7 Signs Of Reliable Web Hosting
Either you want to set up a new web site or you have a website that is doing quite well on the Internet and so far there have been no issues, and you are happy with the way things are going. But have you ever stopped to consider how reliable your existing or potential web host is? Here are a few key questions you can ask to figure out if your web host is reliable or not:
How secure is the server on which your web site is hosted? Does it feature powerful firewalls - not the free versions that are available on the Internet - and strong anti-virus software? Or, is the server chock-a-block with worms and Trojans and hackers are regularly fingering into the server ports? Of course, you cannot figure this out on your own if you aren’t a technical person, and the best way to find this out would be to read reviews about your web host and speak to his other clients.
How powerful is the server hardware? If your website is hosted on a server backed by obsolete hardware, which is networked with an antiquated broadband connection, then you’ve had it. Remember, the computer today is converging with TV and video and the hardware has to be powerful enough not just to support huge multimedia files, but also to ensure that these multimedia files are easily downloaded by the website visitors.
What is the server uptime? Does your web host’s server work on crutches or does it hum along perfectly? If you are getting a server downtime of 5% and over because your web host keeps rebooting his beautiful system, then it’s time to get a new web host.
What’s the customer support like? Does your web host feature 24/7 customer support staff or is your host a reseller? If he’s a reseller, he will not be as dedicated as you would like him to be; or, even if he isn’t a reseller and doesn’t have 24/7 customer support, then he is not reliable.
Does your web host take backups? All reliable web hosts always back up the data on their server just in case anything goes wrong. And this is a very important feature, which users do not bother to enquire when they rent the space.
Does your server have SSL? If you’re planning to set up a shop then no customer will ever swipe his credit card on your site unless your website has a SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Ensure that your web host provides you with this feature before you sign up with him.
Is the host server easy to use? Once you upload your website, you will need to change it frequently and for that to happen you need to have access to a control panel that’s easy to use. Plus, you will also want to plug in automated scripts such as blogs, chat rooms, content management system, etc. on your website. Make sure your web host’s control panel is easy to use and that you are given many automated scripts to use.
These are the basic questions every reliable web host should be able to answer favorably. Also, do not stop after asking these questions - get your technical guy to ask about telnet access, error pages and all that jazzed out jargon, which technical guys yak all the time. Once you’re sure your web host is the cat’s whiskers - go ahead and hire space from him.
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How To Switch Web Hosts Without Losing Traffic And Profits
Switching web hosts should not be such a difficult thing to do smoothly and with minimal hassles. Yet the truth is that usually plenty of things do end up going wrong and the probability of a site being down for several days during a change over is very high and tends to happen rather frequently.
Still by taking a couple of simple precautions you can easily avoid all the common pitfalls that often accompany a simple change over.
The first thing that you must never forget is the fact that you have to establish a new hosting account long before closing your old web hosting one. In fact you should even go further and ensure that your old web host keeps a copy of your site for several weeks after the switch. There are some important technical reasons for this, which I will now go into.
Firstly, it takes a couple of hours, and this can stretch into a day or so, to establish a new hosting account. If you have shut down everything at your old hosts, then it means that your site will not be live or reachable by any of your visitors during those hours or days it takes you to establish the new account.
Secondly the reason for keeping a copy of your site with your old host for a couple of weeks after you have changed hosts, has to do with something called DNS. DNS stands for domain name server. It is critical for anybody in the web hosting business to understand that computers do not use domain names to trace websites. Instead IP addresses are used. To perform the conversion and find the domain name that has been requested, a number of computers are usually involved which act as domain name servers that are able to attach certain IP addresses to specific domain names that have been requested. A DNS cannot handle all conversions so what happens is that it converts local domain names on which it has information on and passes on others to the next DNS. This will continue until the information reaches a DNS capable of making the conversion.
Now when you make a switch, it will take a while for all domain name servers to update their information on you. So some domain name servers will initially refer surfers to your old host. What this means is that if everything has been shut down then the surfer will get a page not found error message. This is precisely why it is advisable to keep a copy of your site with the old host for a few weeks after the switch to a new host so as to ensure a smooth transition free of any glitches.
Actually the root cause of most trouble when webmasters and site owners are switching hosts is that most people are very upset at the time of the switch and just want to get rid of their old host as soon as they possibly can. This emotional approach when switching web hosts can be extremely damaging and should be avoided at all costs.
Mohamad Latiff is the Author of the eCommerce Web Hosting blog at http://docnotti.com/t/index.php where you can read more of his reviews on the best and the worst of the eCommerce Web Hosting industry.
Why Choosing The Right Hosting Company Is Important
You only need to do a search from within Google to give you some idea of the number of web hosting companies that there are out there all over the world. Hopefully as you are going to be a business user of the Internet, you need to be choosing a hosting company that caters for business users and you should not to be tempted to use any of the free hosting services. So how do you decide?
Well when you choose a company to host your Internet business web site, then you want one that is going to be totally reliable, feature packed and have some top class support to help you with every aspect of hosting your site. Now unless you are building a web site that is going to contain thousands of pages, pictures, music files and video streams, I don’t really think you need to concern yourself too much now regarding disk storage size and monthly bandwidth usage. However, your decision should include as to whether you can upgrade your hosting package easily as and when it may be required. By this I mean paying for extra storage and bandwidth should it become necessary, this way you can start on a smaller and cheaper hosting plan and when you grow, your hosting grows with you.
You also need what is called cPanel that also includes Fantastico, this is your main control panel for your web site from where you can easily alter, arrange and set up many, many aspects of your web site including your email addresses, you can set up several email addresses for example, marketing, sales, info, admin etc at yourdomain.com
Now generally most webmasters have a difficulty here in choosing a hosting company, as most always look very similar in terms of what they offer. Which brings me to this point, personally I think you should choose your hosting company from personal recommendations whenever you can as experience can count for a lot. For instance the hosting company I use may not be the cheapest on the market but then again, it’s a long way off from being one of the dearest, but it is one of the best. Let me explain briefly a little more of what you should be looking for when deciding on you choosing the right hosting company.
Below I have listed just some of the points from my own hosting company for you to look out for when choosing your own hosting:
You need to look for hosting that can guarantee around 99.9% up time.
Live support you can talk with a live person is a nice option.
24/7/365 phone support as well as email.
Choose your hosting that includes cPanel and Fantastico.
cPanel demo shows you round cPanel that explains everything about it all.
Their cpanel is one of the best in the industry.
Tutorials (some are shown in Flash) covering all aspects of your hosting.
52 scripts that you can easily install that includes from running your own Blog, to having your own forum, to installing your own shopping mall.
There is a knowledge base also that answers a lot of already asked questions.
A user forum where you can ask other webmasters, questions regarding your hosting.
Whether you can pay for your hosting monthly or yearly.
Offer of a 30-day money back guarantee if things should change in that period.
At http://www.yoursearchingisover.com I disclose the resources the pro marketers and myself use that will help launch your business and get you noticed quickly. Most Beneficial Resources
Tips For Starting A Web Hosting Company
Starting a web hosting company is a great way to make money. Some people even use their web hosting business to pay for the cost of having servers for their own use. Starting a web hosting company is not a get-rich-quick scheme, however, and it does require planning and hard work.
The first step to starting a web hosting company is to create a business plan, even if it is only a rough idea in your mind. Your business plan starts with deciding on the type of niche to which you will market. A niche makes it easier to beat the competition, because there is less of it, and it makes it easier to offer customer support because customer needs will be similar. A niche can be anything from sports sites to hobby sites to church sites. Advertising is also easier because you can target advertising to the people interested in your niche. Your niche market will also determine which type of web hosting is best suited to your company.
There are two major sources of web hosting space:
Reseller Web Hosting - Reseller web hosting is a quick, easy way to start a web hosting company. Typically, a reseller buys a large chunk of web space and bandwidth from the hosting company, and then breaks this large chunk into smaller chunks that are sold to customers. Some resellers, however, advertise and sell hosting with a main hosting company, using either the reseller name or the hosting company name.
Semi-Dedicated and Dedicated Servers - Having a server can offer more space, bandwidth and control than a reseller account. If you would rather opt for your own server, there are a few options available:
Semi-dedicated - A semi-dedicated server is one that you lease from a host company, and there are usually 3 or 4 other resellers on that server.
Dedicated - A dedicated server is one that you lease from the host company, and it is all yours. An unmanaged dedicated server requires you to do all upgrades and maintenance. A managed dedicated server means basic management, like upgrades and maintenance, is done by the host company.
Co-location - If you have your own server, but cannot afford the costs of T1 lines, you can have your server housed by a datacenter. They connect your server to all of their lines, but you are still responsible for management of your own server.
At this point, your web hosting company is ready for basic business building. You will need to select a catchy business name, and then register your domain name. You will also need to register your business with the appropriate government agencies. Create a web site to bring in your sales, preferably using something related to your niche. Finally, advertise, advertise, advertise.
Web sites, whether business or personal, are in high demand. While a web hosting company is not always an easy business, it can be a profitable one with planning, research and hard work.
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Top 5 Things To Look For In A Web Host
A web host is a company that provides you with server space to host and control your website along with a whole lot of services such as software scripts, shopping carts, and other plug-ins.
Well, if you want to be on the Internet, you need a web host but not just any webhost - you need a quality and reliable web host to ensure that your website performs well. Thus, when you choose a web host you need to be careful; here are the top 5 things you must look for in any web host:
Reputation and experience: This should be your primary concern because if a web host does not have a reputation and experience to back him, then chances are that your website will be used as a test guinea pig. Plus, the web host must have a record that shows at least 95-97% server uptime, financial stability, and good testimonials from its existing customers.
Infrastructure & scalability: Your web host must be equipped with the latest infrastructure and he should be willing and able to scale up this infrastructure, given the rapid technological obsolescence that is happening around us. And that’s not all, your webhost to keep pace with your business too - if your website needs sophisticated web architecture, then you must look for a solid, technosavvy host.
Support: Does you web host have a 24/7/366 online and offline customer support system? If he doesn’t, don’t even consider him because if one fine day your site or ftp fails and you don’t find anyone to talk to, you will end up losing business as well as reputation.
Bandwidth: Choose a webhost who is known to provide the latest, super express deluxe network lines that make browsing and downloading a pleasure for all website visitors. Nowadays, audio and video are getting into the Internet like no one’s business and your web host must have enough redundant bandwidth to face heavy usage, if and when it occurs.
Software: Lastly, look at the scripts and software your host is supporting you with. Nowadays, even ordinary web hosts provide tools such as an easy-to-use control panel, shopping cart, blog integration, visitor tracking, and much more.
Those were the top 5 things you must look for before booking space with a web host. Remember, space and costs do not figure in the top 5 because most hosting plans are very affordable and give you ample space, and so they are not such a top consideration anymore.
So go ahead and hunt for the right host and just remember one thing: do not compromise on quality even if the costs are a little higher. Happy hunting then.
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Select a Hosting Option for Ecommerce Success
Let’s assume that you are an enthusiastic webmaster who wants to take their business online. It’s a practical and probably smart ambition.
The business world is changing at an ever increasing pace. More and more sites are bringing good products into the homes of millions of internet users world-wide, and this is just the beginning of the revolution. When you are ready to enter the world of online business commerce hosting must be one of your top priorities.
Before you jump into selecting a commerce host for your website, start at the beginning. What exactly is e-commerce? By most definitions, it is the action of marketing, selling and distributing products over the world wide web. The center of ecommerce is naturally an online store.
Without a website or page containing your ecommerce store, you have no ecommerce business. It is certainly possible to make money online through many other means than operating on online store. But ecommerce is one of the fastest, simplest ways one can start earning an income online.
In an online business, having quality commerce hosting is vital. It may even make the difference between your business succeeding and failing. You and more importantly your customers will depend on safe, reliable hosting. Without a capable, professional commerce host, sales aren’t likely to be made.
Shared vs. Dedicated Commerce Hosting
You basically have two options for your commerce hosting: a shared server or a dedicated server. The differences between the two are great both in term of quality and in price.
If you choose shared hosting, this means that you will have to share the server your web site is on with many other different websites. You will have less bandwidth at your disposal and your web pages may operate more slowly. As the business owner, you may have less options available to you for customizing your pages and your site. Again, the needs of your business and your clients must be weighed against these limitations.
If you choose a dedicated server, it will be yours and yours alone. You will be the only one on it and you will share bandwidth with nobody. You will be able to personalize everything and install software at your own discretion. More personalization, more speed, and faster service for your customers are the hallmarks of a dedicated commerce host.
Of course, you will pay for the dedicated server bonuses. A dedicated server can easily cost you a few hundred of dollars a month. By contrast, shared hosting costs just a few dollars each month. Cost may well be the deciding factor when you first launch your ecommerce site. But be sure to re-evaluate your decision regularly as your ecommerce business changes and grows.
Evaluate Your Server Regularly
What might cause you to change your mind about a commerce host option? If your business really takes off and you are experiencing rapid success and growth while using a shared host, consider moving up to a dedicated server. With dedicated hosting, you will be better able to serve a growing number of customers and to customize your online business to better suit your business needs.
Alternatively, if you find your once-booming online business is experiencing a sluggish start or rapid decline, consider switching to shared hosting. You can save considerable expense while still serving your customers’ needs while you re-evaluate your business model.
Lastly, you may find that you are simply dissatisfied with your current server. If you are planning to switch servers anyway, it might be an excellent time to make a switch to a more suitable type of server, as well.
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Dirt Cheap Web Hosting: Why You Should Be Very Worried
Most people are ecstatic when they get a good deal, like a dirt-cheap web host who offers too much for next to nothing. In actual fact instead of joy, this kind of deal should send alarm bells ringing loudly in your head and here’s why.
Two Dirt Cheap Web Hosting Possibilities:
When your hosting deal is just too good to be true, more often than not one of two things has happened both of which are not good for you.
Either the web host is overselling hosting resources, which means that you will inevitably end up with lousy services and a site that loads at snail pace and many times is not even accessible at all. In other words, the cheap will end up being so expensive that it will clearly be unaffordable to you in terms of lost clients and revenue because people cannot access your site most of the time.
The second reason could be that the web hosting business is out to try and grab as many clients as possible collecting the maximum amount of revenue in advance and then filing for bankruptcy. This has happened many times and naturally chances are that you will never see a refund. This is the only road such a business strategy will end up on. Many have had the idea of using a business model where they go out for as much market share as they possibly can at a price that is below cost with the intention of raising prices later. In reality this will hardly work in an industry that is as competitive as web hosting is.
Hosts Who Oversell Resources:
Overselling refers to the situation where a host goes out for more clients than what their available resources can support. Webmasters usually sign up like crazy and at the beginning when the resources are yet to be stretched all looks well and happy webmasters refer the cheap service to others and the result is that the client base grows at blinding speed.
What follows after that is disaster as suddenly users find that their sites take too long to load and inevitably they lose many hits in this way, because impatient prospective visitors just click their way out of the site that is taking ages to load and end up going elsewhere. Downtimes also become so frequent that your site ends up not loading at all most of the times. The result is a classic illustration of why cheaper can often end up being much more expensive.
Hosting Business Model From Hell:
An increasing number of new web hosts have been offering increasingly more bandwidth for less. This has really not caused concern because most people have heard that the prices of resources used in web hosting have been dropping in price in recent times. However the truth is that some hosting rates have been dropping much faster while offering virtually unlimited bandwidth and resources. There is no such word as ‘unlimited’ in business because somebody has to pay the bills.
The whole idea here is to secure as many hosting clients as possible and then raise prices in future. Or in some cases declare bankruptcy. Both options will leave you, the hosting client in big trouble.
In Conclusion:
This article has clearly shown some of the reasons why you need to get very nervous when the hosting deal is too good to be true because even when everything appears to be alright at the beginning, you may well have signed up for a disaster that is waiting to happen.
Mohamad Latiff is the Author of the eCommerce Web Hosting blog at http://docnotti.com/t/index.php where you can read more of his reviews on the best and the worst of the eCommerce Web Hosting industry.
How To launch Your Own Web Hosting Business
While it is true that everybody with any online presence requires a web host and therefore demand has got be high, it is also true that many have tried to launch a successful hosting business and have ended up failing miserably. So the question is what usually goes wrong?
Actually, to successfully launch a web hosting business, you must have an effective strategy, which is what this article will help you formulate.
If You Don’t Have Clients You Certainly Don’t Have A Hosting Business.
There are many ways to launch a hosting business, but the easiest is to join an affiliate program where you can concentrate on getting clients and leave all the other numerous technical details to be taken care of by others. This is what I would recommend for somebody starting out in the web hosting business.
The reason is simple. You will get to learn the hardest part of the business, which is landing clients. Once you have mastered this aspect of the business, you can confidently go ahead and launch your fully fledged hosting set up with confidence knowing that you have the ability to land clients pronto, anytime you wish.
Start Your Hosting Business With A Blog.
Blogs are amazing and can be used very effectively in generating traffic and business for anything you can care to think of including your affiliate web hosting site. For starters blogs tend to rank better than sites in search engine results. The simple reason is that search engines are always looking for plenty of quality content and blogs tend to have lots of this.
To generate the content for your blog, you will need to focus on common problems people face from their web hosts and suggest good workable solutions. Then place your link to your hosting affiliate sign up page at appropriate places. It is important that you carefully research the keywords that you are going to use for your blog content and anchor text for links because this will impact on your SEO success.
Then, to further boost your blog traffic, rewrite your content and also post them at popular high traffic article directories. Each article should have links pointing back to your blog. The effect of this, apart from giving you traffic will be to enhance your ranking with leading search engines for the keywords that you will choose to use.
The Most Important Marketing For Any Web Hosting Business.
Right from the beginning it is of utmost importance that you create a system for harvesting email addresses from your regular visitors to your blog and affiliate site. The way to do this is to offer a regular email newsletter or ezine that will be of great interest to your audience. Naturally your weekly ezine should go out with links to the latest articles at your blog.
Not only will this enable you to retain a steady flow of clients, but the hosting business is such that most people will not sign up immediately but will need to be constantly reminded of your business until that inevitable time when they will need to sign up with a new web host. There is no better way of staying in touch with your prospects than through an interesting ezine emailed out regularly.
Using the simple strategy suggested in this article, you should be able to build a huge profitable hosting business within no time, even as you continue to learn other methods to market and promote such a business successfully.
Mohamad Latiff is the Author of the eCommerce Web Hosting blog at http://docnotti.com/t/index.php where you can read more of his reviews on the best and the worst of the eCommerce Web Hosting industry.
5 Areas to Find Out Prior To Selecting a Web Host
As with all other facets of developing an internet home business, selecting a web host requires a great deal of focus and research. There are a number of things you will want to find out prior to selecting a web host, seeing that this is the company that will be providing you with server space, web services and the necessary file maintenance. Here are a few things you should find out before selecting one for your internet home business.
1. Reliability
The web host is the company that can make or break your business. If your server is always down, visitors have no way of getting to your website. Therefore, you want to look at the percentage of time the server is working properly for the company. While percentages can sometimes be off slightly, you will also want to look into whether or not they have a money back guarantee offer.
2. Support personnel
Regardless of how qualified the company is and how great their percentages are, there is always going to be a couple of times when your server will go down. In such a case, you want to look into how long it takes to get a hold of the support personnel. The longer it takes the more business you will be losing. The best web host companies take care of your problems as soon as possible.
3. CGI access
If you have an internet home business, chances are you are going to want to run your own programs. In order to do so, you have to have CGI access to give you the necessary interactive capabilities. When you are looking at the web host to see if they offer this, make sure your CGI access allows you to read, write, and execute on your server.
4. POP account
Setting up a POP account gives you password-protected access to mail sent to you through your website email address. If you have a larger company, you will probably want to set up multiple POP accounts. If this is the case, check with the web host to see how much it will cost extra per account.
5. Domain name
The domain name you select for your internet home business is perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle because this is your identity. You want to select one that has your company name or products name in it somewhere, while making the address as short as possible. Short domain names are easily recognizable and easy to remember.
Selecting a web host for your internet home business involves a lot more steps than most people would think. However, it should not take too long to find the perfect fit for your internet home business with the right kind of research.
Joseph Rose’s Internet Marketing Website, http://www.AjamiWealth.com is designed to assist anyone who sincerely wants to change their financial future. You can receive Joseph’s free newsletter at http://www.ajamiwealth.com/optin.html .
What Is PHPBB All About Then?
The abbreviation phpBB stands for PHP Bulletin Board, i.e., a bulletin board scripted in the PHP programming language. A bulletin board, also referred to as message board, discussion board, web forum, Internet forum or discussion forum, is a platform on the WorldWideWeb that facilitates (i) creation of a virtual community of like-minded people and (ii) interaction among them.
The very popular phpBB is a high-powered, fully scalable, highly customizable and free open-source (i.e., no fees, no subscriptions, no restriction on modifications) Internet forum software package that can support a variety of database management systems such as MYSQL, Microsoft SQL, PostgreSQL and Microsoft Access (via ODBC). With its user-friendly interface, straightforward administration panel and helpful FAQs, phpBB is the ideal free community builder for all kinds of websites.
The key features of the phpBB Internet forum system are:
Simple installation
Multiple-language interface
Support for a host of database servers
High security, with powerful and extensive authorization system and strong encryption for password safety
Unlimited forums that can be organized into unlimited categories
Unlimited forum members
Private or public forums
Powerful search facility
Private messaging facility
Template customization
Messages formatting in various font styles and sizes, also allowing image posting, code display, automatic URL linking
Easy-to-use admin panel
A large community of phpBB users providing free support
phpBB Forum Hosting
A multitude of phpBB forum hosting service providers exist in the web services market, offering right from 100% free or inexpensive forum hosting packages to premium paid forum hosting packages, depending upon the quality of the server, the features included in the package and the quality of the customer service and support provided by the forum hosting company. The 100% free type of phpBB massage boards generally come with limited disk space and limited bandwidth per month and are usually accompanied by banner ads, whereas the premium paid forum hosting packages are ad-free packages with larger disk space and maybe unlimited bandwidth per month.
As mentioned earlier, an Internet forum is a platform for people having common interests where they can meet virtually and exchange ideas on any topic of interest, be it technology, politics, health, gaming, or whatever. By doing so they can find solutions to their problems or can help others solve their problems by giving them advice. If used intelligently and diligently, in addition to the socializing activity a forum can also be exploited to drive traffic to your website. So, go ahead and join a relevant forum or host your own phpBB forum on your website.
James Johnson, what I don’t know about phpBB is not worth knowing. Well maybe it is, but you get the idea.
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