It Makes Sense Sometimes

First of all, my main blog the Wardman Wire is hosted on Doreo. I started using them when the site had developed to a point where the previous Dreamhost service was becoming too slow, especially when editing posts. I’d still recommend Dreamhost, however, as a service to start out with or to use for experimental websites. I still have an account, which I use for a large number of small websites. I’m happy with the service, hence this review.

I selected Doreo, as I had seen the service recommended by bloggers I respect, and in particular because I had seen one Technorati Top 100 blogger perambulate around several different services over a period of time, and end up at Doreo.

Why Doreo?

For me, there have been 6 key points:

1 - The Doreo service is fast. My contributors have reported a significant increase in the performance of the Wordpress installation when editing posts. When you need it, Doreo can cope with a sudden influx of traffic. This occurs if - for example - your post happens to be listed on the front page of a popular social bookmarking site.

2 - The Doreo service is reliable. An inaccessible site will lose readers and search engine attention.

3. The service is responsive. I have not had many problems, but when I have there has been a rapid response from a human being.

4 - The Doreo service give me sufficient space and bandwidth. Recently Doreo increased their bandwidth allowances fivefold. That brought the figures to a level where the blog has enough headroom to grow for at least a year.

5 - The service is quite tightly locked down. For example, you do not get Command Line access to your account. In other circumstances that would be a disadvantage, but for the Wardman Wire I need a service that just works; I do my playing around on Dreamhost.

6 - The service is not hosted in the UK, which - combined with a .com domain hosted outside the UK - means that people can find my web pages without needing to go through any UK supplier. That puts me beyond the immediate reach of pre-emptive threats made without proof using the English defamation laws, which is always a consideration for UK-based political bloggers.

The Service

The basic plan starts at $6.99 per month, and gives 2Gb of disk space, and 60Gb of monthly data transfer. I use the next level plan, which gives 5Gb of disk space and 120Gb of transfer for $11.99. There is a higher plan giving 10Gb and 180Gb respectively or $16.99.

The Wardman Wire currently uses approximately 2Gb of diskspace and around 30-40 Gb of data transfer per month.

Free month and a money-back guarantee

You can cancel in first 90 days and request your money back.

Equally Doreo have supplied a discount code DBT (*) that allows you to get your first month of service for free - you will not be invoiced for the first period on any monthly plan if you enter the discount code.

So, there is a benefit whether you cancel, or not. If you like it you get a free month - if you don’t like it, your only cost has been your time. I liked it and stayed.

There you have it - I recommend Doreo.

(*) The code DBT was organised by Daniel Scocco from Daily Blog Tips, a site that is a good source of “how to blog” advice. You can subscribe to the DBT RSS Feed here.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this article.