What Every Marketer Needs To Know About Web Hosting

Choosing your web hosting provider is the next logical step after you have registered your domain name. However, it is not easy to find the right web hosting deal. There are many companies that offer web hosting services. If you make a search on Google for the keyword web hosting you will get more than 100 million results!

If you want to have a successful online presence you need to have reliable web hosting. Your web site has to be always online and accessible. Otherwise, you will loose clients and prospects. Let's compare this with a traditional business. If you have a shop in "offline" business name of the shop is your domain name and business space and infrastructure is your web hosting. Imagine a cafe that don't have electricity once a day for one hour or a fast food service where there is only one employee instead of four!

WEB HOSTING TYPES

You have to choose your web hosting deal depending on type of your site. You won't choose the same web hosting deal if you have a personal web site, web site for email newsletter subscription and archives, e-commerce site or web forum. There are 4 main web hosting: virtual (shared) hosting, dedicated server, collocation server and reseller hosting. The two most used are virtual (shared) hosting and dedicated server.

Virtual (shared) hosting is the situation where many web sites reside on one web server. This is the cheapest web hosting because many users split the cost for web server. You can find quality virtual hosting from $100 per year.

Dedicated server represents a hosting where company lease the whole web server from web hosting company. That web server is located in the web hosting company. Dedicated server is the right choice for company that doesn't want to share there server with other users. Dedicated server can be managed and un-managed. In the first case web hosting company will take care about setting up and constant updates and upgrades of your web server while you will have to do that in the second case. Advantage of this type of web hosting is that you can completely accommodate your web hosting to your needs. Also, dedicated server is the only logical choice for web sites with lots of visitors. Because of costs for a dedicated server that start from $100 per month, usually this hosting is chosen only by companies which take their Internet business very seriously.

Collocation server is similar to dedicated server. Difference is that company doesn't lease a web server. They place their own web server in the web hosting company. Also, company has physical access to their web server while it is not the case in using a dedicated server.

Reseller hosting is targeted to companies that want to start their own web hosting business.

Useful web site where you can find a web hosting that will fit your needs is http://www.webhost.thelist.com

FACTORS YOU HAVE TO CONSIDER

You have to take several factors in consideration in order to be satisfied with your web hosting.

Web space

Web space is determined by the type of your site. Certainly, if you want to have a web site with basic information about yourself and your work without using web applications that 50 MB of web space will be enough. On the other hand, if you want to have complex e-commerce site with several thousand products in your database or web site with members, you don't have to take anything less than 1 GB.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth represents data that has been transferred from your web site and that include graphic details, images, banners, files for download etc. Content is very important for planning your bandwidth. For most sites, 10 GB monthly bandwidth is more than enough while for some other sites like desktop wallpapers sites bandwidth can be often even several hundred GB per month.

Up-time or visibility

Up-time or visibility represents time expressed in percents that show how much is one site online. Don't be fooled because someone guarantees for example 98% up-time because it is not enough. You don't have to take anything les than 99.7%. Believe us, that difference is very big. Useful site checking your up-time is http://www.netmechanic.com

Email accounts

It is important to know what you will get in your web hosting package regarding email accounts. Will you get only a so called catch -all forwarding which means that all emails sent to anything@yourdomain.com will arrive to your email address or you can set-up email accounts for several users? For how many? Is it for 5, 10, 100 or unlimited email accounts? Also, it doesn't hurt to check do you get a so called POP3 email address ("real" email address), web mail or both? Having a POP3 email address you will be able to check your emails using your favourite email client and web mail enables you to check your emails at any place that has computer and Internet connection.

Server type, tools and control panel

The two most often used hosting are on Unix-based or Windows platform. That fact has for the result program languages, databases and scripts that you will be able to use. On Unix-based platform, usual choice is PHP language in combination with MySQL while on Windows platform ASP or ASP.NET language in combination with SQL Server. You have to check do you get a database in your package and how many. Today, modern web site has to be database-driven.

Also, it is recommended to be informed about tools that you get in your web hosting package, no matter if they are applications for web statistics, file manager and things like that. Best solution is if you get a cPanel along with Fantastico. Using Fantastico, marketers without technical knowledge can install most popular web applications within 2-3 clicks.

Technical support

Technical support is one of the most important things in choosing your web hosting, especially if you are a marketer without technical knowledge. You have to be sure that your technical support will answer your emails within 24 hours. This is not only important for choosing your web hosting company, it is important to literally any company that sells products and services, for example software company.

Some companies are so well organized that you will receive response from them within 1 hour! You can get an image about your future technical support about the way they can be contacted. Is it only via email or they have a support phone, too? Do they have a toll-free number? Do they have trouble-ticket system? Also, very important thing is their working hours. Do they provide technical support only during their working hours from 9 to 17 or they offer 24x7 technical support? The best way to see how professional they are is to make a list of questions, contact them and - wait to get the answer.

Testimonials

It is a common practice that web hosting and software companies have Testimonials section where you can read recommendations from their happy customers. Don't rely only on that section. Many web hosting companies offer you to see their portfolio of web sites that they host. Contact several webmasters and ask them about what they think about their web hosting provider. Very useful thing in finding best web hosting deals and recommendations is to visit popular web forums like http://www.webhostingtalk.com and http://www.sitepointforums.com

You see that there are several factors that influence in choosing your web hosting package. You have to be aware that like with everything else, when we come to web hosting you usually get what you pay for.

Dejan Bizinger is a Contributing Editor for Infacta. Infacta is email messaging services company providing powerful, yet easy-to-use award-winning Group Mail, software for sending highly-personalized email messages and Group Metrics, software for email tracking. For more information visit: http://www.infacta.com

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Important Considerations Before Choosing a Web Hosting Provider

The first thing before choosing a web host is that you should be fully aware of your hosting requirements. If you are a beginner wanting to host a personal web site, then your only concern is that you get a decent amount of disk space for your web site with a host that is as cheap as $5 per month. However, if you are a developer, an online entrepreneur or an online business looking for e-commerce capabilities or advanced scripting technologies, then you can determine your requirements in the following order.

(1) Whether you need Shared Hosting or Dedicated Hosting:

This depends mainly on two major requirements, the traffic your web site is expected to receive and the degree of administrative privileges you need. If you expect your web site to receive huge amounts of traffic, then you will need to have a Dedicated Server which definitely has a much greater bandwidth offering. Also you should select Dedicated server hosting if your web site requires customized options, secure information or complex applications i.e. e-commerce, dynamic content, database and multimedia applications.

(2) Whether you need Linux Hosting or Windows Hosting:

If you're going to use server technologies such as ASP, JSP etc or intend to run Microsoft applications like Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database on your server, then you should use a Windows hosting provider. Although ASP can be run on the Linux platform using some commercial applications, there are security and reliability concerns related to it. However, if you want to use ColdFusion, it can run on both Linux and Windows platforms.

(3) What are your Space and Bandwidth requirements:

Many web hosts nowadays offer generous amounts of disk space from 1 GB to 3 GB. However, if your web site mainly acts as a download resource, then your disk space requirements may be 5 to 10 times greater than this. The second consideration is how much traffic your web site is expected to receive which will let you estimate your bandwidth requirements.

(4) How many Parked Domains and Subdomains do you need:

Parked domains are very advantageous and can significantly increase the amount of traffic to your web site. Similarly, subdomains can help with your search engine rankings by pointing to specific directories of your web site. Parked domains and subdomains occasionally come free with certain web hosting packages. However if you need more, you will have to pay an additional price per month.

(5) FTP Accounts and Anonymous FTP Requirements:

You may need more than one FTP account if you have coworkers working on your web site project at different locations. The Anonymous FTP permits the general public to access certain directories on your web server to whom they have been granted permission by you. In most cases, you will need a dedicated IP address for Anonymous FTP to function.

(6) Whether you need e-commerce Features:

If you need e-commerce features, you should choose a web host that provides e-commerce functionality such as shopping carts and the ability to accept credit cards. You should also check whether their server is SSL secure.

In addition to your own hosting requirements, the following considerations must be kept in mind when looking for a quality web host.

(1) More than 99.5% uptime:

Choose a web host that has an uptime greater than 99.5% and if there is an uptime guarantee, it's even better. If your web site is for business purposes, it's very crucial that your site stays online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.

(2) Fast Servers:

The level of connectivity of your web host to the Internet is very important. So you should choose a web host with at least a T3 connection to the major Internet backbone. Analysis has shown that the average web visitor waits for about 30 seconds before your web page loads. So if your web site takes more than 30 seconds to load, chances are that you will loose a lot of visitors and consequently sales.

(3) Server Backups:

To make your data secure, your web host must have a power backup system and should backup the data to an external device in order to prevent the data loss due to failure. Check how frequently the web host backups the data, i.e. daily or weekly.

(4) Disk Space and Bandwidth:

Choose a web host that meets your disk space and bandwidth requirements. Most web hosts offer 1 GB to 3 GB of disk space, so if your web site is not mainly a download resource, then this factor is not that important for you. However, as regards the bandwidth, it should be as much as possible because your traffic can increase in the future thereby requiring more data transfer. Also check that you have the option of buying more disk space and bandwidth when required.

(5) Unrestricted CGI, SSH, FTP access & Anonymous FTP:

If you have a professional web site, you will need to run CGI scripts, have SSH (Secure Shell) access and FTP access. CGI and FTP access is provided by most web hosts whereas SSH access is provided by a few. You may also need to check if anonymous FTP access is provided.

(6) Software/Scripts:

Choose a web host that has an extensive script library that you can use to add guestbooks, forms, surveys, newsletters etc to your web site.

(7) E-commerce capabilities and SSL:

Choose a web host that provides you with e-commerce capabilities with shopping cart software and also merchant accounts. The web host must also have an SSL secure server for safe and risk-free transactions.

(8) Web-Based Administration:

Almost all web hosts nowadays provide a control panel to access and manage web site features. Ask for a demo of their control panel if possible and check to make sure that it is simple as well as comprehensive. The control panel should provide access to FTP, e-mail, databases, e-commerce and all other functions for effective web site management. VDeck 2.0 and CPanel are the leading brands of administration control panels.

(9) Full e-mail services:

Choose a web host that provides both POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts, web-based e-mail, autoresponders, mailing lists, forwarding accounts and antivirus and spam filtering software.

(10) Moneyback Guarantee:

If the Web host gives a moneyback guarantee, it's even better because it makes you absolutely risk-free.

(11) 24/7/365 Customer Support:

The web host should provide as many support channels as possible including an FAQ section, a knowledgebase, video and flash tutorials, toll-free support, e-mails support, live chat support and a community forum. Try e-mailing the web host a couple of times to check how quickly they respond to your request. The customer support should be as prompt as possible and should be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. This is crucial because if you run into problems and the support staff is not receptive or knowledgeable, you will be helpless.

Michael Smith is an expert web hosting analyst. His site Web Hosting Provider reviews and rates the leading web hosting providers.

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Understanding Web Hosting

You've got your new business all established now and you're ready to take the next step and set up a website to tell the online world that you're here and you've got something to offer. You've found a catchy domain name to call your own and now... what next? Well, the answer is that you need to find web hosting for the website you're going to build. So what does that mean and how do you figure out what kind of web hosting you need? First let's start with the basics.

Just what is web hosting anyway?

In simple terms, web hosting is renting space on a web server. A website is not simply a domain name, it is a collection of files linked together by HTML code to display text and graphics on a computer. In order for anybody to see this collection of files you've created, it has to be housed on a computer somewhere that has access to the internet. Not just any computer will do, of course. A web server is a computer set up with special software that allows it to receive requests from the internet for the website files it has stored on it and to send those files out over the internet so that the requesting computer can display them. It is very much like a waiter in a restaurant taking your order and bringing the food that you ask for from the kitchen, hence the name "server."

Along with making sure your files can be seen by internet users around the world, a web server provides other important services as well. First and foremost is the ability to create email addresses based on your domain name and to send and receive email with them. The web server also has various types of software installed on it that allow your website to run programs, create and manage databases, display video, and many other functions you might find useful. Almost any type of computer can function as a web server, but it's the software that's on it that makes it a server.

When you buy webhosting, the monthly fee you pay goes to the continued maintenance and upgrading of the server's hardware and software, the cost of keeping it online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a secure data center with a fast and powerful internet connection, and to pay for the expertise of the people who do all that work. It is completely possible to turn your own home or office computer into a web server if you really want to, but in most cases it is far more economical to pay someone else who is dedicated to providing this service in a properly reliable manner than it is to try and do it yourself.

What kinds of web hosting are there?

Shared Hosting - Most websites are not huge affairs with hundreds of pages and thousands of files and graphics, and they are targeted toward a particular audience, so they will not get as many visitors as the large general sites like Yahoo! that are targeted at everybody who uses the internet. As such, the average website therefore is not going to require the full resources of an entire web server to run it. Web servers are designed to be able to handle dozens, even hundreds of websites at once because they are powerful machines.

Shared hosting is simply the concept of hosting more than one website on a particular server. Over 95% of all websites on the internet are being run in a shared hosting environment. Since the resources of the server can be split among the clients hosted on it, so can the costs of operating the server, so shared hosting is universally cheaper than any other type. Shared hosting packages are generally designed so that each client is allotted a certain amount of each resource, with different payment levels representing different amounts of resources such as disk space, bandwidth, email addresses, and so on. Shared hosting is also known as virtual hosting.

Dedicated Hosting - If you do have a big, powerful website that gets lots of visitors and has a tendency to hog resources, then you might want to have a web server all to yourself. Some companies also prefer the extra security of not having to share the server with anyone else who could do something accidentally or on purpose to crash it. Renting the use of an entire server is known as dedicated hosting. The web hosting company still owns the machine and takes responsibility for maintaining the hardware and the web hosting software, but you have greater control over the configuration and use of the server. There is also such a thing as semi-dedicated hosting, in which a web server is only split between a very small number of clients, such as 2 to 4, with strong partitions between each to prevent them from interfering with one another. Since the hosting company is still responsible for the upkeep of the server, this type of hosting is also known as managed hosting. For obvious reasons, dedicated hosting always costs significantly more than shared hosting.

Server Co-Location - If you really want complete control over every aspect of your web server, you might very well choose to buy one and maintain it yourself if you have sufficient knowledge. However, chances are that you still don't have the resources to keep your server completely safe from power outages, roof leaks, thieves, unwary employees and other hazards and keep it on the internet on a fast, high-bandwidth connection at all times. You need a data center to provide those services for you. Co-location is the rental of physical security, continuous electrical power and a fast, reliable internet connection for a server that you own. The data center is not responsible for any of the hardware or software maintenance of a co-located server, you are. This can be a cheaper alternative to dedicated hosting if you have the necessary expertise and time to run a web server yourself.

Some web hosts are offering UNIX hosting and Windows hosting. What's the difference?

The terms UNIX hosting and Windows hosting refer to the operating system (OS) that is running on the server. The operating system, of course, is the software that allows the computer to function and manage all of the other hardware and software that is installed on it. Chances are good that you are reading this on a computer running a version of the Windows operating system, the most popular operating system in the world for personal and business computers. Other operating systems that are growing in popularity are Macintosh and various versions of Linux. However, the operating system you use on your computer is irrelevant to which type of hosting you choose. Here are some of the main features of UNIX and Windows:

UNIX Hosting

Most of the web servers in the world today run on one of the many variants of UNIX. The UNIX operating system was originally developed by universities for servers and networking, and many different versions have been written by programmers around the world under the open-source protocol, which means that the code for the operating system is openly available for programmers to customize and make improvements. Linux and BSD are the most popular forms of UNIX and come in many varieties, such as Red Hat Linux, Debian, SuSE, and FreeBSD. Most of these different versions (and much of the software that runs on them) can be obtained for free, which makes UNIX hosting cheaper for a web host than other operating systems and allows them to offer lower prices. UNIX hosting platforms are generally considered to be stable, secure, powerful and fast. Most web programming applications can be performed by software that is available for a UNIX platform. "UNIX hosting" has become a generic term to refer to any platform that is derived from the original UNIX.

Windows Hosting

Microsoft has developed its own operating system for servers as a special version of its Windows operating system, Windows Server 2003. It is a commercial product which requires the operator to purchase a license, which increases the cost of operation for the web host and usually results in higher hosting prices. Windows is designed to be user friendly, but it is generally considered to be less powerful and secure than UNIX for operating in a network environment. ASP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion are scripting languages which will only run on a Windows server, as will the Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database programs. These are popular for certain web programming applications, and if you are planning on using them to build your website, you will need to find a Windows host.

What are some of the terms I need to know when I choose a web host?

Disk Space or Storage - Because your website is a collection of files being offered on the internet for viewing, they have to be stored somewhere for retrieval and take up space. Each web server has a finite amount of hard disk memory to divide up and offer to hosting customers. Typically that space is divided up by different package levels so that the more you pay, the more space you are allowed to store pictures, web pages, videos and whatever other files you like on the web server's hard drive. If your website gets bigger than the space you are given, you will need to purchase more disk space from the web host.

Bandwidth or Data Transfer - Whenever you visit a website and view a page, you are transfering a copy of the files that make up that page over the internet from the web server to your computer. If the page you are viewing consists of an HTML file that is 3KB in size and three pictures of 47KB, 100KB and 250 KB, then you have just used 400KB of bandwidth or data transfer, because that is the total amount of data you just downloaded from the web server to view that page. Bandwidth is a commodity like disk space that the web host has to buy from its internet service provider, so it too is divided up and offered to the customers in specific amounts. Bandwidth amounts are usually measured in gigabytes (GB), because while only one copy of your files needs to be stored on the server, thousands or even millions of copies may be downloaded for viewing. If your website is viewed more times than the amount of bandwidth you are allowed can handle, your website may be turned off until the next billing period starts, or you may simply be billed for the excess amount used, depending on your host's policies. You can always purchase more bandwidth as your site's traffic increases.

Uptime - In an ideal world, every web server would be up and running and offering your web pages to the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week forever. However, web servers are computers, and like any other computer, things happen to make them fail, or they get old and out of date and require maintenance and repair. When a web host gives you a 99% uptime guarantee, they are saying that the web server will be up and running for 99% of the billing period. If they fail to meet this guarantee, most web hosts will refund a certain portion of your money depending on the amount of excess downtime they experienced.

Traffic Statistics - Website traffic statistics programs try to track visitors to your website. They can track how many times your site was visited, how many visitors were unique and how many returned more than once, which pages were most popular, where the visitors came to your site from, what search terms they used in the search engines, and many other types of information which could be useful to you in marketing your website to a target audience. These statistics can be displayed in tables, graphs and charts by hour, day, week, month or year. Some statistics programs are better than others and offer more types of data, better displays, easier navigation or other useful features. Most web hosts today offer some sort of traffic statistics software with their hosting packages.

CGI Scripts - Many web hosts offer a variety of free CGI scripts with their packages. These are things like hit counters, guestbooks, form mail programs, message boards, and other programs that allow your website to perform commonly desired functions. You can use the ones your host provides you with or you can upload and run custom CGI scripts written by yourself or somebody else to perform different tasks like conducting a survey or processing customer information to produce an automatic price quote. Most CGI scripts are written in common programming languages like Perl, PHP or ASP.

You could spend a long time trying to learn everything there is to know about web hosting, but if you've read this far then you should be armed with the basic knowledge you need to understand what different web hosts are offering you. Your next task is to figure out what you need and go out and find a host that wants to give it to you at a great price!

© Copyright 2005-2008 by Stacy Clifford
Stacy Clifford is the founder of ChiliPepperWeb.net and has been assisting customers in understanding how their web services work since 2001.

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Web Hosting, Where to Start?

Web hosting is a necessity when starting your web presence, with out it you don't have a site, but finding high quality web hosting can be a daunting challenge, after all, do you need one gigabyte of bandwidth, web hosting with one IP, unlimited databases or a free domain name. What does this really mean and what should you be looking for when you try to find a suitable web hosting company.

Web hosting companies are extremely profitable if they are popular, they have high start-up costs, but over time their general overheads dramatically reduce (proportionally). This is evident if you think that they have to pay to get directly connected to the backbone in order to establish the fastest possible connection, they need secure fire resistance premises, equipment, support staff and much more.

Once established their costs per web hosting account reduce, if you go to a major web hosting company and order a web hosting server, all they are really doing is adding a computer to their existing network, therefore splitting the overall costs. Then you pay approximately $150-$200 per month to keep that dedicated web hosting server.

Your web hosting requirements

You need to realistically establish what web hosting requirements you have for your site, do you really need 400 gigabytes of bandwidth (transfer) per month? Most sites are lucky to use 2 gigabytes per month from their web hosting account. Databases are another big issue, many web hosting companies change extra for databases, when in actual fact they don't cost anything to maintain as they reside on the same server. So before you proceed, you need to analyse what web hosting requirements you really have, look at the script requirements you have of any potential software products you plan to use on your web hosting account.

Another limitation a lot of web hosting companies impose is the amount of mailboxes you can have, many people start on the internet with the intention of offering their friends, family and staff email boxes as well as numerous emails for their site, for example webmaster@domain.com , support@domain.com , jobs@domain.com and contact@domain.com . The chances are you really don't need that many mail boxes and administering them can be a gruelling task.

You know your web hosting requirements, what next?

Your primary goal should be to visit web hosting information sites in order to obtain a list of potential web hosting companies. A great web hosting information resource is Web Hosting Village, they provide web hosting articles, news and information, and in fact the best place to start your search for quality web hosting.

Creating a list of potential web hosting companies

Given that web hosting companies are profitable, they tend to advertise immensely across the internet. The more successful a web hosting company is the more they are willing to spend on web hosting related advertising. Therefore finding hosting companies via paid advertising, such as Googles Adsense, is generally a good idea as this a good step to take to establish how successful they have been.

Short listing

In order to short list your potential web hosting companies you need to visit each site and just quickly look around, if the design is poor or they don't offer adequate support, then the chances are this web hosting company is not for you. Whether you are new to the whole web hosting experience or an expert, there will eventually be a time when you need to contact your web hosting support. If they are non existent then you will really have a problem, so establishing their channels of communication and support should be one of your top priorities when selecting a web hosting company.

Inside information

Once you have a shortlist of several web hosting companies, you need to research them via forums and webmaster communities. Chances are if someone has had a bad experience or extremely good they will want to write about it somewhere on the internet.

Selection

You should now have a list of two to three potential web hosting companies who you are really impressed with, now you need to make the selection. The best way is to weigh up the features and price and be really realistic as to your requirements, we have all been in the situation where we have been over ambitious and bought something that is too advanced for us.

If you have a winning concept that will make you bigger than Yahoo or eBay, the chances are you still don't need a mega server when you start off, you just need something small and stable that will allow you to develop and promote your business. Once you have a good source of income you can upgrade your web hosting account with your current supplier and not experience any downtime whatsoever, so why pay for a mega web hosting account when you can get by with a $19.99 a month web hosting account and use the additional amount on marketing or development.

James Piper, the owner of http://www.webhostingvillage.com, and avid web hosting enthusiast invites you to visit the internets best web hosting resource, Web Hosting Village. We have information and articles on everything from web hosting to dedicated servers.

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How to Find a Dependable Web Host

Your new website is ready to upload, and now you need a web host. Or perhaps you already have a web host, but uptime and support are lacking. Of the thousands of web hosts to choose from, how do you find one that you can depend on? Know what can go wrong and what to watch out for, and research prospective web hosts carefully.

What can go wrong with web hosting

Too much downtime

Problems happen, and even when they don't, server maintenance results in a minimal amount of downtime. A dependable web host not only maintains servers well, but also monitors the servers and fixes problems immediately. With the type of web host you want to avoid, however, your site may be down for days.

Features that don't work

When your email doesn't work, your business shuts down. Problems with databases and other features can also slow down or stop your business. Most web hosts understand this, but some don't place a high priority on keeping not only your site online but everything working as well.

Poor support

Dependable web hosts answer tech support questions within hours. Other web hosts, however, have been known to take days. And when those responses come, sometimes they're canned responses that don't address the issue.

Poor communication

Support people with good communication skills help keep problems from becoming bigger problems. Being told, "Everything looks fine here, so the problem is solved," leads to frustration. So is having your site shut down because it used too many resources rather than the web host contacting you about the problem first.

Billing problems

Even after you cancel your account, problems may continue. Some less-than-dependable web hosts don't honor their refund policy. Others don't stop automatic billing after the account is cancelled.

What to watch out for

When you see the following at web host websites, consider them red flags to warn you of possible problems.

Unsustainable pricing

If the pricing looks too good to be true, it probably is. Is it enough to pay for server maintenance and tech support? You get what you pay for.

Unlimited bandwidth

Nothing is really unlimited. If you sign up for an account offering unlimited bandwidth and then use a lot of bandwidth, expect to have the plug pulled on your site. The web host may find another explanation for discontinuing your account, but "unlimited" typically means "as long as you don't use a lot."

An unprofessional-looking website

Consider how much effort the web host put into providing a usable website with informative content. Does it give you confidence in the web host, or is it full of unsubstantiated statements and grammar and spelling mistakes? A web host doesn't need to be a spelling expert, of course. But if the company hasn't put much effort into telling you about their services, will they be conscientious about meeting clients' needs?

How to research web hosts

Finding web hosts is easy enough. Search engines can take you to the websites of thousands of web hosts. But after you've narrowed down your list by features and price, how do you find out which web hosts are dependable?

Read web host package details and TOS

If the hosting packages offer huge amounts of disk space and bandwidth for very low prices, consider yourself warned. Don't expect the company to have enough money for maintenance and support.

If you want to be sure that you can get a refund if you want one, check what the Terms of Service (TOS) says about refunds.

Read the web host forum

What is the ambience in the forum? Are clients' questions answered satisfactorily? Don't be concerned if you see problems; instead, be concerned if you don't see any problems. Some web hosts remove posts that don't show their company in a positive light. If posts about problems remain in the forum, you can observe how the host handles problems.

Read web host reviews

Client feedback at the web host's site may or may not be valid. It's possible for hosts to make up feedback, and some have even copied feedback from other sites. Look for feedback with links to the clients' sites, and check via http://www.Whois.sc to see if the particular web host actually hosts that site.

Numerous forums allow people to post web host reviews. When you read reviews, consider the poster's credibility. Some people bash their hosts just because they're unhappy about something. If the host posts in response to a problem, observe how the host tries to resolve it.

Check the company background

The "About Us" or "Company Background" page at the web host's site should answer these questions.

How long has the company been in business? A new company may be excellent, but it's good to keep in mind that a lot of businesses fail within the first year.

Does the company publish a privacy policy? Does this policy clearly protect clients' privacy?

Where are the servers located? Ideally, they should be in a datacenter, and not in someone's basement.

What are the server uptime statistics? If the web host doesn't publish a link to a server uptime monitor, ask for a link to one. Uptime of about 99.7 percent or higher is generally considered good.

Does the company publish an address? You may never need it, but when you're placing your company website in another company's hands, you want to know that the company is legitimate and accessible.

Email pre-sales questions

Answers to your pre-sales questions tell you a lot about the web host. You'll see how fast the company responds and how well they communicate. Ask questions about any of the above points as well as questions specific to your needs.

~~~~~

Finding a dependable web host takes time, but dealing with problems and moving your site takes more time. The time spent looking for a dependable web host is a worthwhile investment.

About the author: Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc. http://www.websitesource.com. Her established writing skills coupled with experience in the website hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years.

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Web Hosting - 10 Things To Avoid

1. Very Cheap Pricing

Ok, here's the rub: there are thousands of web hosting companies

out there that have very low prices. The fact is that a cheap web

hosting company offering very low rates is doing this for a reason.

And the reason is that they are doing a tremendous amount of

volume. To a cheap web hosting company, you are just a number,

especially if you are a small business. Here's something else to

consider: How many other websites will you be sharing your IP

address with? You've heard of Spammers, haven't you? Well,

aggressive spammers generally go with the cheapest web hosting

package they can find. Why? Because they know that they only

plan to be in business for a certain amount of time. Did you know

that spamming can get your site banned by the Search Engines

and your ISP? In short, when you share your IP address with, say,

1000's of other businesses, and one of these businesses happens

to be a spammer, the entire IP address can, and most often will,

be banned by the Search Engines. Then it's goodbye, business.

You probably won't even know what has happened to make your

traffic drop so dramatically. On top of all of this, a very cheap web

hosting company will generally have very slow servers and

common services will be denied because there is not enough

bandwidth. You will be doing yourself and your business a

tremendous disservice by going with a cheap web hosting

company.

2. Limited Room For Expansion

Your online business will almost certainly expand. You should be

able to choose from different web hosting packages that will help

you do this. Even better, the web hosting company should be

available to consult with you and help you make decisions when

the time comes. Are they interested in your business, or just your

money? One size definitely does not fit all. If the web hosting

company doesn't understand this, then it's time to move on.

3. Underdeveloped Website

Web hosting companies should have a well-developed, informative

and easy-to-navigate site. It's that simple. The site's FAQ and

Help features should be visible. Also you should have a way to

contact them, and not just via email. Who has time to wait 24

hours for an answer?

4. Dubious Claims

99.99% guaranteed uptime. How many times have you seen this

claim? Does it mean anything anymore? The truth is, most web

hosting companies claim that they can deliver this. Very few offer

real guarantees in the form of money back or similar guarantees to

ensure your satisfaction, and gives you alternatives if they don't

deliver. Don't let web hosting companies get away with this.

5. Lack of References

A good web hosting company will have a list of satisfied customers,

and will welcome your contacting them to get references. You

should know whom you are going into business with. If the web

hosting company refuses your request to check references, keep

moving. Make no mistake about it, web hosting is not just a

business, it is a partnership. Does the web hosting company that

you are considering understand that?

6. Aggressive Selling Tactics

When you call the web hosting company for information, are they

constantly pressuring you to upgrade, buy this, buy that? Does

every call end with them trying to sell you something? Specifically,

are they asking you to pay for a whole year of web hosting

upfront? Did you realize that if you do this, and later decide that

their services are not working for you, your money is gone for

good? Can you afford to do this? Do you want to risk it?

7. Bait and Switch

Look at the fine print. Does it say one thing in the headline and

another in the small print? For example, does the web hosting

company limit the number of emails that you can have and/or send

out at once? Features such as these are critical if your business is

going to be able to service your customers quickly and efficiently.

You don't want to purchase a web hosting package based on a

promise only to find out later that there is a catch. In any case,

you wouldn't want to trust your business with a web hosting

company that would do this. Don't just walk away. Run.

8. Package/Software Inflexibility

Are the packages that the web hosting company offers limited?

Are they able to direct you to the web hosting package that is right

for your business? Or do they direct everyone to the same

package? A web hosting company's ability to be flexible should be

key in your decision to either go with them or to keep looking.

9. Very Large Companies

Just because a web hosting company is very large, doesn't mean it

is the best. You need to ask yourself if you will get the

personalized web hosting service that your business deserves, or

will you be just a number.

10. Shoddy Customer Service

A web hosting company's attitude toward customer service is your

indication as to how reliable they are as a company that you are

entrusting your business with. Any web hosting company should

give you all of their contact information. As a matter of fact, this is

a must for any business. Who is answering the phone? A

recording? The Sales Department? No one? Online business runs

24/7. These days, impersonal web hosting service cannot be tolerated. You need someone to answer your questions now. No

one wants to leave a message, or worse yet, receive an

impersonal email. The bottom line is that for the most part, all any

web hosting company really has to sell you is their service. That's

the bottom line. If they don't understand that, they shouldn't be in

business in the first place.

Greg Cesar gets results. Find out how hundreds of webmasters benefit from Greg's web hosting and internet marketing knowledge by visiting his Business Web Hosting website.

Greg Cesar is a successful Internet marketer, web designer and web hosting provider with over 10 years' experience. He specializes in providing innovative web hosting and internet marketing services that help business owners make more money online. To improve your online business immediately and work with someone who understands what it takes to make real money online, visit: http://www.hostpartnerplus.com

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Shared Web Hosting Service Explained!

The next concern for you after designing and developing web pages is to get your web site hosted on the Internet. But with so many web hosting companies offering various types of web hosting packages - shared web hosting, dedicated web hosting, managed web hosting, which type of hosting should you choose?

As a general rule, it is a good idea to go for shared web hosting if you are a small business owner and cost is your major concern. But before you make your hosting decision, let us first understand what is shared web hosting service and what are the advantages and disadvantages of shared web hosting.

What is shared web hosting?

Shared web hosting service is a convenient and economic way of hosting web sites if you do not require extremely high performance and high bandwidth. As its name suggests, in shared web hosting service, the web server that hosting the web pages are shared by many other websites. The number of websites on a shared hosting server can go up to thousands at times. Due to one large and high performance web server is shared by hosting many different websites on it, web hosting companies providing shared web hosting service could offer them at an economic rates.

Even with so many websites hosted on a web server, you can be rest assured that the web hosting providers will not compromise on any kind of security and performance issues on the shared hosting servers. Moreover, shared hosting web servers are operated, monitored and maintained around the clock by IT professionals to ensure minimum server downtimes.

Technically speaking, shared hosting servers are run on Unix or other multi-user operating system and each website hosted on the web server is given a separate account in the operating system. Typically, websites hosted on shared servers are given a shared IP addresses and allocated a fix amount of web resources.

Let's examine the advantages and disadvantages of shared web hosting before you consider shared web hosting service:

Advantages of Shared Web Hosting Service

Economical: As many websites are hosted on a single web server, web hosting providers are able to offer low cost shared web hosting services. In general, you can expect to pay $5-10 per month for shared web hosting services. Today, due to stiff competition in the web hosting industry, you can even discover many web hosting companies offering huge web space and bandwidth (as high as 1000 MB disk space and 40 GB bandwith).

Convenience: Shared hosting web servers are managed and maintained by professionals who are highly skilled with specialized knowledge of the field. As a result, you can concentrate on your web business and let these professionals worry about the maintenance and uptimes of the web server.

Customization: Even though web resources are shared, web masters can manage their website using control panel or similar tools provided by the web hosting company. They are free to upload files, remove web pages, add database, check web statistic and etc. Also they are allowed to create domain name specific e-mails accounts.

Efficiency: Today, shared web hosting service comes with web space and bandwidth that are more than sufficient for small business websites. However, you can always add more resources should you overrun the web space or bandwidth usage.

Disadvantages of Shared Web Hosting Service

Slower Responses: Given that a physical web server is shared, websites in the shared web hosting have to accept slower server response time if compare to dedicate server hosting.

Reliability Issues: In most cases, web hosting providers may take care of the security and performance of the shared server. However, it may happen that some of websites hosted on the shared server run a malicious program or script or over-utilize the resources, can bring down the web server. Your website would have to suffer downtimes and inaccessibility as a result.

Sharing Issues: Moreover, you just need one "bad" website in your shared web server to get your website banned altogether by ISP or search engine due to shared IP address (Note: you can always pay extra to get a dedicated IP address to avoid this problem).

Security Issues: Shared web hosting is more risky and opens up potential security issues as other web masters having an account on the same web server could hacked to your sensitive data.

Before you decide to ink a deal on shared web hosting, be sure to consider all the pros and cons of shared web hosting services above. After all, selecting a right web hosting services may be one of the most critical business decisions for your online business.

Andrew is the owner of Affordable Web Hosting, a website that provide complete and detailed review of affordable shared web hosting reviews. You can visit his website at: http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com/

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Dedicated Web Hosting Explained

Why is dedicated hosting such a big hit on the business web hosting market? If you look at the costs it involves, usually ranging from $150 - $1000 per month, another question comes into your mind: Does it even worth it?

Why is dedicated hosting such a big hit on the business web hosting market? If you look at the costs it involves, usually ranging from $150 - $1000 per month, another question comes into your mind: Does it even worth it?

When you have one single web server is rented to a single customer by the web hosting provider, you have dedicated web hosting. There are two similar solutions quite common too in the web hosting industry: virtual dedicated servers and co-location web hosting.

To make it easier to grasp the concepts, a virtual dedicated server shares the resources of a web server computer with other customers of the web hosting provider. You don't get an entire computer just for you in virtual dedicated server hosting plans.

Co-locating web hosting also shares some similarities with dedicated web hosting. The main difference is that while in dedicated web hosting the web server computer belongs to the web-hosting provider and is only rented by the customer, in co-locating web hosting the customer owns the web server computer. The web-hosting provider only houses the web server computer and sells bandwidth to the customer.

Real dedicated web hosting a single web server is rented to a single customer.

Dedicated web hosting is the ideal solution for businesses that work with high traffic. The functionalities of your web site as well as the application required for its operation will fall under your precise control.

But with dedicated web hosting there are even more advantages.

Your hosting provider handles all concerns regarding the maintenance, the security, and the reliability of your web server. As your rent the computer, not purchasing it you don't have to bother yourself with maintaining the hardware and the connectivity of the computer. This frees you from replacing the component or solving the problem, as all these fall into the provider's responsibility. Many web hosting providers will even offer you compensations as part of the Service Level Agreement (SLA). Usually, in the event of such failure you will be reimbursed with the cost of your hosting plan for a month or a fraction of it, depending of the severity of the failure. Looks quite good compared to having to pay for the component and for the technical support required for actually replacing the component, all this while your web site in not online. At the end of the day you will only pay for functional hardware.

Think what your business could do with all the resources you have just saved on the above maintenance issues.

As the costs of administering and maintaining the web server you have rented vary depending on your web hosting provider, you can choose between "managed" or "unmanaged" service levels.

Should you feel uncomfortable with the technical expertise required by the management of a web server computer, you could opt for "managed" dedicated hosting. This means that you will have available a "control panel". The control panel allows you to perform all the essential tasks required by the proper functioning of your web server via a simply point-and-click user-friendly interface. This way you won't need to know or type any command lines, or poses no in depth knowledge of the operating system, while still being able to setup, administer and maintain all the web sites on your web server.

The "unmanaged" option is recommended only for those with great degree of technical expertise in mastering a web server as it provides root access to the server. This in turn, offers complete server administration, thus the possibility to configure every service on your web server. Of course, not having the necessary services are configured properly, may result in serious system failure. These are the reasons that make unmanaged dedicated hosting only recommendable for people with solid server administration background or for web developers that need custom applications for their web sites, or a customized environment.

Having a dedicated server means that the stability of the computer will not be prone to the plagues affecting shared web hosting solutions. Just think at overload, server being crowded with applications and components required by the other customers, or even errors in programming usually made by the beginners. Add to that the fact that on a shared web server the processor time and the installed memory is shared with the software applications needed by the other users.

Managed or unmanaged, dedicated web hosting makes it easier for you to provide instant support to your own customers when it is required. This would not be possible on a shared hosting plan or you will be faced with delays and possible additional technical support fees. Needless to say a prompt support service on your side also means happy customers and business growth.

For those running a business in web design for example, the advantages of having their own dedicated web server are invaluable. This is true not because his studio will be able to offer pure hosting services, but because he will able to offer them packaged with the web design activity. Modifying a web site for a customer or uploading a new one is a matter of minutes when you have around-the-clock access to your web server. Another advantage comes from the fact that once a complete web presence solution, design and hosting, is offered by the studio to a customer, there is a higher chance for having that customer become a regular.

The benefits of a good dedicated web hosting solution for businesses translate into sales growth, better customer relationship, improved company image, reduced cost compared with in-house web hosting solution, and the list could go on. A dedicated web server means that you can run a better business and better business reads profit.

Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (http://www.hostpinpin.com ), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory. HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans, free web hosting guide, free hosting quote, web hosting glossary and more.

This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the ?About? and ?weblinks? are kept intact.

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Web Hosting: Which Is The Host With The Most?

So you want to publish a web site do you? Welcome to the club. These days it seems that almost everyone has a web site of some kind, and thousands more continue to be launched every day. It's challenging enough to design a site and fill it with interesting content, but when all is said and done another challenge still remains - where to host it?

A popular choice for newbie webmasters, and even experienced ones, is to secure a free hosting plan with a company such as Yahoo! Geocities, Tripod or Angelfire. While these are easy to setup and free of charge, they do have limitations. Most free hosts don't offer all the nice features that paid hosts do such as FTP access, CGI-BIN, or your own personal domain name. Instead you're stuck with minimal features and a generic URL such as [http://www.freewebhost.com/marcswebsite]. This somewhat limits your web site‘s potential. Most free hosts also require you to run banners or pop-up ads on your web site to make it worth their while - these banners and pop-ups can obstruct the view of your web page and ultimately annoy visitors and drive them away. Lastly, most free hosts have a daily bandwidth limit that is very small, so if you do get a lot of traffic you'll most likely exceed the allotted bandwidth and your site will be temporarily disabled. Overall I would recommend free web hosts for people that are new to web hosting and want to get a feel for how it works. I'd also recommend them for web sites that are personal in nature (such as an online journal) as well as web sites that don't plan to generate any revenue. Free web hosts are a great stepping stone to paid web hosts - I myself starting building web sites 4 years ago using free hosts, and today I run several high traffic web sites that are hosted on paid web hosting plans.

Now it's time to get into the good stuff - paid web hosting. Web hosting companies that charge money for their services are plentiful on the Internet, and feature a wide array of hosting packages at various price points. First we begin with so called "budget" web hosts, who claim to offer you the world for only $1 per month. Having used numerous such companies I feel I must tell you to proceed with caution here, as these companies aren't all that they are cracked up to be. Many claim to offer 24/7 e-mail support, which in my experience turned out to be 0/0 e-mail support. My e-mails were either never answered or answered a week after I sent them. Even when I got a response it was generic in nature and completely unhelpful. Also, expect frequent outages with these budget web hosts as they rarely even have their own web servers - often they are reselling space on someone else's web servers over which they have no control. One budget web host I used went down unexpectedly for 6 days, and they didn‘t even bother to notify their customers. As a result, my web site was down for 6 days and I lost most of my visitors as well as my hard-earned search engine rankings. Lesson learned: if the reliability and success of your web site is important to you, budget web hosting might not be the answer. However, this is not to say that all budget web hosts are bad - 1dollarhosting.com is one of the leaders in the budget web hosting arena and has quite a good reputation.

The next type of paid web host is what I refer to as a "mid-range" web host, meaning that they offer prices and service that will satisfy the majority of web sites out there. Mid-range web hosts like PowWeb, Your-Site.com and iPowerWeb offer packages ranging from $5 to $8 per month and provide the tools that most webmasters will need to run a web site, such as: CGI-BIN, tons of e-mail addresses, FTP support, visitor statistics and more. These hosts do have monthly bandwidth limits, but the limits are quite high, and most web sites will never reach them. However, if your web site features hundreds of file downloads and gets decent traffic you may be shocked at how soon you'll reach those bandwidth limits. When you do, your site may be temporarily shut down or you'll have to pay bandwidth overage charges, which can get pricey. Overall though, mid-range web hosts will be satisfactory for 90% of the web sites out there, and generally offer excellent uptime/reliability. In fact, many web-based businesses are successfully run using a mid-range web host. However, as mentioned previously, web sites that offer large files for download or sites that get a huge amount of traffic may find that a mid-range host doesn't quite suit their needs. These types of web sites may require "high-end" web hosting solutions, the next topic in our discussion.

High-end web hosts typically service web sites that are extremely popular, have a high amount of traffic, and/or require pretty much 100% uptime. Most businesses rely on high-end web hosts to host their web sites. Rackspace.com is an example of a well known high-end web hosting company. Pricing for high-end hosts varies, but typically runs from about $50 per month to several hundred dollars per month. Many high-end hosts give you your own dedicated server (which they support) that is reserved just for you and your web site. The mid-range hosts I discussed earlier typically host many different web sites on the same server - this is known as "shared" hosting. High-end web hosts offer stellar reliability, bandwidth, and just about every tool you'll ever need to run a successful web site. Another feature that some high-end web hosts provide is "co-location" hosting. In this scenario, YOU configure and provide the web server, but you get to plug it into their data center/network. This can be very nice because their data center usually has a fiber-optic connection directly to the Internet, offering blazing bandwidth and stellar reliability. People who run web-based businesses or extremely popular, high traffic web sites are good candidates for high-end web hosting.

Hopefully this brief overview gives you a good picture of the various types of web hosts that exist, and which one might be right for you. When you begin your search for a web host, always keep in mind the old adage "You get what you pay for" because it really does hold true in this case. Before you make the commitment to host a web site be sure to take some time and analyze what you want out of the web site, and decide which factors are most important to its success. Answering these questions will get you many steps closer to choosing the web host that's right for you.

Marc Eberhart is an IT Project Manager, webmaster, and all-around Internet junkie. His web site http://www.webhostingdiscounts.net/ offers visitors 40% off web hosting plans with top-rated hosting companies.

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Web Hosting Reseller Plan Opportunities

A web hosting reseller plan is an exceptional opportunity for

many internet based businesses, especially those that engage in

website development or internet business consulting. Basically, a

web hosting reseller plan enables you to become a web host

without the enormous investment in equipment that is generally

associated with launching a web hosting company.

Joining a web hosting reseller plan is an easy way to generate

additional income from your website by offering services that are

high in demand in the world of internet business.

As a participant in a web hosting reseller plan, you generally

have the capability of hosting multiple websites. You have the

control to create your very own web hosting packages and to set

your own prices.

There is no reason really for your clients to know that you are

not an independent hosting company because you generally have

your own web hosting control panel that you administer online to

set up web hosting packages for your clients.

You generally pay a monthly fee to the hosting provider for your

web hosting reseller plan. The monthly fees are generally set

based on the amount of space and bandwidth that you require.

Some web hosting reseller plans provide turnkey opportunities

including not only the web hosting space that naturally comes

with a web hosting reseller plan, but also administrative tools

that make it easy for you to jump right into web hosting without

investing in equipment and software.

Common additions to a web hosting reseller plan that is a turnkey

business opportunity include billing solutions, merchant

accounts, website templates and domain reseller accounts. With

such web hosting reseller plan options, you can literally start a

web hosting company immediately.

A web hosting reseller plan may be an option for you if you are

looking to start your own web hosting business, or it may be an

excellent supplement to your existing internet business.

If you choose to offer your customers web hosting services

through a web hosting reseller plan, there are a few things to

consider when selecting a web hosting reseller plan that will

provide a high-quality of service.

After all, when you are relying on a third party to provide the

services that you resell through the web hosting reseller plan,

your business reputation is on the line, so you need to make sure

that the provider of the web hosting reseller plan meets your

standards for quality and service.

A company offering you a web hosting reseller plan should provide

you with comprehensive training regarding the administration of

your web hosting services. You should be provided with a web-

based control panel through which you can manage your web hosting

services. Your customers that you sign up through your web

hosting reseller plan should also have access to a web-based

control panel that empowers them to manage their own website.

The customers should have the ability to upload their website, to

make changes to it as needed, to create sub-domains and email

addresses and to set up or change their own passwords as well as

being able to create alias email addresses and auto-responders.

The provider of your web hosting reseller plan should offer

twenty-four hour technical support in case you need assistance to

meet your customers' demands for service and support. Depending

upon the level of web hosting services you intend to provide your

clients through your web hosting reseller plan, it may be

important for your provider to have dedicated server

capabilities.

Your web hosting reseller plan provider should also have security

features built into the web hosting packages that ensure your

customers' online transactions are safe and secure. They should

guaranty at least 99% uptime and should have procedures in place

that backup the web hosting servers regularly, preferably with

backups stored in a remote location. Offering a variety of

scripts and software options as well as FTP capabilities can also

be important aspects of a web hosting reseller plan.

Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your rope, fed up and confused by all the scrambled internet marketing advice you're getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing, or a website owner who wants to make more money from your website, learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your internet business at http://BiznessTips.com

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How to Choose a Right Web Hosting Service?

Indeed, choosing a right web hosting service for your website is not an easy task especially when there are thousands of web hosting providers all offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important to know few major considerations even before you start your web hosting search. Below are three major criteria for web host seeker:

Web hosting features requirement

This is probably the most important consideration to start finding a host for your site. You need to decide the technical requirements for your website, this including:

a) Server platform and hardware requirements

If you plan to set up a website that uses programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database, in this case, you will need to find a web hosting service that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers.

Likewise, if you plan to use programming languages such as Perl, CGI, SSI, PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that support Unix/Linux platform should be sufficient to meet your hosting requirements. Once you have these server platform and hardware requirements in mind, you can decide the best web hosting plans for your need. For more information, you can read "How to select a web server and server platform?"

b) Disk space & Bandwidth requirement

Here is another technical requirement that you need to consider before selecting a web hosting plan, i.e. disk space and bandwidth. If you intend to publish a website that does not have a lot of contents (meaning, web pages), then the disk space requirement may not be a big concern to you. In general, a disk space with 200MB to 500MB should be enough to meet your hosting requirement. In contrast, if you plan to host a website with enormous amount of graphic pictures, mp3 or video files, then you should consider a web hosting plan that provide huge disk space, for example, 500 MB to 1,000 MB.

Similarly, the bandwidth requirement will depend on your site traffic estimation. Obviously, a website that expect to attract high traffic will consume the monthly bandwidth allowance very fast. If so, you will need to find one web hosting service that offer huge bandwidth with 40 GB to 100 GB per month. Depending upon your website requirement, choosing a web hosting service that provide sufficient amount of disk space and bandwidth is crucial consideration to prevent paying extra costs in the future should you overuse the monthly disk space and bandwidth allowance.

c) Other hosting features

While the above requirements are utmost important, there are other hosting features that you have to consider too. Can web hosting provider support video clips on your website, if you have? Is the web hosting service compatible with Dreamweaver or FrontPage web authoring tool? Do you plan to set up a virtual store online? Can the host support the e-commerce features without adding extra cost to your monthly payments? On top of that, you may also want to find out the number of email accounts provided, number of FTP accounts, web statistic software (analyze your web traffic), type of control panel supported (manage your web hosting account), database and scripting languages supported and etc.

Reliability and scalability

A first-class web hosting provider offers reliable server uptime and fast Internet connection. You should only choose a web hosting service that guarantee at least 99% server uptime with high-speed Internet backbones using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per second) or above instead of T1 or T3 lines. A reliable web hosting provider usually invests heavily on their data center infrastructure with high performance servers, high speed multiple backbones providers with fail-over redundancy, backup power generators and firewall software protection in place to ensure they meet the uptime guarantee specified in the terms of service.

Similarly, you should choose a web hosting service with hardware facilities that designed for scalability, so that they can grow with your business. For example, if you need to increase more disk space, bandwidth or number of mySQL databases, you should be able to upgrade as needed without any problems.

Customer service and support

The last major consideration in choosing a web hosting service is to find a web hosting providers that offers excellent customer service and support. You should always search for a web hosting provider that offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week technical support that fielded with highly experience technicians, so that any web hosting problems will be resolved within a reasonable amount of time. You may also want to consider to test how responsive is their customer support by sending few inquiry emails to the web hosting provider. In general, any response in less than 24 hours is considered acceptable. It is a sign of poor customer support if they take more than one day to response.

In addition, a web hosting provider with excellent support should also provide multiple support channels, such as toll-free phone support, 24/7 email support, live chat, online knowledgebase, Interactive flash tutorials and FAQ.

Above are few major considerations before you choose your web hosting service. In addition, how long has the web hosting provider in business and the number of customers that they currently have are also a good indication of the quality of their hosting products as well as the stability of the company. Even though cost of the web hosting service is also important but it should not be your major consideration. Because the price of a web hosting service has been declining over the years due to competition, as a result, the price of most of the web hosting services offering quality hosting features has been converging to less than US$10 per month. If you can't afford less than $10 per month, you probably isn't in the online business for the long haul. Therefore, price should not be a major deciding factor.

On the other hand, it is more important to ensure the web hosting service that you choose is able to meet your website hosting requirements, guarantee your website is always accessible with satisfying speed, provide scalability to grow and expand your website as well as offer excellent customer supports. Depending on your web hosting requirement, you can take advantage of our site, Cheap Web Hosting Review to find the recommended web hosting services that can match the three major criteria above. Good luck to your search.

Andrew is the owner of Web Hosting Services, a website that provides complete and detail reviews on web hosting services. You can visit his website at:http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com/

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Choosing a Web Hosting Provider from 40 Million Other Web Hosts - Pt1

Discover how to go about choosing a web hosting provider in ways that 99.5% of the advice on the Internet never mention.

If you struggle with finding good web hosting then using the process I describe could be the answer to one of the biggest problems you can face as a webmaster.

But first I'd like to give you an idea on the scale of the problem in choosing a good web hosting provider. A search on Google for the exact phrase " web hosting " returns over 32 Million results and " web hosting provider " or " web hosting company " produces around 800,000 results.

An IP survey by http://www.netcraft.com in 2003 found over 40 million web hosts.

Whether you want to believe Google's 32 Million web hosts or Netcraft's 40 Million, it gives some indication of just how many web hosting provider 's there are to choose from.

Google has over 7,800 sites offering advice on " How to choose a web host. "

But to be frank a lot of advice on the Internet is from sites promoting web hosting provider 's and resellers, which means it's not without bias.

If you think " web hosting review sites " are a good source of advice, try choosing one from over 6,000 listed by Google. Consider also that many are affiliated to the web hosts they recommend. This can mean not only do they get a sign-up commission, but a regular monthly fee for as long as a customer remains with the web host.

Much of the advice about choosing a web hosting provider talks about how much disk space or bandwidth you need, what type of server to use, or the features you should look for.

It's important stuff but it doesn't help in choosing a good web hosting provider.

I say this because disk space and bandwidth are today largely a non-issue, since most web hosting provider's are competing to offer so much of it, you'd need to have a website the size of CNN's to use it all.

As for the features offered by web hosts, there's often little to choose between them, they all generally offer enough of the basics for most websites. If you're looking for enhanced features like a website builder, adding a shopping cart, taking secure payments or promoting your website then these additional features might influence your choice.

But as a web hosting provider, you still don't know if they're any good.

At this point some of you may be thinking you'd read the other customers testimonials, or go to some of the website forums to see what other people have experienced with this host, or post a question to ask for advice.

Well again a word of caution, many forums are also the hangouts for people selling web hosting, so they frequently post replies or offer advice acting like the ordinary Joe. This means the advice can be biased toward or against a particular web hosting provider. One forum you could try that's dedicated to issues with web hosting is Web Hosting Talk

Oh! Let's not forget " Testimonials. " When was the last time you saw a customer testimonial on the sellers web site that said anything bad about the service or product they provide ?

I have only ever seen it once in the past 5 years and then not for a web hosting provider.

I've had web sites hosted with dozens of web hosting provider 's and made 100's of inquiries to other web hosting companies that I never even got close to the point of signing up with. I've moved some websites two or three times in less than two weeks because a web hosting provider is unable or unwilling to solve problems, or whose server configuration is unable to support the scripts my site needed.

It was after many years of suffering bad web hosts, I finally decided to work out a process that gave me a better chance of finding a good web hosting provider.

It's a bit like taking out insurance, you don't know what the insurance company is like until you need to make a claim. As a matter of interest I did an exact search for insurance against bad web hosting and there were no results.

Obviously no one is providing insurance against bad web hosting, which must mean it's too much of a risk.

I don't even consider my sites to require anything special or more than any other typical business website. Yet despite all my experience, finding a good web hosting provider is still one of the most difficult website challenges.

You'll find the exact step by step process in the 2nd part of this article at : http://www.webpageaddons.com

Choosing a Web Hosting Provider from 40 Million Other Web Hosts - Pt2

Of course no process is full-proof and it does not mean that the web hosting you find through the search engine filtering and techniques I suggest are the only web hosts capable of providing the services you're looking for.

You should also not assume because your Google Advanced Search was for web hosting provider 's with selected features that the sites you are reviewing are guaranteed to have those features.

Check every site on your short list, since search engine's are far from perfect.

What it does mean is that by using my suggested techniques you are selecting those web hosts who considered things like support, sufficiently important to want to be found for them on Google. Other web hosts may have good support, but the difference is that in your search you did not find them listed for this term.

It could mean support's not that important to them, even though they provide it.

It's also worth mentioning that the price of web hosting is not an indicator of the quality of the service. Some lower cost web hosting provider 's can give a far better service than some medium cost ones.

Conclusions

Using a six stage process I was able to choose from 40 million web hosting provider 's, a short list of 15 web hosts that met my selection criteria. With a further six stage process I was able to reduce the number of possible web hosting provider 's down to a choice of 2.

In the final stage the web hosting provider 's were both asked a number of general and technical questions that resulted in the final choice. Whilst the process is not full-proof I am yet to find a better devised way of choosing a good web hosting provider.

Tony Simpson, Advises on Website Design, Promotion and Optimization. The selection process in this article is covered in detail in: Choosing a Web Hosting Provider from 40 Million Other Web Hosts - Pt2

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Reseller Web Hosting - Helpful Tips And Benefits

One of the great benefits of a web hosting reseller is you can earn some extra money at the same time as having web hosting. You may even end up making a full time income with a web hosting reseller. Some web hosting resellers pay very well.

Choosing The Right Reseller Web Hosting

It is a good idea to know what is the best web hosting reseller for your situation. You will need a reliable web hosting reseller that can provide you with good customer support. A good web hosting reseller will provide you with the tools you need to be successful with their service both for yourself and for the reseller aspects of your business.

What Is Reseller Web Hosting?

Reseller web hosting provides a reseller hosting account to the reseller who resells space and bandwidth to their own clients. There is usually plenty of bandwidth and space for this type of service.

What Is A Web Hosting Reseller?

Web Hosting reseller is a person or a company that acts like an agent to resell the hosting companies products and services. The web hosting reseller can receive commissions and or discounts from the web hosting reseller company. They may even create their own custom web reseller accounts to re-sell to customers.

It is important to realize that when dealing with a reseller web hosting company, some of the control has been taken out of your hands. You will want to make sure the web hosting reseller service is not having problems with downtime. You can end up missing out on important emails and or sales from your valuable customers.

With the right web hosting reseller company, web site developers can be successful with a reseller web hosting service or business. They can provide their customers with web hosting and create web sites at the same time. This is why it is a good idea to find a web hosting company that offers multiple hosting accounts with their web hosting reseller services. A web developer can then host their clients web sites from their own reseller web hosting account.

One of the best things to do before choosing a web hosting reseller company is to get a list of reference sites you can check out to see if they have downtime. With web reseller hosting companies and services you can ask other web site developers about what web hosting resellers they have had good quality service with.

Another important aspect to consider is, does the web hosting reseller have a great list of services and features that you will be able to offer to your customers. This may be the reason you are considering a web hosting reseller in the first place. Take time to shop around for the best web hosting reseller and you will know you have made the right decision.

CY Fok is a webmaster with many years of experience. His latest site is "Information About Web Hosting": http://www.infoaboutwebhosting.com/

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A Beginner's Guide to Web Hosting

What is web hosting? Whenever you visit a website, what you see on your web browser is essentially just a web page that is downloaded from the web server onto your web browser. In general, a web site is made up of many web pages. And a web page is basically composed of texts and graphic images. All these web pages need to be stored on the web servers so that online users can visit your website.

Therefore, if you plan to own a new website, you will need to host your website on a web server. When your website goes live on the web server, online users can then browse your website on the Internet. Company that provides the web servers to host your website is called web hosting providers.

A well-established web hosting provider sometimes hosts up to thousands of websites. For example, iPowerWeb is a popular web hosting company that hosts more than 300,000 websites. For that reason, a web hosting company need many web servers (essentially, these are computers) to 'store' the website. And all these web servers are connected to the Internet through high speed Internet connection and housed in a physical building called 'data center'. In order to guarantee all the web servers are safe, secure and fully operational all time, a data center is a physically secure 24/7 environment with fire protection, HVAC temperature control, virus detections, computer data backup, redundant power backup and complete disaster recovery capabilities.

What are the different types of web hosting?

There are different kinds of web hosting companies out there with different characteristics. The main types of web hosts can be organized into the following categories:

Shared Hosting

In shared hosting (also known as virtual web hosting), many websites are sharing the space on the same physical web servers. Depending on the web host, a physical web server can hosts a few hundred to even thousand of different websites at one time. You may wonder if a physical web server is shared by so many websites, will the performance of the web server deteriorate? In fact, web servers are usually equipped with high-end powerful computer, therefore it can support up to a certain number of websites without any problem. But when the web server is overloaded and exceeded the reasonable number of websites that it can support, then you will begin to experience a slower response from the web server.

However, a reputable and experience web hosting provider will constantly monitor the performance of the web server and will add new web servers when deem necessary without sacrificing the benefits of the website owners. Since a physical web server is shared (diskspace, computer processing power, bandwidth, memory) by many websites, the web hosting provider can therefore afford to offer a lower hosting price. For the same reason, websites on the shared hosting would have to accept slower server response time. Typically, shared hosting plans start at $5 - $20 per month.

Dedicated Hosting

In contrast to shared hosting, dedicated hosting assigned a specific web server to be used only by one customer. Since a dedicated web server is allocated to only a single customer, the customer has the option to host single/multiple web sites, modify the software configuration, handle greater site traffic and scale the bandwidth as necessary. Therefore, dedicated hosting commands a higher premium and typically starts at $50 per month and can range up to $200 - $500 per month. As a result, dedicated hosting is regularly used by high traffic and extremely important website.

Co-location hosting

In dedicated hosting, the web server belongs to the web hosting providers and customers only rent the web server during the hosting period. While in co-location hosting, the customer owns the web server hardware and only housed their web server within the web hosting provider's secure data center. In this way, the customer has full control over their web server and simultaneously benefit from the 24/7 server monitoring and maintenance provided by the secure data center. Depending on the monthly bandwidth and rack space required, typically co-location hosting range from $500 - $1000 per month.

Reseller hosting

In reseller hosting, a web hosting provider offers web server storage to third-party (i.e. reseller) at a discount price, who then resell the web server storage to their customers. Typically, resellers are web consultants including web designers, web developers, or system integration company who resell the web hosting as a add-on service to complement their other range of services. Commonly, resellers can receive up to 50 percent discount on the price of a hosting account from the web hosting provider. And resellers are allowed to decide its own pricing structure and even establish its own branding (in other words, reseller setup its web hosting company on the Internet and start selling web hosting plans under its brand).

To the reseller's customers, the reseller is the web host provider. In cases when technical problems such as server down and access problem arise, the resellers will have to correspond directly with the actual web host provider. Due to the communication process taken place between customer to reseller and from reseller to actual web host provider and back and forth, undoubtedly problems will take longer time to resolve. Unless you are running your own personal website or non-profit website and willing to take the risks of poor support from the reseller, reseller hosting is generally not a good option.

However, the web hosting market today is filled with resellers that sell lowest price web hosting plans. So, how do you tell between a genuine web hosting provider from a reseller? You don't judge by the availability of toll-free number alone because some web hosting providers even offer their resellers with their own toll-free number for co-branded technical support. When the reseller's customer calls the number for technical support, the web host uses the reseller's name so the customer thinks that the support is coming from the reseller directly. Likewise, don't be fooled by the professional designed website alone because it is extremely easy to create a professional looked business website nowadays.

In general, resellers can be distinguished from their hosting price and company information. In most cases, a genuine web hosting provider has solid company information such as iPowerWeb.com where they publish its financial background, offices and data centers. In contrast, resellers usually do not have solid company background (here is just an example out of thousands out there). Moreover, the hosting price by resellers is generally below $5 per month. So, why settle for resellers when you can find genuine web hosting providers offering superb quality web hosting at the hosting price ranging between $7 - $10.

Therefore, you should not strive to find the cheap web hosting companies without first considering the quality of the service and support provided. Don't expect to find any top-level support if you choose to pay only $2 or $3 per months for your web hosting plan. On the other hand, by paying just slightly more for your hosting plan, you can now discover a list of low cost yet high quality web hosting plans to host your important website. Look at our high quality and cheap web hosting review and recommendation at http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com/top5.shtml

Andrew is the owner of Affordable Web Hosting, a website that provide complete and detailed review of cheap web hosting reviews. Visit his website at: http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com

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