For  just $17.94 paid to 1and1, you get six months of web hosting and a free top-level domain of your choice. Just renew before the six months is over and you’re still on.

There are other affordable hosts that I liked, after reading all sorts of host reviews, such as Siteground ($5.95 per month), Hostgator ($4.95) and Maiahost ($.395), but all of them require you to pay one year or two years in advance.

Probably you would prefer the others because they come with Wordpress pre-installed. But you would soon discover that there are benefits of learning to install Wordpress yourself.

1and1 offers not only its own blog, called 1and1 Blog, and its own site builder, called Website Builder, but also gives you all the things you need to run a Wordpress site. On the 1and1 panel, you can find MySQL Administration where you get your database name, host name, user name and password. You also find FTP Account where you get the user name and password. These six items are the only info items you need to install Wordpress.

If I could be of help later on when you install Wordpress, just email me.

By the way, the $2.99 monthly charge is a promotional price. I don’t know when it ends. But the regular price is still affordable–$3.99.  You’re luckier, I paid the regular price when I got my 1and1 hosting.

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NOTICE:

As of September 7, 2008, 1and1 reverted to its regular hosting prices. This package has returned to its regular price of $3.99 per month, which is still lower than the prices offered by other comparable hosts. It’s also the price I paid when I got my hosting package. From time to time, 1and1 offers promos. If you want to wait, you can email me and I’ll notify you when the promos return. But, look, the $3.99-per-month price is still a winner compared to the others.

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