7 Key Points to Consider When Choosing a Web Host

7 Key Points to Consider When Choosing a Web Host

by: Kyle Dusang

With literally thousands of web hosting companies in the industry all vieing for your business, carefully consider these key points to ensure you make the most well informed decision possible.
1. Server Space
First, think about how much space your site will take up on a server. Unless you are planning on running a software repository or an image gallery, the files that make up your website will probably only use between 1 and 5 megabytes of disk space. Many companies will offer several hundreds of megabytes of webspace for a very reasonable price in attempt to out perform their competitors, but ask yourself กDo I really need that much space?ก. Though itกs true that you should allow your site กroom to growก, don’t opt for what seems like a great deal on a massively sized account if youกll never use all of the space offered. Chances are youกll find an even better deal on an amount of space more suitable for your site size.
2. Data Transfer Allowance
This decision should be based on the same principal as above. Though you may be convinced that your site will be the next Amazon or Yahoo and receive a gazillion visitors a day, you really shouldn’t need an extremely high data transfer allowance unless, as stated above, you’re running a software download site or a large image gallery. Even heavily trafficked normal HTML sites usually only use a few gigabytes per month in bandwidth allowance. Don’t go overboard just because it seems like an awesome deal. You may also want to be wary of companies who offer กunlimitedก data transfer as there are usually some fineprint stipulations that make this claim not entirely true. Be sure to read their terms and conditions very carefully before opting for this type of account. A five or ten gigabyte bandwidth allowance is usually plenty enough for a small to medium sized business or personal site.
3. Technical Support
A very important point to consider when choosing a web host is the types of technical support offered by the company and how easy they are to contact when you need them. Ideally, a company should offer 24/7 tollfree telephone support and email. I have seen companies that do not even offer a telephone number on their website. You should look for a company that is very easily accessible in your time of need. Nothing is more frustrating than being in the middle of working on your site and needing an important piece of information to finish the job and not being able to contact your hosting company to find it out.
4. CGIBin Access
No matter what type of site you are planning on running, chances are you will eventually need to install some type of CGI script. Whether it be a mailing list management script, contact form processor, or maybe even a fancy credit card processing script, your hosting account will need to allow you to install and run them. This requires access to a special folder on your server called กCGIBinก. Some hosting accounts will only allow you to use กpreinstalledก scripts as a security measure. These are scripts that the owners of the company have installed and configured so that they know that they will work properly and not adversely affect their serverกs performance. That may be all you need, but if you have the knowledge, itกs always nice to have the ability to install your own scripts and configure them to suit your individual needs. You should also be sure that the account you choose supports the language in which your scripts are written, such as PHP, Perl, etc.
5. UpTime Guarantee
Another very important issue in determining the value of a hosting company is how often and for how long their servers กgo downก. No matter how good a deal you get on server space or bandwidht allowance, or how wonderfully the companyกs tech support takes care of you, your site can’t receive visitors or produce revenue if the machine on which it is hosted is not up and running. Naturally you want a company who can guarantee the highest uptime percentage possible. Servers are taken down briefly from time to time for maintenance or upgrading, so no company can ensure 100% uptime, but you want your site to be hosted on dependable, well managed machines that are not constantly having problems which require them to be down for long periods of time.
6. Email Accounts
Again, like data transfer allowance and server space, some companies will offer you loads more email accounts than you will ever use. Some offer hundreds or even unlimited email accounts as a selling point. This is an important factor if you are Bill Gates and have thousands of employees, each who need their own email box, but not such a big deal if you’re just one person or a small company. You should be okay with 10 or 15.
7. Reputation
This is probably the most important factor to consider when choosing a web host. Do your homework. Pay attention to any negative feedback you may hear or read about a particular hosting company. There are several sites arount the Web that feature discussion forums that allow people to discuss and critique various hosting companies. Ask specific questions about any company you might be interested in using to see if anyone else has had any negative experiences with them. As a beginning webmaster, I had initially contracted the services of a particular web hosting company to host my first site, who promised very good, dependable service for a very cheap price. Then one day, for no apparent reason, decided to delete my entire site without warning or explanation. Only then did I visit some hosting forums and find that many others had similar negative experiences with that company. Don’t make the same mistake I did, find out for sure from the start that your hosting company is not going to let you down.

About The Author

Author: Kyle Dusang

Webmaster of http://www.verybesthosting.com

Looking for a web host? Compare plans, features, and pricing from several of the Webกs most reputable hosting companies all in one place at eryBestHosting.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 28, 2004

by Kyle Dusang

Changing To New Host? No More Worries!

Changing To New Host? No More Worries!

by: Priyanka Agarwal

Johnกs online business is expanding. His customers are increasing day by day. However, he feels very frustrated at the moment as he finds his website is กdownก about every 4th day. Whenever he calls up the support team of his web host, he gets the same old answer that his problem will be rectified soon. If the problems do persist it will surely hamper his business. He has been with his present hosting provider for the last year but now he feels he has to find a new web host as soon as possible because his present hosting package is also not able to meet up with his growing demands. This is not a oneoff occurrence that has happened only to John, it happens with many people like him. Changing the web host might become a cumbersome task if John and other people like him don’t know the correct procedure of doing it. So, letกs have a look at the following easy and simple steps:

First of all, itกs very important to have a backup of your website and everything related to it, like databases, scripts etc. It will be very helpful in case there is data loss because of any unforseen reason. Save at least 2 copies of everything and store them separately, so that you can work with one and the other one will function as a backup. You can take backup in various ways. One is by using software programs like a FTP program (e.g. Smart FTP http://www.smartftp.com/) for downloading data.

Now, the time is to look for a new web host that meets all your requirements and provides better technical services than your previous host. Since you have already been through the search procedure it won’t take you much time to come across a reliable hosting company.

Once you have taken a new webhosting plan and you are ready to upload your web pages, databases etc., check that you have received an IP number, FTP or FrontPage login, and password from your new hosting company. Now, upload all your files to the new server; you are just repeating the same procedure that youกve done in the past when you uploaded your files for the very first time.

Only a few more steps more and you will be completely done. Before transferring your DNS servers over from your previous host to your new one, debug and test the new site from an individual IP number. Check that all the web pages exist, the links point to the right pages and that all your scripts are running. One important point which people always forget is their domain name expiration date. If you plan to move near the expiration date, it could cause you lots of problems. To be on the safe side, make sure that you have at least 34 weeks in hand before the domain name expires, or just renew it for another year.

To transfer domain name service to a new host identify registrar using กWHOisก lookup http://domregm6.net/domains/WHois.asp, verify registration of your domain name, identify the name server information for the host your are transferring to, and make changes in the DNS information at the registrar. During this DNS transition period new DNS information has to be propagated throughout the worldกs DNS servers. This propagation might take 24 days as an International root name server will firstly have to check all the various Domain registrars for updates, and then every ISP provider will update their DNS setting to show the new changes. Not only this, even Internet, i.e. Internet routers and caching engines have to update/clear its DNS cache as well. During this propagation period, you keep your old site running so that the visitors whose ISP provider haven’t updated can still visit your website.

Itกs advisable that you don’t cancel your old hosting service during the transition period, as you will need to check your mail from both the hosting providers, as some will direct email to your old server whereas other Internet regions will send mail to your new server. After one or two weeks you can annul the account with your old host.

On the very first notion it sounds like a painful task to find a new web host and make all the necessary changes, but with the steps known, people like John will not find this procedure problematic. With so many automation software packages available, it has now become easier to switch over your web site from old host to new host. If both hosting providers have the same operation system platform, the procedure will become even simpler. But remember, the most important task in the whole hostchanging scenario is to find a host that meets your requirements so that you don’t have to go through this entire procedure again in the future.

About The Author

Priyanka Agarwal

Hosting evangelist

http://www.m6.net/

Priyanka is an M6.Net Hosting Evangelist, spreading to all the word about Web Hosting.

This article was posted on February 02

by Priyanka Agarwal

Does Your Website Host Fight Spam?

Does Your Website Host Fight Spam?

by: Eric Lester

Virtually anyone with an email address knows what Spam is, and has, perhaps, considered giving up the speed, convenience, and simplicity of email because of it. Those who have their own websites are more vulnerable than the average person with a single work or home email address from their company or Internet Service Provider. Email addresses visible on a website can quickly become Spam magnets, as automated programs, similar in form to search engine spiders, roam the web, looking for addresses to which new broadsides of Spam may be fired. Website hosting companies generally provide their clients email accounts for use with their domain, but are you with a host that provides those email accounts with Spam and virus protection?

Local Blacklist Filters

Webmasters shouldn’t need to seek out local filters for their siteกs contact email addresses. There are a variety of server level solutions a hosting company can offer to protect their users from unwanted emails. A most basic step is provision of a very rudimentary กblacklistก functionality to their users, allowing them to prevent future Spam emails from arriving from the same address. This type of filter is virtually worthless in todayกs Spam environment, though, as it is quite rare to see unsophisticated email arriving from the same address multiple times. Spammers have grown far more sophisticated than that. Blacklisting functionality is only really useful in avoiding email from other real people you don’t particularly wish to hear from anymore.

Keywords and Regular Expressions

More advanced server level Spam filters are available. A small advance is accomplished using keyword filters. Keyword filters merely check for instances of a certain string of characters and deny the message if that string if found. The core problem with keywordonly filters is they can กover filterก. Someone who puts กsexก on their keyword filter will find receiving local news and event announcements difficult if they live in a town named กEssexก. Some filters attempt to address this deficiency by using ‘regular expressionsก in order to build a sophisticated rule set to prevent Spam from reaching your inbox. Briefly, regular expressions are syntax rules used to identify certain strings of text or numbers. These rules can be set up to identify text patterns that are commonly used in Spam. They can become quite complex, but, as with most any filtering method, are not 100% bullet proof. Some filters that use regular expressions come with a basic set that can be appended by the user. Obviously this kind of feature is of little use to someone not familiar with regular expressions.

Bayesian Filters

Currently the most sophisticated filtering methods use Bayesian inferences. Bayesian filters take a large data set and determine the probability a message is Spam based on its similarity to previous Spam messages. The more emails that are processed and flagged theoretically make the filter more accurate. Services that provide filtering on an ISP or host level, like Postiniกs กSpamAwayก, filter billions of emails and provide the highest level of success and fewest กfalse positivesก. SpamAway is already highly intelligent about identifying Spam and doesn’t require any กlearningก commands or examples be provided. The online, browser based interface keeps flagged messages in an easily accessible กquarantineก and allows the user to check for any false positives. White list functionality is provided to aide in the prevention of future false positives. A hosting company offering such an advanced service takes Spam and virus filtering for their customers seriously.

About The Author

Eric Lester has served for 4 years as the webmaster for ApolloHosting.com, http://www.apollohosting.com, and previously worked in the IT industry an additional 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, design, and search engine optimization. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers.

This article was posted on August 16

by Eric Lester

The ‘Website’ CHECKLIST : Domains, Hosting, Web De

The ‘Website’ CHECKLIST : Domains, Hosting, Web Design

by: Teeyes Siva

This article is meant to all who already have a website or who propose to buy it. Website – the term comprises three things : Domain, Hosting (Web space) & Web Design
There are numerous company offering these services. I am here to discuss few points with regards to top and essential things you need to have a thorough check when you get a WEBSITE thru one of these companies.
Now to the article,
Every day, I get few phone calls of this sort :

Sir, My domain expires in next few days, but the company which registered it is out of business, Please RENEW itข
Sir, I want to transfer the domain to your server but I don’t have the domain control panelข
Dear Support Team, The domain is registered thru ‘X’ and his name is listed as REGISTRANT and Admin Contact, help meข
I have a website since 1998 but I am not getting any enquiries thru it. So what’s the point in having it renewed ? ข
My website is down most of the time, can you do anything on it? ข

If you look at the above, you could observe the common problem. Thus, a checklist is required for any WEBSITE. Lets see one by one :
Domain NAME Registration : CHECKLIST
Once your domain is registered, check these things :

Is the DOMAIN NAME Registered with an ICANN Accredited Registrar ? (Visit : www.icann.org)
Does the REGISTRANT NAME and ADMINSTRATIVE CONTACT show your name/email ?
Did the Domain Registration Service Provider give you the Domain CONTROL PANEL with username / password to manage/modify name servers & contact details in realtime ?
Do you have the OPTION to get REMINDERS at the time of RENEWAL, well in advance ?

Web Hosting (Web space) : CHECKLIST

Support, Support, Support – is the KEY issue when it comes to Hosting. Check the response time of the Service Provider before making an option.
How skilled the technical persons are ? Just put in few queries and see how they respond ?
Get a quick look at the Service Provider Website and make sure its professional looking with user friendly navigation and layout.
Check if they have listed TESTIMONIALS, list of sites hosted with them, discount options for bulk purchase, payment modes. Also make sure there are NO Hidden charges. The key part to look is : the BANDWIDTH offered for each hosting plan.
Multiple Domains in single hosting space. This is an added advantage and saves your money. You can ask for this option if not provided.
Make a deep study on the Hosting Plan you choose. Check all the essential features are provided. To name a few, POP3 mails, SMTP support, FTP Account, Control Panel, Web mail, Spam Controller, Antivirus, Web Statistics.

Website Design : CHECKLIST

Does the website designer provide you with free minor updates or for a nominal fee on a yearly contract basis ?
Is the website professional looking and appeals to the global audience ?
It has been 3 months since your launch and there is NO fruitful enquiries and you are UPSET. Wait…..go to : www.google.com and put your website name and click search. Does it show up anywhere in the results ?
Does the website designer provided you with monitoring service ?
Does the website take lot of time to load. Make sure it loads faster even on slow connections. Too much of Flashy animations, bigger size jpegs are NOT an option for your site. CONTENT is the King. Make sure your website ‘delivers’.

The above is just a tip of the iceberg. I have compiled the most essential facts of a WEBSITE Registration, Hosting and Web Design.
Do write to me with your comments and views. My email : [email protected]
Teeyes Siva

Sales Head – Aalphanet.com

About The Author

Teeyes Siva heads the Sales Operations @ aalpha NET (www.aalphanet.com) , India’s leading domain name registration, web hosting service provider. He can be reached @ [email protected] or 00 91 452 3105858.

This article was posted on June 25, 2004

by Teeyes Siva

Making Money from Parked Domains

Making Money from Parked Domains

by: Derek Vaughan

Let me tell you a true story. A friend of my who likes to collect domain names was describing a few that he had acquired. While he has a wide range of domains in various categories, these particular domains were all related to web hosting.

Some of the domain names were similar to existing web hosting company names (or derivatives of web hosting company names). Others simply had ‘hosting’, ‘host’, or a related term in the domain itself.

So my friend and I were talking and he said something like, “Yeah, it’s a shame – if only I had the time to develop some content for some of these domains then I might make some money form them”. It turns out that he had no content on any of the domains – just parked pages, or no content at all. When I investigated the domains, it turned out that there was a small but steady traffic stream that visited these domains. Some simply typed in the domain, others apparently found the domain through a search engine that had categorized the parked page.

So I suggested the following to him – why not use a service that will take the domain as is – with no content whatsoever – and suggest search options that generate revenue for each click? He took my advice, grudgingly I might add, and guess what? He made $50 the first month from just a few of his domains.

He was so excited that he asked what he might do to further increase his revenues from his domain names. I suggested that he use his parking pages (these can be customized with some hosts) to test banners from affiliate programs with the highest paying hosting companies. He placed only three banners at the top of his pages – with a brief description of the company’s product offerings taken straight from their web sites. This also proved to be a great success – and his revenue stream increased.

My friend has since invested some time and energy in monetizing his other domains. He has either pointed the domains to a pay per click search engine, or listed affiliate links on almost every domain. This has turned a lackluster domain speculation business into a profit generating pay per click and affiliate business that requires almost no effort to maintain. Needless to say, my friend has taken my out to lunch a couple of times since then.

If you have parked domains and what to try getting paid for search results on those pages, check out this service offered by Sedo (there are others out there as well):

http://www.sedo.com/services/parking.php3

Good luck in transforming your parked domains into cold, hard cash!

About The Author

Derek Vaughan has been actively marketing on the Internet since 1995. Mr. Vaughan has marketed products at the Walt Disney Company as the online marketing manager of ecommerce for ESPN.com. Mr. Vaughan is also the founder of Cheap Hosting Directory a web hosting review site. Mr. Vaughan holds degrees from both the Indiana University and Purdue University. He has also received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Owen School at Vanderbilt University. Cheap Hosting Directory http://www.cheaphostingdirectory.com is a part of TechPad Agencyกs network of web hosting portals.

This article was posted on September 08, 2004

by Derek Vaughan

Unlimited Wealth Creation Through Reseller Hosting

Unlimited Wealth Creation Through Reseller Hosting

by: Ninad Gupte

Web hosting can be an exciting business start up for aspiring entrepreneurs. All you have to do to set up your business is become a hosting reseller, i.e., provide hosting facilities to website owners. Here as a business owner, you are buying space from a big hosting company, and redistributing the hosting space to other website owners.

Resellers are nothing but entrepreneurs acting as middlemen, offering you hosting services by leasing time and space from another Web hostกs server rather than owning their own. Most of the times, the quality of services offered by resellers are so good that consumers do not even have the idea that they are dealing with resellers who do not have servers of their own. Resellers, since they can pick and choose their servers, are basically in a position to provide the customers with the best of services.

Reseller hosting business can be quite a profit making venture once you understand the figures and profit margins involved. Let us go through them. One can buy around 1000 MB space from a major web host at a cost of $25 per month. This 1000 MB space that you now own can in turn be redistributed to site owners who need space for uploading their site. Here you can give about 25 MB space for around $5 per month. Which means your monthly income comes to around $200 when you sell 40 hosting packages. Want more. some hosts allow you to oversell the space and do not charge you extra unless the actual usage of your account exceeds 1000MB. It is seen that a typical user uses less than half of the allotted web space. which means you can double or even triple sell your quota and make unlimited wealth.

And mind well, this income is residual income. It will keep coming to you month after month, year after year. You do the work once. and get paid for it over and over. All you are doing is buying space from a major web hosting company and becoming a reseller host. Your efforts are focused towards selling hosting space and the rest is handled by your web host. Some of them even handle customer service to your customers for a nominal fee. which makes it even easier for you.

If this is not enough. you can earn additional residual incomes by adding recruiting more resellers through you. By doing this you will earn regular commissions on their monthly sales. isn’t this smart business. The profit margins in the business of reseller hosting is quite good and you can start on this exciting business venture even if you do not have the required expertise and access to funds for setting up the required infrastructure. Strange as it might sound, there are also times where a reseller can also be more scalable than a typical hosting firm. A true Web host is limited by its hardware; if a client suddenly requires an upgrade the host is not prepared for, the only way the host will be able to satisfy the customer is by upgrading its hardware expensive and time consuming for both sides. The reseller host, however, can simply choose to locate with a different Web host that will better suit the customerกs needs.

Happy Wealth Creation!!!

About The Author

Ninad Gupte is the Founder, CEO of www.linuxresellerhosting.com. He has trained as an Electronics Engineer from Mumbai University, and has a Diploma in Advanced Computing from CDAC. He has served as the Director ¬Technologies in Webmoney India Pvt. Ltd. He has executed several turnkey B2B Web application projects like House layouts, Maharashtra State Electricity Board and portals & sites like McDonalds India, Air France and RPG Raychem. To take his dreams forward of forming a technology oriented diversified company, Interpole Solutions was formed in March 2001. The company was setup with a strong base of skills and a deep understanding of technologies mastered by Ninad. He can be contacted at [email protected] or at 91222436 4111 and 91222436 4112.

This article was posted on September 03, 2004

by Ninad Gupte

More Profits in Your Website Hosting Business

More Profits in Your Website Hosting Business

by: Raynay Valles

If you run a website hosting business, you already know the challenges in the business. Thousands of competitors are just a click away, ready to undercut your price.

Potential customers see hosting as a commoditiy and shop by price. Several directories like Hostreview, Acehosts and Hostindex make it easy to comparison shop.

How can you get more profits from your business under these conditions?

FIRST, GET THE CUSTOMER

Calculate the lifetime value of your customer. For example, letกs say the average customer stays with you for 15 months and pays 16.95 a month. That means their lifetime value to your company is $254.25. So every customer you acquire makes your business (on average) $254.25.

If a visitor comes to your website, then leaves to comparison shop, you have more than likely lost that sale. Have you invested in sales copy that compels your visitors to buy from you? Does your website help him to see that you are the best choice for his situation? Showcase your credibility, guarantee services and offer incentives to try your service. Make it easy to buy from you.

NEXT, KEEP THE CUSTOMER

Because each customer is hardwon and the value of the customer is so high, youกll want to make sure you have the support services that keep your customers happy.

Once a customer leaves you for another website host, heกs gone forever. You probably already make customer service a priority, with email answered in a timely fashion and welltrained technical support. Go the extra mile. Don’t wait for customers to contact you. Ask your customer how you’re doing.

THEN, SELL MORE TO THE CUSTOMER

The customer has already bought from you. There is familiarity and trust. You can easily offer complimentary items to your current customer list.

The major concern of your customer is how to succeed online. Itกs easy to offer online marketing tools, ebooks and additional services. It can be as simple as joining an affiliate program for an item your customer may need, then making him aware of the item.

Focus on these 3 areas, getting the customer, keeping the customer and selling more to him. Youกll enjoy higher profits in your website hosting business.

About The Author

Resource: Raynay Valles is a Marketing Specialist and author of Profitable Website Hosting. Find out how to get the report at http://www.jawdrop.com/ebooks/webhosting.html or email [email protected]

This article was posted on October 7, 2002

by Raynay Valles

Where to Get Cheap Web Hosting

Where to Get Cheap Web Hosting

by: Jay Moncliff

If you are looking for a cheap web hosting company you may wish to know where to look. Cheap web hosting is available to anyone. But the cost of it depends on several factors. For some people, it may be impossible to get cheap web hosting. You will have to see what is available based on you needs.

First, to see if you can use cheap web hosting you need to know how much disk space you will need. How large is your website? How many pages, video files, music files, etc. do you need? Second, a cheap web hosting company will need to know how busy your sight will be. If your site is going to have a lot of visitors, cheap web hosting may not be for you. Third, how many email accounts do you need? Cheap web hosting companies do not usually provide many. Lastly, how much are you willing to spend? Cheap web hosting is not as technical as the more expensive web hosting.

If you go online, you can find a list of the top 10 cheap web hosting companies. The top 10 cheap web hosting companies are rated by their price, quality, and service provided. The cheap web hosting companies are priced between $4.95 and $19.95 a month. The cheap web hosting companyกs price varies on what kind of things you need. The disk space provided can be from 3000MB to 5000MB. The bandwidth varies from 40GB to 300GB. If this is not enough for you, then a cheap web hosting company is not an option for you. Most of these cheap web hosting companies offer free set up. This will make things much easier for you. Be aware of cheap web hosting that offers unlimited disk space. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

The top 10 web hosting companies reviewed are: Blue Host, Power Hosting, Pages Garden, Pro Logic Hosting, Easy CGI, Gigabyte Package, Yahoo! Hosting, iPower Web, Lunar pages, and Dot5 Web Hosting. All of these are very cheap web hosting companies. You will find them listed at top10webhosting.com. At this website you will also find customer testimonials and thorough listings about the cheap web hosting companyกs services they offer to you.

For those of you who still think that this is not cheap web hosting, you can also find free web hosting. It still comes with a price, however. Comcast offers free web hosting to anyone who subscribes to their internet service. You still have to pay for the internet service, but the web hosting is free. Thatกs the best that can be done about cheap web hosting. Weigh the odds, and see which route is best for you.

About The Author

Jay Moncliff is the founder of http://www.cheaphostingcenter.info a blog focusing on the Web Hosting, resources and articles. This site provides detailed information on Web Hosting. For more info on Web Hosting visit: http://www.cheaphostingcenter.

This article was posted on September 11

by Jay Moncliff

Pick Up Your Own Domain Name

Pick Up Your Own Domain Name

by: Oleg Lazarenko

Think up a name and check if yourname.com is available. Personally, I like to use http://www.whois.com to check if a domain name is available. You may also check the registrant contact information using ขwhoisข service if you want to negotiate about purchasing the domain you like from people who registered it first.

To register domain name for our customers we use:

http://www.godaddy.com

We are not affiliates with Godaddy in any way, but I think this is the best online company which provides this service. Their rates are low and you will have 24 hours access to your control panel to change the domain name information in case your office moves or phone number changes. This is very convenient.

If you can’t get that exact name as a dotcom, choose another name. Your site title MUST be the same as your domain name. People won’t remember your domain name, but they will remember your site title if they choose to add your website to their favorites. It will also help to provide better place in Google listings. There are several rules to follow when you choose the domain name:

1. It must be as short as possible but don’t make it something like abc.com only because this domain is available. Be reasonable.

2. Make it memorable. It must represent your company and it is not a bad idea to make your company name as a domain name.

3. Make it include your keywords, something like allwebdesign.com if your website is about web design. This advice is related to search engine optimization issue. Most of search engines like to get กmainก keywords in the domain name, title and website description.

4. The domain name must be first level domain, not the sub domain of a bigger website. For example, it is not a good idea to use http://mydomain.somebigsite.com as your website name. The first level domain costs about $ 9 dollars and it not an excuse to have business website on a free sub domain. Search engines also do not like such domains and you automatically will be placed lower then your competitors in the search engine listings.

5. It is better to buy a domain name separately from the hosting plan. A domain name is much more important then a hosting provider. As I noticed, the average duration of a web hosting company life is one or two years. If your hosting provider disappears from the web, it may be a problem to get your domain name transferred to your new hosting provider.

It is not difficult to buy and register a domain name at all. You will be given a number of questions related to your location, position and contact information. All this information will be used during the domain name registration and any person who uses ขwhoisข service will have access to that information, so it will be wise to enter only your business information and not to use personal data. When you buy a hosting plan, your hosting provider will send you the letter with the name server ips. You will need to send those numbers to your domain name registrant.

Now you are ready to select a web hosting provider and buy a hosting plan.

This article may be reprinted and distributed with no charge until the credit line below remains without changes.

Thanks for reading.

Article source: http://www.metamorphozis.com/tutorials/choose_domain.shtml

About The Author

Oleg Lazarenko

Production Manager of Metamorphosis Web Design Studio –

Flash templates and Web Templates

http://www.metamorphozis.com

This article was posted on August 17

by Oleg Lazarenko

Cheap Web Hosting – Choose The Right Company

Cheap Web Hosting – Choose The Right Company

by: Declan Tobin

You have carried out the hard part and that’s creating the web site. The next step is to get it hosted as to allow the public find your site. So why do so many first time web host seekers fall into the trap of a bad web host company? Well there are a number of factors to consider and none bigger than the price. We all want cheap web hosting but unfortunately price is not always what you should go for.

You have to be more aware of the web hosting company that you choose. If you have a budget stick to it, if you see hosting for little or nothing and find yourself thinking ขhow do they make moneyข stay well away, the chances are your web site will be hosted with very little bandwidth resulting in a very slow accessible and unprofessional web site. You may also find that the customer service is little or none.

You need to clearly outline your own requirements to the web hosting company, if you do not do so you are at fault and not in any position to point the finger at others. If you make a list of requirements such as particular files you need etc you can send your requirements to multiple hosting companies and see who comes back with the greater service.

If you have more than one web site to host such as affiliate marketers it is not a good idea to put all your sites with the one web host company server to start with, you need to be 100% confident with the service, so start with one web site first as a test. Remember if you do host all your websites with one host company, all it takes is one problem to bring all your sites down and could result in lose of revenue for you. At least if you have some web sites hosted by another company they will still be online.

Some web host companies offer testimonials on their own web site from valued customers recommending them. Seeing is not believing, call these customers and get a face value recommendation for yourself.

What if I have problems?

Lets be honest, problems can occur and they maybe your fault and sometimes the web host company is to blame. Problems with technology can occur any time but it’s how the hosting company react to the fault that will determine if you stay with them or not. If you find your web site dropping off line or downloading slowly at a regular basis simply change to another web host company. On going problems not fixed is a very bad sign and it shows arrogance towards their customers. Support is vital from a web host company and it should be 24 hour if it’s a large organisation.

Virus Problems and Hackers

It is up to the web host company to ensure that your files are protected from virus and hackers at all times. There has been plenty of companies who have had their web sites hacked only then to find out that the web host company had not got the latest patches and security software applied. First timers to web hosting should always ask how often updates and what software is used to protect web sites.

Tips:

In business your web site can be a large source of revenue or sometimes your only source. Always do your own backup of the web site. If the web host company experience problems and for whatever reason has no backups available your whole business could be on hold. Backups are vital so do it as regular as possible or face the consequences. Some companies have testimonials on their web site from customers, do not be afraid to call these guys for an up to date reference.

If you where taking on an employee you would check all references, this is similar. Always get the full contact details of the web hosting company, many people simple go online and have an email address only as the contact. If their email goes down and you need to contact them you should have their full details at hand. Always shop around for the different web hosting plans and compare, you will find large differences, after you settle with a budget ask the necessary questions before you sign up.

About The Author

Declan Tobin is a successful freelance writer providing advice to consumers on purchasing a variety of Affordable Web Hosting and Cheap web hosting, and more! His numerous articles provide a wonderfully researched resource of interesting and relevant information. http://www.no1inwebhosting.com.

This article was posted on March 30

by Declan Tobin

Domain Names

Domain Names

by: Clare Lawrence

Domain names are relatively straightforward! Or at least that’s the theory!!

The domain name is also, but technically not quiet correct, known as the website address.

Using an ISP’s domain name can look amateurish in an email addresses, it is much more so with websites, giving the impression of hanging on another’s coat tails. The only exception being when a firm wants to reinforce a local or professional affiliation by appearing as part of an existing site dedicated to a region or association. Even in such cases autonomy and continuity are better assured by having one’s own domain and merely using a page on the third party’s site to point users toward it.

Domains are classified according to their endings or ขsuffixesข. As a commercial organisation a company will almost certainly want a domain ending in .com or .co.uk. Other endings such as .biz and .ltd.uk are at least to date, insufficiently familiar to users, meaning the name can be too readily misremembered. Of the two desirable suffixes, .com is preferable for business with international activities, and arguably gives the impression of a bigger organisation, whilst .co.uk helps reassure users on the largely Americandominated web that they are indeed dealing with a UK firm.

The part of the domain name before the suffix will usually by the firms trading name, provided of course that the domain name has not already been registered, (which is increasingly likely these days). If the name is very long an abbreviation may be considered. Domain names are not case sensitive.

The actual registration of a domain name is a straightforward process that can be done online, either through your ISP or better still through a dedicated registration service company such as Discount Domains Ltd (http://www.discountdomainsuk.com). Renewal fees must be paid, typically every two years.

Checking if a domain name is freely available is very straightforward as most domain registration services provide a WHOIS service, as the name suggest, this checks the ownership details of a domain, note however that such services normally run 48 hours behind actual registrations.

Moving ISP’s can save money, however it may take time and incur extra charges. Pricing in the domain name registration industry have fallen considerably over recent years and a domain name typically now costs from $15 for two years registration.

Once your domain name is registered, you can either leave the domain name ขparkedข awaiting future use, or point it at a website, this is usually achieved by changing the Domain Name Server, or DNS settings on the domain to point at hosting company where your website is located. Almost all registration services offer a free user control panel to change these settings.

Web hosting is the provision of space on a web server to publish a web site. There are numerous hosting companies in the market, and most domain registration services also offer a hosting solution. Prices vary but $100 per annum should be sufficient for most business needs.

By Clare Lawrence 11th May 2004

About The Author

Clare Lawrence is CEO of Discount Domains Ltd – A leading UK provider of Domain name registration and Web Hosting services. Please feel free to republish this article provided this reference box remains together with a hyperlink to http://www.discountdomainsuk.com Clare can also be contacted on [email protected].

This article was posted on September 24, 2004

by Clare Lawrence