The web hosting industry is extremely competitive due to the fact of the massive growth of the internet and the fact that people want to have their own website. Web hosts compete against each other by offering more disk space and bandwidth for cheaper prices or free domain names along with your purchase of a web hosting plan. Many people get taken advantage of because they don't know what to look for in a web host to ensure that you are getting the most for your money.
A lot of people fall victim because they don't do their proper research of a web hosting provider before they make a purchase. While the list below is not a comprehensive checklist it does cover some of the most basic things to check for when you are looking to buy web hosting.
Contract Terms/Length
This is a biggie, especially when it comes to those hosts offering unlimited disk space or bandwidth. The fact of the matter is that web hosting providers can't actually afford to offer anything for free. There is always a catch and the catch is explained within their Terms & Conditions. Yeah the big wall of text that you never read because of the length but that you have to agree to. Read through the contract and you will find out just how limited your account really is and how much freedom you truly have.
Server Backups
Considering we are dealing with computers things can go wrong at any time. When they do go wrong it is usually far worse than expected and this is why you should have multiple backups of your files in different locations. Many of the larger web hosting companies offer multiple backups that are automatically done for you but you need to make sure of this beforehand. Just because a host doesn't offer backups does not necessarily mean that you can't purchase from them, you just need to take extra measures to keep your files backed up in multiple locations.
Server Uptime
You have a website because most likely you are trying to draw visitors to it in turn to make money. Having your web site go down can costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars of lost profits. Making sure that a web hosting provider has multiple options for power can decrease the chance that your server will go down. There are many sites dedicated to providing server uptime monitoring for web hosts scattered throughout the internet.
Negative Press/Reviews
No hosting provider is perfect and not every customer is going to enjoy their experience. Before you purchase hosting make sure to do a search for reviews of the web host. There are many sites online that provide you with honest reviews from web hosting customers. Make sure to read over the reviews carefully and to understand the negative reviews. Many times people over exaggerate a situation that could have been simply solved by themselves.
Awards
As stated above, there are many web hosting review sites out there. Some of them may also offer awards to a particular web hosting for having the most uptime or providing the best customer service. It is a good idea to research the awards that have been given to a web host. Some hosting providers like to prominently display the awards that have been given to them while others have the awards tucked away on a sub page on their site. However, just because a web host does not have an award does not make them any worse than a host that does.
Compare Prices
This is probably the most obvious point of this list. With the industry as competitive as it is, providers are always looking for ways to provide you the most resources for as little as possible. One web host may provide 1000MB of storage and bandwidth for $10 a month while another may provide 5000MB of storage and bandwidth for only $5 a month. Write down a list of what you need and while browsing for hosting plans write down the information from each host. Then once you are done, go over the list and make comparisons to see which host will give you the most for your money.
Look For Coupons
As stated above, the hosting industry is competitive and hosts constantly have to improve their services while keeping the price low. Many providers will offer coupons that give you a free domain name, a discount on a yearly hosting package or a major discount on your first month of hosting. There are many sites and forums on the internet that look for these coupons and provide lists so that consumers can save some extra money.
Programming Language Support
Depending upon your site, you will most likely need some kind of programming language. Most hosting providers nowadays offer PHP as a standard because it is widely used throughout the word. However, your site may require additional languages to be able to function so make sure that you are aware of what languages they do provide or what languages they can provide upon request.
Customer/Technical Support
When things go wrong you need somebody to talk to no matter what time it is. Most of the major hosting companies offer 24/7 phone, live chat and email support. Companies such as HostGator have a great reputation for their customer service and are very eager to go out of their way to help you. While you may not need to contact support everyday, it is nice knowing that if you do ever need to there will be somebody on the other end of the line ready to assist you in any way possible.
Hosting Plan Details
The 2 major details in a hosting plan are disk space and bandwidth. Disk space is the amount of files that your hosting plan can support while bandwidth is the amount of traffic that your site can receive. Knowing beforehand what your site will require is essential in finding the best hosting plan for your situation. Most web hosting providers do provide extra features however they may not always display them on their main page. You might have to go digging deeper into their site to find out just what exactly they do provide with their hosting plans.
Cheapest Isn't Always Best
Too many people get lured into big numbers for low prices. As the saying goes, "You get what you pay for". That works for both web hosting and anything else in life. Low cost hosting plans are almost always setup on a shared server which means that your site is shared with anywhere from 10 to 100+ other websites. Meaning that you have to share the resources between all those sites. If one of the other sites starts using up too many resources your site may experience slow load times or completely crash. It may be wise to spend a few extra dollars a month to ensure the quality of your web hosting service.
This list is by no means complete but it is a great starting point and should be reference when making a decision to purchase web hosting. Knowing the facts beforehand can save you both time and money in the long run while avoiding unneeded hassle.
Find which host ranks the best, visit http://www.webhostsdeals.com A web hosting comparison site dedicated to finding the best deals on web hosting from the top web hosting providers.
By: Jarret Cade
Friday, August 31, 2018
Sunday, August 12, 2018
How to Choose a Web Host - Web Hosting Guide
Choosing the right Web Host matters
Whether you're putting up a personal website or a commercial one, you should choose your web hosting provider wisely. The reason is that you will most definitely want your website to be seen by the largest number of people. To do that it is essential to take a little time to go over certain basic but very important factors that will ensure more visibility for your site.
Points to consider when choosing web hosting
There are so many web hosting providers and packages on offer today. Each one of them have their own unique advantages and weaknesses. So how would one decide which one to choose?
Even after you zone in on a particular provider, you still need to choose the hosting package that will suit you. Every web hosting site offer many different types of packages to choose from. The most popular type is the 'Unlimited Bandwidth' package.
The following points should make your task of choosing web hosting simpler for you.
1. Server Uptime & Customer Support:
The most basic thing for a website to be found on the internet depends on whether the server where the files are stored is online i.e. up and running at any given time. This is called Server Uptime.You will find that most of the web hosting providers will claim a 99.99% server uptime. Some even claimed 100%.
If you have time, search for comments by users of the provider on internet forums or elsewhere online. Or go for the larger more established hosting companies who have built a trusted reputation. Most good hosting companies have multiple server data and power backups. A few also promised 100% and they do that by guaranteeing refund of fees in the eventuality that any downtime might happen.
Another very important feature of a good web hosting is Customer Support. They should provide customers with 24/7 phone and internet support. They should have a good collection of tutorials and FAQs readily on their site in case you might need help. Make no mistake, you will contact your hosting support more often than you think, especially if you are serious about your website.
2. Pricing & included features
The range of pricing and features included in web hosting packages are pretty wide. You will want a fair balance of features and quality that will suit your needs. As with any other product, cheap usually gets less quality. On the other hand some pricing can be exorbitant without any special value.
The prices of hosting packages are usually dependent on the set of features included. These includes data storage and bandwidth limits, number of allowed addon domains and subdomains, number of email and ftp accounts hosted, shared or virtual or dedicated server plans, programming languages and databases, site tools, shopping cart etc, and the list goes on. One can be easily confused with these numerous choices more so if you are not familiar with them. Don't worry, we will cover the essential ones in the next paras.
Pricing for a fair value shared hosting packages usually starts around 6-8 US$ per month. Virtual Private/Dedicated Server around US$ 30-50 pm and Dedicated Servers at US$ 60-80 pm.
Pricing tip: If you have not acquired a domain name or want to add another, then some packages include free domain with hosting. They can be a good bargain.
3. Data Storage and Bandwidth limits
If you are new to putting up websites, you might have very little idea about how much data storage space and bandwidth your site will need. First off, don't worry too much about this. Even the most professional people will tell you that themselves. Because your needs will grow as the number of visitors to your website increases, you will know all about it as you go along.
Data Storage Space: Unless you intend to host lots of video/movie clips or a gigantic amount of big resolution pictures, most hosting packages will do. Normal websites rarely occupy beyond 40-50 MB (megabytes of storage space). The basic shared hosting package for the top registrar costing $4.99 pm includes 10 GB(1000 MB) of storage space.
Bandwidth Limits: Bandwidth limit is the amount of data transfers your hosting permits per month. This depends on how much visitors your site has and the type of files you serve i.e. basic web pages, pictures or video clips etc. Here too, not that much to worry about for normal websites. Most hosting providers will offer "Unlimited Bandwidth" even on their value shared hosting packages.
One word of caution though for those intending to host video/movie clips or high resolution pictures. Do not be fooled by Unlimited Bandwidth Shared Hosting packages. If you go through the "Terms of Use" and "Common Usage Policy" for most shared hosting packages, they will undoubtedly have a section where it says that you are not permitted or will be charged extra for "abnormally high data bandwidth usage". Advice is you will probably be better off choosing VPS or dedicated server or Cloud hosting or high bandwidth packages.
4. Shared Hosting vs Virtual Private Server vs Dedicated Server vs Cloud Hosting
How to choose between these types of hosting? Putting it simply, you should choose by how busy or popular you think your site will be viz Shared - VPS - Dedicated - Cloud, in that order.
Shared Hosting: Majority of websites on the internet are on Shared hosting. It is good for personal and small websites. They are the most economical of hosting packages. In shared hosting, a number of hosting accounts usually 10-100 are hosted on a single physical server. They share the same server storage and broadband connection.
Shared hosting is particularly recommended for starters and small to medium personal and commercial websites that do not host picture/movie/video downloads.They can cost between $5-$15 per month.
Virtual Private Servers: This type of hosting is usually used by medium websites with medium storage and bandwidth requirements. Virtual Private Servers are hosted on unique ip addresses (eg. 192.170.1.8) and are virtually like a dedicated physical stand-alone server, but with less cost than a physical dedicated server. The way it works is that multiple accounts say 3-10 are hosted on a single physical server, each accounts having it's own unique host id or ip address, data storage and bandwidth separated from each other by software.
VPS hosting can cost between $30 to $150 per month depending on the features for a 1 year contract. Note: All hosting packages price decrease as you increase the number of years of contract.
Dedicated Server: They are usually used by the medium to big websites who need storage and bandwidth scalable to their requirements. They are hosted on separate physical servers. In other words they have a server rented out to them. They have full control over the server with its own unique address, hard disk, ram and bandwidth.
The price of renting a dedicated server depends on the physical components of the server, the hard disk capacity, the processor version, the amount of ram and the broadband connection. Prices can vary between $65 to $200 and beyond per month.
Cloud Hosting: A relatively new thing in the world of web hosting, Cloud hosting is the next generation type of hosting. Instead of having one physical server, cloud hosting uses several servers located in different locations connected to each other.
The main advantages of cloud hosting is the scalability factor and cost efficiency. For big websites there is big benefits. As a website grows larger than its current capability, all they need to do is add another server to join the networked group of servers.
Cloud hosting packages can be priced anywhere from $100 to $550 and beyond depending on the storage and bandwidth requirements.
5. Addon Domains & Sub Domains
Addon Domains are the domain names i.e. websites eg. "http://www.yoursite1.com", "http://www.yoursite2.com" that you want to host with your hosting provider. If you intend to host more than one website, you need to choose the package that allows it. Most of the cheapest web hosting packages will allow only one website.
Sub Domains: They are the different directories that you may want to create eg. "http://directory1.yoursite.com" or "http://directory2.yoursite.com". The number of Sub Domains allowed may be different on different packages. Do not confuse this with folders eg. "http://www.yoursite.com/folder1" or "http://www.yoursite.com/folder2". There is no limit on folders.
6. Email and FTP accounts
Email Accounts: These are unique email accounts for your website/s eg. "name@yoursite.com". You can set these up and give it to anyone, your friends, visitors, customers. No worries here cause most of the hosting packages will give you plenty.
FTP Accounts: FTP stands for "File Transfer Protocol". FTP accounts are used to access your hosting files from web softwares. They are of tremendous help to web masters in that they allow you to update, delete or create new files and folders in your host directly from web design software and ftp softwares. No worries here too as most packages will give you more than 10 accounts. You can allocate this to your designers and co workers as you like.
7. Programming Languages & Databases
Frontpage Server Extension, PHP5, Custom PHP.ini, Perl w/FASTCGI, Python CGI, Java, Ruby CGI, Ruby on Rails w/FASTCGI, ColdFusion, MySQL(Unix), MsAccess, MySQL(Win) etc.
These are programming softwares and databases used by your hosting server. They are used for the more advanced web features like automated content management, user management, running scripts and programs etc. If you don't understand them, you don't need to. Because most of the package include the popular languages and databases that you might need when you want to use them.
8. Content Management, Blogs, Forums: Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, Nucleas, Moodle, Wordpress, Geeklog, Lifetype, Serendipity, phpBB, SMF, Vanilla Forum etc.
These are ready made tools for setting up blogs, forums and content management to enhance websites. Most packages have enough choices here too.
9. Website Tools, Marketing Tools, Shopping Cart Website Tools: Website Builder, Web Analytics Tools, FrontPage Extensions, Google Custom Search, Google Webmaster Tools etc.
These are basic tools that helps in building websites, gauging website popularity and statistics and site enhancements included in most hosting packages.
Marketing Tools: Google AdWords Credit - $50, Yahoo! Search Marketing Credit - $25, Facebook Ads Credit - $50 etc.
These are ad credits for advertising your website. They are great bargains if it is included.
Shopping Cart - For those wishing to sell products online this tool is quite important. Most packages include them.
10. Web hosting tips for good SEO
One of the things that improves Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and should be considered when choosing a web host is the location of the server. Experience shows that search engines favor locally hosted websites when search is made. Big search engines like Google are known to give preference to locally hosted sites. This means that to rank higher in, for eg., UK, it helps to have a web hosting server that is located within the UK. Another thing that also is known to help SEO in local search rankings is regional TLDs or domain names. So for UK, the domains.co.uk or.org.uk are given preference.
Another point to note is that shared hosting can hurt your website's SEO rankings. Experts believe that if you have a site which shares the same server and ip address as a Google penalized site, your site also suffers as a result. The obvious way to avoid this is to host your site or sites on a separate ip address which will mean a dedicated server of a Virtual Private Server.
Resources: Here is a review of hosting packages with unlimited bandwidth - Click Here [http://freeonlineguide.info/unlimitedbandwidthhosting.html].
By: Kay Tata
Whether you're putting up a personal website or a commercial one, you should choose your web hosting provider wisely. The reason is that you will most definitely want your website to be seen by the largest number of people. To do that it is essential to take a little time to go over certain basic but very important factors that will ensure more visibility for your site.
Points to consider when choosing web hosting
There are so many web hosting providers and packages on offer today. Each one of them have their own unique advantages and weaknesses. So how would one decide which one to choose?
Even after you zone in on a particular provider, you still need to choose the hosting package that will suit you. Every web hosting site offer many different types of packages to choose from. The most popular type is the 'Unlimited Bandwidth' package.
The following points should make your task of choosing web hosting simpler for you.
1. Server Uptime & Customer Support:
The most basic thing for a website to be found on the internet depends on whether the server where the files are stored is online i.e. up and running at any given time. This is called Server Uptime.You will find that most of the web hosting providers will claim a 99.99% server uptime. Some even claimed 100%.
If you have time, search for comments by users of the provider on internet forums or elsewhere online. Or go for the larger more established hosting companies who have built a trusted reputation. Most good hosting companies have multiple server data and power backups. A few also promised 100% and they do that by guaranteeing refund of fees in the eventuality that any downtime might happen.
Another very important feature of a good web hosting is Customer Support. They should provide customers with 24/7 phone and internet support. They should have a good collection of tutorials and FAQs readily on their site in case you might need help. Make no mistake, you will contact your hosting support more often than you think, especially if you are serious about your website.
2. Pricing & included features
The range of pricing and features included in web hosting packages are pretty wide. You will want a fair balance of features and quality that will suit your needs. As with any other product, cheap usually gets less quality. On the other hand some pricing can be exorbitant without any special value.
The prices of hosting packages are usually dependent on the set of features included. These includes data storage and bandwidth limits, number of allowed addon domains and subdomains, number of email and ftp accounts hosted, shared or virtual or dedicated server plans, programming languages and databases, site tools, shopping cart etc, and the list goes on. One can be easily confused with these numerous choices more so if you are not familiar with them. Don't worry, we will cover the essential ones in the next paras.
Pricing for a fair value shared hosting packages usually starts around 6-8 US$ per month. Virtual Private/Dedicated Server around US$ 30-50 pm and Dedicated Servers at US$ 60-80 pm.
Pricing tip: If you have not acquired a domain name or want to add another, then some packages include free domain with hosting. They can be a good bargain.
3. Data Storage and Bandwidth limits
If you are new to putting up websites, you might have very little idea about how much data storage space and bandwidth your site will need. First off, don't worry too much about this. Even the most professional people will tell you that themselves. Because your needs will grow as the number of visitors to your website increases, you will know all about it as you go along.
Data Storage Space: Unless you intend to host lots of video/movie clips or a gigantic amount of big resolution pictures, most hosting packages will do. Normal websites rarely occupy beyond 40-50 MB (megabytes of storage space). The basic shared hosting package for the top registrar costing $4.99 pm includes 10 GB(1000 MB) of storage space.
Bandwidth Limits: Bandwidth limit is the amount of data transfers your hosting permits per month. This depends on how much visitors your site has and the type of files you serve i.e. basic web pages, pictures or video clips etc. Here too, not that much to worry about for normal websites. Most hosting providers will offer "Unlimited Bandwidth" even on their value shared hosting packages.
One word of caution though for those intending to host video/movie clips or high resolution pictures. Do not be fooled by Unlimited Bandwidth Shared Hosting packages. If you go through the "Terms of Use" and "Common Usage Policy" for most shared hosting packages, they will undoubtedly have a section where it says that you are not permitted or will be charged extra for "abnormally high data bandwidth usage". Advice is you will probably be better off choosing VPS or dedicated server or Cloud hosting or high bandwidth packages.
4. Shared Hosting vs Virtual Private Server vs Dedicated Server vs Cloud Hosting
How to choose between these types of hosting? Putting it simply, you should choose by how busy or popular you think your site will be viz Shared - VPS - Dedicated - Cloud, in that order.
Shared Hosting: Majority of websites on the internet are on Shared hosting. It is good for personal and small websites. They are the most economical of hosting packages. In shared hosting, a number of hosting accounts usually 10-100 are hosted on a single physical server. They share the same server storage and broadband connection.
Shared hosting is particularly recommended for starters and small to medium personal and commercial websites that do not host picture/movie/video downloads.They can cost between $5-$15 per month.
Virtual Private Servers: This type of hosting is usually used by medium websites with medium storage and bandwidth requirements. Virtual Private Servers are hosted on unique ip addresses (eg. 192.170.1.8) and are virtually like a dedicated physical stand-alone server, but with less cost than a physical dedicated server. The way it works is that multiple accounts say 3-10 are hosted on a single physical server, each accounts having it's own unique host id or ip address, data storage and bandwidth separated from each other by software.
VPS hosting can cost between $30 to $150 per month depending on the features for a 1 year contract. Note: All hosting packages price decrease as you increase the number of years of contract.
Dedicated Server: They are usually used by the medium to big websites who need storage and bandwidth scalable to their requirements. They are hosted on separate physical servers. In other words they have a server rented out to them. They have full control over the server with its own unique address, hard disk, ram and bandwidth.
The price of renting a dedicated server depends on the physical components of the server, the hard disk capacity, the processor version, the amount of ram and the broadband connection. Prices can vary between $65 to $200 and beyond per month.
Cloud Hosting: A relatively new thing in the world of web hosting, Cloud hosting is the next generation type of hosting. Instead of having one physical server, cloud hosting uses several servers located in different locations connected to each other.
The main advantages of cloud hosting is the scalability factor and cost efficiency. For big websites there is big benefits. As a website grows larger than its current capability, all they need to do is add another server to join the networked group of servers.
Cloud hosting packages can be priced anywhere from $100 to $550 and beyond depending on the storage and bandwidth requirements.
5. Addon Domains & Sub Domains
Addon Domains are the domain names i.e. websites eg. "http://www.yoursite1.com", "http://www.yoursite2.com" that you want to host with your hosting provider. If you intend to host more than one website, you need to choose the package that allows it. Most of the cheapest web hosting packages will allow only one website.
Sub Domains: They are the different directories that you may want to create eg. "http://directory1.yoursite.com" or "http://directory2.yoursite.com". The number of Sub Domains allowed may be different on different packages. Do not confuse this with folders eg. "http://www.yoursite.com/folder1" or "http://www.yoursite.com/folder2". There is no limit on folders.
6. Email and FTP accounts
Email Accounts: These are unique email accounts for your website/s eg. "name@yoursite.com". You can set these up and give it to anyone, your friends, visitors, customers. No worries here cause most of the hosting packages will give you plenty.
FTP Accounts: FTP stands for "File Transfer Protocol". FTP accounts are used to access your hosting files from web softwares. They are of tremendous help to web masters in that they allow you to update, delete or create new files and folders in your host directly from web design software and ftp softwares. No worries here too as most packages will give you more than 10 accounts. You can allocate this to your designers and co workers as you like.
7. Programming Languages & Databases
Frontpage Server Extension, PHP5, Custom PHP.ini, Perl w/FASTCGI, Python CGI, Java, Ruby CGI, Ruby on Rails w/FASTCGI, ColdFusion, MySQL(Unix), MsAccess, MySQL(Win) etc.
These are programming softwares and databases used by your hosting server. They are used for the more advanced web features like automated content management, user management, running scripts and programs etc. If you don't understand them, you don't need to. Because most of the package include the popular languages and databases that you might need when you want to use them.
8. Content Management, Blogs, Forums: Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, Nucleas, Moodle, Wordpress, Geeklog, Lifetype, Serendipity, phpBB, SMF, Vanilla Forum etc.
These are ready made tools for setting up blogs, forums and content management to enhance websites. Most packages have enough choices here too.
9. Website Tools, Marketing Tools, Shopping Cart Website Tools: Website Builder, Web Analytics Tools, FrontPage Extensions, Google Custom Search, Google Webmaster Tools etc.
These are basic tools that helps in building websites, gauging website popularity and statistics and site enhancements included in most hosting packages.
Marketing Tools: Google AdWords Credit - $50, Yahoo! Search Marketing Credit - $25, Facebook Ads Credit - $50 etc.
These are ad credits for advertising your website. They are great bargains if it is included.
Shopping Cart - For those wishing to sell products online this tool is quite important. Most packages include them.
10. Web hosting tips for good SEO
One of the things that improves Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and should be considered when choosing a web host is the location of the server. Experience shows that search engines favor locally hosted websites when search is made. Big search engines like Google are known to give preference to locally hosted sites. This means that to rank higher in, for eg., UK, it helps to have a web hosting server that is located within the UK. Another thing that also is known to help SEO in local search rankings is regional TLDs or domain names. So for UK, the domains.co.uk or.org.uk are given preference.
Another point to note is that shared hosting can hurt your website's SEO rankings. Experts believe that if you have a site which shares the same server and ip address as a Google penalized site, your site also suffers as a result. The obvious way to avoid this is to host your site or sites on a separate ip address which will mean a dedicated server of a Virtual Private Server.
Resources: Here is a review of hosting packages with unlimited bandwidth - Click Here [http://freeonlineguide.info/unlimitedbandwidthhosting.html].
By: Kay Tata
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Are Free Or Cheap Web Hosting Companies Really a Good Deal?
The fact is, most free and really dirt cheap web hosts sound like a good deal, but they really aren't. Basically, there are problems with using a free web hosting company for any type of e-commerce or business website, and I'm going to discuss those issues now.
If you're only looking for a spot to put a small, simple personal website, then free web hosting may be what you're looking for. But, if you can afford to spend even a few dollars a month, a paid host is a better deal, even for a personal web site. If you really can't afford to pay anything, and you want a "free" website, my best recommendation is to get a blog at either Blogger.com or WordPress.com, and use that for your website. Both of these platforms are stable and easy to use, and as long as your purpose is simply to have a personal website accessed by a few friends and relatives, they'll do just fine. If you want to make a few bucks, you can set up AdSense accounts on these sites, or put links on them that lead to your affiliate sales pages. If you're looking to make a commercial web site, Blogger.com is a little more friendly to these kinds of things than WordPress.com. Plus, the search engines like these sites, and you may find an audience and discover that your blog is much more popular than you thought it could be.
Most other free web hosts come with one or more of the following problems, and really limit your ability to conduct business online.
1. Long urls, with the free web hosts name in them. This doesn't instill much confidence in prospective buyers or clients.
2. Free web host sponsored links and advertising. People who click on these ads make money for them, not you, and leave your website.
3. Space and bandwidth given to web sites by free hosting companies are normally quite small.
4. Most free hosts restrict your ability to advertise or run a business web site that processes purchases.
5. No ability to obtain SSL certificates or handle transactions securely, even if they are allowed.
6. Technology used at these sites is not state of the art, and they are often slow to load.
7. Pearl, CGI and scripts are often not updated to current versions, and requests for updates are usually denied.
8. Support is, at best, not very good or quick to respond. At some free web hosts, it is virtually non-existent.
9. Most do not give you the tools you need to build a web site, like an online site builder and templates, or a free script library to install blogs, galleries, or other features.
10. Cron jobs, necessary to run certain scripts and other features, are often not provided or allowed. Databases may not be provided or allowed.
On top of all of this, free web hosting and really cheap web hosting (especially those that allow you to pay by the month), attract spammers, scammers, phishers and hackers. These low-lifes of the internet world may wind up on your shared IP address, and can cause problems that I'll talk about when I discuss cheap web hosting.
In my opinion, if you just want a personal web site to put your thoughts or opinions online, get a free blog and start writing. But if your intention is to make a living online, or at least to have a professional online business presence, you're going to have to pay for a real domain name and your web hosting. If you expect to be successful, and you want to make getting a full featured professional web site up and running as easy as possible, plus you want access to a quick, responsive tech support team to help you do it, you really need a "premium" web host.
As with free web hosts, if you're just setting up a small personal site, but want to build the site yourself, and want more flexibility as to the template you use, and want to be able to add pictures, video and audio, then a real dirt cheap host may be a good deal for you. But for a business or e-commerce web site, cheaper is not always a bargain.
Really cheap web hosting plans usually have one or more of the same problems as free hosting. Slow speed, small space and bandwidth, overselling of both space and bandwidth, lack of service and tech support, and less than state of the art security and equipment. And there are a few problems with really cheap web hosts that can really impact your business website.
First, if you're building your first website or your tenth, you're probably going to run into some problems or issues. A good premium hosting company will help make the process easier by giving you a online Site Builder and templates to make building the web site easier, and will also have a script library to make installing a blog, photo gallery, forum, or online store much easier and simpler to do. Still, you may have problems or questions as you build and launch your web site. In my opinion, having a good, quick tech support system in place is the biggest benefit of going with a premium hosting company. A really good one will have sufficient staff to provide rapid responses to support tickets, plus chat and phone support, for when you really need it.
You may think that going with a well known web host that may offer what appears to be an unbelievable deal is your best bet, but the primary complaints that most people have with the really large cheap hosts have to do with their lack of support. Many of them seem to spend more on advertising and celebrity endorsements to gain more customers, than they do on providing service and support to their existing customers. If you never need to use tech support, then one of these web hosts may work just fine for you, just make sure you understand how some of their advertising "low balls" their actual costs.
Really cheap web hosts advertise prices from $2.95 to $4.95 a month, and some also advertise month to month payments. I even saw one that had a special deal and offered the first month of hosting for $1! What they don't reveal in their ads, is the fact that to get the lowest price or the special deal, you often have to pay for your hosting for 2-5 years in advance! For example, one site the advertises a $3.95 a month plan, and a monthly payment option, only gives you that $3.95 price if you pay 5 years in advance. For paying for one year, the price is actually $8.95 a month, and to pay by the month it goes up to $9.95 a month! Some web hosting companies also offer great specials for the first month or first year, to get you to sign up, but then the price to continue hosting with them is much higher than you would pay for a good premium hosting plan.
The final major problem with really cheap web hosting, especially from sites that offer month to month payment plans, is that they attract spammers, phishers, hackers and other internet bottom feeders. The problem for your business web site, is that your may wind up sharing an IP address with one of these sites. If you use email to send newsletters or sales flyers to your clients, you may find your emails blocked by one or more of the major mail servers, simply because a spammer who shares your IP address has broken the rules. Eventually, your web host will confirm to the email service that they have removed the offending account, and eventually your IP will be unblocked, but in the meantime, you can't communicate with your customers. Meanwhile, the spammer or phisher knew their account would be shut down in a matter of days or weeks, and they don't care. They spend as little as possible to open the site, paste up a cloned website, make a few dollars on their scam, and just move on to another really cheap web host when their account is closed.
The fact that these bargain hosting companies get so many spam and phishing complaints can hurt your business in another way. You may be unfairly accused of spamming, simply because a few of your clients click your email into their spam folder, rather than clicking on your unsubscribe link. Many people simply don't realize that doing that can lodge a spam complaint against you with their email provider, they just didn't want to receive your emails anymore. When they receive the spam complaint from the email provider, most premium hosts will give you a chance to provide documentation that you aren't a spammer, before they close down your account. However, some of the large really cheap hosts have adopted a policy of "guilty until proven innocent", since the majority of the complaints they receive are valid. You may find your website shut down, and your domain name locked up for weeks, while you prove your innocence to your hosting company.
For the most part, when it comes to web hosting, like with most things, you get what you pay for. But, this doesn't mean you have to pay an arm and a leg to get great hosting. In fact, the difference in price between a good premium web host and a dirt cheap one is only a few dollars a month. Of course, you can pay a lot more, and some premium hosts charge up to $39.95 a month or more to host one website. But you don't have to pay anywhere near that amount to get great, full featured web hosting. I've been building and marketing web sites for years, and before I switched to the web host I use now I researched literally thousands of web hosting companies to come up with the best one for e-commerce hosting. I tried out dozens of the ones that made the initial cut, using their 14-30 day trial periods to find out if they were as good as they said they were, and came up with a list of Top Ten Hosts that really deliver exceptional service and excellent hosting packages for a bargain price.
If you'd like to read more about who these hosts are and what they give you for your money, you can visit [http://www.cheapprowebsite.com/WebHostingReview] to find out more.
Jack S. Pooley
Tampa, Florida
813-882-8878
[http://www.cheapprowebsite.com]
By: Jack Pooley
If you're only looking for a spot to put a small, simple personal website, then free web hosting may be what you're looking for. But, if you can afford to spend even a few dollars a month, a paid host is a better deal, even for a personal web site. If you really can't afford to pay anything, and you want a "free" website, my best recommendation is to get a blog at either Blogger.com or WordPress.com, and use that for your website. Both of these platforms are stable and easy to use, and as long as your purpose is simply to have a personal website accessed by a few friends and relatives, they'll do just fine. If you want to make a few bucks, you can set up AdSense accounts on these sites, or put links on them that lead to your affiliate sales pages. If you're looking to make a commercial web site, Blogger.com is a little more friendly to these kinds of things than WordPress.com. Plus, the search engines like these sites, and you may find an audience and discover that your blog is much more popular than you thought it could be.
Most other free web hosts come with one or more of the following problems, and really limit your ability to conduct business online.
1. Long urls, with the free web hosts name in them. This doesn't instill much confidence in prospective buyers or clients.
2. Free web host sponsored links and advertising. People who click on these ads make money for them, not you, and leave your website.
3. Space and bandwidth given to web sites by free hosting companies are normally quite small.
4. Most free hosts restrict your ability to advertise or run a business web site that processes purchases.
5. No ability to obtain SSL certificates or handle transactions securely, even if they are allowed.
6. Technology used at these sites is not state of the art, and they are often slow to load.
7. Pearl, CGI and scripts are often not updated to current versions, and requests for updates are usually denied.
8. Support is, at best, not very good or quick to respond. At some free web hosts, it is virtually non-existent.
9. Most do not give you the tools you need to build a web site, like an online site builder and templates, or a free script library to install blogs, galleries, or other features.
10. Cron jobs, necessary to run certain scripts and other features, are often not provided or allowed. Databases may not be provided or allowed.
On top of all of this, free web hosting and really cheap web hosting (especially those that allow you to pay by the month), attract spammers, scammers, phishers and hackers. These low-lifes of the internet world may wind up on your shared IP address, and can cause problems that I'll talk about when I discuss cheap web hosting.
In my opinion, if you just want a personal web site to put your thoughts or opinions online, get a free blog and start writing. But if your intention is to make a living online, or at least to have a professional online business presence, you're going to have to pay for a real domain name and your web hosting. If you expect to be successful, and you want to make getting a full featured professional web site up and running as easy as possible, plus you want access to a quick, responsive tech support team to help you do it, you really need a "premium" web host.
As with free web hosts, if you're just setting up a small personal site, but want to build the site yourself, and want more flexibility as to the template you use, and want to be able to add pictures, video and audio, then a real dirt cheap host may be a good deal for you. But for a business or e-commerce web site, cheaper is not always a bargain.
Really cheap web hosting plans usually have one or more of the same problems as free hosting. Slow speed, small space and bandwidth, overselling of both space and bandwidth, lack of service and tech support, and less than state of the art security and equipment. And there are a few problems with really cheap web hosts that can really impact your business website.
First, if you're building your first website or your tenth, you're probably going to run into some problems or issues. A good premium hosting company will help make the process easier by giving you a online Site Builder and templates to make building the web site easier, and will also have a script library to make installing a blog, photo gallery, forum, or online store much easier and simpler to do. Still, you may have problems or questions as you build and launch your web site. In my opinion, having a good, quick tech support system in place is the biggest benefit of going with a premium hosting company. A really good one will have sufficient staff to provide rapid responses to support tickets, plus chat and phone support, for when you really need it.
You may think that going with a well known web host that may offer what appears to be an unbelievable deal is your best bet, but the primary complaints that most people have with the really large cheap hosts have to do with their lack of support. Many of them seem to spend more on advertising and celebrity endorsements to gain more customers, than they do on providing service and support to their existing customers. If you never need to use tech support, then one of these web hosts may work just fine for you, just make sure you understand how some of their advertising "low balls" their actual costs.
Really cheap web hosts advertise prices from $2.95 to $4.95 a month, and some also advertise month to month payments. I even saw one that had a special deal and offered the first month of hosting for $1! What they don't reveal in their ads, is the fact that to get the lowest price or the special deal, you often have to pay for your hosting for 2-5 years in advance! For example, one site the advertises a $3.95 a month plan, and a monthly payment option, only gives you that $3.95 price if you pay 5 years in advance. For paying for one year, the price is actually $8.95 a month, and to pay by the month it goes up to $9.95 a month! Some web hosting companies also offer great specials for the first month or first year, to get you to sign up, but then the price to continue hosting with them is much higher than you would pay for a good premium hosting plan.
The final major problem with really cheap web hosting, especially from sites that offer month to month payment plans, is that they attract spammers, phishers, hackers and other internet bottom feeders. The problem for your business web site, is that your may wind up sharing an IP address with one of these sites. If you use email to send newsletters or sales flyers to your clients, you may find your emails blocked by one or more of the major mail servers, simply because a spammer who shares your IP address has broken the rules. Eventually, your web host will confirm to the email service that they have removed the offending account, and eventually your IP will be unblocked, but in the meantime, you can't communicate with your customers. Meanwhile, the spammer or phisher knew their account would be shut down in a matter of days or weeks, and they don't care. They spend as little as possible to open the site, paste up a cloned website, make a few dollars on their scam, and just move on to another really cheap web host when their account is closed.
The fact that these bargain hosting companies get so many spam and phishing complaints can hurt your business in another way. You may be unfairly accused of spamming, simply because a few of your clients click your email into their spam folder, rather than clicking on your unsubscribe link. Many people simply don't realize that doing that can lodge a spam complaint against you with their email provider, they just didn't want to receive your emails anymore. When they receive the spam complaint from the email provider, most premium hosts will give you a chance to provide documentation that you aren't a spammer, before they close down your account. However, some of the large really cheap hosts have adopted a policy of "guilty until proven innocent", since the majority of the complaints they receive are valid. You may find your website shut down, and your domain name locked up for weeks, while you prove your innocence to your hosting company.
For the most part, when it comes to web hosting, like with most things, you get what you pay for. But, this doesn't mean you have to pay an arm and a leg to get great hosting. In fact, the difference in price between a good premium web host and a dirt cheap one is only a few dollars a month. Of course, you can pay a lot more, and some premium hosts charge up to $39.95 a month or more to host one website. But you don't have to pay anywhere near that amount to get great, full featured web hosting. I've been building and marketing web sites for years, and before I switched to the web host I use now I researched literally thousands of web hosting companies to come up with the best one for e-commerce hosting. I tried out dozens of the ones that made the initial cut, using their 14-30 day trial periods to find out if they were as good as they said they were, and came up with a list of Top Ten Hosts that really deliver exceptional service and excellent hosting packages for a bargain price.
If you'd like to read more about who these hosts are and what they give you for your money, you can visit [http://www.cheapprowebsite.com/WebHostingReview] to find out more.
Jack S. Pooley
Tampa, Florida
813-882-8878
[http://www.cheapprowebsite.com]
By: Jack Pooley
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Tips and Considerations When Using a Free Web Hosting Service to Host Your Web Site
There are many free hosting sites claim to provide hosting to your web site without charge. Usually they impose restrictions, either cost you in time, or change your free web pages layout by displaying banners, pop-ups, or other form of advertisement. When you look for free web hosting services from search engine, you should take note that there are also many commercial hosting companies that advertise to offer free hosting services. However, usually they come with a catch, such as spending an excessive amount to buy a domain name or other service. They are not really free actually. The free free hosting tips as stated below will show you how to find a good free web host and the things you need to consider when go for it.
How do the free web hosts make money?
The free web hosting companies often make money through other ways, such as putting pop-ups, banners or other advertisement on your free web pages. Some will ask you to click on banners during their sign-up process or in control panel, or just display banners in the file manager page in hopes you will click their Ads. Some attract visitors with free hosting services in hopes you will upgrade and spend for advanced features. Certain free web hosting providers will send you emails with ads attached, or may even sell your email. Another approach that is becoming popular is requiring you to write a certain amount of "quality" post on forum. In such a way this help them to create free content and therefore being able to show more ads.
Are free web hosts reliable?
Understanding is that generally they are less reliable, although there are still exceptions. If the free host is earning money from ads, banner or other sources of income directly from their free service, then more likely they will stay in business. This also bases on the assumption no one abuse their web hosting server by activities like hacking or spam, which could be likely to happens to new free host with more liberal policies of accepting users from anywhere. It is better to choose a very selective free host company which only accepts quality sites.
Who should use free web hosts?
Free hosting is not suitable for businesses unless you have domain hosting from an ad-free host. Other reasons for using free hosting websites can be to learn the basic skills of how to host your site, to build a personal website to show pictures to your friends and family, to build a linking page to another web site of yours, or to test new scripts on different web hosting environments.
How to find good free web hosting companies?
The best place to start with is a quality free web host directory - a web site which specializes in listing only free web hosting services. Good directories will add new information and remove outdated hosts every week but there are also directories which almost never update, resulting most of their links and data are outdated. The problem is free hosts change frequently, it is not rare that some just fold up in less than a year, making it difficult to keep the free host directory up-to-date. One recommended directory is "Free Web Hosting" which has a detailed list of over 600 free web hosting providers with ratings, user reviews, and a searchable database. The directory is updated frequently, and the advanced free web hosting search has over 40 options, helping you to find the free package with different features such as PHP, CGI, MySQL, SSI, ASP, FrontPage server extensions, and even a cpanel.
Other resources to find free web hosts include information from freebies sites, search engines, forums...etc. Some ISP will also come with free web hosting service.
Tips for finding the best free web hosting provider
One basic principle is not to choose a free hosting plan with more features than you need, and also do some research before to see if the company is receiving revenue from the free hosting service to maintain business. As mentioned previously, better try to join a more selective free host if possible. Check other sites hosted there to find out what type of ads are running, and the server speed. Read the Terms of Service and host features to make sure your site is given enough bandwidth, sufficient web space and file size limit, and any scripting options you might need. Refer to the free hosting directories for the reviews and ratings as commented by other users. If you do not have your own domain name, you will need a free URL forwarding service so you can change your host later when required.
Recommended free web host
It is not easy to recommend one as different people have different priorities and the web hosting quality may vary from time to time. Also some people want free hosting with your own purchased domain name, and others might not be planning to buy a unique domain.
Below are two popular free web hosts, and their main features.
1.GoDaddy - It is probably the biggest domain and web hosting providers in US. Registration of dot com domain name can be as low as $1.99 and the domain renewal fee is generally less than $10 a year. Once you register a domain name from GoDaddy you get 10GB of free web space. It also comes with a free site builder called Website Tonight that allow you to build a 5 page website, a blog or photo album online without skills of HTML.
2. 50Webs - It offers 60MB web storage, unlimited bandwidth and POP3 email. You can upload your site file via a file manger or FTP. No advertisement or pop-ups will be shown on your web pages. 50Webs provides free subdomain for your site, or you can transfer your own domain to it. You can use it for multiple domains and subdomains under the same hosting account.
If you are building a commercial or ecommerce web site (for example a internet shop), you need to find a professional web hosting companies as free host providers generally cannot accommodate your need. Try to check out this site Mywebhostingweb.com which review and pick up good web hosting companies every month for your consideration.
Felix Fu has been writing articles for years and maintaining several websites. His site [http://www.mywebhostingweb.com/] pick up the recommended hosting companies every month to help you find a good web hosting provider for your site.
By: Felix Fu
How do the free web hosts make money?
The free web hosting companies often make money through other ways, such as putting pop-ups, banners or other advertisement on your free web pages. Some will ask you to click on banners during their sign-up process or in control panel, or just display banners in the file manager page in hopes you will click their Ads. Some attract visitors with free hosting services in hopes you will upgrade and spend for advanced features. Certain free web hosting providers will send you emails with ads attached, or may even sell your email. Another approach that is becoming popular is requiring you to write a certain amount of "quality" post on forum. In such a way this help them to create free content and therefore being able to show more ads.
Are free web hosts reliable?
Understanding is that generally they are less reliable, although there are still exceptions. If the free host is earning money from ads, banner or other sources of income directly from their free service, then more likely they will stay in business. This also bases on the assumption no one abuse their web hosting server by activities like hacking or spam, which could be likely to happens to new free host with more liberal policies of accepting users from anywhere. It is better to choose a very selective free host company which only accepts quality sites.
Who should use free web hosts?
Free hosting is not suitable for businesses unless you have domain hosting from an ad-free host. Other reasons for using free hosting websites can be to learn the basic skills of how to host your site, to build a personal website to show pictures to your friends and family, to build a linking page to another web site of yours, or to test new scripts on different web hosting environments.
How to find good free web hosting companies?
The best place to start with is a quality free web host directory - a web site which specializes in listing only free web hosting services. Good directories will add new information and remove outdated hosts every week but there are also directories which almost never update, resulting most of their links and data are outdated. The problem is free hosts change frequently, it is not rare that some just fold up in less than a year, making it difficult to keep the free host directory up-to-date. One recommended directory is "Free Web Hosting" which has a detailed list of over 600 free web hosting providers with ratings, user reviews, and a searchable database. The directory is updated frequently, and the advanced free web hosting search has over 40 options, helping you to find the free package with different features such as PHP, CGI, MySQL, SSI, ASP, FrontPage server extensions, and even a cpanel.
Other resources to find free web hosts include information from freebies sites, search engines, forums...etc. Some ISP will also come with free web hosting service.
Tips for finding the best free web hosting provider
One basic principle is not to choose a free hosting plan with more features than you need, and also do some research before to see if the company is receiving revenue from the free hosting service to maintain business. As mentioned previously, better try to join a more selective free host if possible. Check other sites hosted there to find out what type of ads are running, and the server speed. Read the Terms of Service and host features to make sure your site is given enough bandwidth, sufficient web space and file size limit, and any scripting options you might need. Refer to the free hosting directories for the reviews and ratings as commented by other users. If you do not have your own domain name, you will need a free URL forwarding service so you can change your host later when required.
Recommended free web host
It is not easy to recommend one as different people have different priorities and the web hosting quality may vary from time to time. Also some people want free hosting with your own purchased domain name, and others might not be planning to buy a unique domain.
Below are two popular free web hosts, and their main features.
1.GoDaddy - It is probably the biggest domain and web hosting providers in US. Registration of dot com domain name can be as low as $1.99 and the domain renewal fee is generally less than $10 a year. Once you register a domain name from GoDaddy you get 10GB of free web space. It also comes with a free site builder called Website Tonight that allow you to build a 5 page website, a blog or photo album online without skills of HTML.
2. 50Webs - It offers 60MB web storage, unlimited bandwidth and POP3 email. You can upload your site file via a file manger or FTP. No advertisement or pop-ups will be shown on your web pages. 50Webs provides free subdomain for your site, or you can transfer your own domain to it. You can use it for multiple domains and subdomains under the same hosting account.
If you are building a commercial or ecommerce web site (for example a internet shop), you need to find a professional web hosting companies as free host providers generally cannot accommodate your need. Try to check out this site Mywebhostingweb.com which review and pick up good web hosting companies every month for your consideration.
Felix Fu has been writing articles for years and maintaining several websites. His site [http://www.mywebhostingweb.com/] pick up the recommended hosting companies every month to help you find a good web hosting provider for your site.
By: Felix Fu
Monday, August 6, 2018
10 Questions Answered For Choosing a Web Host
When setting up a website and shopping around for a web host, you may find all the technical terminology a bit confusing. In reality, it isn't really that complicated. By understanding a few basics about web hosting and web hosting service providers, you can easily select a web host that is best for you. Some of the questions you need to ask pertain to your business and others related to the web hosting industry. Here's a quick run-down of 10 basic questions you need answered before choosing a web host.
1. What Is a Web Host?
A web host is a service provider that manages a number of different websites on a particular server. They provide the platform on which your website is located. Many web hosts will have a number of different hosting packages available. They may have shared or dedicated hosting facilities as different options. The type of hosting package that you choose will largely depend on your hosting requirements.
2. Where Is Your Business and Where Are You Going?
If you have a start-up business, keeping costs low is a major priority. However, if you see your business growing rapidly in the future, you will need to keep in mind how this may affect things such as your website and web hosting package. There are many good entry-level basic web hosting packages. These are usually on shared servers and have a limit on the bandwidth available. If your business grows rapidly, you may find that you need to expand your website and enlarge your hosting package. Not all web hosts have migration or upgrade facilities and this can make it a tedious task to upgrade your web hosting package. Your best option is to choose a web hosting that has the capacity to grow with your business.
3. What Level of Technical Expertise Do You Have?
Often business owners have a limited understanding of web hosting and web design. If this is the case, you want to sign up with a web hosting provider that has a wealth of technical knowledge and expertise that you can draw on. Ideally, if your budget allows, you will want to go for a web host that offers a managed hosting service. This means that they will take care of all the web server maintenance and security ensuring that you have maximum up-time on your website.
4. Are Free Hosting Packages Worthwhile?
While there are some good free hosting companies out there, you need to think carefully about signing up for one. Generally, these hosting packages are free because the hosting providers sell advertising space on the websites they host. This means that you may not entirely be able to control the content on your website. In addition, free hosting packages generally have limited support services and can seldom be upgraded to other packages.
5. What's the Difference Between Shared and Dedicated Hosting?
Dedicated hosting means that your website is allocated its own unique server. This means that you have a greater level of control over your website and generally improved hosting efficiency. You can also ensure higher security levels on your server and have more flexibility in the way you manage your website; however, this comes at a premium. Generally dedicated servers are quite expensive which is why the option of shared servers became available. A shared server hosts several different websites. Generally, the capacity of each is limited and because there are different site owners accessing the server, you have lower levels of security.
6. What Is an E-commerce Website?
An e-commerce website is basically an online shop. It requires specialized hosting and web design to ensure it functions properly. The web host you choose should be knowledgeable about hosting e-commerce sites and be able to provide you with technical support.
7. What Is a Marketing or Corporate Website?
A standard commercial or marketing-type website is less complicated than an e-commerce website. This type of website is a shop window for your business as it showcases who you are and what your business is about. While you may not sell products on the website, it still requires that you choose a reliable web hosting service provider.
8. What Makes a Web Host Reliable?
One of the most important considerations is the level and efficiency of the technical support provided. No systems are flawless so when things go wrong, you need to be able to fix the problems as quickly as possible. A good hosting provider will have technical experts available on their support desk who can assist you with any problems. The stability of the server is another important consideration. A well-maintained and managed server should seldom go down and this is what you want from a web host -- a website that is accessible 24/7.
9. What About Website Security?
A good web host should provide a level of security on the server. However, as the owner of a website, it is important to maintain a good level of security on your website as well. This may include having anti-spyware, anti-virus and anti-tracking software installed in your system. It is important to keep it constantly updated to keep your system protected.
10. Where Do You Find a Good Web Host?
Your web designer will probably have a hosting provider that they have an established relationship with. It is a good idea to follow their recommendations. Alternatively, you can ask colleagues and business associates which company they use. Lastly, you can search online. However, if you do this, be careful to read the industry reviews of the web host to ensure they are reputable.
Web Hosting at ReviewItOnline.net is a large team of experienced webmasters, web users, site owners and company leaders here to help you - webmasters of the future with all of your website hosting [http://webhosting.reviewitonline.net/] needs. Together we have years of online experience in creating successful websites and online products.
By: Eladd Domb
1. What Is a Web Host?
A web host is a service provider that manages a number of different websites on a particular server. They provide the platform on which your website is located. Many web hosts will have a number of different hosting packages available. They may have shared or dedicated hosting facilities as different options. The type of hosting package that you choose will largely depend on your hosting requirements.
2. Where Is Your Business and Where Are You Going?
If you have a start-up business, keeping costs low is a major priority. However, if you see your business growing rapidly in the future, you will need to keep in mind how this may affect things such as your website and web hosting package. There are many good entry-level basic web hosting packages. These are usually on shared servers and have a limit on the bandwidth available. If your business grows rapidly, you may find that you need to expand your website and enlarge your hosting package. Not all web hosts have migration or upgrade facilities and this can make it a tedious task to upgrade your web hosting package. Your best option is to choose a web hosting that has the capacity to grow with your business.
3. What Level of Technical Expertise Do You Have?
Often business owners have a limited understanding of web hosting and web design. If this is the case, you want to sign up with a web hosting provider that has a wealth of technical knowledge and expertise that you can draw on. Ideally, if your budget allows, you will want to go for a web host that offers a managed hosting service. This means that they will take care of all the web server maintenance and security ensuring that you have maximum up-time on your website.
4. Are Free Hosting Packages Worthwhile?
While there are some good free hosting companies out there, you need to think carefully about signing up for one. Generally, these hosting packages are free because the hosting providers sell advertising space on the websites they host. This means that you may not entirely be able to control the content on your website. In addition, free hosting packages generally have limited support services and can seldom be upgraded to other packages.
5. What's the Difference Between Shared and Dedicated Hosting?
Dedicated hosting means that your website is allocated its own unique server. This means that you have a greater level of control over your website and generally improved hosting efficiency. You can also ensure higher security levels on your server and have more flexibility in the way you manage your website; however, this comes at a premium. Generally dedicated servers are quite expensive which is why the option of shared servers became available. A shared server hosts several different websites. Generally, the capacity of each is limited and because there are different site owners accessing the server, you have lower levels of security.
6. What Is an E-commerce Website?
An e-commerce website is basically an online shop. It requires specialized hosting and web design to ensure it functions properly. The web host you choose should be knowledgeable about hosting e-commerce sites and be able to provide you with technical support.
7. What Is a Marketing or Corporate Website?
A standard commercial or marketing-type website is less complicated than an e-commerce website. This type of website is a shop window for your business as it showcases who you are and what your business is about. While you may not sell products on the website, it still requires that you choose a reliable web hosting service provider.
8. What Makes a Web Host Reliable?
One of the most important considerations is the level and efficiency of the technical support provided. No systems are flawless so when things go wrong, you need to be able to fix the problems as quickly as possible. A good hosting provider will have technical experts available on their support desk who can assist you with any problems. The stability of the server is another important consideration. A well-maintained and managed server should seldom go down and this is what you want from a web host -- a website that is accessible 24/7.
9. What About Website Security?
A good web host should provide a level of security on the server. However, as the owner of a website, it is important to maintain a good level of security on your website as well. This may include having anti-spyware, anti-virus and anti-tracking software installed in your system. It is important to keep it constantly updated to keep your system protected.
10. Where Do You Find a Good Web Host?
Your web designer will probably have a hosting provider that they have an established relationship with. It is a good idea to follow their recommendations. Alternatively, you can ask colleagues and business associates which company they use. Lastly, you can search online. However, if you do this, be careful to read the industry reviews of the web host to ensure they are reputable.
Web Hosting at ReviewItOnline.net is a large team of experienced webmasters, web users, site owners and company leaders here to help you - webmasters of the future with all of your website hosting [http://webhosting.reviewitonline.net/] needs. Together we have years of online experience in creating successful websites and online products.
By: Eladd Domb
Sunday, August 5, 2018
An Indepth Look Into Web Hosting
If you are planning to host your own website, there will be many decisions that you will have to take. One of the most crucial decisions will be to select a web hosting solution for your website. This is a very important decision as it can influence the way your website performs. All the hard work that you put on the design of the site can go to waste if you do not choose the right web hosting solution to host your website.
With so many web hosts available in the market, it is not an easy job to select the web hosting that will best work for you. A few pointers that will help you make the right decision are listed below. Look into them and use them to find a web hosting solution that will be the best for your website.
Identify your requirements
It is important to know what the requirements of your website are. Only if you have an idea of what you need, you can look for them in the web hosting solutions. The requirements of the website will depend on the type of website and the features that the website will have. Find below a list of features that you need to look for while selecting a web hosting solution.
If you have availed the services of a web designing company for creating your website, you can get the list of requirements from them. If you plan to create the website after you have decided on the web hosting, it will be a good idea to opt for hosting solutions that have a site builder system in them. Site builder tools will simplify the process of creating a website and will help you in hosting the site through a few simple steps.
Check if the web host provides you access to a control panel that will help you in managing the web space you have bought. If the web hosting solution has a control panel, you can create blogs and websites a lot easier than having to upload files using FTP.
Identify the various upload options that are available with the web host. If the hosting solution provides you a variety of upload options it will be a good option, as it will give you flexibility while maintaining and uploading your site.
Identify the various security features the web-hosting package has to offer. If you are planning for a e-commerce website, a lot of importance has to be given to security features.
It is always ideal to select a web-hosting company that has good customer support. The support extended by the web host is not limited only to email or phone support. FAQs and that help members in managing their web space has to be present.
Websites require various types of web components, scripts and databases to work. Select a web hosting company that will give you all scripts, web components and database support that is required by your website.
Websites are designed to be hosted in either windows server or a Linux server. Always opt for the server type that is required by the website to make sure that all functions and features of the website perform as designed.
Types of web hosting options available
Shared Hosting Services
Shared Hosting Services or Virtual Web Hosting Services is a type of hosting service, where many people share the space on a server. The number of websites that are hosted in a physical server depends on the configuration of the server. Some physical servers cater to more than thousand websites. This however raises the question on performance. Such shared hosting services are highly equipped to handle reasonable loads, but when overloaded, the performance of the server is an issue. Reputed Web Hosting companies will constantly review the load and performance of the server and act accordingly by adding more servers if necessary. Shared hosting services are cheaper, but the server response time will be on the slower side.
Dedicated Hosting Services
Dedicated Hosting Companies are the opposite of shared hosting companies. They assign a dedicated web server for just one customer. This ensures better performance when compared to shared hosting service. A customer will rent out the web server for a specific period and will have a variety of options of the web server. In a dedicated web server, the customer has the option of hosting more than one website. The customer will have greater control over the web server. Bandwidth and space provided will be much higher in dedicated hosting plans. This gives you the option of hosting a high traffic website. Websites that contain extremely confidential data will generally opt for a dedicated hosting service.
Co-location Hosting Service
Unlike dedicated hosting service, in co-hosting service the customer owns the web server. This gives the customer even more control over the web server. The web server will be housed in any of the secure data centers of Web Hosting Companies. This hosting service ensures that the customer will have full control over his web server. The web hosting company will provide 24x7 monitoring of the server to ensure 99.9% uptime. The secure data centre will provide the customer with prompt maintenance. This will ensure maximum uptime of websites hosted in the server. Co-location hosting services are the most expensive of the hosting solutions that are available, but are considered the best option for highly secure websites.
Reseller Hosting Services
Reseller Hosting services are considered to be the cheapest of the Hosting Services and is becoming a hot favorite for small and personal websites. The web hosting company will offer its web storage space to a reseller at a lower price, who in turn then resells the storage space to his customers. Website designers, website consultants and system integration companies are usually the resellers. Price of such hosting services is quite low and with that comes the issue of service. Since a lot more people are involved in the hosting, it takes time to resolve any issues and hence reseller-hosting services are best suited for personal websites or blogs. Reseller Hosting Services is not an option for business websites that need prompt backend service. Cheapest of all hosting services, it is a good option for someone trying to find a personal space online.
By considering your requirements and the best hosting service that you can afford, you will be able to find a web hosting solution that will be well suited for your website.
By: Ned Rat
With so many web hosts available in the market, it is not an easy job to select the web hosting that will best work for you. A few pointers that will help you make the right decision are listed below. Look into them and use them to find a web hosting solution that will be the best for your website.
Identify your requirements
It is important to know what the requirements of your website are. Only if you have an idea of what you need, you can look for them in the web hosting solutions. The requirements of the website will depend on the type of website and the features that the website will have. Find below a list of features that you need to look for while selecting a web hosting solution.
- Site builder option
If you have availed the services of a web designing company for creating your website, you can get the list of requirements from them. If you plan to create the website after you have decided on the web hosting, it will be a good idea to opt for hosting solutions that have a site builder system in them. Site builder tools will simplify the process of creating a website and will help you in hosting the site through a few simple steps.
- Control panel
Check if the web host provides you access to a control panel that will help you in managing the web space you have bought. If the web hosting solution has a control panel, you can create blogs and websites a lot easier than having to upload files using FTP.
- Upload options
Identify the various upload options that are available with the web host. If the hosting solution provides you a variety of upload options it will be a good option, as it will give you flexibility while maintaining and uploading your site.
- Security features
Identify the various security features the web-hosting package has to offer. If you are planning for a e-commerce website, a lot of importance has to be given to security features.
- Customer service
It is always ideal to select a web-hosting company that has good customer support. The support extended by the web host is not limited only to email or phone support. FAQs and that help members in managing their web space has to be present.
- Scripts and databases
Websites require various types of web components, scripts and databases to work. Select a web hosting company that will give you all scripts, web components and database support that is required by your website.
- Windows or Linux server
Websites are designed to be hosted in either windows server or a Linux server. Always opt for the server type that is required by the website to make sure that all functions and features of the website perform as designed.
Types of web hosting options available
Shared Hosting Services
Shared Hosting Services or Virtual Web Hosting Services is a type of hosting service, where many people share the space on a server. The number of websites that are hosted in a physical server depends on the configuration of the server. Some physical servers cater to more than thousand websites. This however raises the question on performance. Such shared hosting services are highly equipped to handle reasonable loads, but when overloaded, the performance of the server is an issue. Reputed Web Hosting companies will constantly review the load and performance of the server and act accordingly by adding more servers if necessary. Shared hosting services are cheaper, but the server response time will be on the slower side.
Dedicated Hosting Services
Dedicated Hosting Companies are the opposite of shared hosting companies. They assign a dedicated web server for just one customer. This ensures better performance when compared to shared hosting service. A customer will rent out the web server for a specific period and will have a variety of options of the web server. In a dedicated web server, the customer has the option of hosting more than one website. The customer will have greater control over the web server. Bandwidth and space provided will be much higher in dedicated hosting plans. This gives you the option of hosting a high traffic website. Websites that contain extremely confidential data will generally opt for a dedicated hosting service.
Co-location Hosting Service
Unlike dedicated hosting service, in co-hosting service the customer owns the web server. This gives the customer even more control over the web server. The web server will be housed in any of the secure data centers of Web Hosting Companies. This hosting service ensures that the customer will have full control over his web server. The web hosting company will provide 24x7 monitoring of the server to ensure 99.9% uptime. The secure data centre will provide the customer with prompt maintenance. This will ensure maximum uptime of websites hosted in the server. Co-location hosting services are the most expensive of the hosting solutions that are available, but are considered the best option for highly secure websites.
Reseller Hosting Services
Reseller Hosting services are considered to be the cheapest of the Hosting Services and is becoming a hot favorite for small and personal websites. The web hosting company will offer its web storage space to a reseller at a lower price, who in turn then resells the storage space to his customers. Website designers, website consultants and system integration companies are usually the resellers. Price of such hosting services is quite low and with that comes the issue of service. Since a lot more people are involved in the hosting, it takes time to resolve any issues and hence reseller-hosting services are best suited for personal websites or blogs. Reseller Hosting Services is not an option for business websites that need prompt backend service. Cheapest of all hosting services, it is a good option for someone trying to find a personal space online.
By considering your requirements and the best hosting service that you can afford, you will be able to find a web hosting solution that will be well suited for your website.
By: Ned Rat
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Choosing a Web Hosting
Choosing a web hosting is an important step in creating a website. The whole functioning of your web resource depends on this choice.
All hosting providers are divided into two big groups: free web hosts and shared ones.
In the first place let me say that many of the free web hosting providers are not exactly free, i.e. in exchange for their services they may locate their advertisements on your website.
If your website is a home page containing your personal information or a small web resource where you share information on a certain topic, free web hosting will most probably be enough for you. In case your website is an information portal, service or a site of your company, you should definitely use services of shared web hosting.
Difference between shared and free web hosting
As mentioned above, very often free web hosts insert their ads in the form of banners or pop-ups. Visitors of your website won't be happy with it as it is widely known that advertisements are irritating, especially the pop-up ones. Therefore, if your goal is to attract the audience who are willing to visit your website regularly, coming back again and again in a day, a week, a month and not just shutting your resource in 5 seconds after getting to your first page, then choose hosting without advertisements.
What is more, with free web hosts you can only expect such domain as your_site.host.com. Such domain will hardly affect the reputation of your website in a positive way; it will sooner harm its image, especially if it's a company's website.
"Why aren't the pictures loading up?" -SUPPORT SERVICE will provide you with answers for such questions. It is absolutely necessary to have one because good service support really speeds up the problem-solving process. 90% of shared web hosting providers have adequate service support and only 10% of free web hosting providers have one.
Not every free hosting can boast such services as their own CGI-BIN directory, or the support of Perl, PHP, MYSQL, Cron, SSH, Telnet and many others. And even if right now your web resource needs none of these, such a necessity may appear in the nearest future with the growth of your website. With time you will also need more and more disc space. Free web hosts usually give you 1-100 Mb while shared web hosts provide 1-5000 Mb for your website.
So, the bottom line is as follows.
If you have just a home page or a small website about your interests, go for a free web hosting without doubts. But before choosing a particular hosting you should:
When you are done with all these things, eliminate all the hosts that do not meet your requirements. I would advise you to check out the loading speed of websites located at hosting providers that suit your needs. And then you just choose the host with the least crowded channels.
I personally recommend freehostia.com. They provide:
250 MB Disk Space
6 GB Bandwidth
5 Domains Hosted
+ 1 MySQL Database
+ 1-click App Installs
FTP access. Support of PHP, Perl, Python, SSI and much more. There is also a catalogue of ready-made scripts with a possibility to adapt the design to your website - the optimal choice for a beginning webmaster.
Shared Hosting
Some may say that shared hosting is expensive, but it's just a myth. Its prices vary from 1 to 50 dollars a month depending on the set of services and resources provided. Naturally shared hosting doesn't have the disadvantages of the free one.
Nevertheless, shared web hosting providers differ according to the range and quality of services. Here are some criteria that will guide you in your choice of the shared web host:
Surely, it's by far not a complete list of all the criteria according to which one should choose a web hosting provider. But if a host meets all the requirements mentioned above, you can start working with them.
You can also use hostcollate web hosting search tool [http://hostcollate.com/] for choosing the best web hosting provider.
By: Siarhei Kasukhin
All hosting providers are divided into two big groups: free web hosts and shared ones.
In the first place let me say that many of the free web hosting providers are not exactly free, i.e. in exchange for their services they may locate their advertisements on your website.
If your website is a home page containing your personal information or a small web resource where you share information on a certain topic, free web hosting will most probably be enough for you. In case your website is an information portal, service or a site of your company, you should definitely use services of shared web hosting.
Difference between shared and free web hosting
As mentioned above, very often free web hosts insert their ads in the form of banners or pop-ups. Visitors of your website won't be happy with it as it is widely known that advertisements are irritating, especially the pop-up ones. Therefore, if your goal is to attract the audience who are willing to visit your website regularly, coming back again and again in a day, a week, a month and not just shutting your resource in 5 seconds after getting to your first page, then choose hosting without advertisements.
What is more, with free web hosts you can only expect such domain as your_site.host.com. Such domain will hardly affect the reputation of your website in a positive way; it will sooner harm its image, especially if it's a company's website.
"Why aren't the pictures loading up?" -SUPPORT SERVICE will provide you with answers for such questions. It is absolutely necessary to have one because good service support really speeds up the problem-solving process. 90% of shared web hosting providers have adequate service support and only 10% of free web hosting providers have one.
Not every free hosting can boast such services as their own CGI-BIN directory, or the support of Perl, PHP, MYSQL, Cron, SSH, Telnet and many others. And even if right now your web resource needs none of these, such a necessity may appear in the nearest future with the growth of your website. With time you will also need more and more disc space. Free web hosts usually give you 1-100 Mb while shared web hosts provide 1-5000 Mb for your website.
So, the bottom line is as follows.
If you have just a home page or a small website about your interests, go for a free web hosting without doubts. But before choosing a particular hosting you should:
- determine the disc space volume you are going to need, taking into consideration further growth of your resource;
- decide whether you need the support of scripts, whether it's necessary to have a file manager or you will do just fine using ftp-access, whether you need a site-generator
- think over the domain name. It should be short and easy to remember.
- define your attitude as to host's ads: whether you are against it or not
When you are done with all these things, eliminate all the hosts that do not meet your requirements. I would advise you to check out the loading speed of websites located at hosting providers that suit your needs. And then you just choose the host with the least crowded channels.
I personally recommend freehostia.com. They provide:
250 MB Disk Space
6 GB Bandwidth
5 Domains Hosted
+ 1 MySQL Database
+ 1-click App Installs
FTP access. Support of PHP, Perl, Python, SSI and much more. There is also a catalogue of ready-made scripts with a possibility to adapt the design to your website - the optimal choice for a beginning webmaster.
Shared Hosting
Some may say that shared hosting is expensive, but it's just a myth. Its prices vary from 1 to 50 dollars a month depending on the set of services and resources provided. Naturally shared hosting doesn't have the disadvantages of the free one.
Nevertheless, shared web hosting providers differ according to the range and quality of services. Here are some criteria that will guide you in your choice of the shared web host:
- A host should not put tough restrictions on traffic. At least there should be a possibility to pay if you exceed the limit, but the pay should not be too high.
- If you need ASP, FrontPage Server, MSSQL, then you should be looking for a web hosting on NT-server and the host itself should provide these services. Otherwise, you'd better choose UNIX-hosting.
- It is desirable that a host should provide Perl, SSI, PHP, MYSQL...
- Apart from disc space a host should provide mail. Make sure it covers the services of ingoing and outgoing mail. Sometimes it happens so that a host provides you with e-mail addresses and not with e-mail boxes. In this case all your mail will be redirected to the e-mail box you've indicated, which will hamper your job.
- A hosting provider should have its support service - working 24/7 through e-mail as well as through telephone (fax). Ask them some questions - a good hosting provider will answer you within 24 hours. If they keep ignoring you, or if there is no support service at all, keep away from such hosts.
- Check out what rights you are going to exercise as to managing the server. As a minimum, you should have FTP-access to your catalogue - it will allow you to carry out necessary actions when forwarding, editing or deleting files. It would be advisable that a host had web interface to work with your server and your account.
- If you are an experienced user, then it is desirable that a host provided telnet-access - you will be able to work with the provider's computer almost on the same level as with your own one.
- Everyday archiving (making reserve copies) of your website is a huge advantage as well.
- Good hosting is speedy web hosting. The less crowded the provider's servers and channels are - the better. Minimal bandwidth should be no less than Pentium III-800 Mhz with 512 Ðœb RAM
- It is good practice for a web hosting provider to have their physical address and some other data
- Before finally submitting the payment, get acquainted with Internet reviews of other users about this host
Surely, it's by far not a complete list of all the criteria according to which one should choose a web hosting provider. But if a host meets all the requirements mentioned above, you can start working with them.
You can also use hostcollate web hosting search tool [http://hostcollate.com/] for choosing the best web hosting provider.
By: Siarhei Kasukhin
Friday, August 3, 2018
Web Hosting - A Guide for Beginners
So you're looking to learn about web hosting and what it has to offer or you may not know much about web hosting? There is no shame in not knowing this information. Everyone has to start at the beginning at some point. On that note, lets begin learning about web hosting.
First off, what is web hosting and how does it work?
Web hosting is the business practice of providing space and bandwidth on a high-powered computer server that is connected to the Internet at very high speeds. Hosting companies maintain large networks of high-powered web server computers in a physical location known as a data center. These computer servers are connected to a very fast, and generally redundant, Internet connection. The data centers have primary and backup power, a fast connection to the Internet, and a security monitoring staff.
The web hosting companies provide a share of disk space and available bandwidth to a customer for a monthly fee. Once the customer is signed up, they can upload files to their personal space on the web server and the information is then viewable to anyone interested on the Internet. The monthly fee the web hosting company charges is much less than what it would cost to run a server out of your own home or data center. This is the reason these companies exist. They take care of all the hardware, software, and other technical needs for you.
Types of web hosting
There are many different types of web hosting offers, but the main three are shared, reseller, and dedicated. Each type of hosting is for a different purpose.
Shared Web Hosting
Shared web hosting is the most popular form of hosting. Shared hosting is a portion of disk space and bandwidth provided to you by the web hosting company on a high-powered server. There are many other web sites hosted on this server, and the hosting company is likely to have quite a few of these servers in a large data center. The resources of the server are shared by as many other websites as are allocated to that computer.
Shared web hosting is the best form of web hosting if you are looking for a great price and don't have more than a couple thousand daily visitors to your site.
Reseller Web Hosting
Reseller web hosting is a popular, low-cost solution to starting your own web hosting business. There are two types of reseller hosting, private-label and a reseller of services.
The private-label is the best type of reseller plan because it allows you to retain full control over your customer's websites. A private-label plan allows the reseller to keep the full monthly payment of the web-hosting customer, but the reseller must pay a monthly fee to the larger hosting company for the reseller space. The more hosting accounts a private-label reseller can sell, the higher the profit for them. Private-label hosting allows you to host many more websites than if you were using shared hosting for each. This is a great solution for someone who has many sites they need to host in one location to save money.
The reseller of services plans resell the regular web hosting plans of a larger web hosting company, but you get a discounted price for providing the customer and earn a monthly fee for as long as they remain a customer. This plan does not allow control over customer web sites and you only keep a portion of the potentially monthly revenue.
Dedicated Web Hosting
Dedicated web hosting is the most powerful and cost effective solution of hosting a busy web site without resorting to buying your own equipment and paying hundreds of dollars per month for a fast Internet connection. Dedicated hosting consists of single server with no one else hosting on that computer. This allows for the greatest of configuration options. Anyone who has a busy website will find dedicated hosting is the necessary choice.
Web Hosting Considerations
Wondering about all the other information listed in web hosting plans? In this section, I will explain the most important considerations in choosing a good web host.
Price
The price of web hosting services is one of the most important. There are many hosting companies out there with cheap hosting packages, but they may be lacking in other areas. Don't let the price of a hosting package fool you. There are some hosting companies out there who have great prices and the other features are just as good. Price may be one of the most important decisions of a web hosting plan, but there is much more to consider in choosing a quality web host.
Disk Space / Storage Space
Disk space is the amount of physical storage space a web host gives to you to store your web files. Hosting companies these days have plans with disk space being measured mostly in terms of gigabytes, but some are still offering plans in the megabytes for storage space. Depending on your needs for file storage space, you may need more or less. Generally the more disk space offered, the better.
Bandwidth / Data Transfer
The amount of bandwidth available can make a big difference in choosing a quality hosting plan. In general, the more bandwidth a hosting company makes available to you, the better. This means you can support more traffic to your web site as your business grows. Be wary of web hosting companies that offer unlimited or unmetered bandwidth. While many of these are legitimate offers, there are some out there who are overselling their bandwidth in hopes the average user won't use much.
Customer Support
In any business, it is very important to provide exception customer service. Web hosting is no exception to this. Many of the hosting companies are available all day and night in case you have a problem with your web site, but there are some who are just available specific hours of the day. If your web site goes down in the middle of the night when they're not available, this means lost revenue for a business. You should make sure the web host you select is always available for support.
Money Back Guarantee
Most web hosting companies will provide a thirty-day money back guarantee. Some will provide one even long, but be wary of the ones who offer no money back guarantee. I would not purchase web hosting services from a company who does not offer at least a 30 day money back guarantee, unless they have proven themselves to be a leader in the industry and have an excellent reputation.
Operating System
An operating system is a piece of software that controls the interaction between the computer user and the physical hardware of the machine. A vast majority of all web sites on the Internet run on the Linux operation system. Linux is generally much more stable than Windows. Stability is critical in running a web site. For this reason, I prefer to host my web sites on the Linux operating system. Some sites have specific requirements that only the Windows operating system can satisfy, but there are always alternatives to those requirements.
Backup
A good web hosting company will have a regular schedule to backup the data on all the web servers. The more often the data is backed up, the better. At the very least, a web hosting company should backup web site files daily.
Control Panel
The control panel is the point of contact the web site administrator will have between the host server and their own machine connected via the Internet. It is essential to have a well organized and easy to use control panel interface. My favorite control panel is cPanel, which is one of the leading web hosting control panels out there today. Plesk is another good one, and many companies will create their own control panel for you to use. Most web hosting companies will provide a link to a demo of the control panel they use with their hosting plans. The control panel used is a matter of preference, but it should be user friendly.
Email
Email is essential part of communication on the Internet. Most web hosting companies out there will give you more email addresses and more space to hold email messages than you will ever need. What you need to watch out for is the companies that have decided to be a little strict on their email accounts and only offer a small number or a small amount of message space.
Uptime
Uptime is a term used to describe how often the average web site hosted by a company is available online. No company should be expected to provide an exact 100% uptime. This is impossible due to things such as hardware, software, and power failures. A vast majority of the companies are very good with uptime, and they guarantee it. It is still a good idea to be conscious of the uptimes posted by the company. If it is not at least 99.5%, it is probably not worth hosting with that company.
Statistics
As a webmaster, it is nice to know how many visitors you've had, where they came from, how long they stay on your site, and how much bandwidth they've used. This information is collected by the web server and is placed in a log file. A statistics software package can read this data and provide meaningful information to the webmaster. The information gathered from these logs can be very valuable in improved services to the viewers of the web site.
FTP
FTP stands for file transfer protocol. It is a way of quickly uploading or downloading many files to and from a web server. Most web hosting companies will allow their customers access to their web hosting accounts via FTP. FTP is very useful and is a great feature to have when paying for a web hosting account.
Scripting
Since the World Wide Web began, many scripting languages have been created and have evolved into the dynamic and interactive environment we enjoy today. A scripting language is a way of adding functionality to a web site, whether it be to calculate numbers or to load information from an external database. Scripting languages have made electronic commerce possible. Some of these languages include PHP, ASP, JSP, Coldfusion, VBscript, Javascript, and Perl. I won't go into the details of these in this article for the sake of complexity. If you know how to use these languages, you should know what to look for in a web server for them.
Databases
A database is a place to store data that can be used in a large variety of ways. Databases are used on the Internet for applications such as shopping carts, message boards, and product catalogues. The more databases the web hosting provider allows you to create, the most applications you can deploy on your web server. Databases are used by the more advanced web master, but information is freely available online should you be interested.
Conclusions
Web hosting can be a very difficult decision with the many thousands of hosting companies out there. It is critical to find a plan that fits your needs and to have a good hosting company. I hope this article was useful in making your decision about which company to host with. Happy Hosting!
For more information, visit my web development blog. [http://www.webmastersessions.com/]
By: James Swainston
First off, what is web hosting and how does it work?
Web hosting is the business practice of providing space and bandwidth on a high-powered computer server that is connected to the Internet at very high speeds. Hosting companies maintain large networks of high-powered web server computers in a physical location known as a data center. These computer servers are connected to a very fast, and generally redundant, Internet connection. The data centers have primary and backup power, a fast connection to the Internet, and a security monitoring staff.
The web hosting companies provide a share of disk space and available bandwidth to a customer for a monthly fee. Once the customer is signed up, they can upload files to their personal space on the web server and the information is then viewable to anyone interested on the Internet. The monthly fee the web hosting company charges is much less than what it would cost to run a server out of your own home or data center. This is the reason these companies exist. They take care of all the hardware, software, and other technical needs for you.
Types of web hosting
There are many different types of web hosting offers, but the main three are shared, reseller, and dedicated. Each type of hosting is for a different purpose.
Shared Web Hosting
Shared web hosting is the most popular form of hosting. Shared hosting is a portion of disk space and bandwidth provided to you by the web hosting company on a high-powered server. There are many other web sites hosted on this server, and the hosting company is likely to have quite a few of these servers in a large data center. The resources of the server are shared by as many other websites as are allocated to that computer.
Shared web hosting is the best form of web hosting if you are looking for a great price and don't have more than a couple thousand daily visitors to your site.
Reseller Web Hosting
Reseller web hosting is a popular, low-cost solution to starting your own web hosting business. There are two types of reseller hosting, private-label and a reseller of services.
The private-label is the best type of reseller plan because it allows you to retain full control over your customer's websites. A private-label plan allows the reseller to keep the full monthly payment of the web-hosting customer, but the reseller must pay a monthly fee to the larger hosting company for the reseller space. The more hosting accounts a private-label reseller can sell, the higher the profit for them. Private-label hosting allows you to host many more websites than if you were using shared hosting for each. This is a great solution for someone who has many sites they need to host in one location to save money.
The reseller of services plans resell the regular web hosting plans of a larger web hosting company, but you get a discounted price for providing the customer and earn a monthly fee for as long as they remain a customer. This plan does not allow control over customer web sites and you only keep a portion of the potentially monthly revenue.
Dedicated Web Hosting
Dedicated web hosting is the most powerful and cost effective solution of hosting a busy web site without resorting to buying your own equipment and paying hundreds of dollars per month for a fast Internet connection. Dedicated hosting consists of single server with no one else hosting on that computer. This allows for the greatest of configuration options. Anyone who has a busy website will find dedicated hosting is the necessary choice.
Web Hosting Considerations
Wondering about all the other information listed in web hosting plans? In this section, I will explain the most important considerations in choosing a good web host.
Price
The price of web hosting services is one of the most important. There are many hosting companies out there with cheap hosting packages, but they may be lacking in other areas. Don't let the price of a hosting package fool you. There are some hosting companies out there who have great prices and the other features are just as good. Price may be one of the most important decisions of a web hosting plan, but there is much more to consider in choosing a quality web host.
Disk Space / Storage Space
Disk space is the amount of physical storage space a web host gives to you to store your web files. Hosting companies these days have plans with disk space being measured mostly in terms of gigabytes, but some are still offering plans in the megabytes for storage space. Depending on your needs for file storage space, you may need more or less. Generally the more disk space offered, the better.
Bandwidth / Data Transfer
The amount of bandwidth available can make a big difference in choosing a quality hosting plan. In general, the more bandwidth a hosting company makes available to you, the better. This means you can support more traffic to your web site as your business grows. Be wary of web hosting companies that offer unlimited or unmetered bandwidth. While many of these are legitimate offers, there are some out there who are overselling their bandwidth in hopes the average user won't use much.
Customer Support
In any business, it is very important to provide exception customer service. Web hosting is no exception to this. Many of the hosting companies are available all day and night in case you have a problem with your web site, but there are some who are just available specific hours of the day. If your web site goes down in the middle of the night when they're not available, this means lost revenue for a business. You should make sure the web host you select is always available for support.
Money Back Guarantee
Most web hosting companies will provide a thirty-day money back guarantee. Some will provide one even long, but be wary of the ones who offer no money back guarantee. I would not purchase web hosting services from a company who does not offer at least a 30 day money back guarantee, unless they have proven themselves to be a leader in the industry and have an excellent reputation.
Operating System
An operating system is a piece of software that controls the interaction between the computer user and the physical hardware of the machine. A vast majority of all web sites on the Internet run on the Linux operation system. Linux is generally much more stable than Windows. Stability is critical in running a web site. For this reason, I prefer to host my web sites on the Linux operating system. Some sites have specific requirements that only the Windows operating system can satisfy, but there are always alternatives to those requirements.
Backup
A good web hosting company will have a regular schedule to backup the data on all the web servers. The more often the data is backed up, the better. At the very least, a web hosting company should backup web site files daily.
Control Panel
The control panel is the point of contact the web site administrator will have between the host server and their own machine connected via the Internet. It is essential to have a well organized and easy to use control panel interface. My favorite control panel is cPanel, which is one of the leading web hosting control panels out there today. Plesk is another good one, and many companies will create their own control panel for you to use. Most web hosting companies will provide a link to a demo of the control panel they use with their hosting plans. The control panel used is a matter of preference, but it should be user friendly.
Email is essential part of communication on the Internet. Most web hosting companies out there will give you more email addresses and more space to hold email messages than you will ever need. What you need to watch out for is the companies that have decided to be a little strict on their email accounts and only offer a small number or a small amount of message space.
Uptime
Uptime is a term used to describe how often the average web site hosted by a company is available online. No company should be expected to provide an exact 100% uptime. This is impossible due to things such as hardware, software, and power failures. A vast majority of the companies are very good with uptime, and they guarantee it. It is still a good idea to be conscious of the uptimes posted by the company. If it is not at least 99.5%, it is probably not worth hosting with that company.
Statistics
As a webmaster, it is nice to know how many visitors you've had, where they came from, how long they stay on your site, and how much bandwidth they've used. This information is collected by the web server and is placed in a log file. A statistics software package can read this data and provide meaningful information to the webmaster. The information gathered from these logs can be very valuable in improved services to the viewers of the web site.
FTP
FTP stands for file transfer protocol. It is a way of quickly uploading or downloading many files to and from a web server. Most web hosting companies will allow their customers access to their web hosting accounts via FTP. FTP is very useful and is a great feature to have when paying for a web hosting account.
Scripting
Since the World Wide Web began, many scripting languages have been created and have evolved into the dynamic and interactive environment we enjoy today. A scripting language is a way of adding functionality to a web site, whether it be to calculate numbers or to load information from an external database. Scripting languages have made electronic commerce possible. Some of these languages include PHP, ASP, JSP, Coldfusion, VBscript, Javascript, and Perl. I won't go into the details of these in this article for the sake of complexity. If you know how to use these languages, you should know what to look for in a web server for them.
Databases
A database is a place to store data that can be used in a large variety of ways. Databases are used on the Internet for applications such as shopping carts, message boards, and product catalogues. The more databases the web hosting provider allows you to create, the most applications you can deploy on your web server. Databases are used by the more advanced web master, but information is freely available online should you be interested.
Conclusions
Web hosting can be a very difficult decision with the many thousands of hosting companies out there. It is critical to find a plan that fits your needs and to have a good hosting company. I hope this article was useful in making your decision about which company to host with. Happy Hosting!
For more information, visit my web development blog. [http://www.webmastersessions.com/]
By: James Swainston
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