Web Hosting: 4 Factors in Choosing a Hosting Compa

Web Hosting: 4 Factors in Choosing a Hosting Company

by: Richard Martin

When choosing a web hosting company there are a whole lot of different factors that should go into your decision making process. One of the biggest factors should be:

Phone support. Email support is nice, but email occasionally falls in between the virtual cracks. Getting someone on the phone when your site goes down can take a lot of mystery out of the entire process. A lot of the bigger web hosting companies offer toll free support and weekend hours to boot. Phone support is a great benefit for any web hosting client.

Another factor to use in deciding whether to use a particular web hosting company is their history. How long has this company been in business? Web hosting companies that have been in existence for less than a year might not be the best choice. A hosting company with a proven track record and a ton of happy clients is certainly a good sign and might work well for you.

How about the companyกs software? This varies widely between web hosting companies. I am rather fond of Cpanel merely because I am used to it, understand where the buttons are and what the features do. Itกs much easier to stick with something you know than switching to a new User Interface. Some web hosts offer Frontpage features and others don’t. Another specific area you might want to research are the statistics programs. What sort of web statistics software is included with your web hosting account? Is Awstats included? This is one area you definitely want to heavily research before signing up.

Fees. Iกd rather pay a little more to get all the features than fight it out with a sub par web hosting company who I can’t reach if my site goes down. Iกve found decent web hosting for as cheap as $4 per month but generally pay around $15 per month if I want all the bells and whistles that Iกll need to host a larger site. A lot of people worry about hosting fees, but Iกve had the experience that I generally get what I pay for.

Finally, Iกd look carefully at the web hosting companyกs refund policy. Most offer a full refund if you aren’t happy with your service. If you are paying for a full year of web hosting up front, you might want to examine the companyกs refund policy in detail.

About The Author

You may reproduce this article on your website. We would appreciate a link back to our site which has Vioxx articles and personal injury resources. This article may not be altered and links should be kept live. Thanks.

Richard Martin is a contributing writer at LegalClips.com. LegalClips.com has injury lawyer articles.

This article was posted on January 25

by Richard Martin

Unlimited Bandwidth and Overselling

Unlimited Bandwidth and Overselling

by: Nate Landerman

One of the most controversial topics surrounding web hosting is the practice of overselling bandwidth, and rightfully so. The practice of overselling has enormous potential for disaster – ask any webmaster who has ever woken up to a cold, unforgiving ขBandwidth Exceededข message where his or her site should be. The risk of such outages is all too real, and the cleanup effort for network bandwidth outages is a long and arduous process.

Unfortunately, it is a risk that every webmaster must take. The nature of the web hosting business does not allow you to eliminate the risk, only to mitigate it to the best of your ability. In this article, we’ll explore the relationship between overstated bandwidth claims and website downtime. As a professional webmaster, you have a responsibility to balance cost and risk when choosing a web hosting plan. This article aims to clarify the pros and cons of one of the most common risky practices so that you can make a more informed decision when choosing your web host.

Unlimited Bandwidth

As the web hosting market has grown more and more competitive over the years, hosting companies have increasingly begun to tout กunlimited bandwidthก or กunmetered bandwidthก as a major selling point of their hosting plans. These claims are generally seen as nothing more than a marketing ploy. After all, no web hosting company could truly offer you unlimited bandwidth, since the bandwidth of the hosting company, network, and even the Internet itself is physically limited.

Ok, let’s be fair here. The limitations I’m talking about are almost incomprehensible and would never be reached by a single site. A hosting company could offer virtually unlimited bandwidth (or กunmetered bandwidthก or whatever phrase they choose to keep the lawyers at bay). This is the gray area between truth and falsehood upon which marketing claims feed.

The simple truth is that bandwidth costs money. It costs your web hosting company money, which in turn costs you money. The more megabytes of bandwidth your hosting company gives you for your dollar, the less profit they make. The only reason that a web host is able to make unlimited bandwidth incentives possible is because most websites use only a fraction of the bandwidth available to them. The more websites a hosting company hosts, the easier it is for them to make very accurate predictions about how much will actually be used. If those predictions tell them that over the course of any given month the large traffic spikes will be averaged out and still remain profitable, then they can safely offer unlimited bandwidth and remain profitable.

The practical upshot of this is twofold: Firstly, marketing claims are not necessarily outright falsehoods, but they’re not to be implicitly trusted either. Secondly, if you are signed up under a กunmetered bandwidthก hosting plan and you consistently use enough bandwith to blow the curve, you can expect a phone call from your hosting company. These calls usually involve friendly sales people trained in the art of the upsell, and are almost invariably concluded with an invitation to read the fine print of your hosting contract.

Overselling

Unlimited bandwidth claims get a lot of press, but the real danger lurks in the practice of overselling bandwidth. Like the man behind the curtain, overselling is the cause of real problems but is frequently overlooked because of the attention devoted to the front man.

What is overselling? Quite simply, overselling is the practice of selling your customers more bandwidth than you actually have. It’s the same practice airlines use when booking seats, though if you were to extend the analogy it would result in airplanes that crashed because they were to full. Please accept my apologies for the use of an overly dramatic comparison, but I want to make it very clear that it is the practice of irresponsible overselling that leads to costly site outages.

To be fair, most web hosting companies are responsible. Just as the airlines monitor the number of people that actually board the plane, the hosting companies continuously monitor their bandwidth usage to make sure they do not exceed their limits and everyone’s site stays up and running. If they don’t, then one website can use up everyone else’s bandwidth and inadvertently shut down all the sites using that pipe. That’s not the fault of the site owner – it’s the fault of an irresponsible web hosting company.

Almost every web hosting company oversells their bandwidth. A hosting company that offers unlimited bandwidth plans is, by definition, overselling their bandwidth. The point I really want to drive home is that the risk of overselling exists even if the web hosting company DOES NOT OFFER unlimited bandwidth. Clear enough? You are not safe simply because you have selected a hosting plan with a fixed bandwidth allotment. If you select a web host that offers unlimited bandwidth on any plan, you are DEFINITELY at risk of overselling problems. If you select a webhost that offers only fixed bandwidth plans, you are PROBABLY at risk.

Choosing a Web Host

In my opinion, unlimited bandwidth claims are only superficially related to real problems with your web hosting company. Yes, I have had a web site unceremoniously shut down without notification by a web hosting provider because of excessive bandwidth usage. And yes, it was an unlimited bandwidth plan. It was a costly experience. The tech simply shut down the site and went to lunch. The hosting company was unresponsive. Money was lost.

But looking back on the experience, it wasn’t a limited vs. unlimited issue. It was a Bad Hosting Company issue. I am utterly convinced that we would have received the same treatment had we exceeded a stated bandwidth limit – I’ve seen that happen as well with a different site and a different web host.

The commonality is the integrity and responsibility of the web host, not the claims made by their marketing department. When you deal with super cheap, flybynight resellers, you will have problems. Guaranteed. When you deal with reputable, well established hosting companies you will get phone calls. Sure, you will have to pay a little more, but it is well worth it to anyone who has experienced firsthand the same mindboggling incompetence I have.

I don’t get hung up on hype, be it from a marketing department or from fellow webmasters. Choosing a web host should be a rational decision, based primarily on the inherent competence of the hosting company, and secondarily on plan value. If I see an unlimited bandwidth plan from a highly reputable web host, I’m going to jump on it – it’s a great value until you get that call.

That’s my opinion on unlimited bandwidth web hosting. The fact is that correlation is not causation. Be a responsible webmaster – make your own decisions. Research your hosting options by using a web hosting comparison service like the one offered on http://www.inetpublication.com/webhosting.aspx. If you do your research carefully and base your decisions on facts, you’re far less likely to get burned.

About The Author

Nate Landerman is the founder and CEO of iNetpublication (www.inetpublication.com), a site dedicated to providing webmasters with the tools they need to create and maintain successful websites.

© 2005 iNetpublication Web Services.

This article was posted on September 05

by Nate Landerman

Reseller Web Hosting Defined

Reseller Web Hosting Defined

by: Asish Jain

Reseller Defined:

The term Reseller according to the dictionary means to sell again i.e. to sell a product or service to the public or to an end user, especially as an authorized dealer, while making sure that you make a profit on the sale.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is no different either, a reseller buys a Web hosting package from a hosting company and tries to sell it independently. The profit for the reseller lies in either the discount or in the commission s/he gets from selling an account.

For example: The reseller might purchase a package whose features are valued at $100 for $90. So, the reseller stands to make a $10 profit on selling the package to customers. Normally as the customers increase, so does the profit margin for the reseller.

Or, you can get some money by earning commissions from a hosting company. This happens when you refer potential customers to the hosting company. If the customer signs up with the company then you earn a small recurring commission until the customer uses the services.

Most web hosting companies try to outsource their services to resellers as it helps them to extend their business reach without the cost of marketing and sales and also helps them to concentrate on the business side of things.

What can be resold

As a reseller you can decide what kinds of services you can sell.

You can provide shared, dedicated or colocation web hosting or merchant accounts, store fronts etc.

If you go with hosting then it might be useful to offer some other hosting related services like domain names, search engines etc.

Of course, if you have problems selling these value added services in the beginning then you can sell them later.

The cost and resources involved

The cost of becoming a reseller and the equipment and people required in order to be successful depends on many factors.

If you just plan to earn commission by referring people to the hosting company by using the Internet, then you do not have to put up a lot of money, all you need is an Internet ready PC and an Internet connection.

For a small startup not a lot of money and resources are required. You can purchase a good reseller package from a hosting company by paying them some money upfront. All that is needed is a decent computer that can manage the accounts of customers and a good Internet connection.

It is advisable to start small if you are very new to the concept of web hosting and reselling. Then you can expand as you go on and start getting more and more customers in which case offering domain registration is also a very good way to make profits.

If you have the money and the experience then you can go as far as buying all the server equipment required, in which case you will also be responsible for all the server maintenance costs.

The other option could be leasing a server as this will be cheaper than buying the server, but here as well you are responsible for all the maintenance and running costs of the server.

In the above two cases you also need to make sure that you have multiple connections with the hosting company so there are no complications in case a connection goes down.

Upside

The best thing about being a reseller is that you do not require a lot of upfront investment.

There is no need to have a lot of technical knowledge. Account management and Internet skills are all that is required. However, it would be really handy if you have some sales and marketing experience so you can interact with your customers better.

The hosting company generally provides and maintains all the hardware and software.

You do not need to hire a lot of IT staff to provide support. Providing basic support and leaving the more technical issues to the parent company support staff can be easily achieved.

Downside

Support can sometimes be delayed, as you are dependent on the parent company to handle the technical aspects. If there is a delay from their side then you along with your customer are affected.

Sometimes customers leave you if they find out that you are a reseller and not a real hosting company.

Tips for marketing yourself

If you are starting out on a small scale then visiting message boards and posting your services there is a good idea. A lot of potential clientele with relatively small hosting needs also frequent message boards and outline their desired services.

Having contests is a great idea for bringing awareness and interest about your services.

Online ad campaigns, signatures, and text links are very helpful techniques.

Once you have gotten a bigger budget then you can go for Google ad words or PPC search engines.

The best strategy is to try out various combinations of these approaches and work out the best one for your needs.

About The Author

Ashish Jain

M6.Net

http://www.m6.net

This article was posted on January 16

by Asish Jain

Choosing a Hosting Service: A Checklist for Busine

Choosing a Hosting Service: A Checklist for Business Owners

by: Maria Marsala

For a website to appear on the Internet, you require a ขserverข that is usually provided by a web hosting company. Hosting companies are paid monthly, quarterly or yearly. Some companies come with guarantees, too. Recommendations from other business owners and web designers are excellent ways to find a good hosting service.

One of the primary features I recommend is that the hosting companies can grow with you. If they only offer one package, and you need more, your web site maybe down for up to 2 days and/or you may have to change the code on any forms you use to match the new ขserver settingsข.

Don’t be afraid to read a hosting service’s subscriber information, FAQs (frequently asked questions), note areas or bulletin boards on their sites.

A good hosting company offers as many of these basics as possible:

This is a hosting company I can easily afford.

They offer a Money Back Guarantee.

They have information on their site about server uptime/downtime.

The company contacts me, at my primary email address, when/if there are any server problems. (Could be problems when they’re updating their server, hurricanes, etc.)

They offer your own IP address http://postmaster.aol.com/info/ipexpl.html

They provide at least 5 POP email accounts (example [email protected]) Your email accounts should include Alias Accounts, which look like a POP account to the person sending you an email; however, the address is actually an ขaliasข thatกs forwarded to any other email account you choose. And when you send an email back to the original sender, it is the forwarding email account, NOT the [email protected] that the sender receives.

There is a Webbased Email system (a place for you to read your email online). If not, my favorite is www.emol.com

An easy system for email forwarding (and vacation notice) capability.

24hour customer service, by phone, even if it’s a long distance call, is best!

50 mg space (the space you need for a 100 page website with each page being approx. 8×11)

2 Gig Data Transfer/month (this will be enough for quite a while!)

Front Page Extensions – only necessary if you create a web site with MS Front Page

Cgi/PHP/MySQL (or asp availability). Check with your designer to see what you’ll require for forms to be created).

Easy Control Panel: This feature is especially important if you want to maintain your site or have someone else easily maintain it. Itกs the one place to visit when making changes to your site, add addresses, etc

Statistics Does your hosting companies plan include monthly and yearly statistics on each of your web pages? Will you know how someone found each of your web pages?

Secure server, Shopping cart (and other things you’ll need to set up a merchant account system)

Server type: The type of server a hosting company you choose, should take into consideration the programs you will run for things like your shopping cart, affiliate program, web site pages, etc. If you’re using ASP, JSP, PHP, CGI, PL, or CSS, these programs will influence the choice of a server and viceversa. Your hosting service may use Windows (which for example accepts ASP but not PHP), Linux or Unixbased (Apache/FreeBSD/etc.) servers.

Password Protection – If you have plans to create a membership are or client’s only area of your site, this is something to consider.

Newsletter or announcement list

Autoresponders (not usually available on very low cost hosting packages)

Special thanks to wisewomen.org and [email protected] for some assistance with this list.

About The Author

© 2004 Maria Marsala, Business Builder and former Wall Street Trader. กPoweringUP service busine$$es and their ownersก. Providing articles, tips, classes, and resources for owners of service businesses. Learn more at http://www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com.

This article was posted on October 12, 2004

by Maria Marsala

Website Hosting Company. What Makes It The Best?

Website Hosting Company. What Makes It The Best?

by: Tal Fighel

When you are considering finding the best website hosting company, it is important to know a few things before making the right decision.

Web hosting is like a company that provides you with a phone line to talk to other people. Without it, you can not talk to people or make any phone calls. A web hoster is the behind the scenes technology that lets your site run on their servers and let people view it online.

When you choose a hosting company for your website consider the following things.

Price:

Don’t simply look for the lowest price. You know how they say, ขyou get what you pay forข. That is also very true with hosting. You pay little amounts, you get a lot less then you really need to run your site. Same thing with hotels. You look for the cheapest price, and when you get there, you get what you paid for. You know what I mean, right? Dirty old, smelly, small room.

Features:

Different hosting companies offer a variety of services. Make a list of what you know you want your website to do. Here are a few services you will want to consider. Easy to navigate control panel, front page extensions, set up fees, transfer fees, site stats, site creation tools, submission tool to search engines, extra sub domains.

Technical support:

Is it important to find a website hosting company that has a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week service available. You simply don’t want to find a cheap website hosting company that can only help you once a week. You want a fast and accurate response to your questions.

Email accounts:

The best ones are those with administrator control. Generally, you should have at least 5 email accounts for 3 users. Depending on the number users that have in your company, you should have least 3 to 6 standby email accounts. Look for email accounts with web based access as well as POP3.

Speed:

You need to know how fast anyone can get into your site. You don’t want to have a lowspeed site that takes too long to load. It is crucial for your site to be accessed at a good speed for your visitors. Web users do not tolerate slow websites. Once they see that, they will leave your site and never come back.

Ecommerce options:

Should you want to sell a product or service online, you need to find a hosting provider that offers a selection of ecommerce features and payment processing services. Shopping cart, SSL security certificate and credit card merchant providers are some of the options you need to consider.

Disk space:

Nowadays, many hosting companies offer hosting services that exceed the disk space needed for any given websites. Although more is better, it is not always necessary. Disk space can be purchased from time to time if it you need it. Consider hosting providers that can support the growth of your website and business. Ask them about the application, network, disk space cost, facilities and the solution they can offer as your site grows.

Downtime:

This could be the one if not the most important things when choosing the best web hosting company. You can not make money if your web site is down. If your site is constantly down and your visitors can not access it on a consistent basis, you will lose subscribers, visitors, and possibly sales. Your site is useless if it is down most the time.

It is very reasonable to expect to spend between $20$30 each month for a good and reliable website hosting company. I personally use Host4Profit for my hosting needs. I have found them to be, fast, reliable, offer top customer service, and reasonably priced. They have a web hosting affiliate program that allows you to make $10 a month for every person you refer to them. If you refer 3, your hosting is free.

http://www.talfighel.com/hosting.htm

Copyright 2005 Tal Fighel

About The Author

Tal Fighel has several websites dedicated to helping people to earn money online, make money online, and earn multiple streams of internet income. http://www.talfighel.com.

This article was posted on August 04

by Tal Fighel

Top Five Questions to Ask Your Web Hosting Company

Top Five Questions to Ask Your Web Hosting Company

by: Derek Vaughan

Each day many new and existing webmasters either launch a new web site for the first time, or transfer their web site to a new web hosting provider. In preparation for this important process, there are five important questions that should be asked prior to signing on with a new web hosting company.

1. Do you have a trial period or moneyback guarantee?

Okay, so thatกs technically two questions. The point is, no matter how much homework you do, or how much research stands behind your decision itกs still possible to make a mistake. Also the company could change policies or services, or management prices can go up, call wait times for support can spike, and things can just generally go bad. With the assurance of a trial period or moneyback guarantee, you won’t end up paying over and over again for that bad decision.

2. How does your customer service and technical support system work?

I don’t care how smart you are, how much programming you know, or how many web sites youกve set up in the past you are gonna have to call support eventually. There are just too many weird little things that can derail a web site or email. Many reside on the web hosting companyกs side. To figure out whatกs up you need to get in contact with them. So…will it be by email only, during the hours of 8:00 am to 5:00 pm eastern standard time or via a toll free phone line that is available 24×7? Make certain you understand when support is available and how you actually reach someone with real knowledge, not just a กknowledge baseก or กcannedก response.

3. Can I view a sample site that is hosted on the same server that my web site will be on?

Sure, the main company web site has nearly 100% uptime. Thatกs because they have their web site on a separate server than their customers. Viewing an actual customer site potentially tells you many things about the web hosting company and their web hosting services. You can check the load times of their pages easily by using a tool like Alertra (www.alertra.com). You can also send the webmaster of the site a nice email asking about their experiences with the hosting company.

4. Are they a web hosting reseller or a core web hosting provider?

Not that thereกs anything wrong with buying services from a reseller, but you should know for sure whether your company contact can really do anything to solve problems, or if they have to pass your concerns along to a กparentก company. Also, why buy services from a middle man when you can go straight to the source?Here are some examples of reseller hosting companies.

5. Will you waive set up fees or give me some other special incentives to sign up with you today?

In the highly competitive business of web hosting services, each customer sign up is precious. You will often see special offers listed on the companyกs web site or in advertisements. Unknown to each buyer is the fact that sales people are often given กextra special offersก to close sales of customers that are right on the edge of buying, but are resisting. The special offers are designed to close the sale. Make sure that you ask for each and every special offer they can give you. You have nothing to lose, and you may find that the offer thatกs being given today is fairly generous.

About The Author

Derek Vaughan

CheapHostingDirectory.Com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company or a quality expiring domain names with traffic.

CHD is part of the TechPad Agency network of web hosting related sites, visit www.TechPadAgency.com for more information.

This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the กAboutก and กweblinksก are kept intact. If you publish this article, we would love to know the location. Feel free to email us.

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 22

by Derek Vaughan

Thinking About Changing to a New Web Hosting Compa

Thinking About Changing to a New Web Hosting Company? 5 Steps to Plan Ahead for the Move

by: Stacy Tabb

Perhaps your web hosting company has a technical support group that never answers their email, or their control panel is difficult to use. Maybe your website has been having more downtime than uptime. Whatever the reason you are thinking of switching hosts, make sure you have your ducks in a row before making the move.

Here are five things to think about as you transition your website:

1. Make sure you have all of your website’s information backed up on a disc or cd. This way you can be assured that nothing gets destroyed in the move.

2. Shop around for your new web hosting company. Look to make sure they meet your needs and to make sure that you won’t run into any of the problems that you had with your old company. Don’t be afraid to email or call them and ask as many questions as you need to ask.

3. Once you have chosen your web hosting company, upload your website (or websites) and check to make sure that everything is working as it should.

4. Change your Domain Name Server so that your web address is now pointing to the website with the new host.

5. Once you are sure that all traffic and email is going to the newly hosted website, you can now cancel your old hosting account. Keep in mind that this can take a few days or more.

**Anyone is welcome to use this article on their website, provided that you link back to me at http://www.aacheapwebhosting.com

About The Author

Stacy Tabb is the publisher of http://www.aacheapwebhosting.com, a website focused on resources for both personal and ebusiness websites to include hosting, templates, domains, personal web pages, and ecommerce hosting.

This article was posted on November 20, 2004

by Stacy Tabb

Tips on Finding a Hosting Service for your Busines

Tips on Finding a Hosting Service for your Business Website

by: Yvette McGovern

There are so many hosting companies offering to host your website for you that the choice may seem a little bewildering. If you are determined about having a successful internet business then you need to consider seriously which hosting company you are going to use for your website. It is almost expected nowadays that a company should have its own website, no matter how basic, and web site hosting has become an exceedingly competitive area. That is good news for any website owner because the amount of features offered by any web hosting service has increased while the costs have decreased. The only problem you might have is trying to decide which hosting service you want to trust your business with. Every business has its own different needs and it is important to weigh up the options that each hosting company you are considering actually offers.

Before you start checking out your hosting options it is important that you are clear about which services you want your hosting company to provide. Obviously you wouldn’t want your website to only be online Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. It is likely that you may be considering a hosting company based in your own country so that you can contact them easily but that is no longer necessary. Website hosting are located all over the world these days and it is often much cheaper to select a company based in another region if they offer 24/7 cover should your website have any technical problems.

The resources that you require from your hosting service will vary greatly depending on the functionality you want included in your website. For example, a purely informational website needs much less bandwidth from the hosting service than a website that is constantly being updated. The more interaction that you have on your website means that you require a greater bandwidth from your hosting company to work. If you do not have enough bandwidth then your website is likely to collapse as the volume of visitors to your site increases. This obviously leads to a higher cost for the website hosting service and a higher requirement for technical expertise from your hosting company. Online transactions or streaming media files on a website require more storage space on the hosting server too.

Some hosting providers will offer a private, or dedicated, server rather than one shared with other businesses if you have dynamic web pages and a lot of interaction for your visitors. A shared server is a more cost effective solution than a private server and may be enough to get your website off the ground but you are likely to have to migrate to a dedicated server with your hosting company at some point so make sure that they offer this service. The inclusion of automated systems by your hosting service is also a consideration to ensure that your business website is still online no matter what time of the day or night it is.

Security is becoming an extremely important issue due to the amount of hacking and viruses that attack websites on a regular basis. You have to be sure that your hosting service has all the latest defences in place on their web servers to prevent your website from being targeted and possibly destroyed. These include antivirus and firewall protection. The more protection that your hosting company uses as standard the better.

The personal data that your customers supply when using your website is also subject to strict privacy laws and needs to be protected at all times. This necessity increases greatly if you accept payments on your website by credit card, online check or an electronic transfer. Your chosen hosting service has an obligation to ensure that all data taken from your customers via your website is totally secure. This also applies to the secure storage of backups that are taken of your website by the hosting company in case of severe server problems.

About The Author

Web hosting can be a tricky business. Yvette Cordell can help you weed through the sea of information out there. Go to http://www.heyhosting.com and let Yvette point you in the right direction.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 17

by Yvette McGovern

First Web Hosting Experience

First Web Hosting Experience

by: Igor Romanoff

Well… youกve purchased a domain name… created a pretty design… filled it with content… what now?
HOSTING.
I suppose that you know what a web hosting is, and we don’t need to repeat in once again.
Actually if you don’t know what it is, and you don’t even want to learn about it, you have a great way out:
Just type ‘web hostingก in Google, click ‘Iกm filling luckyก and then simply click the big ‘BUYก button on a website that appears 🙂
But if you really need to find a proper web hosting company that will suit your needs – use our advices below and take the one that will charge you not more than you expect.
Letกs assume that you’re ready to pay a bit for hosting services, we won’t take free hosting into consideration (itกs absolutely another story).
So hereกs the small list of what you need to learn before choosing a web hosting company.
Disc Space
Everything here depends on the size of your website.
In fact the easiest way to calculate the volume of the disc space do you need is to check your websiteกs weight at your computer folder. But note that youกll need some extra space, just in case.
For example, if your web site needs 100 MB of disk space, look for the plan which offers at least 150 MB of web space; this will prevent a large unexpected bill at the end of the month when high priced costs, charged by most web hosts for extra disk space usage, are added on to your bill.
Bandwidth
Try to estimate how much bandwidth (data transfer) your web site may use. And of course make sure that you get more bandwidth than your site uses.
For example, if your website uses 5GB bandwidth per month, then choose a plan, which offers at least 8 GB bandwidth per month. This again will prevent from paying more money for ‘extra bandwidth in the end of the month.
Website Speed
This is a very important factor while considering a hosting service.
This will decide how fast your website loads when some one visits your site. You need to know that your future visitors and customers are very busy, so you need a fast server. Otherwise they won’t be sitting and waiting for the load of all your texts and graphics.
Feel free to ask your hosting provider to provide you with a list of their clientกs websites to check their speed.
Mail Server
Make sure that you get enough email addresses with your own domain name. There is no need to pay an extra fee for use of a mail server as many hosts offer this service now for free, within the hosting plan.
…
Now what? Thatกs all for now my friend. If itกs your first hosting experience – this information will be sufficient for you I suppose. Of course there’re many many other features that youกll find out later. But as for now – letกs won’t overload you with them all.
If you need to get more information about choosing web hosting or even running a web hosting company – go to www.webhostingoverview.com – believe me, there youกll find everything you need.

About The Author

Igor Romanoff (Web Hosting Overview)

Email: [email protected]

Web Hosting Overview is a resource for everyone looking to find a website hosting company.

This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the ขAboutข and ขweblinksข are kept intact.

This article was posted on June 10, 2004

by Igor Romanoff

How กSecureก is YOUR Web Site?

How กSecureก is YOUR Web Site?

by: Robin Nobles

A few days ago, an incident happened to me that has prompted the writing of this article. I’m sure that if this is an issue for me and one of my Web sites, it’s an issue for many others.

With my personal Web site, I use a nationally known Internet Host provider to host it. They’ve hosted my site for years, and I can’t really complain about their services (except that you can rarely find a real ขpersonข to talk to).

However, a few days ago, I wanted to give a good friend of mine, Dave Barry, access to FTP into my Web site to download a particular file. Rather than using an FTP program, he used IE (Internet Explorer) to FTP into the site. The strange thing is, before I even gave him my username and password, Dave was inside the server where my site is hosted!

Dave said that the server, and any sites hosted on that server, were wide open for attack. He was able to see the System 32 Directory, passwords, etc. The good news for me is that Dave is a Certified Internet Webmaster Security Professional Instructor, so he knows exactly what he’s talking about (and I don’t).

He ran a report to show the vulnerability of my Web site. That report indicated that there were seven high risk vulnerabilities, four medium risk, and two low risk. It also said that it was imperative that I take immediate action in fixing the security issues of the network.

Now isn’t this a comforting thought, especially since I’ve never questioned the security of my Web site? I use one of the top Web hosting firms in the country. This problem should NOT have happened.

I contacted the hosting company, and they’re checking into it. At one point, they said, ขA little further research on my part found that anonymous FTP is erroneously enabled on your website.ข Then, in a later email, they changed their mind, ขI did misspeak last night when I said that anonymous access was enabled, as I could not upload any files at all, though I could view some directories and files, evidently some relatively innocuous system data files.ข

Dave disagreed, and he promptly sent me two files to prove how vulnerable and insecure the system is. I sent them those files as well as the security report Dave ran, and they’re continuing to look into it. To date though, a week later, they still haven’t gotten back with me on it.

In my case, though this is a very disturbing situation, it isn’t the end of the world. I don’t sell anything on my Web site – it’s there for informational purposes only.

But, for those of you who actually sell goods or services over the Internet, this could be a huge, and extremely distressing, problem. As Dave said, ขI could crash the entire server in a matter of minutes.ข But, he’s one of the good guys wearing a white hat, not a hacker. He’s also responsible for 40+ Web sites through his company, all of which are extremely secure.

What can you do to protect your own Web site? Now that we know how serious a problem this can be, let’s look at some ways you can protect your Web site.

1. Contact a security expert like Dave Barry and have him run a security audit on your Web site. Visit Computer Concierge and complete the FREE Website security report. Find out what your Web site security vulnerabilities are, and learn what needs to be done to fix them. http://securityreport.computerconcierge.com

2. If the security audit on your Web site proves that you have security issues, and if your host provider can’t give you a logical explanation, move your site to a different hosting company. I’m going to move my personal site to Combustion Hosting, where security is a #1 priority, and where I can get personal attention and support. http://combustionwebhosting.com/products/secureplans/

3. Ask your current hosting company about their security policies. Then, point them to this URL, which lists The Top 20 Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities. This list was compiled by a list of security experts from the FBI and the SANS Institute. Though you may not be able to understand much of the report, your hosting company will. Not only does the report list the security risks, but it also gives solutions to the problems. http://www.sans.org/top20/

4. If you’re a ขdo it yourselfer,ข visit the U.S. Department of Energy’s site which offers a listing of tools for security analysis. http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/SecurityTools.html

5. Or, consider Retina, which provides excellent security software. http://www.eeye.com/html/index.html

6. SecureNet Solutions also offers products that will run vulnerability reports for you. http://www.securenetsol.com/

The main thing is to learn from my ขmistakesข and don’t be caught off guard. If you’re using a hosting company to host your Web site, make darn sure that the server and your Web site are secure. Visit Computer Concierge for a free security audit. Then, go with a reputable hosting company who places the utmost importance on security, like Combustion Hosting.

Remember: Your Web site is your online business. Don’t you lock the door and secure the windows of your ขbrick and mortarข business? Do you have an alarm system? Don’t you think it’s important to do the same with your online business?

About The Author

Robin Nobles is the CoDirector of Training of Search Engine Workshops with John Alexander. They teach 2day beginner, 3day advanced, and 5day allinclusive กhands onก search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. She also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and she’s a member of Wordtracker’s official question support team. With partner John Alexander, sheกs coauthored a series of ebooks called, ‘the Totally NonTechnical Guides to Having a Successful Web Site.ก And, they opened a networking community for search engine marketers called The World Resource Center for Search Engine Marketers.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 03, 2004

by Robin Nobles

How To Pick a Hosting Company

How To Pick a Hosting Company

by: Matt Bacak

If you are seeking a new hosting company let me give you some words of wisdom because I have been through a few. One company even went belly up in the middle of the night giving me no notice. That was disastrous for me as well as my customers. If you are tired of hosting companies with poor service and excessive downtime then get ready to print this page out.

First thing first, you might take a step back from your website or Ebusiness and think about what you want it to look like in the future. Then start making decisions about the hosting. Think about things like: How much traffic are you expecting? How many more sites will you build or could possibly build in the future? Are you going to load software to the server? Some of the best programs that smart marketers use need to be loaded: such as; affiliate programs and autoresponders and require a dedicated IP address. If you intend on growing then make sure these things are an option.

If you realized that you will want to have more sites in the future or currently are moving a lot of sites from one account to another. One thing you can do is get a dedicated server or keep your money in your pocket and find a hosting company thatกll allow you to have addon domains. Did you realize that you could have one account for around $25 a month and all your domains on it? You, for the cost of $25 a month could host 2, 10, 15, 26, 45 domains. There ar e accounts out there that will let you do this. But hereกs what you should know about these types of accounts, you are not limited in domains, but limited in the amount of space you have. So if you need more space, just ask and theyกll be happy to give it to you for a price.

If you want to market your website you should get your own IP address with your accounts. This will play a big part when it comes to search engines finding you, as well as increasing the utilization of your autoresponders.

One big thing to watch out for:

Make sure that you find out what type of control panel the hosting company is using. If they don’t tell you I would be scared. I believe that the best hosting companies out there will use cPanel. If the hosting company is using cPanel then they will probably be bragging about it since it is designed very well.

Now hereกs a quick checklist:

Step back and think about what you want

Check to see if they allow you to have addon domains. If so, then what will it cost in additional fees? (Some companies have a one time fee for this).

Make sure you own your own IP address, not a shared IP. Most companies call this a dedicated IP address.

Look at the control panel, is it cPanel?

Now for the biggest question I always get: What hosting company do you highly recommend? I recommend a company called Frontier Power Hosting because of their specialized knowledge, excellent customer support reputation, and they meet these criteria. You can find them at http://www.frontierpowerhosting.com.

About The Author

Matt Bacak became ก#1 Best Selling Authorก in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s eBiz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets http://promotingtips.com

This article was posted on August 08

by Matt Bacak