Web Page Hosting: Tips, Tricks And Techniques To Find Success

Web hosting services are basically services that allow individuals or businesses to create a presence on the Internet. Before settling on any specific web host, you need to research a few areas. The article below offers tips that can help you when picking the company you want to host your website.

Find more than several recommendations that appeal to you when you are choosing a host service. If you only find a few, you don’t actually have a good basis for making a decision. For example, the two people offering reviews may have very different levels of technical expertise or other background.

Should you consider dedicated hosting? What about shared hosting? If you own a lot of content on your website, or have a lot of traffic, you need to find the right web host to suit your needs. You should probably seek a dedicated host, instead.

FREQUENT OUTAGES

Select a web host that has infrequent outages. Companies that have frequent outages, even if they can explain them away, are not good choices because they should have made changes to resolve underlying outage causes. Regardless of how little they charge, you should never sign on with a host that experiences frequent outages.

Choose a web host that allows you to pay by the month instead of one that requires large, lump-sum payments. It is impossible to know for certain what will happen to either your website or your web host in the future. Depending on the terms of the service agreement, you could lose any money you paid for future services if the web host provider goes out of business or the service is no longer able to provide for the needs of your expanding company.

When looking for a web host, choose one that offers detailed information about your site traffic. Put a counter on your site, and make sure it matches your web host’s numbers. This information will help you tailor your marketing schemes to your target audience and gauge the success of your changes.

When looking at web page hosting packages with unlimited services, proceed with caution. For instance, if you’re offered unlimited disk space, the caveat might be that not all file types are included. Unlimited bandwidth will usually mean that you can get all the bandwidth you need, but there will be additional fees for overages at the end of the month. The more you can learn about these features and packages, the better prepared you will be to make wise decisions.

Thoroughly research hosting companies you are considering. Look around for online reviews from independent websites that talk about the quality of this host provider. Outside reviews by customers of the host will offer the best indication of the host’s quality.

As stated before, hosting services are need for website to exist on the Internet. You should keep a few things in mind when selecting any website hosting service, or else you may be in for a lot of trouble down the road. Use the specific hosting tips in this article wisely.

What is Cloud Hosting & How is it different from Traditional Web Hosting?

Web hosting is the technique of utilizing a server to host a website. This hosting service enables a webpage or a website to go live on the internet thereby making it visible to all the internet users. This is called traditional web hosting. In case of cloud hosting, a cluster or a group of servers is used to host a website. This means, through cloud hosting, a website is supported by more than one server.

Differences between Cloud Hosting and Traditional Web Hosting
Cloud computing and hosting have become an integral part of Information Technology industry. Now let us have a look at the differences between cloud hosting and traditional web hosting and the advantages of cloud computing over normal web hosting.

1. With cloud hosting, as the website is hosted by more than one server, there are very little chances for the site to encounter a crash or other such server-related problems. When it comes to normal web hosting, the site is hosted by only one server and might face issues with security features and load balance.

2. Traditional web hosting has certain limitations which could restrict the expansion of the website. When a website is hosted by several servers, it has more scope for expansion and faces lesser problems.

3. One of the major advantages of cloud hosting is that it is a relatively cheaper option when compared to traditional web hosting. The cloud hosting companies charge the users only for every use which means, quantity of the computing power is the only factor that is considered. Unlike traditional web hosting, you do not have to reserve power for server. Check out bluehost cloud hosting options here – bluehost hosting info

4. With the use of cloud technology, resources can be distributed more quickly and effectively. This means, when you use cloud hosting method, you do not have to worry about the risk of going past your traffic limit. Instant scalability and elasticity of this type of hosting makes it a better option than traditional web hosting.

5. In case of traditional web hosting, the services can prove to be expensive for you. On the other hand, cloud servers let you perform tasks such as restoration, backups, scaling, monitoring, firewalls and private networking with more ease. You can easily manage your servers.

6. Unlike the traditional hosting servers, cloud hosting servers take few minutes to configure and deploy your server once you choose the package and software.

When you choose to use bluehost cloud hosting servers to host your site, you will be able to mix and match different technologies. With many advantages it offers, cloud hosting is definitely a better option than traditional web hosting. In the recent years, it has become very important to have a well-maintained website for every business to sustain the competition. When you choose to host your site through cloud servers, you are sure to have a site that can never go down and thereby attract more traffic to your site. Reports suggest that new startups are opting for cloud hosting technologies as they are cheaper and give better results.

Web Hosting

Hosting is primarily used when you own a website. It’s a dedicated server on which all the data related to a domain is stored. The owner of a domain then connects the name of their site to the information so that it is visible over the web. Website ownership can be quite confusing as sometimes there can be multiple parties involved.
There will be the person who owns the name of the site (www.anything.com); a company which will manage the domain name to ensure it can link to the data correctly, and finally, the hosting service which holds all the information due to show on the site.

DECIDING IF A HOST IS REQUIRED

If you’ve just recently purchased a website and are getting ready to create and upload your content, you’ll need a place to store it so that it’s accessible through the web. Although you are able to do it yourself if your internet connection is great, it’s general practice to have a hosting server supplied in a data centre by a third party. This means that if something goes wrong at home, your site will continue to be view-able throughout the world. Furthermore, most hosts are able to provide a guarantee of being online and accessible all the time.

CHOOSING A HOST

There are lots of things to take into consideration while choosing a host for your site. For example, you’ll want to know how much they cost on a monthly basis, as well as what they are charging you for. Some companies will only provide a web-server, but others will provide email servers as well as technical support to get you started. You’ll want to know how reliable they are as well as how good their customer service is, so that you know there’s someone to help out when an issue arises.

Price is also an important factor to take into account. A quick internet search will reveal that there a number of sites that boast cheap or free web hosting. However, while these offers maybe attractive, be sure to read the fine print when it comes to cheap or free website hosting companies as there may be bandwidth limitations or they host may place advertising onto your site in order to cover their server costs. Free web hosting may be a preferable option for those who are creating their first website as it allows them to test the water and based on how the site performs they can ascertain whether they really need to pay more for dedicated web hosting. In addition, a number of free web hosting companies also provide free website building software, making it even easier for beginners to get their website online.

THE BENEFITS OF DEDICATED HOSTING

A shared server means that you’ll have a server split between different sites. It means that the overall costs are quite cheaper but you may get limited in the amount of space that can be used; or the bandwidth limits (How much you are able to upload or download from the site).

Conversely, with a dedicated server, this generally isn’t an issue. The hosting service assigns an entire server to your site alone so that you are able to have more storage space to store all of your pages and scripts. In addition, as you are not sharing your server with other users you avoid the risk of not having enough bandwidth for your site due to other users using it up. This makes dedicated hosting especially important for high-traffic sites.

Dedicated hosting also gives you superior administrative access, this allows for greater control of your site as you are able to install programs and root access means that you can more effectively monitor how you use the server’s resources.

UPLOADED INFORMATION OWNERSHIP

Although the servers on which the information is stored belongs to a company (if you are paying a company to provide the hosting), the information that has been uploaded belongs to the person who originally created the content. In some instances, if you don’t pay the hosting bill when due, the server owner may take the content offline and ensure that it is unavailable until the bill is up to date. It’s rare this happens but it’s always best to read the terms and conditions.

WEB HOSTING TIPS FOR BEGINNERS

WEB HOSTING TIPS FOR BEGINNERS

Web hosting is a service which allocates space for customers on computer servers that are connected to the Internet 24/7.
A web-host or a web-hosting company is a company who provides web-hosting services usually for a fee. Most web-hosts also provide email address, scripts and one click install to useful software.
Every website needs to be on the internet 24/7 so that anybody from any part of the world can find it whenever they want to. You can’t achieve this if your website in sitting in your personal computer. You need to rent a space with a web-host and place all the files associated with your website in that space. That way, your website will be available to the world.
You can also buy your own server and host your website on it; but that’s just too complicated and expensive for a beginner.

Free Web Hosting

Like I mentioned in domain name tips, there is a difference between free websites and free web hosting. In the case of free websites, you get both the domain name and web hosting for free while in free web hosting, you can host a paid domain name in a web hosting company for free.

For the purpose of this write-up; there are two types of web hosting companies: The free web host and the paid web host.

Paid web host: all their packages are paid for
Free web host: they have both free and paid packages

There is no such thing as a free lunch. All web hosting companies offering free web hosting usually use this to lure you to their paid services. How? Good question. They tell you to sign up for free; good; everybody likes free stuff. You’re so happy about this then you sign up.

After learning how to use their control panel; creating 50% of your website and generally feeling at home with the web hosting company, you realize that you are restricted in every way; bandwidth, disk space even customer support. So you say to yourself: since it can be such a pain in the guts to move from one web host to another and by the way I already know how to use their platform, why don’t I just upgrade to their paid service that has little or no restrictions. Ah ha, they got you. That was their plan all along.

Why should you be worried about moving to a paid plan with a free web host? Web hosting companies offering free web hosting usually use the money generated from their paid services to foot the bills of their free services. They have lots of cost to cover with so little income, so some of them pack a lot of their free users on the same server with their paid users. These free users use a lot of resources that could lead to more server downtime.

A funny story; I visited the website of a free web host provider and saw Google adverts on it. What does that tell you; they are trying to generate income by any means possible; anything to keep the free service running.

My advice: If there is any chance that you are going to upgrade from free to paid service on a free web host, then just start with a paid web host; your life will be a lot easier. If you really need to start with a free web hosting service because of money issues, then it will be a good idea to move to a paid web host when you want to upgrade…. but; you used their services and resources for free, if you have to leave, then for God’s sake give something back.

Choose Wisely

Since we’ve trashed the free web-hosting issue, let’s talk about the paid web-hosts.
There are hundreds of paid web-hosts out there offering juicy deals here and there. So you can just pick anyone right? Wrong.

Hopping from one web-host to another is a big time killer and money burner. Not only will you spend hours or days transferring your files, ensuring accuracy and correctness; you must also spend days learning how to use the platform of your new web-host. Other issues may arise from your transfer. You will spend from two days to a week transferring your website and making yourself and your website comfortable in your new web-host. Think of all the money you would lose in a day or a week. This is why most people stick with a web-host for years or even for life. This is why you should choose your web-host wisely.

Let’s talk about some of the things you should look out for, while choosing a web-host:

Uptime Guarantee

Website uptime simply means the time during which your website remains up and running on the web. That is, anybody can visit your site without any server or network issue.

Ideally, you would want your web-host to offer a 100% uptime guarantee because the more your website is up and running, the more money you make right? Well; this is not possible. I really don’t believe that any human can guarantee 100% of anything; something must come up. In this case, virus attack, hardware and software defect, hardware aging and so on. The servers will require occasional reboot for maintenance reasons or for hardware and software upgrade.
So your website cannot be up and running every second of every minute of every day, it’s just not possible. That does not mean you should settle for a 50% uptime guarantee. No. A 99.7% to 99.9% is very good. This means that your site could be down for some minutes in a month (not every month). Please don’t go below that.
How will you know how many percent uptime they guarantee? Some web-hosts are bold enough to put it in their home page, some not so bold web-host place it in some other page.

Customer Support

Another thing you should watch out for while deciding on the web-host to work with is it’s avenues for support. A good web-host should have multiple avenues for support such as live chats, emails and phone support operating 24/7 though out the year. That way you can get solution easily and fast even if you want help at 3AM.

Do they need to have all three? It depends on you. Ideally, they need to have at least two. E-mail support is not good for emergencies because you’ll have to wait for their response with no guarantee when they will respond.

Phone and live chat support are for emergencies. If you are the type who likes to talk and have someone talk back and you don’t like typing, then you can settle for a web-host with email and phone support. If you are the shy type that can express yourself better with words, then email and live chat is best for you.

The best web-hosting companies will usually have all three support systems to meet the needs of different types of people from different countries.

How will you know they have all three? If they do, they will be so proud of it, it has to be in their home page. If you visit the home page of any web-host and you don’t see any of the three above named support, they don’t have it. Remember, a good support system has to be 24/7 though out the year.

Good Control Panel

The control panel of your website is simply a platform where you control your website. Here you can manage your files, customize your website, configure your hosting account etc.
Whether you like it or not, you’re going to spend a lot of time in your control panel (if you’re creating your website yourself). That’s why a control panel has to be user friendly.
Since the only way to know if a web host’s control panel is friendly is to purchase the web-hosting plan and I know you don’t want to do that, am going to give you a tip. Look for a web-host that uses c-panel. C-panel is the number one control panel platform in the web hosting industry today. C-panel is very user friendly, fast and organized.
How will you know if a web hosting company uses c-panel? Most web hosting company will write it on their home page, some put up a demo of their control panel, so you can tell from there or you can simply call or live chat with the customer support and ask them.

HostGator and JustHost are some of the best web hosting companies in the world; they are very affordable too. They have all the important features I pointed out above. Check them out, go through their plans, features and pricing, decide which is best for you then sign up for the hosting plan of choice.
*Make good use of your money back guarantee period (usually 30 days). Check out all their services. Try working with their control panel and seek customer support via all the available ways. If they screw up or you simply don’t connect with them, you can back out within 30days with a full refund.

Linux and Windows Hosting; What’s the Difference?

Let me start by saying that the operating system on your personal computer has nothing to do with the type of web hosting plan you should purchase. You can have windows on your personal computer and still use linux web hosting and vice versa.

Technically speaking, windows and linux web hosting do not really differ much in their performance but there are some key differences you should note.

Windows Hosting Cost More than Linux Hosting

Windows servers tend to cost higher, that’s because Microsoft owns and develops windows operating system whereas linux is an open source operating system that is generally free. Web hosting companies use up more resources to maintain windows servers so they charge a higher fee for windows hosting.

Uptime Issue

Windows operating system takes up more resources by running more processes, you can expect more issues to occur and thus require more reboots to get its services back to normal. So if you’re planning to host your website on a windows server, be prepared for slightly more downtime as compared to a more stable linux platform.
So; Why Windows Hosting?

Windows hosting is more for websites that use specific applications like MSSQL, Plesk, Front Page, others. If you don’t know what they mean, chances are you don’t need them. Most normal website owners including me use linux hosting.

Which Web Hosting Plan Should You Go For?

There are basically three types of web hosting plans available to the world. If you’ve visited any web hosting company website, you must have seen them in their home page. But which should you go for? Well; it depends on what you need. Let’s take a look at each of them.

Shared Hosting

In shared hosting, multiple websites are hosted on a single server. You have very little control over your own application, that’s why it’s cheaper than the others. If you’re running a small business website or a content website like this one, then you won’t need much control anyway; so this is the best option for you; especially if you’re on a budget.
Shared hosting itself can carry 3 or 4 hosting packages depending on the web hosting company. The first and usually the cheapest will restrict you to register just one domain with the package; that is; you can only host one website. This is Ok if all you want is just one business website. The second option (which is usually more expensive that the first) will allow you to host unlimited domains (depending on the web host). This is the best option if you want more than one website and you’re on a budget. The third and fourth varies with the web host. You can go for them if you have specific needs that are not present in the first and second option.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS)

With this technology, you are allocated a private server space for your own applications, so you have more control. This is still shared hosting in a way because you’re sharing the server with other VPS account holders but you have more privacy and control over certain resources than in the shared hosting plan.

If your website does not need special applications, you really don’t need this.

Dedicated Server Hosting

In this plan, you are the owner of the entire server… Well, not really. The server will be remotely managed by the web hosting company but you own all its preinstalled hardware and software resources. Big websites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others use dedicated servers.

Should You Pay Monthly or Yearly?

Most web host will encourage you to pay yearly or more by slashing the prices. Yes it favors them but does it favor you? Yes and no. Of course it favors you because you pay less when you pay for one year or more but what if after paying for 3 years you decide to change web host after 1 year because of bad service on their part. Well; you just lost 2 years’ worth of hosting.

So should you pay monthly? The only disadvantage of monthly payment cycles is that it’s a little bit more expensive. Most webmasters will advise you to go for it.

For some reason some web host offer only yearly hosting packages. Some people believe its because they lack confidence in their own service, some believe its because of the stress involved in monthly circles like reminder, billing and stuffs like that. Whatever the reason, people trust a web hosting company that offer monthly payment cycles more than those who do not. I think you should follow this trend.

I hate it when money leaves my account on a monthly basis. If you’re like me; then paying for six months or one year maximum will be your best bet. Do you trust them enough to pay for a six months? This is where your 30 days money back guarantee comes in. Use it wisely. If you’re still not convinced, then pay for an additional month to try it out more. If they don’t have any issue for 2 months, chances are they won’t have any serious issue for six months.

Ok, that’s it for web hosting, but let’s do a small recap of all we’ve been talking about.

• Free web hosting is a no no, if you want a very smooth operation of your website in the world wide web. Paid web hosting is best for you whether you’re running a small business website or even a blog, but you have to choose wisely.
• There are millions of paid web hosting companies out there wanting to deceive you (with price slashes, freebies and others) into buying their hosting plans. Look before you leap, most of them have horrible services.
• HostGator and JustHost are among the best web hosting companies in the world; they are very affordable too. They have all the qualities of a good web host that (mentioned above) and they have a monthly payment cycle.
• Most webmasters without special windows needs websites use linux web hosting platform, it’s cheaper and more stable.
• Shared web hosting plan is very ok for you if you don’t need to install your own scripts and your own applications. Dedicated servers hosting is usually used by big websites like facebook, twitter etc.
• If you trust the web-host you are about to sign up for them pay one year. I won’t advice you to pay for more than that because I just can’t trust a company that much.
Congrats; you have a domain name and a web host. Your website is now available to the world. Now you need to design the site and add content to it.

Web Hosting - Introduction

f you're building your own site, or decided to go for a self-hosted blogging option, you'll need web hosting. Choosing a web host is one of the most important, and at the same time most difficult decisions you'll have to take. Below, we've listed answers to some of the most frequently asked questions and have gathered some informative tips to help you make the right choices.

Web hosting is where your website is stored and from where the content is distributed to end users. Web hosting companies have computers which are called "servers" because they serve or send your stored information to the masses. The servers are connected to the internet lines and become part of the world wide web. Usually when you see pictures of data centers, the room where servers are housed, there are many racks holding quite a few computers. Depending on the webmaster's needs, she may occupy a tiny portion of one server or she may own several servers.

For new webmasters and people who own a small network of websites, a hosting account will probably suit them perfectly. Owning a whole computer does not make sense for many ventures so companies partition out the resources of the server giving each person the amount required to run her website. Generally speaking, the customer will pay a certain monthly fee in exchange for a specified amount of storage, bandwidth, and possibly databases and email addresses. Indeed, nowadays you get a lot more for your money. When technology was new, every add-on feature had a price. Now, big hosting companies include everything in their packages, unless you want something very specific.

Although it is not difficult to find hosting companies, the fact that there are millions makes the task of choosing one almost impossible. But one thing is for sure, before settling upon a host, it is best to scour web host forums and find hosts that have good reputations and customers who are willing to vouch for their services publicly. One of the worst ways to find a web host is through search engine results. The forums tend to tell the real story about a hosting company, and loads of sites offer fake web hosting reviews to sell packages and claim a commission.

The other thing you need to understand about web hosting is that anybody can claim to be a web host. So basically some ten year old kid might be in control of your assets. Know with whom you are dealing and understand what you are getting. In the same vein, choose a package that meets your needs. For example:

• How many developed sites do you own?
• How much support will you require?
• How many email addresses do you require per domain name?
• Do you require sub-domain capability?
• Do you need PHP and SQL databases and if so, does the company provide them free? Are you limited in how many you can have per domain?
• What is the bandwidth size? Do you know if the web host shuts your site down automatically if over the stated bandwidth or do they give you the opportunity to pay extra? What is the cost for overages?
• Is the access to your account easy for you to understand. Today the most popular program for those unfamiliar with managing a server is called "cPanel". One of the older ones is "Plesk".

In addition, sometimes, when you own more than one site and expect to expand with more domains, it is better to order a "reseller hosting account" right off the bat. Although you are most probably not going to resell the services and become a host yourself, you have the ability to buy the space much cheaper than paying for a hosting account per domain. Lastly, one word of caution. Beware of hosts offering unlimited bandwidth. This is impossible and obviously a false statement.

How to Choose a Web Host

What are some of the things you should look for when choosing a web host? The criteria for choosing a free web host and a commercial web hosting solution are slightly different although they do overlap. Since thesitewizard.com caters to people who might be looking for either of these types of hosting, I will deal with each of these in turn. If you are only interested in one of these types, you can simply skip to the appropriate section. I have written these sections to be as independent of the other as possible.

Choosing a Free Web Host

1. Advertising

   Most free web hosts impose advertising on your website. This is done to cover the costs of providing your site the free web space and associated services. Some hosts require you to place a banner on your pages, others display a window that pops up every time a page on your site loads, while still others impose an advertising frame on your site. There is really no hard and fast rule which is to be preferred: some people hate a pop-up window, other webmasters dislike having to stuff banner codes into their pages, and many people cannot stand an advertising frame (which may cause problems when you submit your website to search engines). Whichever method is used, check that you're comfortable with the method.
   Note that free web hosts without forced advertisements aren't necessarily good news. Without viable means to recover the costs of running their server, such hosts close with alarming frequency.

2. Amount of web space

   Does it have enough space for your needs? If you envisage that you will expand your site eventually, you might want to anticipate future expansion. Most sites use less than 5MB of web space. Indeed, at one time, one of my other web sites, thefreecountry.com, used less than 5MB of space although it had about 150 pages on the site. Your needs will vary, depending on how many pictures your pages use, whether you need sound files, video clips, etc.

3. FTP access

   FTP is the most common method used by people to transfer their web pages and other files from their computer to their web host's computer, so that it can be viewed by anyone in the world.
   Some free hosting providers only allow you to design your page with their online site builder. While this is useful for beginners, do you have the option to expand later when you become experienced and their online page builder does not have the facility you need? Online site builders also have significant disadvantages, a subject which I discuss at length in my article comparing online site builders with standalone web editors.
   FTP access, or at the very least, the ability to upload your pages by email or browser, is needed. Personally, I feel FTP access is mandatory, except for the most trivial sites.

4. File type and size limitations

   Watch out for these. Some free hosts impose a maximum size on each of the files you upload (including one with a low of 200KB). Other sites restrict the file types you can upload to HTML and GIF/JPG files. If your needs are different, eg, if you want to distribute your own programs on your pages, you will have to look elsewhere.

5. Reliability and speed of access

   This is extremely important. A site that is frequently down will lose a lot of visitors. If someone finds your site from the search engines, and he/she tries to access it but find that it is down, he/she will simply go to another site. Slow access is also very frustrating for visitors (and for you too, when you upload your site). How do you know if a host is reliable or fast? If you can't get feedback from anyone, one way is to try it out yourself over a period of time, both during peak as well as off-peak hours. After all, it is free, so you can always experiment with it.

6. PHP and/or Perl

   (In case you're wondering: What is PHP and Perl?)
   It's quite possible for a website to work even without PHP or Perl access. For example, you can always use one of the many free script hosting services available that provide counters, search engines, forms, polls, mailing lists, etc, without requiring you to dabble with Perl or PHP scripts.
   However if you really want to do it yourself, with the minimum of advertising banners from these free providers, you will need either PHP or Perl access. Note that it is not enough to know they provide PHP or Perl access: you need to know the kind of environment your scripts run under: is it so restrictive that they are of no earthly use? For PHP scripts, does your web host allow you to use the mail() function, which allows your scripts to send email? For Perl scripts, do you have access to sendmail (a computer program) or its workalike?

7. Bandwidth allotment

   Nowadays, many free web hosts impose a limit on the amount of traffic your website can use per day and per month. This means that if the pages (and graphic images) on your site is loaded by visitors beyond a certain number of times per day (or per month), the web host will disable your web site (or perhaps send you a bill). It is difficult to recommend a specific minimum amount of bandwidth, since it depends on how you design your site, your target audience, and the number of visitors you're able to attract to your site. In general, 100MB traffic per month is too little for anything other than your personal home page and 1-3GB traffic per month is usually adequate for a simple site just starting out. Your mileage, however, will vary.

Choosing a Commercial Web Host

1. Reliability and speed of access

   Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too low — it really should be 99.5% or higher. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount) if it falls below that figure. Note though that guarantees are often hard to enforce from your end — especially if the host denies there was any downtime. However, without that guarantee, the web host will have little incentive to ensure that its servers are running all the time.

2. Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)

   Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as "traffic" or "bandwidth") is the amount of bytes transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site.
   Don't believe any commercial web host that advertises "unlimited bandwidth". The host has to pay for the bandwidth, and if you consume a lot of it, they will not silently bear your costs. Many high bandwidth websites have found this out the hard way when they suddenly receive an exorbitant bill for having "exceeded" the "unlimited bandwidth". Always look for details on how much traffic the package allows. I personally always stay clear of any host that advertises "unlimited transfer", even if the exact amount is specified somewhere else (sometimes buried in their policy statements). Usually you will find that they redefine "unlimited" to be limited in some way.
   In addition, while bandwidth provided is something you should always check, do not be unduly swayed by promises of incredibly huge amounts of bandwidth. Chances are that your website will never be able to use that amount because it will hit other limits, namely resource limits. For more details, see the article The Fine Print in Web Hosting: Resource Usage Limits.
   To give you a rough idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new sites that don't provide video or music on their site use less than 3 GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements will grow over time, as your site becomes more well-known, so you will need to also check their policy when you exceed your data transfer limit: is there a published charge per GB over the allowed bandwidth? Is the charge made according to actual usage or are you expected to pre-pay for a potential overage? It is better not to go for hosts that expect you to prepay for overages, since it is very hard to forsee when your site will exceed its bandwidth and by how much.

3. Disk space

   For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those "unlimited disk space" schemes. Many new sites (that don't host videos or music) need less than 20 MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you with 100 GB (or "unlimited space"), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so don't let the 100 GB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a means of enticing you to host there. As a rough gauge, thesitewizard.com, with nearly 400 pages in April 2013, used only about 18 MB for all its pages and associated files.

4. Technical support

   Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), all year around? Note that I will not accept a host which does not have staff working on weekends or public holidays. You will be surprised at how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient of times. Incidentally, just because a host advertises that it has 24/7 support does not necessarily mean that it really has that kind of support. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, etc. Check out how long they take to respond. Besides speed of responses, check to see if they are technically competent. You wouldn't want to sign up with a host that is run by a bunch of salesmen who only know how to sell and not fix problems.

5. FTP, PHP, Perl, SSI, .htaccess, SSH, MySQL, Cron

   If you are paying for a web hosting account, you really should make sure you have all of these.
   Note that some commercial hosts do not allow you to install PHP or Perl scripts ("What is PHP and Perl?") without their approval. This is not desirable since it means that you have to wait for them before you can implement a feature on your site. The ability to create or modify ".htaccess" files is needed if you are to do things like customize your error pages (pages that display when, say, a user requests for a non-existent page on your site) or to protect your site in various ways (such as to prevent bandwidth theft and hotlinking, password-protect a directory (folder), etc).
   SSH access is useful for certain things, including testing certain scripts (programs), maintaining databases, etc. MySQL ("What is MySQL?") is needed if you want to run a blog or a content management system. Cron is a type of program scheduler that lets you run programs at certain times of the day (eg, once a day). Check to see if these facilities are provided.

6. SSL (secure server)

   If you are planning on selling any goods or services through your website, you may want to see if the web host lets you set up SSL (a secure server). You may have seen this on other websites where their web address begins with a "https://" instead of "http://". Setting this up will normally involve additional charges or a higher priced package. At this point, the main thing is do is to check if they are available at all before you commit to the host. You will definitely need to have SSL if you plan to collect credit card payments yourself. If you're relying on apayment gateway instead, and are not otherwise collecting sensitive or private information from your customers, it's possible that you don't need this facility. For those who are wondering about what this is, but are too lazy to click through the link in the previous sentence, a payment gateway is just a third party company, like PayPal, that collects credit card payments on your behalf.

7. Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding

   If you have your own site, you will probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like sales@yourdomain.com, etc. Does the host allow you to set up whatever email addresses you want on your domain, so that mail can be forwarded to your current email address, or placed into a mail box on your web hosting account itself? Can you set an email address to automatically reply to the sender with a preset message (called an autoresponder)? Can you retrieve your mail with your email software?

8. Control Panel

   This is called various names by different hosts, but essentially, they all allow you to manage different aspects of your web account yourself. Typically, and at the very minimum, it should allow you to do things like add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords for your account. I will not sign up with a host where I have to go through their technical support each time I want to change a password or add/delete an email account. Such tasks are common maintenance chores that every webmaster performs time and time again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait for their technical support to make the changes for you.

9. Multiple Domain Hosting and Subdomains

   For those who are thinking of selling web space or having multiple domains or subdomains hosted in your account, you should look to see if they provide this, and the amount that they charge for it (and whether it is a one-time or monthly charge, etc).

10. Web Server and Operating System

    Is the type of operating system and server important? I have discussed this issue at length in the article "Should You Choose a Linux or a Windows Web Hosting Package? Is There Such a Thing as a Mac Web Host?"
    In general, most people will want to sign up for a web host offering a Unix-based system (like Linux, FreeBSD or OpenBSD) and running the Apache web server. Most web-based software assume your website is running on such a system, and you will usually experience fewer compatibility issues with it. There are also a lot of guides available on the Internet on configuring such systems, so finding help when you need it is easier as well.
    In my opinion, the only time when you will want to use a Windows server is if you're running Windows-specific programs, like ASP scripts. But even then, you'll probably be better off looking for a PHP-equivalent, and using a Unix-based system.

11. Price

    I was actually hesitant to list this, but I guess it's futile not to. However, I would caution that while price is always a factor, you should realise ("realize" in US English) that you often get what you pay for, although it's not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best.

12. Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans

    Most web hosts allow you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if you were to pay monthly. My current personal preference is to pay monthly with all new web hosts until I'm assured of their reliability and honesty. Paying monthly allows me to switch web hosts quickly when I find that the current host does not meet my requirements: this way, I'm not tied down to a bad web host because I have prepaid for an entire year. I do this even if the new web host guarantees that they will refund the balance if I'm dissatisfied, since at the point I sign up, I have no assurance that they will honour their guarantee. Later (usually after a couple of years), when I'm satisfied with the host, I may change payment plans to the discounted annual plans.

13. Resellers?

    Not all hosting companies own or lease their own web servers. Some of them are actually resellers for some other hosting company. The disadvantage of using a reseller is the possibility that you are dealing with people who don't know much about the system they are selling and who take longer to help you (they have to transmit your technical support request to the actual hosting company for it to be acted upon). However, this also depends on both the reseller and the underlying hosting company. It is thus wise not to rule out all resellers; there are a number of reliable and fast ones who are actually quite good and cheap. In fact, a number of resellers sell the same packages cheaper than their original hosting company. If you find out that a particular company is a reseller, you will need to investigate both the reseller and the real hosting company.

14. International

    If you don't stay in the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with some local provider. The advantage here is the ease of dealing with them (they are after all easily accessible by phone call or a visit), your familiarity with the local laws and easy recourse to those laws should it be necessary. It should be your choice if your target audience is local (eg a local fast food delivery service). On the other hand, hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest number of your overseas visitors (particularly if you have an English-speaking audience). You also have a large number of hosting companies to choose from, and as a result, cheaper prices too.

15. Others' Reviews

    You should make it a point to check out what others have to say about the web host. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.
    There are many reviews of web hosts around. Some are reviews made by a single webmaster on their own site, others are posted on webmaster forums. However, as you should always do when looking at reviews (of anything), read them with a pinch of salt. Some glowing reviews may come from people working for the web host itself, disguised as multiple satisfied customers. Likewise, negative reviews of a particular host can sometimes come from unscrupulous competitors of that host.
    In addition, even if the review is genuine, be careful about trusting a glowing review from someone who has been with a web host for only a few months. While that person may be perfectly honest, you can't really tell the quality of a web host if you've only been hosted on its server for so short a time. That person could simply be going through what webmasters jokingly call the "honeymoon period".
    The converse is also true. Honest bad reviews about a web host from brand-new webmasters are problematic too. You have to evaluate carefully whether the bad review is actually a reflection of how bad the web host is, or how inexperienced the webmaster is. That is, the newcomer may ascribe faults to the web host that are actually his/her failure to properly understand how to do things. The root of the problem here is that there are many technical aspects to creating a website that can easily trip a newcomer. I have read supposedly-bad reviews of web hosts that actually say more about the newness of the webmaster than the quality of the web host.
    Anyway, before you ask, you can read my review of the web host thesitewizard.com currently uses athttp://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/webhosting.shtml. On occasion, I may also make a comment or two about some of the hosts I list on the Budget Web Hosts page on thefreecountry.com.
    Don't skip this step, or you might find yourself being suckered by a host that everyone else is steering clear of.

The Myth of the Perfect Commercial Host

In general, I doubt that there are any "perfect" web hosting companies around. Note that even if you are prepared to pay a huge price for your hosting needs, it does not guarantee that your host is any good. This is an interesting industry where a high price does not necessarily yield quality hosting and support.

On the other hand, one thing you can probably be sure of is that you will not get top-notched support if you only pay rock bottom prices. When the price charged is extremely low, which company can afford to hire enough good help to cater to all its users?

Like me, you'll probably end up settling for a trade-off between price, reliability and features that you're willing to live with.

How to choose the best web hosting service

Today e-commerce has become a massively lucrative channel for retailers. However, the quality of the hosting services that many small businesses are using often leaves a lot to be desired. A recent report showed that one in three Britons have abandoned their online transactions because of poor website design and inefficient hosting.

Research from hosting company 1&1's '2011 Digital High Street Audit' finds worryingly low levels of consumer satisfaction with the small business websites available to them. The risk to firms from providing a bad online experience is clear – 49 per cent of consumers believe that a bad website makes a worse impact than a business having no website at all. This conclusion has led 37 per cent to walk-away from companies completely, in favour of using a competitor. An additional 9 per cent of Britons have found themselves reducing their spend with small companies as a direct result of being deterred by a poor company website.

Oliver Mauss, CEO, 1&1 Internet said: "Research shows that keeping an ugly or badly functioning website online can comprise a risk to sales revenue. Consumers have ever higher expectations, and it is essential that every company website inspires confidence. Businesses that invest carefully in their web experience will see higher levels of customer spend, retention and referral".

Choosing the right server to host your website

The hosting services your business can choose from will usually mean making a decision whether a shared, dedicated or cloud based server is right for your business. Very small businesses will usually opt for a shared or managed service as these are sometimes called. Costs are low, but your business will be sharing its server with several other enterprises.

A dedicated server as its name suggests is just one server reserved for your business. Dedicated servers are not as expensive as they once were and can make economic sense if you want your business to have its own server platform and not have to worry about other businesses on a shared server impacting your online business if they have problems.

It is important to look closely at the service level (SLA) that will be attached to your dedicated server. Look for any additional costs such as maintenance, or other 'extras' that are not covered in the rental cost. And lastly, try and buy server space that you can expand into. You don't want to find after a few months that you have outgrown your server and need to move to a new one.

Lastly as the cloud has made a major impact right across the business environment, business website hosting has also been touched by the cloud and now offers an alternative to the traditional hosting methods. The power of cloud hosting is the flexibility it offers. In effect your business can buy just the space and hosting services it needs now and expand at anytime with no disruption to business.

Abby Hardoon, Founder and MD of second generation web hosting company Daily.co.uk says: "Hosting is very much a horses for courses thing - it's a question of getting the best and most appropriate solution that you can afford. There's no need to hamstring yourself financially, though. If you're just starting out or you're a relatively small business and you know your way around a server, you might like to consider a Virtual Private Server (VPS), for example - they provide the flexibility of a dedicated server but at a reduced cost.

Your business hosting checklist

There's more to choosing a web host than just choosing the right server, you should also consider other parts of the service including the domain name. Business host PEER 1 Hosting offered this advice when choosing a hosting service for your business:

1/ Get the right domain name host

A search for 'domain name registrations' on Google generates a number of different companies offering this service. Always read the small print on any domain name registration to ensure it is not going to be sold from under your feet in a year, once your website is established, or that the price isn't going to suddenly go up. If you have a very common name or are in a competitive market then it is worth considering buying the other domain name extensions (.co.uk, .com, .net etc) and pointing them to your website.

2/ Do you host with your web designers or a third-party?

Once you have your website built you then have to find a home for your data to be hosted. Many web design companies offer this as part of their service, however this locks your online business into one company. Choosing a separate web host gives you more control and means that you are dealing with the web host directly instead of through a third party. This can come in handy if you anticipate spikes of traffic, perhaps as a result of a marketing campaign, and you need the host to ensure your site does not collapse under this extra pressure.

3/ Read the contract small print

Many hosting providers will give you an all-in fee for set-up, hardware, operating system, support and bandwidth. This may seem like an easy option but the problem with these deals is you can't see exactly where your money is going, and so can't see if you're paying for things you don't need. The best way to ensure you're not taken for a ride is to ask for a breakdown of services and individual quotes for support, bandwidth, additional hardware etc. It's the only way to know what's being delivered, what isn't, and what is surplus to requirements.

Often overlooked the hosting services you buy for your online business are vital to get right. Consumers that have become highly critical of the online stores they buy from want to see solid websites that perform efficiently and are available on demand. The right hosting service can ensure your business becomes a destination site in its sector that your customers are sure to shout about right across their social networks.

10 Tips for Choosing the Right Domain Name

On the Web, your domain name is your identity. It’s how people find you, the name clients pass to others. Needless to say, nothing is more important. Give your businesses a step in the right direction for picking the perfect domain name – here are 10 rules to follow to ensure that you pick the right domain name.

1. Unique

Your domain name is a huge part of your organization’s identity – so make sure that it is as unique as your organization.

Don’t pick something that is easily confused with a competitor’s site or could lead to a different company all together; make it unique. Try to avoid pluralization (ie; greatshoe.com vs. greatshoes.com) because your actual name is already taken – this will only lead to lost traffic for you and a potential higher bounce rate due to people landing on your site accidentally.

2. Easy to remember

Short and sweet is the name of the game here.

The more letters and words that make up your domain, the higher the odds that someone will get it wrong or forget it. Also, make your domain name relevant to your business so that it is easy to remember. In the article How to Name Your Business, here’s what folks from Grasshopper said about having your name relevant to your biz:

Names like Kaggle are fun, and distinct, but … wait … what does Kaggle do again? If your company does something unique, then you might want to stick with a conventional name. Otherwise, you might confuse people.

When people hear or see Garment Valet, they get the hunch that someone’s about to do their laundry. The name Unbounce is another great example, as the company helps reduce bounce rates for landing pages (effectively unbouncing them).

3. Use a domain tool

There are a slew of domain name tools available for free on the Web. These tools can help to break writers block and suggest some quality potential domain names for your review.

For example Dot-o-mator has two offerings – an advanced Web 2.0 generator and its basic generator that creates names based off of prefixes and suffixes either from user-generated lists or various pre-built lists. DomainGroovy.com creates a list of potential domain names from user-input keywords and also offers on-site domain purchases.

There are countless domain tools out there – and all for free.

4. Avoid copyright infringement

Don’t use a trademarked or copyrighted phrase for your domain name: just don’t. Before you register your domain, run it through the free checkers available at http://www.copyright.gov/records/ andhttp://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/ to ensure you’re in the clear – it’s well worth the extra few minutes.

5. Keyword relevant

In the past, having at least one of your keywords in your domain name was paramount, however, due to the Google EMD update, this is an outdated rule. The Google EMD update – short for Exact Match Domain – is a filter that Google launched in 2012 to ensure that sites were not receiving elevated search result rankings simply because their domain name included a relevant keyword. That having been said, it is still a good idea to theme your domain name around a relevant keyword, as it will give first time visitors an immediate idea as to exactly what you offer.

6. Write it out and read it repeatedly before purchasing

One of the great things about a domain name is that it’s yours forever (as long as you keep up the payments, anyways). One of the bad things about a domain name is that you can’t change it after you purchase it. That said, if your business is named Dickson Web, carefully consider your domain name before purchasing –www.dicksonweb.com is likely to attract a whole other kind of audience.

Avoid a PR catastrophe by writing your potential domain name out and reading it repeatedly before making the purchase. Do one better and run it by a few good friends or family members before committing.

7. Avoid punctuation and numbers

Punctuation is confusing – simply put. Most reputable URLs are plain text and putting in a hyphen is only going to increase your chances of losing traffic to other sites; after all people are used to typing plain text in the URL bar. Also, avoid numbers whenever possible – though there may be an understandable exception to the rule if your business name includes a number.

8. Buy other similar domains and use it as redirects

When you consider the investment you have already made in your organization, the $35 a year a domain name costs is nothing. Protect your brand and capture all potentially misdirected traffic by also purchasing the domains that are similar to your actual domain name.

9. Be wary of the domain extension

There are .com, .net, .org, .biz, and a slew of other domain extensions. While .net may save you a few bucks, at the end of the day is it really worth the savings? While there are some cases that a .biz may have merit – and certainly .org has its purposes – most of the time, a .com is going to be your best bet. Don’t fall into purchasing an off extension simply because your domain is already taken as a .com – instead, rethink your domain name unless there is a more prevalent reason for choosing an alternate extension.

10. Be direct

Obviously, there are certain phrases or words that are bound to draw people in… but unless they’re your target audience, all the traffic in the world won’t make a difference. Make sure that your domain name is to the point and direct about who you are and/ or what it is that you provide.