Web Hosting

Hosting is a part of your website wherein the files of the website are kept on live servers so that everyone can open the website and review information. Hosting involves a number of technicalities and thus it becomes necessary to understand each & every aspect of hosting so that you can buy the very best hosting plans for your website.

It is your duty to know that which type of hosting your site may require as it’s not your wish but the necessity of your website. If your website is static one and has less than 500 pages which may not be updated frequently then you should go for Shared Hosting while if you have a website wherein 1000s of users will register everyday then you will have to think of Dedicated or Managed Hosting. The basic difference between Shared & Dedicated Hosting is that a Dedicated server hosts only your website and not any other while 1000s of other people may host website on a shared server. The other difference is of pricing – you can get a shared hosting plan starting from US$ 6/ month while you will have to adjust in dedicated hosting where plans start from US$ 150/ month.

Next is the technology which can alter your decision to buy a hosting plan. If your website is developed on Microsoft technology then you have no option but to choose hosting on a Windows server while if your website is developed on LAMP technology then you have all the options open but it’s wise to host on a Linux based server if your website is developed in LAMP.

The other things that you must look for before deciding on a host are – the downtime duration/ frequency of the server, the level of support extended by the host, the issue resolving time taken, server backup and upgradation options available with them. The above are some of the things which should be considered before deciding on a hosting plan.

The above article has been published by Hosting 24 Hour in order to create awareness about hosting amongst customers.

There are several website hosting services available providing the space on which one can host his website. These average web site hosting companies will even help their users to set up their own email addresses and provide them the ability to run their own scripts and programs.

Some hosting companies which are considered better than these average companies even provides the facility to their users to use a nice Eye Candy control panel that helps them to manage their site. Some times they’ll even throw in a website statistics app as well. For most web site hosting companies that’s about it! As many web site hosting services are least interested in providing more service to the users for their money.

Many people are satisfied with this, as they don’t know that there’s a lot more for running an Internet business than simply hosting the site.

Most of the people are unknown and don’t know that there are several new companies out there offering way, way more than other companies. These companies serve best features with low cost. Thus the only thing required is that one needs to be well informed about good companies as well as should know the criterion to select an appropriate hosting company.

Features of a good hosting company

Following are some of the features that one needs to know if he is looking for a new web site hosting service or planning to transfer his web site.

He needs to look out for:

1) A web site hosting service that provides him facility to add new domains for a small fee without having to pay any additional monthly fee. Thus a user can host many domains and still pay one monthly fee, thus it leads to saving much money.

2) User always admire a web site hosting service that will help him to publish and manage his own newsletter so that he can regularly follow-up with his prospects and customers and thereby increase his sales. User should also look that if the company is giving him the option to publish a newsletter in both HTML and text format or not.

3) Users are in search of a web site hosting service that can set up an unlimited number of follow-up auto responders, so that they can automatically follow-up with their prospects and send them a series of emails one after the other whenever they want.

4) A web site hosting service should be the one that helps the user to personalize all his newsletters and follow-up emails. So that user can mention the name on the beginning of all his newsletters and emails with something like “Hi George” or “Hi Fem”. Most people know that personalizing emails has proven to increase response rates by as much as 40% – 50% in some cases.

5) A web site hosting service that helps one to set up his own affiliate program so that other website owners can promote one’s site or products and can earn commissions on the sales.

6) A web site hosting service that gives the user the option to track the results of all his advertising campaigns like banner ads, eZine ads, ads in pay per click engines. By the help of these features user will exactly get to know that how many visitors he is receiving from each source, and also how many sales he is receiving from each source. This information will help him to take better decisions as related to what to optimize and what to dump?

7) A web site hosting service that provides user the option to sell multiple items from his web site using a shopping cart that calculate things like taxes and shipping costs in real time.

A web site hosting service that facilitates the user to protect his download page if he wants to sell digital products like e-books or software from his site. Also a website should protect one’s members only site or signup page so that only genuine customers can download his products or sign up for his membership site. Thus avoiding fraud.

9) A web site hosting service that provide security from spam like providing the facility to set up junk mail filters so that any junk mail that one receives, is first filtered out before reaching the account.

10) A web site hosting service that contains built-in anti-virus software so that any virus containing emails that user receives will be automatically deleted.

11) A web site hosting service that offer good costumer support. Fast response is crucial in this field. A good web site hosting service responds his user within 24 hours.

Thus if one will consider the above features while selecting a web hosting company there are chances for proper growth of his business.

Reliable web hosting is vital for anyone attempting to earn money with a business website.

Choosing a host for your website is not easy when you are an Internet newbie and don’t really know bandwidth from Band-Aid. What selection criteria do you use? If you are a total newbie, about the only thing you will know how to compare is price but if you do a search for web hosting you will have ads coming at you for all prices from $10 per year to $25 per month. Should you go for the most expensive on the basis that you get what you pay for or should you go for the cheapest because saving money is a priority while you are getting your business running?

The first thing to rule out is free web hosting. There are many great free resources to be found on the Internet including excellent anti-virus and anti-spy ware software. Free hosting is fine if you have a hobby website but, if you are running a business online and wish to achieve credibility with visitors and search engines, free web hosting won’t do the job.

I discovered the hard way that cheap web hosting is not necessarily the bargain it might seem. When I started looking for hosting for a new website, I already had top class hosting that had come with my first website. There was an option to add on further domains for an extra $5 per month. That was cheap enough but I thought it would be a good idea to have my new website hosted completely separately (you know, the old eggs in one basket caution).

When I started checking around, there seemed to be millions of web hosts all offering what (to my untrained eye) seemed to be the same thing but at wildly varying prices, so I settled on a cheap hosting package. The cost was £1 per month (which was about $1.70 in those days) and I certainly got what I paid for!

At first everything was fine: I paid up, they hosted my website. The trouble is, you don’t realise you have bought rubbish hosting until things start to go wrong.

The first sign that all was not well came a few months later when I was unable to locate my website. I raised a support ticket and waited. Four days later came the reply “everything seems ok now”. Four days of downtime without a sensible word from support made me feel more than a little uneasy.

Things seemed fine for a while after that but then another problem arose: when I tried to log into my control panel all I got was a message telling me the licence fee had not been paid. This time the reply to my support ticket was quicker, it only took two days. Unfortunately, however, it was completely unhelpful. The reply was “It seems to be a site-wide issue”. Was I supposed to feel better because the whole site was messed up and not just my bit? They must have got round to paying the licence fee because after a few more days, login was available again.

After that, I wanted to move to a new host but I had never moved a website before and assumed it would be really difficult and technically challenging (actually it is extremely simple). As a result of this fear my website remained where it was.

The crunch came when my domain name came up for renewal. In response to an email from the hosting company, I visited their website to make the required payment. Their PayPal link and credit card options did not work and there were several error messages showing on the pages I visited.

Emails to their support and billing departments went unanswered. My only means of arranging payment was via their website, so I kept trying. Each time I visited, there were more error messages, nothing worked and it began to look as if the site was actually melting bit by bit. It seemed the company had just packed up and left their website to self destruct.

Enquiries revealed that the only way I could renew my domain name ownership was through the hosting company because they had registered it on my behalf and they retained control of it. As they could not be contacted, there were only two options available. The first was to pay an agent a pretty hefty (and non-refundable) fee to try to contact the hosting company and negotiate the purchase the domain name from them. The second option was to lose the domain.

When you have to choose web hosting, the first thing to look for is quality of support. To keep prices low, the easiest way for the company to economise is to provide sub-standard support. Forget the offers of unlimited bandwidth, hundreds of email accounts, spam filters and other freebies. If support is non-existent, give the company a miss no matter how good their other terms might seem.

Any website mainly comprises the following – Domain name, Web space, WebPages.

After getting the Domain Name the next step is to check for a good hosting service provider to have one’s own files uploaded in the domain. The following are the important features one must consider while selecting a Linux Based Hosting Plan-

1. Control Panel – This is the most important feature that is mainly required if one wants to maintain his/her website by own. With Control Panel, popularly known as CP, one can do anything means any sort of modification. The moment one signs up for a Hosting Pack, he/she must be immediately provided a control panel for managing the web space.

2. POP3 email Ids & Aliases – One must be provided with plentiful of POP3 email ids and it depends on the Package size as well.

3. FTP Accounts & Virtual FTP – This is the place where one can make any modifications like uploading of files, deletion, updating etc. This is again provided along with the control panel. One must be sure that he/she must have plenty of FTP sub-accounts also to provide his/her clients/users password protected directories. This is the most important feature wherein the clients / users can use the FTP to upload /download files from particular password protected folder of one’s website.

4. Backup – This the feature which is mostly overlooked by the users but is quite important .One must check if the Hosts take Automated Backups.

5. Web Statistics -Visitors plays a key role in the success of one’s website. One must review the report using Statistics Application that run in the server backend in order to see the number of visits each day so as to take proper action.

6. Bandwidth –One must choose the Hosting Plan that offers sufficient Bandwidth for one’s website. As it is not possible to judge the exact requirement in the beginning, still there is facility to deduct the bandwidth required with the passage of time.

7. PHP & Mysql Support – All the Linux Plans support PHP & Mysql. One must make sure that he/she must get this free of cost along with the hosting plan. There are some Hosting Providers that charges extra for MYSQL Database Support & PhpMyAdmin therefore one must check this is advance.

8. Web mail & SMTP – Email forms a most important part in launching the website. One must check if the Hosts provide with WEBMAIL in order to check mails through a web based interface using Squirrelmail or Horde. Corporate Users mostly prefer downloading mails through Email Clients such as Eudora or Outlook Express. One can avail this option only if SMTP or IMAP support is enabled. Therefore one must check in advance if SMTP support is provided or not.

9. SPAM ASSASIN – This is the most important component as no email user is free from a Spam attack. Therefore one must ask for Spam Filters installed on the server where his/her website resides.

10. IP – Dedicated IP is required if one’s website prefers SSL Support (https://) with a passage of time. Most of the websites are hosted on shared IPs.One must ask his/her Hosting Provider for the extra charges involved in getting a dedicated IP and SSL Support. There is important to note that for SSL (https://), one needs to buy a Digital Certificate.

Thus the above were 10 most important ingredients that one must consider while choosing a Linux based hosting plan

We all know that the best way to find a “good deal” is to comparison or bargain shop. Most of the time, this means keeping notes or making a detailed list of the pros and cons of a particular item or service plan. For example, most of us have had to look at our home or mobile phone service plans in relation to other companies or providers. Generally this meant digging out an old bill to do a “side by side” comparison of what each offered and at what costs.

Unfortunately, a side by side comparison is not usually available for most items or services we need to purchase, making bargain hunting very difficult and time consuming. Additionally, most people don’t have a great deal of time to spare and may make only random or brief attempts at comparison shopping before having to simply commit to one choice. This can be detrimental to budgets, especially for businesses of all sizes.

One area where most modern businesses are obliged to commit a great deal of their budget is to web site development and hosting. Today’s consumers want to be able to find a company on the Internet, even if they will not be purchasing something across that platform. For example, a construction company won’t sell anything from their website, but they can use it to display past projects and introduce their owners to potential clients. This means that a good website is critical to almost any business operation.

Most companies cannot afford to invest in their own servers, however, and are obliged to seek out a reliable and affordable location for hosting their websites. Currently, there are many types of web hosting available, and a business owner must understand what they need from their web hosting provider before they begin to use them for their services.

The world of computers and the Internet is fairly complex, and because of this many business owners will not really know what they are going to need in order to choose the best web hosting service. Luckily, when you use CompareWebHosts.com you can compare web hosting plans dynamically!

A visit to the site puts individuals and businesses into direct contact with pre-screened web hosting providers. The site divides the web hosting companies into many clear-cut categories, making it much easier to locate several high-quality candidates with only a few clicks of a mouse.

When the talk is about small but best business web hosting, there are several aspects one needs to keep in mind. There are several features and choices regarding web hosting in the market, so to get the best; one should denote the best time to soak up useful knowledge regarding it. While selecting best web hosting for one’s small business there is nothing prior to user’s own requirements.

One can divide web sites into three kinds:

1. Personal/Small Business Homepages,

2. E-Commerce, and

3. Information sites.

Selection of web hosting largely depends on type of user’s business. The business may concern to information and small business services. That’s way it is crucial to locate which small business web hosting is best suitable for the user. A user with a small business may not require purchasing costly services as required in large sites. While dealing with a small business huge disk space and bandwidth are not the essential requirements, which is a need in large E-Commerce business sites.

Crucial criteria’s while going for Small Business Web Hosting are given below:

Limitless space, transfer: In several cases, an advertising tactic. One should not forget to verify about the Acceptable Use Policies to forecast about their unlimited plans. One may get negative response on exploiting too much space if he/she does not acquire an upgrade policy.

Setup charges: several small business web hosting services do not disclose their charges regarding services until one deal up that company.

There will be no POP email access to emails. In fact, some small business web hosting services merely offer user access to site’s email accounts.

Perimeter on monthly traffic: few of the small business web hosting services will restrict the user about monthly traffic onto his/her site.

Customer support: a user should get the satisfactory answer of the following questions. Do the hosting service provide fine customer support i.e.24/7? Does weekend support is included?

Control panel: it is not a prime concern for an experienced webmaster, however, when one talks about new comers a small business web hosting control panel is an obligation.

Does extended commitments are essential while dealing with small business web hosting service? Several times one can move on monthly basis while dealing with a good web hosting service.

Uptime guarantees: one should have a keen sight while investigating about uptime qualifications of a small business web hosting.

FTP transfer limits: some of the small business web hosts have restrictions on FTP assistance to their customers.

There is not one but several other aspects which a user needs to take into account while searching for a small business web hosting. A better output depends on the user’s time devotion to this task. One can easily judge at that period of time, how much appropriate his/her decision is.