The Cybermagic of Whitelists

The Cybermagic of Whitelists

by: Niall Roche

Before we start getting deep into the meat of this article itกs important to explain some standard terminology to make sure the rest of this article makes sense.

An IP address is a number which identifies your location on the Internet.

A blacklist is a list of IP addresses which your antispam software uses to block incoming spam.

A whitelist is the exact opposite of a blacklist.

A whitelist is a predefined list of IP addresses that are allowed to send email to and receive email from each other. Blacklists exclude known and suspected spammers. Whitelists can be used to exclude everyone except known IP addresses. Think of it like this. A whitelist is a like having a phonebook which is owned by a small group of people who only wish to speak directly to each other. They don’t want just anybody ringing them. Not only that but the entire group need to approve new phone numbers before they appear in this exclusive phonebook.

To send email to a whitelist you must be approved by the owner of the whitelist. This is a lot like the double optin systems used by legimiate ezines and mailing list owners. Whitelists are the nightclub bouncers of the virtual world if you ain’t on the list you ain’t getting in. Simple but very effective.

A real world example of a whitelist would be if two companies wanted to exchange email only with each other. These companies could implement a whitelist that contained the IP address for just the two email servers that want to send email to each other. That would mean that any email coming from an IP address not on the whitelist would be returned to sender. For companies they can ensure that employees are only dealing with work related email and not chatting with their friends.

The benefits of whitelists are many but proper management of the whitelists is equally important. Misuse of whitelists will only lead to more headaches for everyone involved with missing email, irate customers and IT departments doing overtime just being the tip of the iceberg.

If youกd like to learn more about spam then drop by http://www.spamsite.com today.

About The Author

http://www.spamsite.com reviews and tests spam filtering software for the business and end user. Niall Roche is the content author and owner of spamsite.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 09, 2004

by Niall Roche

Know How DNS Works

Know How DNS Works

by: Pawan Bangar

Domain name Servers (DNS) are an important but invisible part of the internet, and form one of the largest databases on it. Each machine on an internet is assigned a unique address, called an IP address, which is 32 bit number and is expressed as 4 octets. The method user to represent these IP addresses is known as dotted decimal Notationก. A typical address looks like this: 199.249.150.4

It is very difficult to keep in mind the IP addresses of all the websites we visit daily, because itกs not easy to remember strings of numbers. However, we do remember words. This is where domain names come into the picture. If you want to connect to a particular site, you need to know its IP address but do need to know its URL. The DNS gets the mappings of the IP addresses and the corresponding names.

Names and numbers

DNS converts the machine names (such as www.xyz.com) to IP addresses (such as 199.249.150.9). Basically, it translates from a name to an address and from an address to a name.

The mapping from the IP address to the machine name is called reverse mapping .when you type http://www.xyz.com into your browser, the browser first needs to get the IP address of www.xyz.com. The machine uses a directory service to look up IP addresses and this service is called DNS. When you type www.xyz.com your machines firsts contacts a DNS server, asking it to find the IP address for www.xyz.com. This DNS server might then contact other DNS servers on the internet. DNS is therefore is considered as the global network of servers. The great advantage of DNS is that no organization is responsible for updating it. It is what is known as distributed database.

The three letter codes

A DNS server is just a computer thatกs running the DNS software. The most popular DNS software is BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) DNS is hierarchical, treestructured system. The top is donated byก.ก. And is known as the root of the system. Below the root there are seven immediate sub domain nodes and these are กcomก, กorgก, กgovก, กmilก, กnetก, กeduก, กIntก, etc.

DNS consists of two components

Nameserver

Resolver

Nameserver:

This performs the task of looking up the names. Usually, there is one nameserver for a cluster of machines. If the nameserver does not contain the requested information, it will contact another nameserver. But it is not required for every server to know how to contact every other server. Every nameserver will know how to contact the root nameserver, and this in turn will know the location of every authoritative nameserver for all the second level domains.

Resolver:

This runs on a client machine to initiate DNS lookups. It contains a list of nameservers to use. As we have read, the function of each of these nameservers is to resolve name queries. There are three types of nameserversprimary nameserver, secondary nameserver, and caching nameserver. The secondary nameservers are configured for backup purposes. Caching nameservers only resolve name queries but do not maintain any DNS database files. It is important to note here that any change to primary nameservers needs to be propagated to secondary nameservers. This is because primary nameservers own the database records. The changes are propagated via a กzone transferก.

HOW กCACHINGกWORKS

DNS uses principle of กcachingก for its operation. When a nameservers receives Information about a mapping, it caches this information .further queries for the same mapping will use this cached result, thereby reducing the search cost. The nameservers don’t cache forever. The caching has a component called time to live (TTL) and the TTL determines how long a server will cache a piece of information. So when the nameservers caches receive an IP address, it receives the TTL with it. The nameserver caches the IP address for the period of time then discards it.

When a process needs to determine an IP address given a DNS address, it calls upon the local host to resolve the address. This can be done in variety of ways:

Table look up. On UNIX hosts, the table is /etc/hosts.

The process communicates with a local nameservers. This is named on a UNIX system.

By sending a massage to the remote system that is identified from the information in the file/etc/resolve.conf.

When a nameserver receives a query for a domain that is does not serve, it may send back a referral to the client by specifying better nameservers. Typically operate in the recursive manner wherein any DNS server passes requests it cannot handle to higher level server and so on, until either the request can be handled or until the root of the DNS name space is reached.

The nameservers contain pointers to other nameserver with the help of which it is possible to traverse the entire domain naming hierarchy. A host with the initial nameserver addresses has to be configured. After this, it is able to use DNS protocols to locate the nameserver responsible for any part or the DNS naming hierarchy.

Thus when a nameserver receives a request, it can do one of the following:

It can answer the request with an IP address. This method is called iterative. In this, the client simply asks the server to resolve a domain name. The server accesses its database, finds its IP address and sends that back. If the server does not find the address, it sends back an error ;DNS not foundก). Contact another nameserver and try to find the IP address for the requested name. Send back a referral to the client specifying the IP address of better nameservers.

A popular user interface, called กnslookupกis available on the UNIX system. With this, you can perform any DNS function. This program also displays the result to the user. Using is nslookup, you can obtain a listing of all the hosts in a zone. In order to do this, you first need to identify the nameserver for the zone.

The threats that are associated with the DNS are due to the lack of integrity and authenticity checking of the data held within the DNS. Also, other protocols can use host names as an access control mechanism. The internet engineering task force (IETF) has come up with DNS security (DNSSEC) extensions to DNS protocol. The main objective to DNSSEC is to provide authentication and integrity to the DNS. These are provided through the use of cryptographicก

About The Author

Pawan Bangar,

Technical Director,

Birbals, Ebirbals, SeoBirbals, Hbirbals

India.

Visit us at:

www.birbals.com

www.ebirbals.com

www.hbirbals.com

www.seobirbals.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 22, 2003

by Pawan Bangar

Avoid Search Engine Blacklisting

Avoid Search Engine Blacklisting

by: Kevin Kantola

The best way to avoid being blacklisted by the search engines is to avoid using some questionable techniques that were once popular to gain high rankings. Even if your website is not blacklisted by using some of the techniques below, it may be penalized (buried in the rankings) so your traffic will suffer all the same. When a search engine blacklists a website it will throw your listing off their site and block your site from coming aboard again. This can be done by blocking the domain name, the IP address or both.
Here are a few techniques to avoid, so that your site will not be blacklisted:
Mirror Websites
Mirror websites are sites with identical content but different URLกs. This was once a method used to gain high rankings in the search engines, but since search engines are smarter now, this will only get you penalized or blacklisted.
Doorway (gateway) Pages
Doorway pages are pages with little real content for your visitors that are optimized to rank highly within the search engines. These pages are designed so that visitors will move deeper into the website where the real content lies. Navigation to the doorway pages are usually hidden from the visitors (but not the SE robots) on the homepage.
Invisible Text and Graphics
Using invisible text (text the same or a very similar color to the background) was once used to spam a homepage and some inside pages with nonstop keywords and keyphrases. Also links to doorway pages and hidden site maps can be done with invisible text (or invisible graphics). Some designers will create a graphic link with a 1 pixel by 1 pixel raster image and link this to a hidden inner page such as a hidden site map.
Submitting Pages Too Often
Submitting the same pages to the search engines within a 24 hour period can get you penalized and may delay your website from being listed in the rankings. Some search engines believe that pages submitted sooner than every 30 days is too much. The 30 day rule is a good rule to follow when submitting to multiple search engines.
Using Irrelevant Keywords
Using irrelevant keywords in a websiteกs metatags and / or body copy in order to achieve high rankings will most certainly backfire. Search engines now want to see parity between these two areas and if your site is thought to be spamming with irrelevant keywords, you site will be penalized or blacklisted.
Automated Submissions to the Major Search Engines
Using an automated service or software to submit your website to the search engines can be extremely counterproductive. Most of the major search engines and directories accept manual submissions but do not like to be spammed with the automated ones.
Cloaking
Cloaking is the practice of deceiving both the search engine and the visitor by serving up different pages for each. The visitor sees a nicely designed and formatted page and the search engine robot scans a page of highly optimized text. Any practice that is deceptive should be avoided and the downfall of cloaking is that, if caught, the website can be banned permanently.
Using a Cheap or Free Web Host
Using a cheap or free web host can hurt in the search engine rankings. Frequent downtime, pages taken down for exceeding the bandwidth deter robots from indexing your site. If a robot cannot access your site often enough, your site will be dropped from the search engines. Hosting is cheap, so if you are serious about your website get your own domain name and host not one like geocities.com/yoursite.
Sharing an IP Address
Sharing an IP Address even from a legitimate web host can get your site in trouble. If you have cleaned up your website from all of the techniques mentioned above and your website still does not get relisted by the search engines in a couple of months, check with your host to see if you are sharing an IP address with other sites. If so, you may consider moving your website to a new host who will give you your own IP address or at least one that is not shared with another company who has had their IP address (an yours) banned by the search engines.
FASTกs Director of Business Development and Marketing, Stephen Baker, has stated that globally there are approximately 30 million crawlable servers and approximately twothirds have been banned by the FAST network for spamming. If these numbers are correct, you site may be blacklisted or penalize for กguilt by association.ก
http://www.seoresource.net

About The Author

Kevin Kantola is the CEO of seoresource.net, a search engine optimization company, and has published many articles over the past 20 years.
Copyright © 2004 SEO Resource

This article was posted on July 29, 2004

by Kevin Kantola

PayPerClick Fraud Exposed

PayPerClick Fraud Exposed

by: Dean Phillips

Has anyone else noticed a disturbing pattern in your payperclick advertising campaign, of the same IP addresses clicking on your ad, spending one or two seconds on your website and then leaving?

Thatกs called click fraud and itกs a major problem among all of the payperclick search engines.

Click fraud is a scheme that takes advantage of online advertising programs like those offered by Google, Yahoo/Overture, Findwhat and others. A fraudulent website is set up and participates in programs like Googleกs AdSense program. Unlike legitimate websites that attract human visitors to the site, fraudsters use software กhitbotsก or employ boilerrooms of lowwage employees from other countries to generate clicks on ads, and then collect commission from payperclick programs.

In June, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Michael Anthony Bradley 32, of Oak Park California who was charged with fraud and extortion for a scheme involving Googleกs payperclick program. Believe it or not, Bradley actually tried to extort Google into paying $100,000 for click fraud software he created called กGoogle Clique.ก

Click fraud hurts advertisers by driving up the cost of each click because many online advertising programs adjust the price of each click based on the popularity of a particular keyword and the number of competing advertisers. And depending on how popular your keyword is, it can take just a few minutes to register hundreds of clicks. Click fraud can quickly deplete your payperclick account and leave you with little or nothing to show for your expentiture.

In a recent filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google acknowledged, กWe are exposed to the risk of fraudulent clicks on our ads. We have regularly paid refunds related to fraudulent clicks and expect to do so in the future. If we are unable to stop this fraudulent activity, these refunds may increase. If we find new evidence of past fraudulent clicks, we may have to issue refunds retroactively of amounts previously paid to our Google Network members.ก

Now, in all fairness to the payperclick companies Iกve used in the past, I have to give credit where credit is due. Whenever I complained of click fraud, which was often, all of the payperclick companies, without exception, did the right thing and credited the stolen funds back into to my account. Ironically, I have not had a click fraud problem with Google.

You can reduce your risk of being victimized by click fraud, by regularly auditing your website’s log files and immediately reporting suspicious traffic to the payperclick companies. If you are unfamiliar with analyzing your site’s log files, there are some excellent software products available to assist you like ClickTracks, WebTrends, and AWStats. These products make it fairly easy to identify patterns in your websiteกs traffic.

Recently, I noticed the same IP number clicking on my ad over and over againoften many times within just a few minutes. I did some basic detective work and discovered it was actually a competitor of mine devouring my payperclick dollars. I approached him with my findings and threatened him with law enforcement intervention, if he didn’t cease and desist. He denied any involvement, of course. But I haven’t had any problems with that individual since.

So, how did I find out who the culprit was? Easy.

When checking your log files, if you notice a lot of clicks from one IP address, you can trace its origin by visiting the American Registry of Internet Numbers. By feeding the IP address into their กWhoisก search, they will tell you who has been assigned that IP address, and whether itกs an actual IP or another business entity.

Should the IP address not be assigned to the Americas, you can verify RIPE Network Coordination Center for all Russian, European, and Middle Eastern registries, or the Asia Pacific Network Information Center. There are only three such sites, so you should be able to track the source.

However, if someone is using sophisticated software to generate clicks on your ad, it will probably be impossible for you to trace the IP address yourself. For example, according to alleged Google extortionist, Michael Bradley, กHolland Engine software was originaly written to allow spammers to conceal their orginating IP address from mailservers and to keep it from apearing in email headers.

Holland Engine is the core of LincolnSX, the most powerful massemailing software, running at rates of 5 million e mails per day per machine. Holland Engine will actually tunnel through the internet and connect to the desired IP address from, not your IP but rather from another, the one at the end of the tunnel.ก

In conclusion, if you choose to use payperclick search engines to advertise, watch your log files closely and report improprieties immediately.

Also don’t put all of your eggs into one basket, by depending solely on payperclick advertising. Utilize a variety of ways to attract traffic to your website, such as ezines, newsletters, writing articles, offline advertising, etc.

About The Author

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: [email protected]

Make Money Online! Internet marketing expert, Dean Phillips will help you make money online, starting today…Guaranteed! For details just visit my website.

Website: http://www.letsmakemoney.net

This article was posted on September 27, 2004

by Dean Phillips

Avoiding กBadก Web Hosts

Avoiding กBadก Web Hosts

by: Jim Edwards

The Internet represents the most powerful communication revolution since the dawn of mankind.

Its communication power can literally create business empires faster and with less startup capital than in all human history.

Yet, with all this power at their fingertips, it amazes me that most businesses and entrepreneurs will put their business in jeopardy just to save a couple of bucks.

Would you build a luxury home on a foundation made for a doublewide trailer?

Would you mount a race car body and engine on a chassis built for a gocart?

If not, then why would you try to build a legitimate online business to support your family and contribute to your livelihood using $4 a month hosting?

It doesn’t make sense, but people do it every day and, unfortunately, the consequences can often cost you a hundred times or more of what you กsaved.ก

When you go to choose a web host, you need to think in terms of the purpose for your website(s).

If you want a little family site or a noncommercial blog, then $5 a month hosting may be just what you need.

If you want to host a basic, but dependable website to sell your own, or someone elseกs products, then plan on $920 a month, depending on how much handholding you need from your web hostกs technical support staff.

If you want to host multiple sites to generate search engine traffic, sell your own products online, and get a moderate amount of traffic, then plan to spend $15$50 a month, depending on which options you choose.

If you plan to operate a serious ecommerce site and need the flexibility to grow, then a dedicated server for $100 $200 a month may fit the bill.

When evaluating a web host, keep the following in mind.

Will you run scripts on your website?

If yes, then make sure the web host offers a cgibin and mysql database. Those allow you to run almost any kind of script youกll need on a basic to intermediate level site.

Will you have your own กdedicated IP address?ก

All domain names correspond to an IP address, which is just a series of numbers.

Just like a phone number dials up the correct phone anywhere on earth, each domain has its own number.

However, depending on how your host sets up their server, your domain can actually share an IP address with dozens, even hundreds, of other websites.

If one of those websites misbehaves, it can adversely affect everyone on that same IP address.

My advice: pay a little extra to make sure you get your own dedicated IP.

How much space will you need?

Make sure you get at least 100 megabytes of space from your web host.

Also, make sure you get at least 10 email forwarding accounts and 10 gigabytes of data transfer per month.

Also, the hosting market is so competitive now that you should never pay a setup fee.

If in doubt, shop around, compare and always ask someone you trust or check up on what others have to say about a specific hosting service by visiting sites like http://www.webhostingtalk.com

The moral here?

Understand that your web hosting account is literally the กfoundationก for your online business, so don’t skimp. You’re only hurting yourself in the long run if you do.

© Jim Edwards All Rights reserved

http://www.thenetreporter.com

About The Author

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the coauthor of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links…

Simple ‘traffic Machineก brings Thousands of NEW visitors to your website for weeks, even months… without spending a dime on advertising! ==> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com

This article was posted on August 13

by Jim Edwards

The Click Fraud Problem

The Click Fraud Problem

by: Christos Varsamis

Click fraud has become a major problem for online marketers. If you participate on Google adwords campaigns or Overture, you must already pay a lot for your campaigns.

What is click fraud?

Click fraud is the deliberate clicks to PPC search engine ads for completely other reasons than expressing interest for buying the related products or services.

Overture defines click fraud as clicks arising for reasons other than the goodfaith intention of an Internet user to visit a web site to purchase goods or services or to obtain information.

Google defines click fraud, or invalid clicks, as any method used to artificially and/or maliciously generate clicks or page impressions.

In simple words, Click fraud means that someone is cheating you and that you pay too much for your pay per click campaigns.

Who is doing that?

Three main groups click on pay per click ads, without real interest in the offered goods:

People who joined Google AdSense or other per click affiliate programs click on the ads on their own web site to make a little income. Often, these people cooperate with other webmasters to click on each otherกs ads.

Some unethical companies click on the pay per click ads of competitors to drive up their advertising costs.

Companies (often in India, Russia and China) hire people who are paid to click on ads.

Google and other search networks provide refunds to advertisers when click fraud has been discovered.

Google and Overture employ กfraud squads,ก or teams of people dedicated to fighting click schemes. But at least two marketing executives say such countermeasures are missing fraudulent clicks that are responsible for between 5 percent and 20 percent of advertising fees paid to all search networks.

This is a huge problem. There is no ขpay per clickข Company denying that click fraud exists. Web analytics companies estimates that the 50% of all click activity is fraudulent.

This means that your pay per click marketing activities are half effective as they could be because of click fraud.

Overture spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens refutes that estimate, saying that the numbers likely represent acts of fraud that are ultimately caught. She added that Overture filters most fraudulent clicks with the best antifraud system in the industry, which combines technology and human analysis.

Most advertisers are aware of the clickfraud issue but have not delved into it because of the technical complexities involved. Others are concerned that they could jeopardize their relationships with the powerful search networks if they complain too loudly.

One of the best ways to eliminate click fraud is using anti click fraud services such as ppctrax (www.ppctrax.com). They provide services like the below:

IP address capture.

IP address geographic Location.

User Agent (browser, bot etc.)

See exactly what keywords are generating your clicks

Date and Time stamp

System detects sudden click spikes from one or more IP addresses

Realtime email alerts at 80% and 100% of your accountกs transaction utilization

IP address history alert you to prior offenders

Another similar service is ขwho is clicking whoข:

http://www.whosclickingwho.com

Other ways is the click fraud capture software like Click Auditor:

http://www.keywordmax.com/click_auditor.html

About The Author

Christos Varsamis is an internet marketing consultant. He is the creator and publisher of http://www.settinglifegoals.com & http://www.internetmarketingsuccesstips.com.

This article was posted on March 07

by Christos Varsamis

How Multiple Server Hosting impacts your websiteกs

How Multiple Server Hosting impacts your websiteกs uptime

by: Godfrey E. Heron

This article describes the technology behind multiple server hosting and how you may utilize it to maximize your siteกs security and uptime

Hosting of web sites has essentially become a commodity. There is very little distinguishing one hosting company from the next. Core plans and features are the same and price is no longer a true determining feature. In fact, choosing a host based on the cheapest price can be more expensive in the long term with respect to reliability issues and possible loss of sales as a result of website downtime.

Selecting a host from the thousands of providers and resellers can be a very daunting task, which may result in a hit and miss approach. But although hosting may have become a commodity, one distinguishing feature that you must always look out for is reliability.

At the heart of any hosting companyกs reliability is redundancy. This ensures that if a problem exists at one point, there will be an alternative which ensures continuity as seemlessly and transparently as possible.

Most hosts do employ redundant network connections. These are the high speed pipes that route data from the server to your web browser. But, redundant กmultiple web serversก have been extremely rare and very expensive, requiring costly routing equipment which has previously been used only in mission critical applications of Fortune 500 companies.

However, a very neat but little known Domain Name Server(DNS) feature called กround robinก allows the selection and provision of a particular IP address from a กpoolก of addresses when a DNS request arrives.

To understand what this has to do with server reliability itกs important to remember that the Domain Name Server (DNS) database maps a host name to their IP address. So instead of using a hard to remember series of numbers (IP address) we just type in your web browser www.yourdomain.com, to get to your website.

Now, typically it takes at at least 2 to 3 days to propagate or ‘spread the word’ of your DNS info throughout the internet. Thatกs why when you register or transfer a domain name it isn’t immediately available to the person browsing the web.

This delay has stymied the security benefits of hosting your site on multiple servers, as your site would be down for a couple of days if something went awry with one server. You would have to change your DNS to reflect your second server and wait days before the change was picked up in routers on the internet.

However, the round robin DNS strategy solves this predicament, by mapping your domain name to more than one IP address.

Select hosting companies now employ the DNS round robin technique in conjunction withกfailover monitoringก.

The DNS round robin failover monitoring process starts by a web hosting company setting up your site on two or more independent web servers (preferably with different IP blocks assigned to them). Your domain name will therefore have 2 or more IP Addresses assigned to it.

Then the failover monitor watches your web server(s) by dispatching data to a URL you specify and looking for particular text in the results. When the system detects that one of your IP addresses is returning an error, and the others aren’t, it pulls that IP address out of the list. The DNS then points your domain name to the working IP address/s

If any of your IPกs come back online they are restored to the IP pool. This effectively and safely keeps your site online – even if one of your web servers is down.

The average failure detection and recovery time with a system like this can be as low as 15 minutes. This time varies depending on the speed of your site and the nature of the failure and also how long other ISPกs cache (save) your DNS information.

The time taken for other ISPกs caching your information can be manipulated in the failover monitor by lowering the ‘time to liveก (TTL) cache settings. These are the settings that other ISPกs will use to determine how long to cache your DNS information.

Of course you must bear in mind the matter of how frequently data is synchronized between your websiteกs servers. This will be the hosting companyกs responsibility, and this may become complicated where databases and user sessions are involved.

The very expensive hardware based failover monitoring systems that point a virtual IP address to other ISPกs, while behind the scenes juggling a number of unique IP addresses on different servers, is of course the most กelegantก solution to multi server hosting.

That way, the whole issue of ISPกs caching your information does not come into play.

Therefore, for siteกs that need to have true 99.99995% uptime, without huge outlays of money, the technology is readily available and certain proprietory failure monitoring systems are now relatively cheap to apply.

About The Author

Godfrey Heron is the Website Manager of the Irieisle Multiple Domain Hosting Services company.Signup for your free trial, and host multiple web sites on one account: http://www.irieisleonline.com

This article was posted on December 10, 2003

by Godfrey E. Heron

Web Hosting Basics

Web Hosting Basics

by: Steve Ashton

So you’re about to embark on your first web project and you’re wondering where on earth to start? Well, one of the first things youกll need is a web hosting package. There are so many out there it can seem daunting to try and choose one. In this article weกll teach you the basics to help you make an informed decision.

What is Web Hosting?

For people to actually view your pages on the web, you must have your files located on a กweb serverก. When they visit your site, what they are actually doing is viewing those files. You can rent a little bit of space on the web server, or if your site is large, rent an entire server for your site. Each server is assigned an IP address. This is a four number address that is separated by dots. i.e. 127.0.0.1 Every domain name actually points to an IP address and this is how visitors access your files on the web server.

Once your site is hosted on a webserver, it can be viewed by any computer in the world through a web browser. All they need to do is type in your domain name to view your web pages. Your site must be hosted on a web server before it will be available to external visitors.

What is a Web Host

A Web Host is a company that owns and maintains webservers with the purpose of hosting web sites. You rent space from these companies and in return they will maintain and service the server. Part of this entails keeping the server software current, applying any security patches and ensuring the site is always available, known as กuptimeก. To achieve peak performance, these servers are normally housed in specialist กdatacentersก with dedicated high speed connections to ensure that website loading speeds are as high as possible. A lot of web hosting companies will rent space in a large datacenter to save costs.

Web Host companies come in all shapes and sizes, from large multinational telecommunications companies to joe bloggs down the street with a server in their office. A number of web hosting companies will include a lot of other services to make them a onestop shop to get yourself on the web. This could include domain name registration which ensures your domain name will point to the correct IP address as soon as the name is registered. If you register your domain name with a different company you will need to specify the IP address of your hosting server before anyone is able to view your files.

Types of Web Hosting

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting means your site will be hosted on a web server that is also hosting a number of other websites at the same time. The server disk space and server resources, i.e. RAM, data transfer is divided up between the various clients. Although your site is located on a shared server, your files are still secure and can not be viewed by anyone else who also has their site on that web server.

As well as sharing the server resources, all the websites also share the same IP. This can be important in some cases as some websites can get banned by search engines for improper behaviour such as SPAM or illegal activities. When a website is banned, the search engine will block the IP address which means all the other sites on the web server may also be affected. It is therefore important to ensure that the web hosting company careful monitors the activities of the websites they host or state what kind of sites are appropriate for that server.

Virtual Private Server Hosting

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) share some of the same characteristics as shared hosting but it provides you with a bit more control over your own destiny. Like shared hosting, a web server is divided up and the serverกs resources are split between the clients. What makes this different is that each partition is given its own IP address and generally, there are a very limited amount of users on each server, ensuring that you get a good share of the serverกs resources.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated Hosting means that the entire web server is กdedicatedก to one website, or one client. A client can host a number of their own websites if they choose to do so. The benefits of this are that you control the server, and can be assured that no one else is doing anything on their website that will affect your site. It also means that all the systems resources are geared to your site which will boost the speed and reliability of your site. On the downside, having your own dedicated server incurs a much bigger investment and you are responsible for ensuring that the server is always running.

This can be a great option if you run a large site that will cover these costs and you have the technical expertise to manage the server.

Summary

I hope that after reading this youกll have a better idea about what kind of web hosting plan best suits your particular needs. Remember to look around. There are lots of very good companies out there but there are also a lot of bad oneกs. It pays to do some research about the company you choose before purchasing your web hosting plan.

About The Author

Steve Ashton is a programmer and web developer. He runs two popular websites, http://www.abetterwebhost.com and http://www.domainnamescenter.com.

This article was posted on January 07

by Steve Ashton

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

What Is A Domain Name And Where To Register?

What Is A Domain Name And Where To Register?

by: Michael Kralj

A domain name is an alias for an IP address. Now what is an IP address? An IP address is a numeric code that signifies where to look through the Internet for content. An example of an IP address would be 22.226.141.25. Rather than typing in a long and easily forgotten IP address, a domain name helps you by typing an easily remembered name to access the same site.

For example, www.domainsatretail.com is a domain name that points to a specific IP address. People can remember a domain name such as www.domainsatretail.com much easier than they can a long numeric code.

Domain names are everywhere as many use it everyday. Think of search sites. Google and Yahoo both have corresponding domain names www.google.com and www.yahoo.com. If you have ever sent an email you have used a domain name. For example when sending an email to [email protected], sympatico.ca is the domain name.

Now that we have a better understanding of domain names, we need to know which domain name to pick and where can we register it. The domain name chosen for a web site can be a very important decision of marketing your company on the Internet. Its quite easy to just say pick a catchy domain that everyone will remember to use and you are set. In most cases it is that simple and you are set on your way to register the domain. However, at times the domain name you want has already been taken. And then you must think of a secondary name that you wish to use that will be just as catchy as the first.

OK, now you have picked your domain name you want. What is next? You need to choose a registrar for you domain name registration. There are many registrars who sign up and are available for the year, but you get no service from them whatsoever. Here are two domain name registrars that I would recommend for completing your domain name registration.

1) Domains at Retail – my own registrar that registers domain names. We provide great service and have 24/7 customer support. .com domain names are normally on sale for $8.75 US / year, however they are currently being run on promotion for $7.95 US / year. Visit Domains at Retail at http://www.domainsatretail.com for Cheap domain registration and excellent customer service.

2) Domains at Cost – excellent registrar with very competitive prices. I use this registrar for my .ca domain name registrations and renewals. They offer an excellent price ($14.41 CDN per domain name registration) and I am always able to get someone on the phone and my questions answered. Please Visit Domains at Cost at http://www.domainsatcost.ca for .ca Domain Name Registrations!

Good Luck with your domain name registration process and your start to your online marketing!

About The Author

Michael Kralj

Michael Kralj is owner of Emenki Web Solutions and Domains at Retail.

Emenki Web Solutions are web site designers and programmers based in Hamilton, Ontario, providing businesses with an informative and strategic approach to establishing an online presence on the web.

Please visit Emenki Web Solutions on the web http://www.emenki.com

Please visit Domains at Retail on the web: http://www.domainsatretail.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 05

by Michael Kralj