to help clone a website and put the clone on a subdomain. This is useful for testing plugins or website development.
How to Avoid Plugins or WordPress Update Breaking Your Site (using WP Staging plugin)
This is a simple but useful tutorial for beginners. You’ll learn how to avoid the situations when installing new plugins or updating your plugins or updating WordPress version breaks your site. This method works great for bigger websites too.
WordPress Dashboard Freezes. CPU Load 100%. How You Can Fix This Baby.
One day a conflict between your plugins and probably something else may cause freezing your WordPress dashboard and freakingly slow down your website. This is the tutorial on how you can narrow down the issue and get rid of the conflict.
Marketing tips and getting rid of illusions
My research on how much money popular bloggers earn by blogging per visitor and per page view
This article will show you that behind big income there’s always a big audience and traffic. But it depends on you how much per visitor or per page view you can earn.
My review of Seth Godin’s book “All marketers are liars”
I recommend reading both the book and my review and make your own conclusions.
My FatCow hosting review that turned into a case study
FatCow’s website can be considered as a successful example of on-site marketing. And my review helps to understand the marketing tricks that you can avoid if you are a client or use them to make your product more successful.
P.S.: I’ll be adding more links to my articles on this page when I write good stuff 🙂
BTW, I respect your privacy, and of course I don't send spam, affiliate offers or trade your emails. What I send is information that I consider useful.