Cheap web hosting is one thing every website owner wants to have, and there are quite a number of companies willing to take on that responsibility for prices starting as low as $3.95 a month. Most web hosting firms charge more than that, so the $3.95 might well be termed discount web hosting. Some research will obviously be required on the part of the website owner to determine which of the many companies offering web hosting will be most beneficial. A good host will allow regular changes to the content of the website to keep it from becoming "old hat" and stale. Fresh material keeps visitors to the site coming back. For a business trying to sell a product this is particularly important, and there should be no extra fees for updating a site.
When a website is down, business comes to a halt, so one important topic to discuss with a potential web host is the amount of down time they experienced over the previous months. The number should be low. The next question should be about the time it takes to get back up after downtime. Obviously, if little time is lost the economic losses to a business are small, but there should be a reimbursement of a part of the monthly fee for any time the website is actually down. Besides downtime, other technical difficulties should be addressed quickly. It is helpful to find out from other customers of the company what their experience has been with this cheap web hosting company. Customer service should be high on its priority list, and should be available at any time.
Does this discount web hosting company offer virus and spam filters? They should certainly offer this service as part of their package, along with multiple e-mail addresses. The amount of bandwidth a website owner can use will depend on the level of service paid for. The host company should provide a schedule of payments and all the services they offer before a customer signs a contract, to avoid any misunderstanding.
A tracking service should be included with the cheap web hosting so the website owner can see how many visits to his site were made over a given period of time. It is through this information, along with the number of sales that resulted from these visits, that lets the business owner know just how effective his website is or is not. The whole purpose of a business opening a website on the Internet is to move its products, or expand its services, whichever is appropriate. For other kinds of entities, such as a chamber of commerce or a city, the purpose is to broadcast information for tourists. The numbers of visitors to their sites could bring dollars to the community, so constant updating is very important. If it is a charitable institution, the goal is clearly to acquire donations. Current information is important in all cases for success to be achieved.
The actual design of a website and the choice of a name is offered to customers by all discount web hosting companies, unless the customer has already drawn a design. The attractiveness of a design can make the difference between success and failure. Whether it's cheap web hosting or very expensive services, this provision should be the same for everyone. There will be some elements in an expensive contract (such as bandwidth offered) that will differ from the lower cost contract, but for either one the web page design should be of a quality that both the host and the website owner will be proud. Quality was important to the Israelites when they were building their temple, too. "And the snuffers, and the basons, and the spoons, and the censers, of pure gold: and the entry of the house, the inner doors thereof for the most holy place, and the doors of the house of the temple, were of gold." (2 Chronicles 4:22)
No matter which of the several cheap web hosting companies a person or company considers signing up with, there will be more than one plan for payment of the fees for their services. Monthly fees usually run higher than quarterly or annual payments would be. If it fits in the budget of the businessman, the longer payment intervals will save money. No matter which plan one chooses, however, the service should be the same. The web host offering discount web hosting should listen to the needs of the client accepting that low offer just as closely as the client who is paying for the most expensive package offered.
Registration with a search engine is included with host company services. The host company and the website owner will work together to choose key words that fit the business, then submit the information to multiple search engines at no extra cost. Getting on the first page of a category is difficult and expensive, but with new companies being added and old companies being dropped all the time on the Internet, the position of a company could move up over time.
Source by: rod hewitt, ABC Article Directory
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Web Hosting Features To Look For
When you are looking for a professional web hosting service, you want to look for certain features and services. Do not worry about knowing exactly what all the technical terms mean, just look for them! You should always shop around, phone the hosting companies and ask questions as part of your qualification process.
1. Reliability and Speed
Look for a hosting service that owns their own equipment, with high-speed connections to multiple Internet backbones, backup power generators and backup systems in place. The hosting company will generally brag about their high-speed connections and will usually guarantee 99% or better availability of your web site.
Many hosting services are operated by resellers. This can be a good thing if they bring better and more knowledgeable support to their resold services. Unfortunately, many resellers do not really have the resources or knowledge to adequately support you.
Years in business are something you should take a look at. Three years or more is a pretty good yardstick of reliability.
If they offer a trial period, take advantage of it and actually try the service out.
2. Operating Systems
Do they use a standard operating system configuration that they keep updated on a routine basis? If they do not, you may have trouble getting newer scripts to work. On Linux servers, look for Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, SuSE, Slackware and CentOS. On Windows servers, look for recent Windows operating systems with all patches kept current. If they do not publish this information, email or phone them to find out.
3. Language and Database Support
They should support the key programming languages and databases that are used by newer scripts and should keep these up to date as well. On Linux you should look for PHP and Perl at the least. For a database, look for MySQL. You should be allowed at least one database. You should have your own CGI Bin. On Windows systems, look for MS Access at the least and MS SQL Server for power and speed. If you want to use the Microsoft NET framework, your hosting will need to support that.
4. Support
Check their support. The minimum support is email support. The better hosting services provide 24/7 email, ticket system and live telephone support. Actually try their support and see if they respond quickly enough for your needs and if their support staff is helpful and knowledgeable.
5. FTP Access
Many inexpensive hosting services do not provide FTP access. You will need FTP access if you plan to add much material to your website or if you need to install scripts on your website. Also check that you can change permissions on your files via FTP or through SSH.
6. Email
How many email accounts do they provide? Are they POP email accounts? Can you add forwarders and email aliases? Look for web mail access as well. The better the service, the more options they will provide for email.
7. User Control Panel
Look for a comprehensive user control panel that allows you to manage your hosting account. The better control panels also provide automatic script installers like Fantastico or Elefante. Cpanel, Ensim and HSphere and Plesk are all well known and well supported. There are many more control panels than these and they are good too, but you should probably check them more thoroughly and take a look at their demo system if they have one.
8. Domain Names
You should be able to host at least one domain name. The better hosting companies will generally allow you five or more domain names. There should be no restrictions on sub-domains.
9. Statistics
Does your hosting service include a statistics program so you can monitor your website traffic?
10. Disk Space
The absolute minimum is 50 MB, but you should be paying very low prices for that little disk space.
11. Bandwidth
The main difference between the basic and expensive plans of any hosting service is the amount of bandwidth allowed per month.
To figure how much bandwidth you need, multiply your visits per day X page views per visit X average page size X 30 days.
Example: 100 visits per day, 5 page views per visit, with a page size of 45 kb: 100 X 5 X 45 KB X 30 = 675,000 KB = 675 MB.
Try to get as much bandwidth for your dollar as possible, but beware of web hosting services that offer unlimited bandwidth. Read the fine print and their terms of use carefully. There is usually some kind of restriction that you will need to be aware of.
Make sure you read up on how they charge you if you exceed your monthly bandwidth and what upgrades they have available.
12. eCommerce
If you plan to run a shopping cart or secure payments or data transfers on your website, you need to make sure that the hosting service supports SSL.
Some Closing Thoughts:
Typical prices for professional level hosting range between $6.99 and $45.00 per month for a reasonable level of disk space and bandwidth on shared hosting. Below that you are asking for trouble because they probably do not make enough money to adequately support their equipment, systems or you.
Windows servers are usually more expensive than Linux servers because the Windows operating systems are not open source. The hosting company has to pay for using them.
When you are comparing plans, keep in mind that you are getting a better deal at $25 per month for eight domain names than $10 per month for one.
When you are looking for hosting don't be afraid to ask questions. Good hosting services have no problem directing you to helpful information or answering your questions in a way that you can understand.
Source by: Kevin Sinclair, ABC Article Directory
1. Reliability and Speed
Look for a hosting service that owns their own equipment, with high-speed connections to multiple Internet backbones, backup power generators and backup systems in place. The hosting company will generally brag about their high-speed connections and will usually guarantee 99% or better availability of your web site.
Many hosting services are operated by resellers. This can be a good thing if they bring better and more knowledgeable support to their resold services. Unfortunately, many resellers do not really have the resources or knowledge to adequately support you.
Years in business are something you should take a look at. Three years or more is a pretty good yardstick of reliability.
If they offer a trial period, take advantage of it and actually try the service out.
2. Operating Systems
Do they use a standard operating system configuration that they keep updated on a routine basis? If they do not, you may have trouble getting newer scripts to work. On Linux servers, look for Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, SuSE, Slackware and CentOS. On Windows servers, look for recent Windows operating systems with all patches kept current. If they do not publish this information, email or phone them to find out.
3. Language and Database Support
They should support the key programming languages and databases that are used by newer scripts and should keep these up to date as well. On Linux you should look for PHP and Perl at the least. For a database, look for MySQL. You should be allowed at least one database. You should have your own CGI Bin. On Windows systems, look for MS Access at the least and MS SQL Server for power and speed. If you want to use the Microsoft NET framework, your hosting will need to support that.
4. Support
Check their support. The minimum support is email support. The better hosting services provide 24/7 email, ticket system and live telephone support. Actually try their support and see if they respond quickly enough for your needs and if their support staff is helpful and knowledgeable.
5. FTP Access
Many inexpensive hosting services do not provide FTP access. You will need FTP access if you plan to add much material to your website or if you need to install scripts on your website. Also check that you can change permissions on your files via FTP or through SSH.
6. Email
How many email accounts do they provide? Are they POP email accounts? Can you add forwarders and email aliases? Look for web mail access as well. The better the service, the more options they will provide for email.
7. User Control Panel
Look for a comprehensive user control panel that allows you to manage your hosting account. The better control panels also provide automatic script installers like Fantastico or Elefante. Cpanel, Ensim and HSphere and Plesk are all well known and well supported. There are many more control panels than these and they are good too, but you should probably check them more thoroughly and take a look at their demo system if they have one.
8. Domain Names
You should be able to host at least one domain name. The better hosting companies will generally allow you five or more domain names. There should be no restrictions on sub-domains.
9. Statistics
Does your hosting service include a statistics program so you can monitor your website traffic?
10. Disk Space
The absolute minimum is 50 MB, but you should be paying very low prices for that little disk space.
11. Bandwidth
The main difference between the basic and expensive plans of any hosting service is the amount of bandwidth allowed per month.
To figure how much bandwidth you need, multiply your visits per day X page views per visit X average page size X 30 days.
Example: 100 visits per day, 5 page views per visit, with a page size of 45 kb: 100 X 5 X 45 KB X 30 = 675,000 KB = 675 MB.
Try to get as much bandwidth for your dollar as possible, but beware of web hosting services that offer unlimited bandwidth. Read the fine print and their terms of use carefully. There is usually some kind of restriction that you will need to be aware of.
Make sure you read up on how they charge you if you exceed your monthly bandwidth and what upgrades they have available.
12. eCommerce
If you plan to run a shopping cart or secure payments or data transfers on your website, you need to make sure that the hosting service supports SSL.
Some Closing Thoughts:
Typical prices for professional level hosting range between $6.99 and $45.00 per month for a reasonable level of disk space and bandwidth on shared hosting. Below that you are asking for trouble because they probably do not make enough money to adequately support their equipment, systems or you.
Windows servers are usually more expensive than Linux servers because the Windows operating systems are not open source. The hosting company has to pay for using them.
When you are comparing plans, keep in mind that you are getting a better deal at $25 per month for eight domain names than $10 per month for one.
When you are looking for hosting don't be afraid to ask questions. Good hosting services have no problem directing you to helpful information or answering your questions in a way that you can understand.
Source by: Kevin Sinclair, ABC Article Directory
Four Top Tips for Choosing a Hosting Company
Choosing the right web hosting company is one of the most important decisions you will make regarding your Internet business. When selecting a company, there are many factors to consider. Make sure to follow these four tips for choosing a reliable company for your website.
1. Know Your Needs
You need to have some idea of what your companies needs are before you start shopping around for a web hosting company. The cost of different packages will vary based on size requirements and bandwidth capacity, so a company won't be able to give you a price estimate without this information.
2. Reliability of the Hosting Company
Before you select a company, you need to know how reliable that company is. If you ask any web hosting company whether or not it is reliable, the answer will of course be yes.
The question you need to ask is about downtime. You need to know how much downtime the company experiences. You also need to find out if the quoted expectation for downtime includes regularly scheduled maintenance or not.
Remember that when the web host is down, the Internet component of your business is down time. If prospective customers can't find you online when they are ready to buy, they will find what they need from someone else. When it comes to Internet business, downtime is money lost.
3. Reputation of the Hosting Company
One of the great things about the Internet is how easy it is to access information online. There are a number of forums online that appeal to webmasters and website owners. When you are searching for a reliable company, visiting these forums can be an invaluable source for information about web hosting companies.
When you find an active forum where those who are knowledgeable about web hosting are posting, look for related threads. If you don't see recent posts on the topic, post a question yourself. You may get some ideas about which web hosting companies are the best. You'll definitely learn about some of the ones you want to avoid!
4. Customer Service
You will want to go with a web hosting company that has available and responsive customer service. The first thing you should do is look at the website of a hosting company you are considering. Check out the options for customer service. If you have a difficult time finding customer service information posted on the website, that is a good sign that you are going to have trouble getting help when you need it.
Ideally, you want to select a web hosting company that offers 24 hour customer service with multiple ways of requesting help. Many of the best hosting companies offer live chat help, e-mail technical support, and a toll-free technical support phone number.
However, just because a web hosting company has customer service contact information posted does not mean that the company actually provides customer service. Before you make your final decision, use the customer service contact methods to see what kind of response you actually get. If you don't get a live person, or a quick response, keep looking for another company.
Source by: Amy Nutt, ABC Article Directory
1. Know Your Needs
You need to have some idea of what your companies needs are before you start shopping around for a web hosting company. The cost of different packages will vary based on size requirements and bandwidth capacity, so a company won't be able to give you a price estimate without this information.
2. Reliability of the Hosting Company
Before you select a company, you need to know how reliable that company is. If you ask any web hosting company whether or not it is reliable, the answer will of course be yes.
The question you need to ask is about downtime. You need to know how much downtime the company experiences. You also need to find out if the quoted expectation for downtime includes regularly scheduled maintenance or not.
Remember that when the web host is down, the Internet component of your business is down time. If prospective customers can't find you online when they are ready to buy, they will find what they need from someone else. When it comes to Internet business, downtime is money lost.
3. Reputation of the Hosting Company
One of the great things about the Internet is how easy it is to access information online. There are a number of forums online that appeal to webmasters and website owners. When you are searching for a reliable company, visiting these forums can be an invaluable source for information about web hosting companies.
When you find an active forum where those who are knowledgeable about web hosting are posting, look for related threads. If you don't see recent posts on the topic, post a question yourself. You may get some ideas about which web hosting companies are the best. You'll definitely learn about some of the ones you want to avoid!
4. Customer Service
You will want to go with a web hosting company that has available and responsive customer service. The first thing you should do is look at the website of a hosting company you are considering. Check out the options for customer service. If you have a difficult time finding customer service information posted on the website, that is a good sign that you are going to have trouble getting help when you need it.
Ideally, you want to select a web hosting company that offers 24 hour customer service with multiple ways of requesting help. Many of the best hosting companies offer live chat help, e-mail technical support, and a toll-free technical support phone number.
However, just because a web hosting company has customer service contact information posted does not mean that the company actually provides customer service. Before you make your final decision, use the customer service contact methods to see what kind of response you actually get. If you don't get a live person, or a quick response, keep looking for another company.
Source by: Amy Nutt, ABC Article Directory
A Beginner Guide to Web Hosting
What is web hosting? Whenever you visit a website, what you see on your web browser is essentially just a web page that is downloaded from the web server onto your web browser. In general, a web site is made up of many web pages. And a web page is basically composed of texts and graphic images. All these web pages need to be stored on the web servers so that online users can visit your website.
Therefore, if you plan to own a new website, you will need to host your website on a web server. When your website goes live on the web server, online users can then browse your website on the Internet. Company that provides the web servers to host your website is called web hosting providers.
A well-established web hosting provider sometimes hosts up to thousands of websites. For example, the Best Web Host of the Year 2003 award winner, iPowerWeb, is a web hosting company that hosts more than 200,000 websites. For that reason, a web hosting company need many web servers (essentially, these are computers) to store the website. And all these web servers are connected to the Internet through high speed Internet connection and housed in a physical building called data center. In order to guarantee all the web servers are safe, secure and fully operational all time, a data center is a physically secure 24/7 environment with fire protection, HVAC temperature control, virus detections, computer data backup, redundant power backup and complete disaster recovery capabilities.
What are the different types of web hosting? There are different kinds of web hosting companies out there with different characteristics. The main types of web hosts can be organized into the following categories:
a. Shared Hosting
In shared hosting (also known as virtual web hosting), many websites are sharing the space on the same physical web servers. Depending on the web host, a physical web server can hosts a few hundred to even thousand of different websites at one time. You may wonder if a physical web server is shared by so many websites, will the performance of the web server deteriorate? In fact, web servers are usually equipped with high-end powerful computer, therefore it can support up to a certain number of websites without any problem. But when the web server is overloaded and exceeded the reasonable number of websites that it can support, then you will begin to experience a slower response from the web server.
However, a reputable and experience web hosting provider will constantly monitor the performance of the web server and will add new web servers when deem necessary without sacrificing the benefits of the website owners. Since a physical web server is shared (diskspace, computer processing power, bandwidth, memory) by many websites, the web hosting provider can therefore afford to offer a lower hosting price. For the same reason, websites on the shared hosting would have to accept slower server response time. Typically, shared hosting plans start at $5 - $20 per month.
b. Dedicated Hosting
In contrast to shared hosting, dedicated hosting assigned a specific web server to be used only by one customer. Since a dedicated web server is allocated to only a single customer, the customer has the option to host single/multiple web sites, modify the software configuration, handle greater site traffic and scale the bandwidth as necessary. Therefore, dedicated hosting commands a higher premium and typically starts at $50 per month and can range up to $200 - $500 per month. As a result, dedicated hosting is regularly used by high traffic and extremely important website.
c. Co-location hosting
In dedicated hosting, the web server belongs to the web hosting providers and customers only rent the web server during the hosting period. While in co-location hosting, the customer owns the web server hardware and only housed their web server within the web hosting provider’s secure data center. In this way, the customer has full control over their web server.
Source by: Super Admin http://www.contentmart.com
Therefore, if you plan to own a new website, you will need to host your website on a web server. When your website goes live on the web server, online users can then browse your website on the Internet. Company that provides the web servers to host your website is called web hosting providers.
A well-established web hosting provider sometimes hosts up to thousands of websites. For example, the Best Web Host of the Year 2003 award winner, iPowerWeb, is a web hosting company that hosts more than 200,000 websites. For that reason, a web hosting company need many web servers (essentially, these are computers) to store the website. And all these web servers are connected to the Internet through high speed Internet connection and housed in a physical building called data center. In order to guarantee all the web servers are safe, secure and fully operational all time, a data center is a physically secure 24/7 environment with fire protection, HVAC temperature control, virus detections, computer data backup, redundant power backup and complete disaster recovery capabilities.
What are the different types of web hosting? There are different kinds of web hosting companies out there with different characteristics. The main types of web hosts can be organized into the following categories:
a. Shared Hosting
In shared hosting (also known as virtual web hosting), many websites are sharing the space on the same physical web servers. Depending on the web host, a physical web server can hosts a few hundred to even thousand of different websites at one time. You may wonder if a physical web server is shared by so many websites, will the performance of the web server deteriorate? In fact, web servers are usually equipped with high-end powerful computer, therefore it can support up to a certain number of websites without any problem. But when the web server is overloaded and exceeded the reasonable number of websites that it can support, then you will begin to experience a slower response from the web server.
However, a reputable and experience web hosting provider will constantly monitor the performance of the web server and will add new web servers when deem necessary without sacrificing the benefits of the website owners. Since a physical web server is shared (diskspace, computer processing power, bandwidth, memory) by many websites, the web hosting provider can therefore afford to offer a lower hosting price. For the same reason, websites on the shared hosting would have to accept slower server response time. Typically, shared hosting plans start at $5 - $20 per month.
b. Dedicated Hosting
In contrast to shared hosting, dedicated hosting assigned a specific web server to be used only by one customer. Since a dedicated web server is allocated to only a single customer, the customer has the option to host single/multiple web sites, modify the software configuration, handle greater site traffic and scale the bandwidth as necessary. Therefore, dedicated hosting commands a higher premium and typically starts at $50 per month and can range up to $200 - $500 per month. As a result, dedicated hosting is regularly used by high traffic and extremely important website.
c. Co-location hosting
In dedicated hosting, the web server belongs to the web hosting providers and customers only rent the web server during the hosting period. While in co-location hosting, the customer owns the web server hardware and only housed their web server within the web hosting provider’s secure data center. In this way, the customer has full control over their web server.
Source by: Super Admin http://www.contentmart.com
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