Web Site Hosting - An Easy Guide

Web Hosting - Made Simple
What is web hosting anyway? What do I get when I buy a web hosting solution?

To make thing clear from start let's just say how it all works.
Web pages basically consist of text and images. Generically, the information contained by these files is called content. The look of the web page is called design. In order to be accessible to online users, all these files must be stored on a web server. You can think of web servers as computers storing the files of tens or hundreds of web sites. These computers are all connected to the Internet through high-speed connection. When you access a web page, your browser connects to the web server that stores that page and downloads it to your computer.


So a web server is a must when you plan to share your web site content with online users via the Internet. There are thousands of web servers in the world, and there are companies that own them. Such a company is called web-hosting provider.
A web-hosting provider can have dozens of web servers hosting thousands of web sites. The web server computers are found usually in large numbers and are all housed in special buildings or sections of buildings called data center. Apart from the high-speed Internet connection, these locations are set up to ensure the optimum operational conditions and security for the web servers. HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning) control, fire protection, virus protection, data backup facility, power backup, even autonomy in case of disaster. Another term for the web servers in the data center is a web farm.

To be able to run your site properly you need a space on the web server to store your data and an Internet connection to it. The amount of data available to you on a web server is simply referred as space and is usually quantified in MB. The Internet connection needed so that your web site can be accessed online is referred as bandwidth and is also measured in MB or even GB. Having the glimpse of the basics, it must be said that different web-hosting providers offer different space and bandwidth. Space and bandwidth are usually the main characteristics of a web-hosting plan.


The terminology associated with web hosting can be quite dazzling: virtual web hosting, dedicated hosting; co-locating hosting, shared hosting reseller hosting.
Shared Web Hosting
Shared web hosting or virtual web hosting are two terms for the same thing. Shared web hosting means that on a web server are hosted many web sites that all have a defined quota of HDD space and bandwidth. They all run simultaneously and there can be from hundreds to thousands of web sites on the same web server. Given the high number of web sites should you worry about exceeding the performance of the web server, issue better known as slow server response, meaning that your visitors will have to wait too long for your web pages to load. That is usually not a real problem when dealing with serious web hosting providers, because the operational parameters of the web servers are monitored and appropriate actions will be taken in order to maintain the level of service contracted. The greater number of web sites sharing the resources of a web server (HDD space, bandwidth, memory, CPU time), the web hosting provider can afford to offer its services at a lower cost. A minus would be that, even with high level of service, you will have to accept a slower server response time when choosing shared web hosting.
Reseller Web Hosting
When web-hosting providers offer their services, typically with a discount, to a third-party (a reseller that will thus become a web-hosting provider itself) and the latter subsequently offers web-hosting services under his branding. Indeed technically the reseller web hosting is very similar to shared web hosting, as many web sites end up sharing space and bandwidth on the same web server. The resellers usually are web designers or web developers who offer web hosting services as part of their integrated services. As the web-hosting provider offers resellers important discounts, the price they can offer is among the smallest in the industry. Compared with the shared web hosting, this system has technical support problem. It takes time and communication problems may occur on the course of your problem from the reseller to the web-hosting provider. Unless your site is a personal web site or non-commercial one, this poor support issue is enough to not consider this your primary option. Continuing this line of thought, how can you distinguish a reseller from a real web-hosting provider? It's not the professional design of the web site, not even the support contact facilities offered as may resellers might have contracts with the provider on the technical support and the person taking your calls might be working for the provider and identify himself to you as an employee of the reseller. Solid company information is made available usually only by serious providers. The price, that can get as low as under 5$/month is another hint, but you should consider it carefully with prices dropping through the industry.
Dedicated Web Hosting
In dedicated web hosting one single web server is rented to a single customer. Although this is the common belief, web-hosting providers usually divide a single web server computer between up to three customers. On the other hand there are web-hosting providers that actually give an entire web server to a customer. Even with three customers sharing the web server, the dedicated web hosting option offers the customers the option to host more than one web site, configure the software to best meet the needs of his site or scale the available bandwidth. The high prices combined with the availability of resources recommend this type of web hosting for highly important web sites such as e-commerce sites.
Co-location Web Hosting
Co-locating web hosting is similar with dedicated web hosting. The main difference is that while in dedicated web hosting the web server computer belongs to the web-hosting provider and is only rented by the customer, in co-locating web hosting the customer owns the web server computer. The web-hosting provider only houses the web server computer and sells bandwidth to the customer. This gives the customer using co-locating web hosting full control of the web server combined with the security of the data center.
Now you should be equipped with the necessary information to decide on you web hosting. You shouldn't try and find the lowest price possible, but give some extra thought to the quality of service you are buying and to the support offered by a web host provider.

Elements of Web Hosting

When you first start out trying to get a site on the Internet everything seems so confusing. Obtuse acronyms flow freely through the 'Beginner Friendly' information sites and definitions can be hard to come across. The main reason for this is that the Internet and the process of getting a website online is really very simple, and once people get past the first stumbling steps they rarely remember the difficulty they once had, which leads to them being unable to understand the next wave of dot com newbies.
So let's begin with defining some of the basic terms that are commonly thrown around when looking for a web host. You'll quickly realize that computer geeks like using big words for simple concepts. What do you expect from a group of people that decided to call half a Byte a Nibble?
Web Host: These are the people that supply your website with somewhere to sit and be accessed from. They're often a wealth of information, so when you're trying to find your feet it will often be worthwhile to contact their tech support and get your questions answered. Because of this, it's important to contact them BEFORE you sign up for any packages to ensure that you'll receive a timely response. Just fire an email their way and see what happens.
Disk Space: This is the same as the space on your own PC's hard drive. Web Hosts will allocate a certain amount of space to your website, usually in Megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). This determines how much you can store on your site.
Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be retrieved from your site within the bandwidth period. The bandwidth period is the length of time before your bandwidth gets reset once again, usually about a month. Bandwidth is measured in MB and GB, like disk space. Always find out the consequences of exceeding your allocated bandwidth before you purchase a hosting package.
Domain Name: The domain name is your personal identifier on the Internet. This is what gets typed into a web browser's address bar to reach your site. Some hosting companies will offer a domain for free, while others will have the facilities to provide one for a minimal cost.
SQL (MySQL, SQL Server etc.): Structured Query Language. This is the language used to interact with databases. Chances are that if you don't know about it when you start looking for web hosting, you're not going to need to know about it for at least a little while longer.
HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. Basically, how the Internet works. It is the protocol governing the transfer of web pages from one place to another.
HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language. This is (usually) what you'll be using to make your website, whether directly or indirectly. Don't be scared by the name, the 'language' is very easy to learn.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol. This is a method for sending pages and files from your home PC to a server. It is quite simple to use and your host will provide login information if this is the method that they use for file access. Typing "FTP://" into My Computer on a windows box allows you to use FTP as if your server were a regular windows folder.
POP3: This is a common email 'post box' system. It is use to store emails for retrieval.
SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A common protocol used to send emails.

Free Web Hosting - Why Might It Be A Bad Idea

When talking about free anything the legitimate question that first pops into your mind is why pay when you can get it free?

And as for free web hosting there are plenty of places to get it from.

As spread as they are, if you are not a stranger to the whole Internet experience, you might even have a web site hosted for free. Are you satisfied with your provider? Is it everything you wanted? Probably not. Anyway it is true that is comes with no cost and no other aggravations? or are there any?
Free web hosting cost no money but what can you expect from one?
Your web site will be turned into an advertising machine that works for the free web host. Expect, banners, pop up windows, frames. They will all mess the look of your web site in terms of design and accessibility for your visitors that might be literally flooded with popups almost after every click-through.
You can't make advertising revenue of your web site, as most free web hosts don't allow it. This is not such a big issue when you are maintaining a personal web site, but the cutting-off advertising revenues can mean significant losses for a business. For this last case, only a paid web hosting solution might be the right answer.
Very little space for your web pages. With free web hosting provider offering 5 to 15 MB of disk space, your site's expansion will severely restricted. Growing your web site above the offered quota would result in transferring to a paid plan offered by the same hosting provider or finding a different paid web-hosting provider. In both cases you end paying for your hosting and you might loose traffic to your web site due to changing hosts.
No online store can go without secure server to enable secure online credit card processing. The great majority of free hosts don't support secure web servers. Customers fearing fraud and concerned about their personal information will make it impossible, at least very hard for an online store to survive on a free host. And anyway, have you ever heard of a successful online store hosted by a free web host? None will hear from yours either.
The uptime of your web site will be like the weather forecast. Hope for good, but prepare for the worse. Downtime through free web hosts is unfortunately very common. As web hosts generate their revenues from advertising, they don't feel very much compelled to care for the web site of a subscriber who doesn't pay them anyway.
To whom will you turn when experiencing the abovementioned downtime or other technical problem with your web site? Free web hosts usually have a limited budget and don't afford to hire large customer support teams, if any. You will find yourself alone, staring at the FAQ page.
Your domain name will be measured in feet and will tell nothing or very little of your business. This obviously results in low traffic scores, as your visitors won't be able to remember your URL. Can you rely only on search engines, linked sites and people bookmarking your web site? If yes, at least consider the fact that in the age when companies try to create a personalized image, your web site will be condemned to be just another subdomain of your free host.
Will your customers trust a business hosted by a free web host? What credibility will your web site inspire? Not a very high one.
The above list is really rather long, but as surprisingly as it might be, it is far from being complete. Other additions to it could be that free web hosts not always offer FTP access to your web site file, or you only have one e-mail address to work with and probably looks like mysite@anotherfreeserver.com.
Yes, paid web hosting requires money, but the prices are lower than they used to be, and the advantages are rather impressive. Just turn all the above you can't? or you have to do without? list around.
You are searching for a solution to host your business or even a professional personal web site, don't look for it at a free web host.

Finding a reliable hosting provider

The website hosting business is very competitive these days with hundreds of thousands of reliable hosting companies out there but what company is best for your needs and that will provide you with a reliable hosting service from customer support to the reliability of there web servers.
The following is what is the most important aspects you need to consider when choosing a web hosting provider:
1)Customer Service - Customer service is a very important aspect of any host if not the most important you will need to check there reliability by:
- Seeing if they have a 24 hour contact phone number
-FAQ section on there website to help you with the most common questions such as what are name servers?
-Ticket support to answer any non urgent questions that you might have
-Live support isn't essential but it is useful for quick help
2)Servers-The serer are the most important part of a web host since without them they can be a host.
-Here are some useful tips for finding a fast reliable server to host your site:
-The processor speed (CPU) e.g. Intel Pentium 2.8ghz (anything over 1.5ghz is sufficient)
-Memory (RAM) at least 512mb of ram
-Space this will all depend on your website needs if you are just starting at least 500mb is enough
-Bandwidth this will all depend on how many visitors your planning to visit your site in any given month. I would say that 5000mb will be more than sufficient for any small website.
-Operating system - Linux is the better and cheaper option for any website and is said to be better than windows in a web server environment. But if you are required to use any windows scripts such as .asp you will need to use the windows server
3)Customer Testimonials - See if other customers have voted for the web host on popular hosting directories or have made comments on the services that are offered by the host on there website.
These are the most important aspects that people look for in finding a web hosting provider these days and don't be afraid to pay a bit more than other companies as this usually reflects the service they offer but also don't be fooled.

How to Achieve # 1 on Free Hosting

A domain name and paid hosting are considered essential for an internet marketer.Majority of the websites that are successful have their own domain name and a paid host.However , is it possible to run a successful website on free hosting ?
A lot of people will answer no to that question.But it is very much possible if the right marketing techniques are applied.First of all , what is free hosting ? A website is basically stored for free on a company's server and in return some will put their ads on your site for free.
This can be very annoying indeed sometimes.In the case where there are two or more pop-up ads displayed , some people will not bother to look at your content.
Another thing to look at is that you will lose some credibility. Having a website on free hosting will not show you up as being truly professional. People will wonder what are you doing with your revenue if you generate any.
Still, this can be overcome to a certain degree. How can this be done ? Simply. By giving your visitors the best quality information as possible. Make that the best original content.
Optimising your website is also key. Title, description and keywords tags are very important to your site's success. The title, description and keyword tag combination can send your ranking mile high. Test several variations and see which one works best.
Link popularity can make or break your website. Almost all of the major search engines use this as the main factor when giving you a ranking. You need to find quality websites similar to yours to link with. The more quality links, the better it is for you.
So, you still don't believe it is possible ? My very first website is hosted free on the Geocities network. It has achieved #1 and top ten positions in dozens of search term categories on MSN, Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Excite and AOL.com.Plus two awards.
A domain name and paid hosting are considered essential for an internet marketer. However, if these are not in place your website can still be successful. All you need to do is apply yourself and the right marketing techniques.

Web Hosting - How To Choose The Right Provider For You

Thousands of companies, tens of thousands of different plans and only a few of them are really suitable for your web site and for your online needs. This is what you are confronted with when choosing a web-hosting provider.
Nowadays being part of the informational revolution that the Internet has brought along, it is compulsory for a business and also for individuals. No need to explain here why having a web site out there on the World Wide Web is such a must, instead we're only going to point out a few things related to choosing an adequate web host for your web site. As complicated this entire business might seem, once you know what to look for, it's really easier to find it.
Analyze your requirements and stick to them
When evaluating their needs in terms of space and bandwidth many inexperienced web owners often buy more than they will ever need. As this is unbelievably common, many web-hosting providers size their web servers taking this into account and actually over sell the space and bandwidth thinking that customers will never make full use of it. To avoid web hosts that result to just that or crowed their web servers to get an extra profit per customer, simply ask them their client per server ration. As a diligent buyer, you should do this with all the other companies you find interesting to do business with and are eligible to host your web site.
A web site is almost like a living creature. It grows. So try to leave some room for it, don't just buy a web-hosting plan that will fit your needs just perfectly. Buy a little more so when the time comes to expand you would have the resources available. Think of the possibility that your initial bandwidth evaluation proves itself insufficient. You might find yourself in the position not to be able to use your web site because you have exceeded your bandwidth. So leave margin for error too.
Most web hosting plans come packed with features and some even offer pre-installed scripts and programs that might come handy for both knowledgeable and less knowledgeable web owners.
As you could consider any extra feature a plus, don't forget to look for the things you actually need like the OS (Operating System) or the PHP support. You decide what you need, don't let the provider talk you into something you don't want or is less than you have expected.
Support - can you get enough of it?
Support is something you might overlook when you consider an offer that suits you in terms of space and bandwidth and is packed with all the other features you will ever going to need. It might be good to understand that the road to all those features goes through Support city. If the web-hosting provider is careless about the support he offers to his customers, any technical problem concerning your web site could be solved only after long hours of waiting and making plenty of irritating support calls.
To test the quality and the responsiveness of the support personnel, e-mail them some pre-sales questions. Is the response fact enough for you? Imagine that your web site is down and your company is just attending a congress? many clicks are expected, but is your web site online to get them? Is the response you are getting from the support team thorough or is it merely scratching the surface? Is the response easy to understand for you?
A provider concerned about the quality of his support, would make available as many as possible ways to communicate with its clients. So find out as much as you can about its online support staff, help desk, message boards etc.
Information on the reputation of a web-hosting provider is something you might find on forums or discussion boards. Any disgruntled customers there? Would you like to be one?
Reliability is another aspect of the problem. Ask for the uptime of the company's web servers. Some hosts offer an uptime guarantee, usually 99.9% (100% is not a realistic figure in the computer world). The guarantee means that if your web site is not available 99.9% of the time, you will be refunded the money for that month or you will receive free web hosting for a month as compensation for your web site being unavailable.
Price
Well, true it's paid web hosting and this means you have to pay for it. My advice would be don't try too hard to find the cheapest possible web host. You will probably end-up wasting an incredible amount of time and is very likely that within two weeks after you have bought it, you will stumble upon a better deal. Apart from the irony of it and the loss of time, cheaper is not always better.
The other extreme, paying big money to get what you could have gotten for less is equally bad. At $50 for 200 MB of space with 2 GB of bandwidth you are definitely getting robbed, but the same service for $5 or $10 is a good deal.
The thin line between a profitable and, why not, enjoyable web presence and a nightmare with slow server response, unreachable support and irritating server downtime is drawn by you. By you choosing the web-hosting provider. Choose carefully: there can be only one a few that will live up to their promises and deliver for you good quality web hosting!

Windows Hosting versus Linux Hosting

The matter of choosing between the operating system (OS) running the web server hosting your web site as old as the web hosting business. The OS controls all the functions of the web server hosting your site, so it comes naturally to pay special attention when choosing one over another. But what are really the options you have?
Mainly you can choose between web hosting based on Windows, Linux or Unix operating systems. A brief description and analysis of the different systems will narrow the list of options to only two.
Microsoft's Windows server operating systems (NT/2000/2003) have a rather friendly and familiar user interface, making IT teams to easier in this aspect. Another plus is given by it's excellent integration capabilities with other applications developed by Microsoft and let's face it their range is absolutely impressive. The main key point of Windows based hosting is its support for .ASP (Active Server Pages) or the advanced ASP.NET. This language for web development was created by Microsoft to facilitate the creation of dynamic web pages linked to SQL databases. It also provides capabilities for integration with other systems.
It can be said that Unix is the OS that powered the beginning of the Internet era and due to his qualities is still used today. Linux OS was developed having Unix as starting point and this is how the two share many features. Today the Linux version of the Unix system is more common on web servers and this has to do with the higher licensing costs and with the rather specific hardware requirements for Unix. This is why we will continue with Linux only, but Unix is taken into account as well. Linux hosting has its strong points in fulfilling one's requirements for a good web server and Web serving, file serving, mailing, and streaming are only a few. It proves itself is a very cost-effective choice from using hardware efficiently, and allowing an increased web sites per server ratio, this ultimately resulting in a decreasing the cost of hosting per account.
So here are our two choices Windows and Linux.
Reliability
In the past Linux OS were seen as more reliable over Windows. However with the release of Windows 2003 server Microsoft has gone a long way and closed the gap in this area. Linux servers are compatible with certain Microsoft extensions and applications and the same is true for Windows.
Web Programming
Even if trying to host a simple personal web site, your might want add some simple scripts to spice up your pages. The issue gets bigger when you are looking to host an e-commerce site supported by some serious server-side programming. So how are our two contenders doing in this aspect?
Supporting java scripts is not a topic to be argued upon as they are executed on the client side (the user's web browser) and both Linux and Windows have no problem feeding this content to your visitors.
It is a whole different matter when discussing server side scripting. For web site owners trying to implement forms on their site it is common knowledge that ASP is supported by Windows and PHP is the tool to do just that under Linux. However both developed solutions to support each other's programming language for web development. This support is not perfect and its limitations recommend Linux for a good PHP support and Windows for ASP, especially when it comes to hosting web sites that require the full use the advantages offered by PHP or ASP.
Linux offers a support for FrontPage extensions. Windows has a weak point in offering only limited CGI/Perl support, so if Perl is the scripting language of your choice, you should opt for Linux.
Databases
Dynamically driven web sites require some sort of databases. Beyond sites employing databases, most frequently you will encounter mySQL or MSAccess. If your web site is relying on mySQL, then you'll have no problems hosting it on either Windows or Linux. For MSAccess databases, look your only option is Windows.
Price
Linux web hosting is cheaper. The reason must be searched in licensing costs, that are lower that for Windows, and in the ability of Linux web servers to support a higher web sites per server ratio without compromising the quality of service.
Although Windows hosting cost a bit more, you will get something for your money. It's reduced development time and functionality
As the option of one over another depends basically of your actual needs and of the plans you have made for the future of your web site. For example will it move from a rather static web site to one relying heavily on server side scripting? And if it is so what would be the programming language used: PHP or ASP? Consequently your web site will be set up on a Linux or on a Windows web server.
Almost all serious web-hosting providers will offer you the choice between Linux and Windows.

How To Change Your Web Hosting Provider - Step-By-Step Guide

Whether you are disgruntled with the level of service your current web hosting provider, or you have discovered a provider that offers you better deal, or your online business has simply outgrown your present provider, any reason is as good as any for changing your web hosting provider. The only concern is how to switch your web site from a web host to another in the right way and no or as little aggravations as possible.
The very first step in changing web hosting providers is to find one that meets all your requirements. Although you should have some experience in finding one from your last search, let's still review the main issues when choosing one. Take a good look at the disk space and bandwidth your future plan will provide you. As you web site's bandwidth requirements may grow in time, purchase a little more than you need and take a good look at the costs of the bandwidth for exceeding your traffic quota. Also make sure that the new web hosting provider will offer you the same tools and installed software as your previous old one. Ask the technical support if the software or scripts in the offer are already installed and configured. It would be a bad experience to find out after you have completely migrated your web site that not everything is working properly just because the not all the software in the offer comes pre-installed and you should have requested its activation. All these are very important and ensure you don't have to go through this whole procedure of changing web hosts real soon in the future.
Sign up for the new hosting plan. It sounds obvious, but the thing you should look after is sign up for the new one while still having about two weeks until your old hosting plan expires. This will give you time to react if anything goes wrong during the migration of your web site and will smoothen the transition for your visitors or customers, your business enjoying as much continuity as possible.
Update your backup copy of your web site - you do have backups don't you? If not this is a very good place to start with. Best thing would be to have a backup copy of your web site burned onto a compact disk CD and store this CD into a safe location. Your backup will include the entire web site: files, images, directory structure, databases.
Upload your web site to the web servers of your new web hosting provider.
Now it is testing time. Most web hosting providers will offer you the possibility to preview your web site before it goes live. Use this feature to test if your web site looks good and its functionalities are all intact on your new web server.
Continue by configuring your existing e-mail accounts on the new web server. It would be a good idea to write down the new POP3 and SMTP you will be using soon.
If you haven't changed your web site design with this move, it will be a good idea to put mark the web pages on your new web server just o differentiate from the old one. In this way you will be able to tell when your DNS information is updated, which is the next step of migrating your web site.
It's time to change your name server. As anxious you might be to transfer, it would be a very good thing to announce your visitors and customers about the imminent change of web hosting providers you are making and to apologize for any possible inconveniences of downtime your web site might encounter. I don't need to tell you how important this announcement is for the overall image of your web business.
Now you can announce your registrar to change your DNS information, or if you can change it yourself, go ahead and do it.
All you have to do now is wait for the DNS information to propagate across all the DNS servers. This entire process could take as much as 72 hours to complete, but it is possible to start seeing the first results after a couple of hours.
Final step would be to update the e-mail client you are using to match the new POP3 and SMTP settings.
You have successfully changed your web hosting provider. Good luck with the new one!

Cheap Web Hosting, What To Look For And What To Stay Away From

Bargains for sale, Unlimited Hosting for only a Dollar."
"Get your hosting here, 50 cents for the first three months. "
"Use now. Pay later".
In today's world of hosting, instead of who's got the bigger and better thing, it's who has it for the cheapest and don't forget that they usually it at an "unlimited level". But if everyone is offering the same control panel, running off of the same type of servers or even from the same data center, why not get it for the cheapest price you can? The reason is, even though the servers may be the same, the service varies with each company and price. This is not to say that the cheapest can't offer the best service but always remember the old adage "you get what you pay for".
Let's break down the costs involved with running a small hosting company that manages a few, low-cost servers from a reputable data center. The dedicated server business has grown within the last few years and competition has created the availability of unmanaged, low-cost server rentals that can range as low as $49 per month.
For our case study, let's pretend that Bob has leased a server from a reputable data center at an average price of $89 per month. He was even lucky enough to signup during a special that waived the setup fees. At a cost of $89, he now has his own dedicated Unix server running one of the more popular control panels that regular hosting customers like to use. Like many small one or two-man hosting companies, he runs the business out of his house as it would be almost impossible to actually obtain office space on location of the data center, not to mention that he could be in one state and the server might be three states over. Leasing a dedicated server means that he is not responsible for the hardware and only has to maintain the software. This frees Bob up from the added expenses of hardware replacement and allows him to concentrate his investment on marketing, software, scripts and service.
Bob is an extremely good salesman and has a mature understanding of how to run a business. His best friend Billy has a vast knowledge of managing a server and its software, so together; they will be able to manage most common aspects of the business on a day to day basis.
They have purchased or designed a nice website and spent the average of $600 for support items such as tutorials and a customer forum. With the website design and extras, their initial investment averaged at $1000 which they hope to recoup within the first six months of operation. Now, this may be an added cost that some small hosting companies avoid at the beginning, but try to remember, if they are serious about running a company, they will put some type of investment into it. Taking the initial investment spread over 6 months and adding the cost of servers at $89 for the first one, Billy and Bob are spending more than $250 monthly during the first six months of operation on minimum expenses. This does not include other expenses such as their salaries and outside expenses such as phone bills (if they offer phone support), utilities, advertising expenses, etc.
An average amount of customers or domains to have on an individual server is 200 and since Bob is starting out with a new company and no customers, he can acquire 25-30 customers monthly if he works really hard at it. To fill a server, they would need eight months of growth, and that doesn't include the costs involved during that time. The cost of operation during those eight months is estimated at $1700, without any extra expenses and no personal income derived from the venture. If they were to charge $2 per customer on a recurring monthly basis and signed up 25 customers per month, they'd make $100 profit at the end of 8 months. Remember, this is done without any personal income made at all. Once they add in an advertising budget and allotment for person income for Bob and Billy, the cost jumps dramatically. They aren't in the business to make friends, they are in it to make money and $100 spread over eight months is not much.
Let's start adding a small income for Bob and Billy of $1000 monthly each and an advertising budget of $500 per month in order to acquire those customers and calculate what they need to charge to break even after those first eight months. A safe estimate would be $3,000 monthly to cover salaries, server cost, advertising and other miscellaneous items. If they were able to signup 200 customers during the first eight months, they would need to charge $15 per customer to cover the $3000 monthly overhead. If they charged only $2 per customer, they would need to signup an estimate of 2,000 customers to do the same. Because Bob and Billy decided to charge only $2 per customer, they have to support 2,000 customers by themselves because they don't have enough profit to hire any more technicians.
As a customer, you need to realize these things before you start shopping for a hosting company. Now that you are educated on the backend of a hoster's life, you can ask yourself what type of company do you want hosting your website and what kind of website you need hosted. If you are running a small personal site that doesn't need constant uptime and special scripts, then you could choose one of the many free or low cost hosting solutions available. If the company was to go under or lost all of your information due to hardware or software failure, then you are really not at a lost because your website did not contain critical information.
But what if your site does contain critical information and is the lifeblood of your company? Then don't go cheap. Research your options, find the one with the best solutions and don't be afraid to spend more for less. It is very important to find a stable company with quality support and service and that doesn't come cheap. Make sure that if your information is critical, the company offers reliable backup solutions and has a reasonable uptime.
Phone support is a must for quick response and let's not forget the numbers 24/7. Hosting companies with higher price tags can afford to hire the extra technicians to hold your hand as you build your web presence and your company, which can be important in today's market.
But does all of this mean that cheap hosting is a bad venture and should be avoided? Not really, just remember, "You get what you paid for."

Choosing Your Web Hosting Reseller Software

As a web host reseller, one of your most important business decisions is your choice of web hosting control panel software. The web hosting software you use will save or cost you time, money, and frustration. What reseller control panel features will reduce your workload? What hosting software programs are integrated with the reseller control panel or work with it? What website control panel features will your clients like? In this article, we've compared four quality web hosting reseller software programs:
Alabanza
cPanel
H-Sphere
Plesk
All of these reseller control panels come with control panels for your clients. They all have numerous features - advanced email management, web statistics, pre-installed scripts, multi-language support, and more. They all work on Linux platforms, while H-Sphere and Plesk also work with Windows. According to the cPanel website, a Windows version of cPanel is in development.
Other features that set these control panels apart are their degree of automation, the number of features and ease of use for the end user, and the features and ease of use for you, the reseller.
Alabanza When you become an Alabanza reseller, you don't just have a reseller account - you lease a dedicated server from Alabanza. Alabanza owns the control panel and the server, and you resell directly for Alabanza. If you lease a dedicated Alabanza server, you can create your own reseller accounts. However, only you can set up hosting plans; resellers below you will be limited to hosting plans that you create.
Alabanza offers resellers a high degree of automation with its Domain System Manager (DSM), which can significantly reduce overhead and time spent on routine tasks:
- Account creation
- Billing and invoice management
- Credit card processing
- Domain registration
- Email notifications
- Ordering fraud protection
Even novices can sell hosting with this level of automation.
DSM also integrates with bulkregister.com for domain name registration. It does not easily integrate with other domain registrars, though.
A key Alabanza feature that resellers can offer their clients is the Xpress Product Suite, which provides web development and email management tools. The Xpress Product Suite includes SiteXpress, a website-building program that features over 300 templates and requires no web design skills.
cPanel For resellers and end users, cPanel is known for its ease of use and range of features. cPanel's collection of over 50 pre-installed scripts and Fantastico auto installer help clients set up their sites with little web development knowledge.
A basic cPanel reseller account comes with two separate programs for resellers to manage their business:
WHM (Web Host Manager) is used to create accounts and packages, add and suspend sites, modify passwords, view bandwidth usage, park domains, install SSL certificates, and perform other administrative functions.
From the reseller's cPanel control panel, a drop-down menu takes the reseller to the control panels for each of the sites on the reseller account, including the reseller's site.
With the addition of an optional program, WHM AutoPilot, you can automate account creation and suspension, email notifications, and other tasks. WHM AutoPilot also integrates with common payment gateways and has a helpdesk, an invoice module, and other tools.
H-Sphere H-Sphere is designed for both Linux and Windows platforms. Moreover, resellers can set up plans for both Linux and Windows and administer sites on different servers from the same control panel. The control panel, actually a separate server, also provides administrative access to the integrated helpdesk.
The H-Sphere control panel server automates account configuration, credit card processing, domain registration, and email notifications. It also includes a built-in billing module and supports over 20 payment gateways.
From the reseller's point of view, H-Sphere has a higher learning curve than most other control panels because of its numerous features. For example, when setting up a new plan, the administrator has two pages of features to choose from, including setup and monthly pricing for optional services.
Beginning webmasters may find H-Sphere too complicated for their needs. More advanced users, however, appreciate the features and control that H-Sphere offers the end user. A key feature is the ability to have control over separate domains with multi-domain hosting.
H-Sphere comes with the website builder Site Studio, which guides users through a variety of style choices and stores content separately from the layout. No HTML or FTP knowledge is required.
Plesk Plesk is known for its stability and security. Resellers and end users like its simple navigation, its clean interface, and its professional appearance. It comes in versions for both Linux and Windows platforms.
With Plesk, all users use the same control panel but with different levels of control:
- Server administrator
- Client / reseller
- Domain owner
- Mail user
Each level of the control panel gives the user control of that level and the level(s) below it. Email users, for example, can log into their mail user control panel to change their password, add autoresponders, and change other personal settings without having access to the domain owner control panel.
Plesk handles SpamAssassin at the mailbox level rather than at the domain level.
This feature enables users to whitelist or blacklist email for each email address, allowing each email user to have individual settings.
SWsoft, the company behind Plesk, also offers Site Builder, a five-step website builder using pre-built templates. SiteBuilder has over 300 templates in different categories to choose from, and users can publish their sites without any HTML or FTP knowledge.
If your Plesk reseller account is with a web host that offers HSPcomplete, you will have some automation available with your account, such as credit card charges and email notification.

Importance of Educated Choice While Choosing A Web Hosting Provider

There are many attributes that makes a web hosting provider stand out from the crowd. But in this current highly competitive world the providers have become so adept in posing as the best out there that it becomes very difficult to choose the best for your business. Now it is the "knowledge" about what factors to consider becomes a must have, for your business. This is not an article about the factors themselves to consider but this makes the point for the need to have this knowledge and how to acquire this knowledge. In the services industry knowledge is almost everything. The knowledge about the technology behind the service, knowledge about the folks behind the service, knowledge of the customer service, quality of the hosting available and many more to list here. When you begin your search the first and foremost to decide is the budget allocation for the hosting. This may sound as something to decide at the end of the cycle, but it is important even before you acquire knowledge of the factors to consider. Let me put forward a small example if the budget you can allocate is less then 100$ then you ignore terms like dedicated servers collocation, etc. The more your budget the more you have to learn.
There are many ways to acquire knowledge the first and foremost is to read more articles like this one you are reading. If you are reading this one you have started the first step. The more you read the more you can acquire knowledge. This is the cheapest way to understand your needs. Based on the budget you have to choose the topics you read. Budgeting is not just about money it is also about time. It is more so important to choose topics that really fit your needs. You got to consider the sources correctly. The one thing that is as important as choice of a good hosting provider, is choosing the right sources to get educated about the choice. Do you understand the five nine's and do you need it for your business. Is PHP a technology you may need for your web site? Do you prefer a dynamic and faster website over a reliable standard search friendly simple web site? When you go to each provider they try to sell you a much bigger plan or plans with features you may never need. The main thing that you should note is "Are you paying for technology that you will never need?" Let's say for example the thing that costs the hosting provider is the Urchin stats, they pay a good license fee for it and thy bill it on their customers. But for any good business some of the free stats like Awstats or the open source solutions are more than enough for a typical business. The hosting providers add these to make the package attractive. You have to judge by the core features and then finally go in for the add-ons which may complement the core.
The other main source for research is to talk directly with the hosting providers and ask them for an honest opinion on what features your business would need. Based on my own experience once you endure the first phase of reading through articles and doing further research, you need to talk to atleast 8 providers. The common mistake done by the small website owners is settling for the cheap sources and ignoring the rest. There are a few crappy providers out there who give out services damn cheap and may just shut down shop and vanish when they figure a server is crashed. They should have the proper support folks and the right business model to bill customers for the support rendered. The last but not least is to consult with the web consultants a talk to folks who have hosted before. This is a long process but you will appreciate the knowledge you have gained when you negotiate that best deal and when you easily resolve issues or when you grow. I hope this article was of some help to get you initiated and in the resource box there is one source for articles and another to answer your hosting queries to initiate the process.

Cheap Web Hosting is No Bargain

Ever heard the saying "Penny-wise and Dollar-foolish"?
Well bargain priced website hosting may just represent the perfect example of watching a jar full of pennies while bucket loads of dollars fly out the window!
When I launched my first website way back in the "dark ages" of 1997 I paid almost $150 a month in hosting and data transfer charges.
My web host watched how many files I uploaded like a hawk and always seemed to send their hefty invoices earlier with each passing month.
I'm obviously not the only one who felt that way, because suddenly a whole industry of "bargain" web hosts sprang up all over the web.
On the surface they all sound great, especially when you think you can go from $150 a month down to $4.95 a month!
Five bucks a month sounds great, until you realize the amount of data transfer (number of page views) and bandwidth (the amount of data transfer your host allows in a 24 hour period) you get for that low price severely limits your ability to do business.
This realization - along with a panic attack and a quick lesson in how data transfer and bandwidth get calculated - usually comes at the least convenient time.
When you exceed your limits, a bargain host usually just shuts you down with no warning.
Most webmasters realize they've made a mistake by choosing a bargain host when their site suddenly gets shut down in the middle of a big promotion because of a traffic spike. Believe me, everything just stops!
Here are a few bargain hosts that provide good service, but you really need to really check the fine print for how much bandwidth they allow.
www.FeaturePrice.com
For $24.95 a month you get to host up to six independent websites with a single account. You get unlimited data storage, unlimited email and a variety of other higher end services, but their bandwidth policy seems hard to understand.
www.HostSave.com
Host Save is another low price hosting company that delivers a wide range of services for only $6.95 per month. They recently raised their allowable data transfer, but their policy on how much bandwidth you can use at a given time seems non-existent.
www.DotEasy.com
For $25 DotEasy offers a domain name purchase along with one year's hosting. Sounds incredible until you read the fine print to discover they limit you to 1 Gigabyte of data transfer a month. Not much data once you start getting reasonable site traffic.
The moral here? Either be prepared to have your business shut down mid-stream if you get successful, or pay a few extra bucks each month to ensure you have enough bandwidth and data transfer.
At a minimum, specifically ask and read the fine print about the host's bandwidth and data transfer policies before it's too late!

Top 6 Ways to Promote Your Web Hosting Business Part 1

Promoting a new company in the crowded industry of web hosting today is really hard. There are many tactics that work well and are legitimate, and you can use them to promote your company using them.
I will write these 6 ways to promote your web hosting business in two parts, three methods in this article and the following three in the second part. All 6 methods can be used for any kind of business, not only for a web hosting company. Here there are:
1. Referral Program
The referral program system is one of the best ways to get new customers. You can setup the system to make your current customers refer new customers. The customers have a special tracking id that they can give to other people they want to refer. This way, when an existing customer's id has been used the customers receives a commission. Also, you should refer the customer an account where he can check the statistics of his campaign. It's better to sign up the customer to the referral program so they can start referring people to your site right away. For the management and tracking mentioned above you can use some ready made soft wares that you can find on the web.
2. Word of Mouth
That's just about the same as the referral program, the difference consists in not paying the commission to the customer that refers new customers. This is a very good way to promote your web hosting service. To make one of your customers refer other customers you should be providing a very good service to make that customer happy. So, make sure you keep the existing customers happy because a happy customer base means more business is coming your way.
You can ask your customers if they are happy and if the answer is positive you can ask them to submit a testimonial or to review your company.
3. Join Forum Discussions
There are a lot of good forums where web hosting is discussed. You can join this kind of forums and contribute and offer help to others members while keeping your signature with your URL at the bottom of your post. You can post in the signature your weekly or monthly special offers.
So, helping others on this kind of forums can send new customers on your website, meaning more business for your web hosting business. But don't just go there to post and ad, be active and be a part of the forum's community.
These are the first three ways you can send more customers to your site, research each one of them because they do work very well. In the second part you will learn about three more promotion methods that can help you grow your web hosting business.

How to Choose a Web Hosting Company ?

Web Hosting Advice
Choosing a web hosting company to host your website isn't easy these days. There are literally thousands of web hosting companies to choose from, each offering different combinations of web space, bandwidth, extras (such as databases, asp, php, cgi, free scripts), and customer support. Some companies lure customers with extremely low prices on the physical assets like space and bandwidth. In return, however, most customers of these extremely low-priced companies get poor - if any - customer and technical support. In the hosting business, as with everything else, you usually get what you pay for.
So how do you determine the web hosting company that's right for your website? Having been in the hosting business for several years, I've often had friends and acquaintances ask me, in so many words, this very question. I always suggest that they first sit down and simply write out what they think their website (whether for a company or personal) will need. Do they need a database? If so, what kind of database do they want, MySQL or something else? Likewise, do they need support for PHP, CGI, ASP, or some other programming language? If you have certain scripts you'd like to use on your website, these questions can be very important. Also think about exactly how much space your website is going to need - not necessarily right now, but perhaps five years down the road after you've expanded a bit. The same thing goes for bandwidth, or transfer. You want to secure enough space and bandwidth now so that you do not have to switch hosts, or pay a premium for extra services, in the future.
On the topic of bandwidth and storage space, there is an important financial lesson I'd like to impart. Although you want to make sure you have enough of both for the foreseeable future, you don't want to pay for lots and lots of bandwidth and storage space, month after month, that you will never actually use. For instance, there are many hosting companies out there who are now offering 5+ GB of space and perhaps 100 GB of bandwidth from $7 - $10 a month. This may seem like a pretty good deal. However, if you are only going to use perhaps 100 MB of space, and 10 GB of transfer, then you are wasting money! You can find a nice 500MB / 20GB plan for under $5 per month. This is where planning really comes into play; know how much space and bandwidth you will need before you go looking for a host.
Many hosting companies, big and small, are offering 24/7 technical and customer support these days. Be very weary of these claims. Most companies that claim 24/7 support don't really live up to expectations. In addition, a 1-800 number does not guarantee that someone will actually answer you phone call, or even be helpful. Look for a company that has a good, honest support structure set up with a variety of support options: support tickets, live support chat, e-mail support, and perhaps phone support as well. My own web hosting company, for instance, has everything but phone support. We are still capable of answering inquiries within minutes. If you are considering a particular web host, the best thing you can do to evaluate their support is simply send them an e-mail or open a support ticket and see how long it takes them to respond to your inquiry. If it takes more than 24 hours, that's probably a bad sign.
In order to substantiate the credibility of your potential web hosting company, I suggest looking for some type of customer testimonials on their webpage. If they list the customer's website or e-mail address, go the extra step and contact at least one of the customers. They will be able to confirm that they are real customers and let you know about their experiences with the given company. If they have no testimonials, or the testimonial listings do not contain a means of contacting the customers, do a search on the company using a big search engine like Google and Yahoo!. Look for forums and other webpages that may contain customer feedback about your company. Many times, customers that have either had a very bad or very good experience with a hosting company will go onto at least one webmaster forum and tell others about their experience. Looking up these comments is a good way to get a third-party assessment of a particular hosting company.

Will All The $1.95 And Free Hosts Survive?

The main thing wrong today with trying to find a host for most individuals and businesses is the shear number of them. Their prices range from free to hundreds of dollars per month. When you go out on the web today and do a search for hosting you will find page upon page of hosts. Some are well established companies with solid reputations and business plans that make sense. Yet some are beyond belief that anyone would host with a company that offers you a 100mb website for $.99. Yes I said that right $.99.
The other day I was purusing the search listings and came across a host that is providing just such a product. What I cannot figure out is why? The simple fact is to make any money on this plan with your expenses figured in it would take around 100 to 200 hundred such clients. That seems like an awful lot of work for any company for such a small profit margin. I thought to myself that the headaches alone would finish off any profit you might have made via hospital bills. These plans are numerous in varying denominations. And one has to think what in the world are they thinking.
I am not saying that they should not provide a cheaper alternative, but that in the end it is the client (you) that will suffer. Most of the hosts that go under each month are the ones that did not properly figure in their cost structure to allow for all their true and tangible and untangible expenses. They also do not consider the work involved in servicing those 200 accounts each day for their possible $50 per month profit if you can call it that. Ahh just enough to buy some Excederin! If only they would have taken a moment to think of the ultimate outcome of this course of business.
I know you are thinking that you are one of these people that have a host providing you with ultra cheap service. "What is he talking about my host is stable" or are they? So one day you are sitting at your computer desk and you go to your computer and go to your website and oh no the site is gone. You think to yourself "I know I paid my $12 for the year last month so I should not have any problems", but you do. Your host who most likely has been running their service from their home also has just gotten out of the business without notifying you at all.
This sounds impossible, but it does happen. And even worse is the cost of trying to recoup your lost $12 worth it? Probably not! So why did they go out of business? Well that is very obvious. They were simply overwelhmed by the sheer number of clients and the negative cash flow. And guess what dont feel bad because there are people everyday that this happens to from both free and budget hosting companies. Including myself. Yes I said myself.
It was not to long ago that I first got on the internet and decided that there is no reason that I need to pay for hosting when I can get it free. So I went out on the internet and searched every free host for the largest most feature rich plan and signed on with them. That is when my nightmare began for 2 tortous weeks. The very first day I loaded my site and began thinking of ways to promote my new game site that I had created. My kids were excited about and I wanted them to spread the word at school.
That evening I got on to check on my site and found the system down. I thought ok it is just a glitch for a few minutes. Three hours later the site comes back up. I send off my email to the company support who states they had a client who overloaded the system with to many downloads. Now I did not say much as this could happen to any system. And so I went on about promoting my site. Things went well for two days and I was starting to see my forums take off as we allready had 30+ members.
Then it started again as the site went down again. This time for three days, with no contact from the company. When I finally was able to contact them they gave me the same reason and told me that this was free hosting and if I did not like it to find another host. Lets just say that I was not real happy with this answer or statement. So as my site is running smoothly again for a couple days the excitement level builds until "blam" the site is down again. Now I am very upset and wondering what I was thinking in joining these guys. This time the site never comes up again. I mean never! When I finally get an email from the site owner he says that this other client was downloading 20gb of material per hour at a sustained rate. He then proceeds to tell me his overage bills are astronomically high. Now I stopped dead in my tracks and could not believe he said that. The reason I say that is because when I signed up it was an unlimited bandwidth providor. How could that be?
Well people there is no such thing as unlimited. Everything has a limit in this world. It is a matter of if we find it and he did. Seems that he did not figure in what would happen if one of his clients actually used unlimited bandwidth. Failure to plan a solid business model had got him. It also got me as I had information on my site that I had not backed up yet. So I lost a whole lot of work.
The sad truth is that no matter if you think you have gotten a great deal on hosting, have you? What is here tommorrow could be gone tommorrow. This is not to say that you might not go out and join up with a host that charges alot more and they might not go out of business tommorrow. It is just a simple fact that they might have a more sound business plan and also be able to afford to have a technician available for problems that may arise. I made the choice to go with a more expensive plan, but I also was able to get a real amount of storage and bandwidth also. Not one of these 100mb to 500mb plans that charge you $10 to $25 per month. Now that is highway robbery and another article in its own.
So make sure that you choose wisely and if your budget allows maybe consider going with a host that is little more expensive, but lets you rest assured at night that they will still be there when you wake up in the morning. And will these budget hosts and freewebsite hosts be around next year? Well we do not know. If run well they might. Just remember you are usually paying a one man team on these hosts. Good Luck!

What You Should Know About Your Web Host

Yesterday I received a nice email in my inbox, I read that short and interesting email, it was like 5 to 6 lines max, at the end was a link which I was asked to click on. I did exactly that. I wait for about 1 minute but no page downloaded. I think my Internet connection gets down so I checked it but it was perfect.
I refresh the page many times but results were same. I read all other mails and did my routine work. In evening suddenly I remember that mail. Since it was so Interesting, I again read it and click on the link but this time also same results appears. I finally give up and delete that mail.
This whole episode left a question in my mind that why people don't choose their web host wisely. In fact it's the most vital part of Internet business.
A web host is the first important step towards building our Internet business. You can get cheap or even free hosting services but don't prefer free hosting for commercial sites. Your users are going to get blasted with annoying pop-ups every time they surf to your page, it's going to be impossible to get a decent position in a search engine, and you don't even get a real business URL. No one's going to remember your web address if they have to type www.myfreehost.com/my_site.
So the question is what points we should consider before select our web host.
1. Space
It's the first point to consider that how much space your host is providing to you. If you have one or two page website with no downloads, it's not an important point but if you are planning to go for resale right product, you need at least 100 MB space. Most good web host provide minimum 1 GB space to their clients.
2. Bandwidth
It's the most important part to check. Did you know that sites with high downloads causes many people to go over budget on bandwidth and lose their host? Sometimes they have to pay fees up to hundreds of dollars. It's essential to check before buying any hosting services. Most good host provides 25 to 50 GB Bandwidth.
3. Support System
It's also key point. If you get stuck at any point, how long does it take to get support? Do they provide 24/7 phone support.
Some Additional features we must check:
How many POP email account they are providing?
How many database they are providing?
Do they have Web based e-mail?
Do they have Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus filters?
Can you Password Protected your directories?
Do they take regular backup in case of server get crashed?
Do they have money-back Guarantee, if you don't like their services?
Do they support Perl, PHP, Crontab and Secure Server Layer?
(You don't require these facilities in beginning but after some time you need it.)
I personally trust "Ultimate Web Hosting Services" for my hosting needs. They have all features that a professional host must have. The must to tell feature of this hosting service is that it gives one hour response guarantee but usually I get response in 5-10 minutes. I prefer this hosting service just because of its speedy response and its tons of superb qualities. You can try their services at: http://www.ultimatewebhostingservices.com
I am not saying that they are the best. There may be other companies that have even better services but in terms of their prices they are the best.
So whatever host you choose you must consider these points so you never get in trouble.

How To Find The Best Web Hosting For You

Deciding on the best web hosting company for a web site is often difficult if an individual isn't sure what they should look for in their web hosting company. Examining the promotional material and information of most web hosting services can make choosing the best web hosting service a time consuming challenge. Being aware of what an individual needs from the best web hosting company that will meet every need now and as an individual's needs can change will help pin down what make the best choices.
Unless an individual has extremely simple needs from a web hosting service, he or she will want to think twice before taking advantage of free web hosting services. If a person needs to be able to have guest books, a counter, polls, shopping cart or any number of other features on their web site, a free web hosting service is not likely to support those needs. Not only can free or super cheap web sites restrict what a person can use on their site, but they also tend to have a number of times when the user cannot access their web site. Sometimes free web hosting does not make the best web hosting company choice simply due to the fact that technical support is insufficient or nonexistent.
The best web hosting company may not cost as much as other web hosting services, so it is always a good idea to browse and look for the best price. When finding the best price for a web hosting service, an individual should make sure that the services he or she is considering offers the kind of features and options that they need on their web site. While a price might seem to be too low to be the best web hosting company and service available, some prices are unnecessarily high and an individual can often find the same service and features offered by another provider at a lower price.
When an individual thinks that they have found the best web hosting company available to meet their needs, it is important to be able to contact customer service in order to ask questions or find information including what extra features like additional web space or bandwidth might cost. The best web hosting companies will always have a phone number that a live person can be reached at in addition to supporting statistics and regular technical support.

Web Hosting Woes for Beginners

Every individual when it starts surfing the net for choosing its hosting partner get confused by variety of offers. Most of the beginners usually fall into trap of free hosting, cheaper hosting and other stuff that lead them to land in no man's land later on. All there efforts and time goes in vein and he has a nightmare to restart working on things again. There is no doubt that every one out there on internet look for cheap or free hosting, it is very much important to make decisions thinking of long term prospects. Here are some reasons why:
1. Free sites or free hosting does not have any guarantee; there is a chance to be removed tomorrow. The most important reason I like to highlight that, it leads your site permanently removed from search engines too. There are billions of sites are coming up day by day. The popularity of site is much depend up the maturity of it and it place in search engines natural ways, once you get your site deleted from there it is very hard to bring back the new things again as the vacuum was immediately filled by others.
2. Free hosting or free sites are usually supported by advertisements and other stuffs. You have created a free site in sub domain and also find good free hosting. You have done offline and online promotions to your customer's friends and other people who are known to you. Here you are falling in a trap, by promoting the ads and other stuffs of free hosting provider. Also the persons who have book marked your site will not find it again once it is removed by the host.
3. There are hell and heaven difference between a top level domain and a free sub domain. Domains are unique and represent the status of you. No other competitor of yours can steal your name and in matter of time your clients will memories the name. Where as any one can have any amount of free sub-domains, imagine your fate when your competitor starts doing that.
4. Imagine a good client found you on web and become interested it your product and services. Before hiring your services he definitely like know more about you or he will do a research first whether he should consider to contact you. If you hold a free hosting site the first impact of your will go in his mind that you are not a serious seller. To prevent this you should consider a personalized top level domain and consistent hosting services.
5. When you find a hosting company offers services extremely low price, consider twice before choosing. Do a small research to find out why it is so cheap, even below the industry standards. I always follow the principle that "Quality Never Comes Low." When it comes to provide support or services it involve some cost in manpower and other stuffs which a company need to meet day today. Don't fall in trap of fly by night operators, always begin with established and trusted providers in industry.
6. Other mistake usually most of the beginners do is, not keeping there backups at there own, but rely on hosting service providers. Imagine the host's server went down or free host removed the site, you are all stuck and have no option to start again from scratch, which is extremely painful.
7. The most common mistake comes to my knowledge is, beginners are not clear about there requirements. It is obvious that no one knows what is required in future, but if your requirements are clearly documented it will be easier to analyze choosing the hosting services that suites your needs. Always consider that there may be a possibility of shifting from static site to a dynamic one or you may require using certain scripts. It is an ongoing process and if documented properly can help you a lot in near future.
Oops! Seems enough negative thoughts? Don't get the wrong idea - consider following points also before taking the decisions:
1. Not all free hosts are bad or decisive, there may be an excellent host which is up-coming and can provide wonderful services. They may offer free hosting to promote there services so that they can have customers in there portfolio. But remember those are limited time offers and will be closed soon when they get there desired portfolio filled.
2. Cheap and affordable web hosting may turn to be a great deal, if you carefully compare some of the affordable type plans with some of the more expensive ones, you may discover that there are lots in common between them in reality. Here you always try select which host can have better server; updated software's and provide you quality support in practical terms.
3. Not all the free websites are going to be removed without notice or provide a bad reputation for your company. There are services from giants like Google's Blogger or Yahoo's Geocities will help you to increase your link popularity if used effectively.
4. Also consider reading my previous article (a novice one) "choosing the right hosting solution" here at http://www.arun.info/choosing-hosting-services and also do a net search i.e. example search term "how to choose the right hosting" which will give you an opportunity to read other articles written by experts in the industry.
Finally, when you choose a host - always think that it is the best friend of your site. When you make a friend in real life you always consider lot of things before choosing and also overlook minor mistakes to keep a long term relation. A web host is a real friend for you as it provides your business keep running online 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.

Server Host: Where Does My Web Page Go?

For those of you who don't really understand where or how your web page is sitting on your hosting sever, this is a basic over view of how it works.
A server is basically hardware and software and protocol. We will go over these three basics of your hosting server.
Server hardware.
Server hardware is so similar to your old PC hardware that the price of server hardware has come down considerably. Down enough that it's tempting for a lot of us to host our own server. But that's a whole different article. All a server is:
Very fast processor.
A large amount of RAM.
A vast amount of Disk Space.
Connection to a T1 line (access to the outside world).
The hardware is housed in very large office buildings. There are many racks of servers filling these climate controlled rooms. Most of the server host brag of their 99% or better uptime. This is very impressive and another reason to use a server host. How often have you re-booted your PC in the past?
Software. (Operating system)
There different operating systems on the market. Most likely the software on your server is running Apache on Linux, an open source product. Servers need to be secured and an open source application is more likely to be less buggy and more secure then their larger competitor Microsoft. These servers use an interface for you to access and configure them, a control panel. Some control panels are more complicated then others. Depending how technical you are, this is a point of concern when picking a server host.
Protocol. (FTP)
To get your page on the server you need to FTP (file transfer protocol). FTP is a client (you) server application. If you created your page on your desk top, obviously to share it you would need to get it on your server. It's also used to transfer files between your own pc to someone else's computer.

Choosing a Web Hosting Provider from 40 Million Other Web Hosts

Discover how to go about choosing a web hosting provider in ways that 99.5% of the advice on the Internet never mention.
If you struggle with finding good web hosting then using the process I describe could be the answer to one of the biggest problems you can face as a webmaster.
But first I'd like to give you an idea on the scale of the problem in choosing a good web hosting provider. A search on Google for the exact phrase " web hosting " returns over 32 Million results and " web hosting provider " or " web hosting company " produces around 800,000 results.
An IP survey by www.netcraft.com in 2003 found over 40 million web hosts.
Whether you want to believe Google's 32 Million web hosts or Netcraft's 40 Million, it gives some indication of just how many web hosting provider 's there are to choose from.
Google has over 7,800 sites offering advice on " How to choose a web host. "
But to be frank a lot of advice on the Internet is from sites promoting web hosting provider 's and resellers, which means it's not without bias.
If you think " web hosting review sites " are a good source of advice, try choosing one from over 6,000 listed by Google. Consider also that many are affiliated to the web hosts they recommend. This can mean not only do they get a sign-up commission, but a regular monthly fee for as long as a customer remains with the web host.
Much of the advice about choosing a web hosting provider talks about how much disk space or bandwidth you need, what type of server to use, or the features you should look for.
It's important stuff but it doesn't help in choosing a good web hosting provider.
I say this because disk space and bandwidth are today largely a non-issue, since most web hosting provider's are competing to offer so much of it, you'd need to have a website the size of CNN's to use it all.
As for the features offered by web hosts, there's often little to choose between them, they all generally offer enough of the basics for most websites. If you're looking for enhanced features like a website builder, adding a shopping cart, taking secure payments or promoting your website then these additional features might influence your choice.
But as a web hosting provider, you still don't know if they're any good.
At this point some of you may be thinking you'd read the other customers testimonials, or go to some of the website forums to see what other people have experienced with this host, or post a question to ask for advice.
Well again a word of caution, many forums are also the hangouts for people selling web hosting, so they frequently post replies or offer advice acting like the ordinary Joe. This means the advice can be biased toward or against a particular web hosting provider. One forum you could try that's dedicated to issues with web hosting is Web Hosting Talk
Oh! Let's not forget " Testimonials. " When was the last time you saw a customer testimonial on the sellers web site that said anything bad about the service or product they provide ? I have only ever seen it once in the past 5 years and then not for a web hosting provider.
I've had web sites hosted with dozens of web hosting provider 's and made 100's of inquiries to other web hosting companies that I never even got close to the point of signing up with. I've moved some websites two or three times in less than two weeks because a web hosting provider is unable or unwilling to solve problems, or whose server configuration is unable to support the scripts my site needed.
It was after many years of suffering bad web hosts, I finally decided to work out a process that gave me a better chance of finding a good web hosting provider.
It's a bit like taking out insurance, you don't know what the insurance company is like until you need to make a claim. As a matter of interest I did an exact search for insurance against bad web hosting and there were no results.
Obviously no one is providing insurance against bad web hosting, which must mean it's too much of a risk.
I don't even consider my sites to require anything special or more than any other typical business website. Yet despite all my experience, finding a good web hosting provider is still one of the most difficult website challenges.
You'll find the exact step by step process in the 2nd part of this article at : www.webpageaddons.com Choosing a Web Hosting Provider from 40 Million Other Web Hosts - Pt2
Of course no process is full-proof and it does not mean that the web hosting you find through the search engine filtering and techniques I suggest are the only web hosts capable of providing the services you're looking for.
You should also not assume because your Google Advanced Search was for web hosting provider 's with selected features that the sites you are reviewing are guaranteed to have those features.
Check every site on your short list, since search engine's are far from perfect.
What it does mean is that by using my suggested techniques you are selecting those web hosts who considered things like support, sufficiently important to want to be found for them on Google. Other web hosts may have good support, but the difference is that in your search you did not find them listed for this term.
It could mean support's not that important to them, even though they provide it.
It's also worth mentioning that the price of web hosting is not an indicator of the quality of the service. Some lower cost web hosting provider 's can give a far better service than some medium cost ones.
Conclusions
Using a six stage process I was able to choose from 40 million web hosting provider 's, a short list of 15 web hosts that met my selection criteria. With a further six stage process I was able to reduce the number of possible web hosting provider 's down to a choice of 2.
In the final stage the web hosting provider 's were both asked a number of general and technical questions that resulted in the final choice. Whilst the process is not full-proof I am yet to find a better devised way of choosing a good web hosting provider.

7 Key Ingredients for Rock Solid Website Hosting

Every website needs a great web host, however when you are looking online for a host you may be overwhelmed with the wide variety available ranging from absolutely free to relatively expensive. How do you know what you need and what is the best choice? The answer to this depends on your business and whether you will have a lot of business or none at all, however you always want to have more space than you think you will need as well as the following options for a great web host.
Ingredient #1 24/7 Support
When choosing a web hosting company you definitely want to make sure that they have 24/7 support. The reason for this is if you have a problem with your website, you need to be able to talk to someone and have them fix it immediately. As long as the host offers this type of support it should not be a problem. If they don't, you might wait several days with your website down and not be able to contact anyone. Think of the customers you will be missing and all of the lost sales you'll suffer.
Ingredient #2 Large Bandwidth
You want to make sure your web host offers a generous amount of bandwidth in order to support your website and ensure it loads as quickly as possible. The more bandwidth means the more information that is carried and the quicker your page opens. So, make sure you have a web host with plenty of bandwidth to support your site.
Ingredient #3 Excessive Storage Space
Regardless of whether you need it now or not you want a web host that offers plenty of storage space in case you do need it. Give yourself some growing room.
Ingredient #4 E-mail
When you have a web host as well as URL you will also want to have your own e-mail that ties into your company name. Find a web host that offers this as well. Most do, but some might trick you with fine print so be careful.
Ingredient #5 Additional Domains
You may only have one domain name today, but the future holds all kinds of possibilities. Be sure you can add additional domain names if you need to.
Ingredient #6 Domain Parking
If you have a domain name, but do not have your own name server then you will certainly want a web host that will allow you to store or "park" your domain name on their server for your domain to remain valid for an extended period of time.

How to Get Better Technical Support

Whenever you have a technical question that needs answering, you want that answer as fast as possible, right? In the instantaneous world of the internet, patience has become a rare commodity, and the time you spend unable to send or receive email or waiting for your website to come back online can mean lost revenue. If you want to get a timely response from your support technician, there are things you can do as a customer to speed up the process:
Define the problem as accurately as possibleThe more detail you can provide, the more quickly the technician can identify the source of the problem and correct it. Try to determine the following information if possible:

What were you doing when the error occurred?
What program were you operating that produced the error?Note the version of the program and the operating system that you are running on your computer.

If there is a specific error message, what does it say? Be prepared to give this information to the technician by phone, email or fax.
What are the steps you take to reproduce the error?
What time did you first notice the error?
Did the error occur only once, consistently over a period of time, or only when you do a certain thing?
Can you reproduce the error on a separate computer?
Know the priority status of your requestSupport technicians get many requests during the course of the day, often at the same time, with varying levels of urgency, and these requests take time to resolve. If a request cannot be resolved immediately, then it will be assigned an appropriate priority level based on the type of problem to be resolved as soon as possible.

Outages - Always top priority. If your website or email is down, any good technician should drop all other projects until this is resolved.
Breakages - If a critical part of your website becomes inoperable due to a server error, such as a database for a shopping cart, this should always be addressed with high priority.
Time Sensitive Operations - If you need something to be done within a certain time frame, such as enabling or disabling a feature of your account, then you should make this clear to the technician. The operation should be performed within the prescribed time frame as long as a higher priority issue does not arise.
Ongoing Problems - If a particular problem continues to occur for an extended period of time, its priority should be raised as necessary the longer the problem goes on.
Non-Critical Operations - If your request does not adversely affect the function of your services or contain a time-sensitive element, it will receive the lowest priority, but it still should be handled as soon as reasonably possible.
Allow an appropriate response timeAs stated previously, most technicians have more than one problem to handle at once, so once you have an idea of the priority level of your request, allow a reasonable amount of time for it to be resolved. Server errors should be resolved within hours to same day, depending on the circumstances. Lower priority items which can be quickly resolved should usually be handled by the next day. If a request will require several hours of work to resolve, expect it to take longer. A technician's job is to be constantly interrupted all day, so such requests will usually be saved until time permits or passed off to another available person to be completed. Understand that any completion time estimate given to you is assuming the absence of any higher priority requests intervening in the process.
Most types of technical support requests should be answered with an acknowledgement of completion. If you do not receive one or are unable to determine on your own that your issue has been resolved within a reasonable amount of time, then you should contact the technician again to inquire about the status of your request.

Be a pest if you have to, but be courteousIf your request is taking an unreasonable amount of time to be resolved, then there is some truth to the old adage that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." If the technician can give you a reasonable explanation for the extended time frame, such as resolving a higher priority issue, then try to give them an appropriate extension to resolve your request. If the explanation for the delay is unsatisfactory and the problem continues to go unresolved, you may need to ask for the assistance of another technician. You should be assertive because you are paying for your services, but do not be abusive. Technicians are human beings too, and not all of them are going to respond well to your unpleasant remarks. If the situation becomes bad enough that you truly believe your anger is warranted, ask to speak with somebody else, describe the unsatisfactory response you received, and request that your issue be handled with the highest priority possible. If this doesn't work, then it's time to consider switching service providers.

Know the technician's responsibilitiesA support technician at a hosting company is not necessarily responsible for every possible problem you can have on the internet. He is only responsible for resolving problems with the services that his company provides to you. If the company only provides web hosting and domain registration services, then they cannot be held responsible for problems caused by website design flaws, internet connection service outages, email addresses obtained through other providers, or office network problems. Most good technicians are willing to give you a limited amount of assistance with these types of problems anyway, but it should not be expected of them and you should know who else to call if the technician determines that the problem is not within his realm of control.

Don't be a hypochondriacYou should learn to help yourself whenever possible, because it's almost always faster than asking somebody else for help. If you are constantly asking for the same password or asking the technician to perform the same task over and over again when you can learn to do it yourself, you are wasting the technician's time and preventing other people from being helped quickly and efficiently. Learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them. If you are always making the same mistakes and asking somebody else to fix them, you will quickly find yourself at the bottom of anybody's priority list. If the technician explains to you how to do something, make sure that the procedure is recorded and stored where you can find it again. It's worth your extra time and his to do this if it saves you both time later on a repetitive task.

The #1 Factor New Webmasters Forget to Consider when Choosing a Web Hosting Plan

The Problem
Too often new webmasters sign-up with the first good hosting plan they see; they purchased a domain name, built up a site, generated a small income, and decided "Hey, this works, I should make another site". From there the webmasters purchase a new domain and begin working on a new site only to realize that their hosting plan supports only 1 pointed domain; they will have to purchase an entirely new hosting plan for each new domain name.
The number of "pointed domains" a web hosting plan can support is often overlooked by new webmasters. With so many other factors to consider, such as space, bandwidth, price etc. it does not immediately seem important. I will be the first to admit that the first time I ever purchased a hosting plan I did not even consider the number of pointed domains. It did not dawn on me until many months later when I decided I wanted to launch a new website. Fortunately I was lucky and I stumbled into a plan that allowed for 50 pointed domains.

Low Cost Web Hosting Services - Dont Forget About Uptime

Once you have your company's web site up and running, it is vital that you do everything possible to keep it that way. Nothing sets off alarms in a customer's head faster than a non accessible web site or one that has features which do not work. A web site is literally your company's window to the world and every aspect of the site; including the design, content, accessibility, ease of navigation, and uptime, says a lot about your company.
A fully functioning, attractively designed, feature-loaded web site spells professionalism and expertise, while a poorly designed and inaccessible site reflects very poorly on your business. Still, the best designed site on the web; one loaded with impressive features and clever design tricks means absolutely nothing if your customers can't get to it because it is down. Unfortunately, if your site is hosted by some other company and resides on their servers, downtime may be largely out of your control. When your host's servers go down, your site goes down and there's not a thing you can do about it. There are a few things you can do, however, to ensure that your site stays up as long as possible.
Choosing Your Web Host
There are thousands of low cost web hosting services out there and they are all offering a thousand different deals for web hosting. Choosing the right one can be a daunting task, especially if you don't know a lot about internet hosting and what you should be getting for your money. There are a few things you should look for in a web host - some of which will help you get the best deal and others which will help you determine whether you should expect to have a problem with downtime.
To cover the business end of web hosting, find out how much bandwidth and storage space you get for your monthly fee. Bandwidth is especially important because the more popular your site becomes the more visitors it will have and the more bandwidth it will use. If you are using too much bandwidth, two things will happen. You'll be charged for anything over the amount you're contracted for and the site could easily experience downtime due to receiving more traffic than it can handle.
You will also want to look at the host's server information. Most web hosting services will post the specifications of their web servers on their own web sites. This allows customers to get a good idea of the host's stability. If you don't understand the technical jargon that these informational pages contain, get someone from your own IT department to look at with you. They'll be able to tell if it looks like the host has a stable server system.