Does anyone use Bluehost?

[SpikyMikey]

Hi

I've got hosting with bluehost with shared ssl. I was wondering if anyone uses them or has used them in the past. What are your thoughts on them?

I'm in the process of setting up my site to use Bluehost shared ssl. What I'm unclear about is whether I need to point to the shared cgi-bin or should I be pointing to my own cgi-bin? Does it make any difference? I've spoken to the support guys on Bluehost, but unfortunately they're not very clued up on shared ssl and couldn't help me.

Also, I've noticed in a lot posts people mentioning "make sure your host is Actinic friendly". What exactly constitutes Actinic-friendly? If I can get my site loaded up on to my host server, is this host Actinic-friendly?

Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Michael

[pinbrook]

The thing with shared SSL is that there are 2 flavours. One is Actinic shared SSL which runs on actinc servers using a shared cert, the other is a hosts shared SSL that doesn't necessarily work with Actinic.

I'm just throwing that out as a bit of info that may or may not help.

I take it you've search the forum on BlueHost and come up with nothing.

"make sure your host is Actinic friendly"

this normally means having your own cgi-bin with perl 5.8 +, having SMTP, having the correct choice of secure facilities in place (shared SSL or own cert if required) and having customer service that can help you with your initial upload.

[SpikyMikey]

Hi Jo

Thanks for replying so quickly.

I've searched high and low for Bluehost - no mention of them I'm afraid

When you say:

..... the other is a hosts shared SSL that doesn't necessarily work with Actinic.

Any ideas why?

I'm not really hot on the network side, so any advice is appreciated.

TIA

[pinbrook]

Not all hosts configure shared SSL to work within the constraints of Actinic, I don't know why, but it is tricky to set up. I would suggest an uphill struggle if Bluehosts don't know enough about it to help.

I notice Bluehosts are in the US, are you US based?

[SpikyMikey]

I would suggest an uphill struggle if Bluehosts don't know enough about it to help.

I was kind of hoping you wouldn't say that

I'm based in the UK. Now you're going to tell me about my Google ranking or lack of it arent you? Talk about having a naff day!!!

[los_design]

Know nothing of them, never heard of them....sorry.

Prolly another reseller

[pinbrook]

I'm based in the UK. Now you're going to tell me about my Google ranking or lack of it arent you?

Yes I was, but you now have 2 reasons to reconsider your choice of host

[SpikyMikey]

Another thing to add to my "Wish I hadn't got up today" list.

Many thanks for your help Jo. Much appreciated.

[Lynnykins]

Bluehost & Actinic

I'm in the process of trying to set up Actinic in a Bluehost server (www.bluehost.com) and can't find any advice on this community or on the blue host community in terms of settings.

Spikey did you manage to set up your Actinic there? I know you were looking to use SSL which seemed to be your biggest problem (as they were using sharded SSL) but I'm just looking to run a conventional set up as my payments will be handled elsewhere.

Would love to hear how you got on

[Lynnykins]

Bluehost Settings for Actinic 9

HTTPPROXYMODE 0
HTTPPROXYADDRESS
HTTPPROXYPORT 80
HTTPPROXYUSER
HTTPPROXYPASSWORD
FTPPROXYMODE 0
FTPPROXYADDRESS
FTPPROXYPORT 21
FTPPROXYUSER
FTPPROXYPASSWORD
SCRIPTID 2
SCRIPTEXT .pl
SMTPHOST mail.yourdomain.com
WEBSITEURL http://www.yourdomain.com
IGNOREPASSIVEERRORS false
USERELATIVECGIURLS true
PATHTOPERL /usr/bin/perl
USEENHANCEFTP false
FTPCLIENTTIMEOUT 15000
FTPRETRYDELAY 3000
FTPKEEPALIVEINTERVAL 30000
FTPSILENT false
FTPMAXRETRIES 3
FTPCONNECTTIMEOUT 25000
SMTPAUTHREQUIRED true
SMTPUSERNAME email@yourdomain.com
SMTPPASSWORD (Your password)
COMPRESSIONPACKETSIZE 1024
COMPRESSEDUPLOAD true
CATALOGURL http://www.yourdomain.com/acatalog/
ONLINESTOREFOLDERNAME acatalog
CGIBINURL http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/
PATHFROMCGITOCATALOG ../acatalog/
CODEBASE ./
FTPHOST ftp.yourdomain.com
FTPUSERNAME (your ftp username)
FTPPASSWORD (your password)
PATHTOCGIBIN /public_html/cgi-bin/
USEPASSIVEFTP false
FTPPATHFROMCGITOCATALOG

[Mark H]

The easiest way to get an Actinic friendly host is to use one already mentioned (for being good.....) on this forum. The best we have found and which have been mentioned many times are Webfusion Reseller, which offers unlimited bandwidth, multiple sites, UK servers, all for about £29 per month, and 1&1 who are good (we use their shared SSL in checkout), but their servers are based in Germany so we are moving away from them over time.

IMO using a US based host for a UK company (presumably to save a few pounds) is false economy, particularly if you can't make it work, or it bombs in SEO terms. Sorry.

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Lynn,

Would I be right in thinking that your network settings above are working settings for Actinic on Bluehost? In which case, thanks for posting them. I'm sure they'll be helpful for anyone else looking for these.

Mike