Ingredients For Reliable Web Hosting

It is the desire of every website owner to get a good web hosting package to support its online operations effectively. However, it is not easy to find such hosting companies before you get ripped off a few times. Hosting solutions range from free, affordable and budget to expensive ones.

Most people fail to estimate their needs accurately and deciding the best choice for them. It depends on your business requirements and budget constraints whether your customer traffic is high or low, disk space and bandwidth limits are fixed or flexible and security concerns basic or advanced.

Basically, a reliable web host is that which is able to provide for consistent performance and access to the website. In short, there are several ingredients that set apart a good web host from a bad one.

a) Bandwidth
The more the bandwidth offered by a web hosting plan, quicker will be your website’s loading speed. It’s best to go for a web hosting package that allows you to enjoy larger amounts of bandwidth. This should be decided after considering the current as well as future requirements of your website.

b) Disk space
Similarly, look for a web hosting company that provides large amount of server space for keeping your data and customer information.

c) Technical support
This is one of the primary factors to be kept in mind while selecting a web hosting plan. You must not hesitate in testing the technical and customer support offered by the web host to ensure that you are investing in a reliable web hosting plan. The response time should be fast and there should be prompt technical solutions for minimizing downtime.

d) Multiple domains and email aliases
A good web hosting company provides many domain names and sub domain names to allow flexibility and control to the website owner. Another feature to be verified is the multiple email accounts that are required to communicate with the customers and other website owners. Ask about the additional charges for getting such facility.

e) Control panel
When you have chosen a web hosting company, don’t forget to ask for instructions to manage the website and web hosting account. The control panel should be accessible via the web and provide for fast and simple addition or removal of applications.

Ingredients For Reliable Web Hosting

It is the desire of every website owner to get a good web hosting package to support its online operations effectively. However, it is not easy to find such hosting companies before you get ripped off a few times. Hosting solutions range from free, affordable and budget to expensive ones.

Most people fail to estimate their needs accurately and deciding the best choice for them. It depends on your business requirements and budget constraints whether your customer traffic is high or low, disk space and bandwidth limits are fixed or flexible and security concerns basic or advanced.

Basically, a reliable web host is that which is able to provide for consistent performance and access to the website. In short, there are several ingredients that set apart a good web host from a bad one.

a) Bandwidth
The more the bandwidth offered by a web hosting plan, quicker will be your website’s loading speed. It’s best to go for a web hosting package that allows you to enjoy larger amounts of bandwidth. This should be decided after considering the current as well as future requirements of your website.

b) Disk space
Similarly, look for a web hosting company that provides large amount of server space for keeping your data and customer information.

c) Technical support
This is one of the primary factors to be kept in mind while selecting a web hosting plan. You must not hesitate in testing the technical and customer support offered by the web host to ensure that you are investing in a reliable web hosting plan. The response time should be fast and there should be prompt technical solutions for minimizing downtime.

d) Multiple domains and email aliases
A good web hosting company provides many domain names and sub domain names to allow flexibility and control to the website owner. Another feature to be verified is the multiple email accounts that are required to communicate with the customers and other website owners. Ask about the additional charges for getting such facility.

e) Control panel
When you have chosen a web hosting company, don’t forget to ask for instructions to manage the website and web hosting account. The control panel should be accessible via the web and provide for fast and simple addition or removal of applications.

Disadvantages Of Free Web Hosting

On the internet, you’ll find endless number of “free” products and services for each and every need. When you want to start your website, you may get free website design templates and web hosting packages.

Before you get excited, it’s imperative to understand the implications of using a free web hosting service. After all, you get what you pay for. So the free plans may not offer quality services as is promised by them. If your website is not for an ecommerce business purpose, you may opt for free web hosting services that do not offer reliability or security.

Taking a free web hosting plan means facing several restrictions. One such issue may be the advertisements that are placed at the top of every webpage of your website. These may even include ads of your competitors. When customers visit your website, their browsing experience may be spoiled by such advertisements. This may annoy them and result in loss of existing or potential customers.

Another problem is that of low quality of technical and customer support. You cannot expect reliability in services from a free web host. The FAQ section may be the only support offered to customers. Even if your website is facing a problem, your requests and queries may not get prompt replies or solutions from a free web hosting company’s staff. This has a direct negative effect on your website’s performance.

Server breakdown and website downtime may be a common feature of free web hosting. There may be lack of adequate bandwidth and disk space as the web hosting server has many websites housed on the same hard disk. In practice, most of the free web hosting companies are just looking for advertisement revenue and fail to provide any real services.

There are very few web hosts that offer good quality service and larger storage space to websites. Most of them will give no flexibility for website expansion or support for applications of various types. For example, some free hosts restrict use of several file types and scripts that consume a lot of bandwidth.

Domain names may also be longer and harder to remember. You will have to register the domain name wit the web hosting company providing free service. This will make shifting to another host difficult in the future. If your website has a long and complex URL, people will have a lesser chance of remembering it and locating your website.

No matter how much the cost saving, the primary concern for any website owner will be to ensure effective support for good performance of their websites. The above listed issues should not be ignored if you are seriously interested in starting an online business. It’s best to look for a reputable web hosting company rather than going for free web hosting.

If you want your website to succeed and grow, you will have to invest money in it.

Web Hosting For Blogs

Our life has changed with the emergence of Internet and now, every new day brings a new innovation or change in Internet technology. Where websites were the sole web space occupants, there has been a rise of another form of social networking, communities, etc. one such new form of web based communication is the ‘blog’.

Short for “web log”, a blog is a technology that provides web space to people who want to express their views, ideas, experiences, images, emotions, videos and more and share them with a worldwide audience. A blog is simple to start and easy to maintain. This has made it very popular among people of all age groups and cultures.

If you are ready to become a blogger, your setup requirements are quite similar to those of the website owners. Once you have decided and planned the concept of your blog, you will have to find a reliable web hosting company to make your blog successful. Even though this is a new form of software technology, it is still dependent on the traditional web hosting hardware technology.

Choosing a web hosing package will require taking into account of various features like:

• Disk space
• Bandwidth
• Speed of connectivity
• Email accounts
• Domain names and sub domain names
• FTP facility
• Popular scripts
• CGI bin
• Shopping carts
• Security mechanism
• Technical and customer support

However, there are other factors which need to be considered along with these usual elements. Firstly, you should be allowed to use databases for your blog. Secondly, there should be a script provided by the web hosting company to install your blog. Most beginners want to focus on communicating with their readers while the technical details are handled by the web hosting company.

While selecting a web host for your blog, make sure that it provides quality service and sound technical support. This will help you maintain a long term relationship with them and avoid the headache of shifting to a new host. Check the experience and skills of the web hosting company. They should have a good business record. Additionally, you must test their customer and technical support staff before buying any plan. This will help in establishing their expertise and promptness in handling customer queries and solving problems related to your blog.

Don’t be hasty while selecting a web hosting package. You must shop around for the best deal in the market. Compare different plans for features and price before choosing a particular one. Once you find a good and reliable web hosting plan, it will be easier to setup and run a successful blog.

Effectiveness Of Web Hosting Reseller Business

With growing awareness about the potential for online business, web hosting industry is also witnessing a boom in demand for various kinds of web hosting plans. In such circumstances, web hosting resellers can make substantial profits without too much trouble.

Like any other business, web hosting reselling business also requires caution and understanding of the various aspects of web hosting. It is important to keep the customers happy which is possible only when you offer quality services at affordable prices.

The first step will be look for a reliable web hosting provider to get a good reseller program. Even though many web hosting companies claim to be the best in the industry, you must make sure that you take a reseller hosting plan from a reliable company that has an effective combination of quality of service and affordability.

The success of your reseller business will depend on the number of people referred by the website owners who are your clients. Reliability of your web hosting provider will be tested by the promptness and quality of the customer support offered and the soundness of technical support. As your current customers refer others, your reseller business will expand rapidly.

Go online to search and compare several reseller plans before settling on a specific one. When you look for a web hosting reseller program, make sure that there are minimum overheads involved in starting it and yet they have high revenue potential. Pick a reseller plan from an experienced web host that has various attractive reselling packages to choose from. It is also recommendable to go for a flexible web hosting plan that enables you to get large customer volume and earn a steady stream of income too.

When you decide to become a web hosting reseller, make sure that you know the strategies for beating the competition. Have a well structured plan for marketing your web hosting plans through a website. It should be well functioning and provide easy access to attract maximum number of customers to sign up for web hosting service.

You must have a basic understanding of web hosting terms and technology to clarify any doubts that the customers have. Also, you must be sure that your customer’s websites will receive continuous and good quality technical support for any and every problem. This will help you keep their websites up and running.

In the end, it is all about the ease and speed of using the control panel provided by the web host to you. it should offer absolute control to the reseller to manage and invoice clients who register with the web hosting reseller. Website statistics and records need to be maintained by you as a reseller and this feature should be part of the control panel.

Remember that your web hosting reseller business is mainly dependent on two things. First, the quality of your web hosting provider and second, the customer base of your business.

Tips For Saving On Web Hosting Plans

In today’s world, you may be a business tycoon earning millions of income but if you don’t have a website; people will not take you seriously. The Internet has changed the way business is done. From small to large businesses, everyone is using the power of the web to expand business scale, reach a wider audience and make more money.

A website comes alive with the help of a web hosting service. Initially, this was considered as the biggest expense involved in setting up a website. However, the current scenario is completely different. There are thousands of web hosting providers who will offer free or very cheap services to get your website up and running. There is a wide range of web hosting packages to choose from.

This makes it important to know what you actually want for your website before running after an attractive but unsuitable deal. The main criteria for making a smart and affordable web hosting shopping decision are:

• Bandwidth

This implies the total amount of data that can be transferred to and from your website. Most web hosts will offer this on a monthly basis and for any sort of online business which has scope for growth, a minimum of 1 GB bandwidth is essential. If you have a large, busy website, even this limit may fall short of your requirements.

• Storage capacity

A small website with a few pages and applications will not require more than 5-10 MB of disk space. On the other hand, a dynamic, interactive website with larger number of web pages will need much more disk space for storing all the files that is about 10-25 MB.

• Features

A good web hosting package includes various tools like design templates, CGI bin, statistics, FTP and shopping cart to setup a popular, customer friendly website. You must compare the features offered by several web hosting plans before settling for a particular one.

• Multiple Email accounts

You should select a web hosting package that allows you to set up email addresses connected to your domain name without paying additionally for separate email accounts. This is an integral part for any online business. You must ensure that the web hosting company allows at least 5 email aliases for your website.

• Technical support

This factor is very important for ensuring constant performance of your website and customer access. Make sure that the technical support system is prompt and easy to understand. Their policies should be customer friendly and it is always better to test the expertise of the technical support staff beforehand.

Benefits Of Web Hosting Merchant Account

The computer age has made it essential for everyone to adapt to the new and innovative means of doing business. As more and more people understand this, online business has witnessed a boom like never before. It is one of the best ways to enhance your business profitability and sales.

Creating a website has become a necessity as you can reach millions of people across the globe with its help. However, many people don’t know how to build a good website and maintain it. Creating a sophisticated website is a professional task that cannot be done on your own. This proves to be a discouraging factor for many people who find it easier to stick to traditional ways of doing business.

In such circumstances, a web hosting merchant account can prove to be an effective solution. This facility is offered to website owners, especially e-commerce website owners, by most web hosting companies. You must avoid the hosting companies that offer this service for additional fees as this is a part of your web hosting package.

Once you have chosen a good web hosting company and purchased the right web hosting package for your website, you can launch the website if it has already been designed by an independent web designer. On the other hand, you can use the design templates included in your hosting package to create a website.

A website for online business differs from a website for personal hobby or interests. Your customers have various needs and demands which should be met through your website. This makes it essential to include various features in your website like:

• Easy navigation
• Interactive features
• Product descriptions
• Price details
• Multiple payment options
• Security systems
• Customer support in the form of email, forms and phone number
• Links to related websites
• Testimonials
• FAQs

Good ecommerce websites must include all these features to attract and retain customers. If you are able to provide high quality services to users, there will be higher sales and profits. A web hosting company should offer these elements as part of your web hosting plan. You should go for a package that offers flexibility to get add-on tools and applications required for growth of website o changing customer demands.

Once your website incorporates a merchant account and sound order processing and payment system, there will definitely be higher potential for a rewarding online experience!

Is Free Web Hosting The Right Choice For Your Online Business?

As soon as you enter the web hosting market, there will be hundreds of web hosting providers claiming to be the best in the industry. All you need to do is type “web hosting” in a search engine to get thousands of relevant results. If you don’t want to spend much, there’s the option to go for free web hosting plans. However, you must know that it is more of an expanded advertising agreement than a website support service.

When you sign up for a free web hosting plan, the web host gains the right to place ads on your website. These may be placed at the top, bottom or sides of the pages and may not match the content of your website. It will be recommended for personal interest websites but are unsuitable if you plan to setup an online business through your website.

Most free web hosting plans will not provide an independent domain name for your website. It will usually be a sub-domain which means that you are getting space for your website but not a unique domain name that can be used for building the brand image of your business. Don’t forget to check the service contract for any charges applied o you in case you plan to shift to another web hosting company or transfer your domain within a certain period of time.

As our website gains success and customer loyalty, there will be need for business expansion and additional features. A free web hosting plan cannot offer additional bandwidth and disk space. This hampers your flexibility in operating the website according to customer requirements.

Remember that you get what you pay for. A free web hosting company usually operates with the motive of earning advertising revenue on a monthly basis. So, make sure that there are adequate provisions for legal protection of your website content and money paid if the company goes out of business suddenly.

For business websites, free web hosting is a big risk. You will not have much control over the performance of your website and may easily suffer disaster at the hands of a lousy host. A successful e-commerce website requires continuous connectivity, interactive tools and applications and 24X7 technical supports.

A fee web hosting package cannot be considered reliable or secure for running a serious, full time online business. You would be better off with a cheap or affordable web hosting package that allows you to meet your current as well as future business objectives.

Build Your E-commerce Website With Web Hosting Templates

Creating a website is not a mammoth task but it isn’t a cakewalk either. In today’s competitive world, there is no place for simple, conventional websites. The virtual world is full of dynamic websites with state of the art designs. If you want to have an edge over the competition, you will need professional help for making and running a sophisticated website.

For e-commerce websites, the design must incorporate various elements like the company logo, color schemes, content arrangement, creation and navigation. Even though it seems like a complex task, web design templates have simplified the process of creating websites to a large extent. Most web hosting companies offer design templates as part of their web hosting packages to attract website owners and make their task easier.

Your web hosting provider will have a wide range of templates to suit the needs of simple as well as complex ecommerce websites. While the cost of a simple template is under $20, a sophisticated, feature packed website will cost you a few hundred dollars or more according to business requirements and customer demands.

As compared to customized ecommerce websites, the cost of web templates offered by web hosting companies is much lesser. If you hire a professional web designer or developer for making your website, it may cost you $20-$100 per hour, which is quite expensive.

Another important benefit of web hosting plans lies in the various additional features you will get. An e-commerce website is incomplete without a shopping cart that is capable of supporting online catalog and payment processing system. Customers will need this for searching, ordering and paying for chosen products at your website.

To select shopping cart software independently, you must check and compare her functionality through various factors like :

a) Number of products and categories that can be setup and added to your website
b) Ability to accept online payments in the form of checks or recheck along with other options like PayPal and credit cards.
c) Email notification facility for informing the customer as well as merchant about completion of sale transaction

When you have to choose a web hosting provider for your ecommerce website, keep in mind the following things:

a) Basic monthly setup fees
b) Additional fees, if any, for setting up a new online store
c) Additional charges for adding new products or categories to your website
d) Transaction fees

If you expect high volume of transactions, go for a web hosting plan that charges high monthly fees but a low per transaction amount. For low customer traffic sites, per transaction charges can be higher while the monthly fee should be minimal.

How To Get Started As A Web Hosting Affiliate

Most of us long to break free from the monotony of 8 hours a day, 6 days a week job. Are you one of those people who want to start their own business that offers continuous income which keeps growing and growing?

If yes, then a web hosting affiliate program is the right choice for you. For those who want to be their boss and enjoy a financially independent life, nothing can be simpler or better than this. Many people think that affiliate marketing has no scope for generating substantial income or any money at all, but if you do it the right way, you can benefit greatly.

There are many people who have actually made lots of money from web hosting affiliate programs. Starting as a passive venture, it has been adopted as a full time business by various individuals. This is a truly lucrative business that can be taken up as home business opportunity or full fledged venture.

One of the best features of a web hosting affiliate program lies in the ability to earn income throughout the year. There are no holidays or seasons. As you make commission by referring people to open an account in the web hosting program, it is possible to make substantial profits by referring just about 100 accounts per month. this means that a commission of $5 on every account will lead to a total of 500 dollars per month.

If you want to increase your income, you will have to refer someone to a web hosting affiliate program. Unlike the popular belief that the Internet can be used to make money by selling stuff alone, web hosting affiliate programs illustrate the potential of Internet as a money making tool. This may be often overlooked by people but still continues to be an effective means of revenue generation.

Remember that you cannot achieve exponential growth or spectacular results without hard work, dedication and investment of money. With time and experience, you can earn enough from a web hosting affiliate program to quit your regular job and concentrate on it as a full time business.

To begin with, you should look for a web hosting affiliate program that provides instant account activation for customers. A good web hosting company will offer this facility so that maximum number of customers can be attracted for your web hosting affiliate program. People want immediate results for their investment in such a web hosting affiliate plan.

It is imperative to ensure a good customer support service. This means that the web hosting provider should offer timely ad relevant solutions to any problems faced by the customers of your affiliate program.

Keep all these things in mind before signing up for a web hosting affiliate program. Just like you, there are many others who want to use the Internet to earn money. Do your homework and use effective strategies to make large amount of money from this small business.

Basics Of Web Hosting Agreements

Selecting a web hosting company is not limited to finding a web hosting package alone. Before you decide to buy a certain web hosting plan, there is need to read the service agreement carefully and ask for clarification on any terms and conditions that cannot be understood.

Any agreement should cover the important points for a good web hosting package. These include:

• Disk space available
• Limits of Bandwidth and Data Transfer
• Continuous system support (24/7)
• Prompt technical support
• Security for information processing
• Provision for confidentiality of information
• Ease of control panel
• Website statistics
• The procedure to be adopted in case of allegations stating that there are defamatory or any other inappropriate content on your website
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) system
• Scripts and Design templates
• Number of Email addresses
• Multiple domain names and sub-domain names
• Procedure for assistance on transfer of information or software on termination of account
• Indemnity in case of use of software that has not been licensed to the web hosting company
• Indemnity for claims against website owners in case of lack of provision causing claims against you

It is best to go online for finding information about reliable web hosting companies. You should compare the various web hosting packages, features and prices to get the best deal. Once you find a quality web hosting plan with great service, you must ensure that all the terms and conditions are clear to you. if the web hosting agreement does not contain all the above features, your online business could lose profits, customers and reputation as well.

ABC Of Web Hosting Technologies

Millions of website owners who don’t understand most of the web hosting terms and technical features are ripped off their money by unscrupulous web hosting companies through cheap web hosting plans. You don’t have to be one of them.

Listed below are some of the common terms of web hosting technology:

• Windows hosting

As the name suggests, Windows hosting implies the use of Windows operating system for hosting of web services. This kind of web hosting is suitable for websites using ASP server scripting or Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server. For those who plan to use Microsoft FrontPage.

• Unix hosting

In this case, your website runs on a Unix operating system. It is perceived as reliable and stable form of operating system and is less expensive as compared to Windows. Most people prefer using UNIX or Linux web hosting over Windows hosting due to these advantages.

• CGI

Websites that need dynamic and interactive web pages make use of CGI scripts for achieving this task. Most web hosting packages include CGI scripting tools like guest books, chat forums, page counters and shopping cart that form an important part of popular websites. These applications are usually pre-installed and ready to run as and when activated by you through the control panel. This kind of scripting is usually used with Unix/Linux operating systems.

• ASP

Active Server Pages (ASP) is a scripting technology that helps you create dynamic web pages by inserting scrip code within your HTML pages. ASP forms a standard part of Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP. It has become a popular technology and is being offered as a part of web hosting packages by many web hosts.

• FrontPage

Developed by Microsoft, this web design tool enables users to develop websites even if they don’t have high level of technical knowledge. This is best suited with a Windows hosting solution that supports FrontPage server extensions.

• PHP

Like ASP, this is another server-side scripting language which can be used to create web pages by placing script code inside your HTML pages.

• Secure Server

Safety of information is a prerequisite for any website, especially ecommerce websites. The customers need to trust your website before they place an order to make purchases. a secure server transmits data which is encrypted. This enables protection against infringement by unauthorized entities. Online credit transactions and business communications make it essential to use a secure server for protection of sensitive information.

All the above terms can be found in most web hosting packages. Hopefully, this article has helped you gain insight into the web hosting technology that was previously unclear.

How To Choose Email Web Hosting For Your Website

While launching an e-business, most people concentrate on many things but email hosting may not be one of them. More often than not, it will be ignored as a minor issue. However, emails form an important part of your website and customer creation and management system.

Phones and chat may be used for communicating with customers but email sill remains the most popular way of getting and giving feedback from customers. Most business websites contain a customer support email address for answering their queries, giving reports, etc.

Email problems can cause loss of business revenue or even shutdown in case of prolonged downtime. This is the last thing that any website owner wants. So, email hosting deserves careful selection and implementation. Usually, email hosting forms a part of he web hosting plan purchased by you.

This has various benefits over a separate email hosting package, like:

1. Your domain name appears as part of your email address. This results in a much more professional image.
2. As part of a web hosting plan, there are more email options, accounts and lesser restrictions.
3. Verify the web hosting company’s server capability in terms of speed, load bearing, security system, disk space allowed, etc.
4. Website statistics should also be available for making it easy to recover old mails and know about status of various customer orders.
5. Uptime guarantee of at least 99% is required for a web hosting package to be reliable and effective.
6. Sound technical support and backup is another key factor.
7. Email services like unlimited aliases, autoresponders, administration, web-based access should be present.
8. File transfer through email requires unrestricted access without any size or type limits.
9. POP3 and SMTP are popular mail transfer systems used by many web hosts.

While selecting a web hosting company, make sure that they possess adequate experience as a web host and have association with reliable organizations. There should be prompt and consistent technical support to keep your email service in top condition. If a customer cannot contact you or get important information in real time, he may switch to a competitor.

If you don’t want to lose your business customers and profits, chose a reliable web hosting company that ensures good quality email hosting.

Ways To Prevent Web Hosting Nightmares

In the digital age, you can’t do without having an Internet presence. Going online is not the question. The question is to find a reliable, flexible and durable web host to support your website and ensure consistent performance for it. If you have the right information, you can easily find a good web hosting package. On the other hand, wrong guidance can result in a disaster.

While shopping for a web hosting package, keep in mind, the following things:

Research
Your choice of a web host is not as simple as looking for a big-name provider with attractive, feature-packed plans and diverse services. It is better to go with a smaller web hosting company that pays attention to your problems and gives prompt solutions as and when required. a big company will give preference to a big, high-end website when giving services and technical support.

If you want to host your website on your own server, consider co-location hosting. This involves buying a server and placing it in the web hosing company’s premises. Along with direct access to the server, you have the flexibility to update data at your discretion, without any additional costs. However, you must possess the technical skills required to handle such an arrangement.

When you go for shared or dedicated web hosting, the web hosting company is responsible for maintenance of the website. Most changes will be undertaken by the web host only. Your flexibility will vary according to the package chosen by you and the quality of the web hosting company.

Written Agreement
Your web hosting service will be subject to the terms and conditions of the service contract. Make sure that you read all the contents of this agreement and understand all the details. Don’t hesitate to ask about any clause or details and include verbal negotiations in the contract. Verify that the web host meets any guarantee or claim made in the agreement for your legal protection.

Security
Apart from the other features, it is essential to offer safe transactions to your customers while they are at your website. Make sure that your web hosting package includes sound security systems like SSL Encryption. If a website is not adequately protected against infringement, users will not trust it.

Control
consistent performance is imperative for your website’s success. Critical ecommerce websites can not afford to have downtime or inaccessible web pages for one or the other reason. This can rapidly translate into lost revenue. Your web hosting company should be able to solve your problems quickly to avoid any serious damage to business sales or reputation.
Choose a web host after considering all these factors to prevent potential e-business nightmares and have a great online business experience!

Web Hosting Selection Tips For Resellers

For resellers, selecting a reliable web hosting company is one of the most important business decisions. The quality of your services will be determined by the quality of the web host’s services. An effective middleman is one that has sound backup, which is a good web hosting provider in this case.

The first factor that will affect your choice of web hosting company is the kind of websites that are hosted by you. if these comprise of personal and small, static websites of different kinds, there will not be need for highly consistent, feature packed web hosting. There is little need for flexibility in case of such websites. On the other hand, a critical ecommerce website will require continuous and highly dynamic form of web hosting.

Another significant factor is the price of the web hosting packages. Unlike website owners, you cannot go for the cheapest plans. As a reseller, you need to consider many factors apart from the cost of web hosting. If you go for low prices plans which do not offer reliable, secure services to the customer, your investment will be completely wasted.

To judge the reliability of a web hosting company, you must check the uptime guarantee offered. Some hosts offer 99.9 % uptime and offer refund of monthly fee if they fail to maintain it. This enables you to ensure consistent performance of your customer’s websites.

You can also get a better idea about their services by going to the support forums on their website. There, you can read about the complaints from other customers, resellers and the overall review about the quality of services provided by the company.

Coming to bandwidth and disk space, you need to analyze the kind of customers you serve before deciding the adequate amount. Also, the web hosting company should provide the standard as well as latest, attractive features to enable effective hosting for your customer’s websites. These include email accounts, domain names, FTP access, autoresponders, SSL, shopping carts and MySQL among others. Enquire about the server/ operating system being used, scripts included, etc.

Testing the technical support offered by the web hosting company is also imperative. Use the email or telephone information to send queries and see the response time taken by their staff. Apart from speed, focus on the relevance and quality of their solutions. Many web hosts even offer ‘Live Chat’ facility for reducing the customer support service time.

Your business reputation and customer satisfaction depends on the efficiency of services offered by your web hosting company. So, take great care while selecting a host. Once you are satisfied with the features, customer support and stability provided by a web hosting company, it will be easier to serve your customers and earn profits.

Steps To Get A Web Hosting Plan

Reliable Web hosting is an integral part of a successful website. You will find thousands of companies offering free and paid web hosting services. Which plan you take depends on your business needs and capital restrictions.

Free web hosting is suitable for small and static websites. There are restrictions on disk space and bandwidth, applications and the advertising programs for editing the website. There may be very few applications available and lack of flexibility for site expansion.

Your online business will be better off with a paid web hosting company’s services. Features like wide range of applications, multiple domains and email accounts, technical support, website statistics and FTP are available in affordable web hosting packages. There is a web hosting control panel that enables you to monitor and control the functioning of your website. Good web hosting providers allow websites to grow and charge a nominal amount for increased bandwidth and disk space usage.

In general, paid web hosting plans are more reliable and stable as compared to a free package.
To get a web hosting plan, you need to follow the steps listed below:

a) Find a good web hosting plan according to your business needs, offered by a reputable web hosting company.
b) Once you have selected the right web hosting package, decide the suitable mode of payment - monthly or yearly.
c) Then, you get a confirmation email with relevant details regarding the name servers, control panel and other information.
d) Login to your new account and enter the above details after registration of the domain names has been completed. Do not get the domain names registered with a web hosting company. It is much better to get domain name registration independently.
e) Now, you can upload all the website design files and application to get your website up and running. This is done through an FTP client in the operating system or a web page editor such as FrontPage. You may also use the control panel to perform this task.

The completion of all these steps will lead you to establish your website and get it activated. Remember that a website is only as good as its support, which is the web hosting service. If you make a good choice of web hosting plan, your website will also flourish and bring in financial rewards.

ABC Of Web Hosting Services

Web hosting services at the most basic level include web page and file transfer at a small scale. You can upload computer files through File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

The simplest form of web hosting involves limited features such as bandwidth and email accounts. It is available to customers for free in return of the web host’s advertisement on top of the page. Such web hosting plans are good for personal websites which are not expected to get large amount of customer traffic nor do they need too much reliability, stability or security of services.

Complex business websites differ in this respect. They require sound database support and different application development platforms like Java, PHP and ASP.NET. Another important web hosting feature is the website control panel such as Hosting Controller and cPanel. This should be easy to navigate and use. You should be able to administer the website smoothly.

You must also consider the web hosting uptime. Usually, this is offered as 99.9%, implying that your website will be accessible to online users for this percentage of time. If a web hosting plan claims to offer 99.9% uptime but is available at a very cheap rate, it should be avoided. Reputable companies will deliver quality services at reasonable prices and not at unbelievably low rates.

As the online market expands to include more and more categories in its spectrum, the web hosting industry continues to become increasingly competitive. New packages and web hosting plans with diverse features are being launched frequently. However, you must steer clear of fraudsters who claim to the best service provider but are actually interested in ripping off innocent website owners.

Remember that you get what you pay for. a free web hosting plan can not provide good web hosting solutions, especially for business websites. Also, there is need to analyze the requirements of any ecommerce website before selecting the right web hosting plan for supporting it.

The best way to ensure informed decisions is to research web hosting aspects before actually purchasing a package. Also, comparison shopping allows you to compare the services offered by different hosts at a single point. you should not hesitate to ask questions regarding he various features included in a web hosting package or test their tech support service.

Once you are satisfied with the various services being offered, it is safe to buy the suitable web hosting plan according to your website’s needs and budget.

What Is The Right Time To Switch To A New Web Hosting Provider?

The best judge of the right time to switch to a new web hosting provider for your website is you. There are many factors which have an impact on this decision. Some of the most important ones include online business expansion, customer demand for more facilities and problems faced with current web host.

Most people experience web hosting issues like slow uploading of pages, file transfer errors, unfulfilled uptime guarantee, bad technical support and bandwidth and disk space restrictions. If you are one of these people, you must consider shifting to an upgraded web hosting plan or change the web hosting company itself.

A website’s performance is affected by the efficiency of the web hosting service. For critical websites, even a few hours of downtime can result in huge business losses. In the virtual world, customers will not waste any time at an inaccessible website before they shift to a competitor. That’s the last thing you want for your online business!

The decision to switch to a new web host should not be taken impulsively. You need to analyze the best possible solution for your website’s issues rather than making a wrong move in frustration.

Here are a few indicators for alerting you about the right time to shift to a new web hosting company.

#1: Tech Support

If you aren’t getting prompt response for your queries, the technical staff is either overburdened or incompetent. Both situations are harmful for your business if your problems remain unsolved for a longer period of time. Before your online business starts facing losses, you should look for another web hosting provider to reduce the downtime involved in shifting from one host to another. Test the technical and customer support of the new host before signing the service agreement.

#2: Package Pricing

Don’t get lured by free or cheap web hosting plans. Go for a reasonably priced web hosting package which offers large amount of features. Reputable web hosting companies offer feature-packed hosting plans for all levels of businesses. You must check their credibility, experience, security and customer reviews to get a better idea about their services.

#3: Flexibility

Many website owners feel the need to shift to an upgraded plan or another web hosting company due to restrictions on business growth. When your brand popularity rises and customer traffic increases, there will be need for more applications, scripts, files and other features to be transferred in and out of your website. this requires flexibility in bandwidth and data transfer limits. Shared web hosting may not be able to support high traffic websites. Then, it will be better to go for dedicated or colocated web hosting.

Whether you decide to switch a web hosting provider or not, make sure that your website has the required support at all times. If not, then its time to go to a new web host which can surpass the services provided by the previous one.

Choosing A Web Hosting Provider: What To Watch Out For

For all those who find the task of selecting a web hosting provider intimidating, this article can provide clarity and guidance regarding the basic factors influencing this decision.

In the current web hosting world, there are many web hosting packages available with varying features and prices. So, you must be careful while choosing a web host to get value for your money.

There are a few factors which need to be kept in mind while making this decision. The first step is to analyze your own requirements and objectives. What is the purpose behind setting up the website? A website can be setup for self expression, personal hobby or ecommerce i.e. business reasons. You need to pick a web hosting company which allows you to fulfill current as well as future expansion needs.

A basic static website can be run with almost any web hosting plan. However, critical business websites require 24 hour, uninterrupted web hosting support. Whatever the purpose of your going online, make sure that the following perquisites are included in the web hosting plan chosen for your website:

1: Most web hosting companies provide web design templates. However, you should not take anything for granted. Verify the compatibility of your web design software with the web hosting package. A good web hosting company will offer support for all scripts, files and applications.

2: Almost every website needs email accounts for marketing as well as communication purposes. While many web hosting companies will offer multiple email accounts as part of the web hosting plan, you should check for any additional costs. Don’t hesitate to clarify anything that you don’t understand in the service agreement regarding this aspect.

3: Focus on bandwidth and disk space offered by the web hosting plan before making a purchase decision. Disk space requirements vary for different kinds of websites. Bandwidth is another important factor which enables flexibility for website expansion. If your website has high customer traffic and audio/video streaming, this is a crucial determinant. While others shut down your website until the bandwidth limit is renewed.

4: Many people make the mistake of ignoring this factor while selecting a web hosting provider. To check the quality of customer support, you can call the company on the contact numbers provided at their website. ask a few questions to see how prompt and accurate is the service. Technical support should also be verified so that you select an effective host with skilled and helpful support staff.

If you keep all these factors in mind while looking for a web hosting provider, there will more chances of getting your money’s worth in the form of a successful, well functioning website.

Web Hosting Categories: Merits And Demerits

Web hosting solutions are available in different forms and at different prices. Your choice may differ according to your business objectives, technical know-how and customer demands. If you are setting up a website for personal or casual reasons, its requirements will be different from an informative or ecommerce business website.

The various types of web hosting are:

a. Shared Web Hosting
It is the cheapest and most common form of web hosting. You will get a share of server space with the web host on payment of a monthly fee. However, reliability and flexibility may be low due to hundreds of sites being housed on the same server. Also, bandwidth problems may arise with a single server bearing the load of large amount of data transfer. This type of hosting is suitable for small and medium sized websites and basic ecommerce websites.

b. Free web hosting
These are best for small websites which carry banner ads at the top. The website address is usually a sub domain of the web hosting company and not an independent domain name. Reliability, security and performance cannot be ensured. If you have a personal website without any customer response, this option may work for you. Otherwise, it is not recommended.

c. Collocated web hosting
Your website may be getting high customer traffic and supporting complex application. For such critical websites, you would not want any downtime for your website. This can be ensured with a collocated server hosting. Unlike a dedicated server, you own the server and don’t rent it. The web host will house the server and maintain it on your behalf. Features include high speed connectivity, bandwidth, security, sound technical support and diverse applications.

Do your homework and select the right web hosting plan according to your business requirements and budget. Search and compare different web hosting companies for package features and prices before making this “make or break” decision for your online business.

Web Hosting And Multiple Websites Management

For internet pure players, their website(s) is the primary source of business income. There are many individuals and enterprises which rely on the internet alone for their earnings. Usually, this involves setting up and running of ten or more websites simultaneously by a single organization or individual. Management of multiple websites may not be a cakewalk and it is essential to keep them up and running 24X7, all through the year.

Depending on a single web hosting company will expose your business to significant risk. If the server fails at any time, all your websites will go offline, leaving you helpless. It is better to host your websites with 3-4 web hosting providers. This may seems to be more expensive and time-consuming but it has various benefits too.

The cost of web hosting doesn’t form a large part of a single website business owner’s budget. However, for 15-50 websites, your web hosting costs will be substantial and may lead to business failure or success alone. To minimize such costs, use reseller hosting accounts for hosting some of the new or small websites at a small cost ($15- $30). Use a dedicated server for large and critical websites.

Verify that the uptime availability isn’t less than 99.9%. Server updates or failures can lead to downtime of upto half a day or more. This leads to huge losses for websites which provide substantial income to their owners and are very popular among customers. This situation can be avoided by hosting websites on different servers.

Online business websites involve huge amounts of data transfer. Sensitive customer information, sales records and payment details are common information available on a website. All these are stored by web hosting companies through their backup and statistics software. Using multiple web hosting accounts will allow you to switch information to another domain if one fails.

With too much choice and too little clarity, you may end up buying the wrong hosting plans. This is fatal for your business. Search, compare and choose the right web host with best price, features, security and experience before making a commitment. Then, you can be assured of effective management of your multiple websites online business.

How to Compare Web Hosting Providers Websites

A website is an important part of any business. You can advantageously explore the potential for a larger customer base, sales and profits by making and operating an attractive, customer-friendly and secure website.

Even the best website is worthless if it doesn’t have the support of a reliable web hosting provider. This underlines the significance of choosing the right web host for your website. However, there is endless number of web hosting companies, each claiming to be the best. This makes it very difficult to find a good host which is not only feature-rich, affordable and most importantly, delivers according to its promises.

It is best to search for the most popular and reputable web hosting providers online. Compare their packages for price and features included. This can be done effectively and lucratively, as follows:

1: Keep it simple
Web hosting websites with complex content and too much technical details should not be preferred. If they cannot offer services in a simple and clear method, you can expect to be confused later on as well. Such websites focus more on sophistication and creating hype than on customer understanding and satisfaction. If the plans are precise and to the point, you can easily determine whether the web host will fulfill your requirements or not.

2: Contact them
A good web hosting site will provide contact information on its website. Call them and check the kind of technical and customer support offered by the company. You can also ask for customer references and check the company’s past performance and experience before actually signing the service agreement. This is often a great way to differentiate the good web hosts from the bad ones.

3: Web hosting packages
Some websites will offer cheap plans including a variety of features. Avoid them. Go for a reasonable priced hosting plan which suits your website’s requirements and provides flexibility for future expansion as well. A cost benefit analysis is a must to get you money’s worth.

Do your homework and choose a web hosting provider after keeping all these factors in mind.

Effective Technical Support for Your Website

One of the most important determinants of a reliable web hosting provider is the quality technical support. You don’t want to wait endlessly for the web host to provide solutions to your technical problems while your customers can’t access your website. this can result in loss of revenue as well as reputation for your business.

As a customer, there are certain things which can be done by you to speed up the process of technical assistance.

Precise description
If you define the problem in a clear and precise manner, the technical staff will be able to understand the same with minimal time wastage. This includes details regarding the time of error, the action resulting in such malfunctioning, the kind of operating system being used, etc.

Urgency
You must know the priority status of your request. If the problem is secondary, the technical staff of the web hosting company may not deal with it immediately. This may result in delay of technical assistance. However, minor problems can be handled independently by you to ensure minimum downtime for the website. The more critical a problem, more prompt will be the support services. You should be prepared for this accordingly.

Response time
If the web hosting company’s technical staff takes an unreasonably long time to solve your website’s technical problems, you must ask for appropriate explanation from them. If you are still unsatisfied, it might be better to take support from another technician or even change the web host in prolonged condition of downtime.

Terms and conditions
While taking a web hosting plan, you should enquire about the responsibilities of the technical staff. They are not bound to deal with each and every problem faced by your website. their services may be restricted to web hosting, DNS, etc but may exclude web design and content issues. However, reputable hosts will offer solutions to almost all sorts of problems.

All these elements should be considered while assessing the quality of the technical support team of a web hosting company. The more efficient and prompt they are, the higher is the possibility of the success of your online business

Web Hosting Aids Online Marketing

With the growing popularity of Internet, there has been a surge of online businesses. No business owner can ignore the power of internet to increase sales, customers and business profits. Like any other field, web business also requires marketing. The most common way of doing this for the online medium is the creation of attractive, user-friendly websites.

Website designing is not a difficult task. What matters is the optimal use of internet marketing tools and techniques. This, in turn, depends on the quality of services provided by your web hosting provider. You may choose another company for hosting your website or let the web designing firm be your web host. This decision should be made after taking a few things into consideration. Remember that a discounted web hosting package from the designing company is not always the best option for you.

An important consideration is the search engine ranking of your website. if your website is ranked high on the first page of a search engine, more and more users will visit it. However, a bad web hosting server may result in slow loading of web pages and users getting annoyed. Not only will you lose potential customers to competitors, but also suffer unnecessary loss of time, effort and money. Before you start marketing your website, make sure that the web hosting server is capable of providing consistent support and service at all times.

Compare the charges for different web hosting packs and choose the best deal according to your website needs such as bandwidth, disk space, server speed and applications. Verify the price of similar plans to ensure that you are not being overcharged.

Another factor is the response time taken by the web hosting server to answer customer queries. This should vary from 3-5 seconds to a maximum of 10-20 seconds. If a page takes more than that to load, users will generally close it or move on to another website. So, it is imperative that your web hosting provider offers fast web page processing.

In case of shared web hosting, verify the number of websites hosted on a single server. This will give you an estimate about the server load and expected connectivity speed. You can also contact other website owners to know about their experience with the web hosting company’s services.

Marketing your website without the support of a reliable web host can prove to be very difficult and ineffective. Visitors should be able to get the desired results instantly to build their interest and ensure repeated visits.

A web hosting server is the foundation of your website and hence, needs to be strong. After all, Internet marketing is about promoting your quality content website in the best possible way and that is good customer service.

Web Hosting Tips: Where To Host Your Website?

Before deciding upon the web hosting package for your website, you must be sure about the basis of such decision; be it the web hosting features or the price of the chosen plan. Of course, the best option would be a combination of both these factors.

New website owners are attracted by free web hosting providers. However, you should remember that such packages may not provide you much benefit. There is lack of flexibility, good applications and effective security systems. Instead of getting advantages of no cost, you may end up with minimal features and an unsuccessful website.

A better option is to go for paid web hosting. These can be of different types such as:

Budget web hosting:
These are available at about $1 per month. Such plans may offer a wide range of services but may not be actually available to you. This may be suitable for personal websites only. For a more professional website, you will need a more reliable and higher priced web hosting plan.

Medium web hosting:
These web hosting packages are available for about $5-$10 every month. These will be inclusive of features like shopping cart software, email accounts, domain names and sub domain names, security mechanisms like SSL encryption, etc. the bandwidth and disk space is also adequate for a reasonable amount of traffic. This proves to be a fairly reliable and secure option for most websites. However, you may have to shift to an upgraded plan if your website is getting heavy customer traffic and file uploading.

High end web hosting:
This kind of web hosting is used by popular websites which get a large amount of web traffic every day and have highly interactive and technically advanced websites. The web hosting providers ensure up-to-date applications and 100% uptime to keep the websites up and running at all times. These web hosting plans may be priced at around $50 and above. This is a very reliable, secure and effective web hosting alternative. You can be assured of prompt technical and customer support, high-end applications and flexibility in bandwidth and server space.

You may go for dedicated web hosting or even colocated hosting if your website requires complete server support. This will cost you much more than the shared hosting plans, so you must carry out a cost-benefit analysis before making a decision.

Remember that in web hosting, you will get what you pay for. Assess your needs and objectives for the website as well as your budget before going for a web hosting plan. Search for and compare different web hosting companies to find the right host for your website.

Web Hosting For Small Businesses

In the present era, there is no business which can ignore the importance of an online presence. This is true for all types and sizes of enterprises. If you run a small business, you can take advantage of the wide reach of Internet by making a website. This can provide many benefits for your company, like:

• Wider customer base, both present and potential
• Building brand image
• Targeted marketing
• Opportunity to increase sales and profits
• Lower costs of operation
• Targeted marketing

Your web hosting needs can be determined by considering various factors.

Firstly, you need to understand the business needs and then, decide about the kind of website you want to create. This, in turn, will help you in selecting a suitable web host for your website. The basic requirements for all web hosts are:

• Bandwidth
• Disk space
• Price
• Reliability

For small businesses, it is better to go for shared web hosting rather than advanced forms like dedicated hosting which will be more expensive too. You must also consider the operating system being used, technical support service, guaranteed uptime, payment and security systems, applications offered, etc.

The disk space used by an average website will be about 100MB. Most web hosting companies will provide much more disk space for your website. You will also need email accounts for easy marketing and customer communication. If you have an ecommerce website, make sure that your web hosting package includes features like Shopping Cart, SSL Encryption for security and PayPal or other payment system.

Another important element is the server location. The server should be as near as possible, to the prospective customers. This will enable faster access to desired information and better website performance.

As your online business grows, you will need additional bandwidth, applications and other features. So it is imperative to choose a web hosting provider who allows some flexibility in the hosting plan. After all, you must receive value for your money. Compare various web hosting companies and make a wise decision to find the best web host for your website.

Understanding Web Hosting Server Load

Basically, the server load is the number denoting the tasks in queue which wait to access the processors. Server load values start from 0.00 and is calculated for a specific time period. The higher the number, the worse is the server’s performance.

To find out the server load, you can use the control panel of your web hosting account. Under the head “Server Status”, you can see the required value. This value is not static for long periods of time and will change very frequently. This means that it is calculated at the moment. After continuous observation, you can find the usual server load value.

However, analyzing the server load correctly is more important than just knowing its value.

There are various aspects of this interpretation, such as:

#1: A server load of 0.xx is considered safe by web hosting companies. Usually, your website will not face slower downloading if the server load value remains below 1.00.

#2: Above 1.00, the impact of server load is determined by the number of CPUs with the server. A single CPU will not be able to handle the server load in excess of 1.00 but if there are two CPUs, this value can be upto 2.00. However, there may be different reasons for server load such as server backups for later processing and misuse of resources by users. There may even be high-power servers which can handle load upto 2.00 singularly.

#3: Server load also depends on the processes waiting in queue for CPU access but these tasks or requests may be low priority or high priority according to their content. This determines the requests which will be handled instantly and which will have to wait as they are assigned low priority status.

#4: there are various other factors which influence the server load. These may be CPU space, memory usage, size of swap files, etc. Any changes in these factors will lead to a simultaneous increase or decrease in server load. If the internal memory is inadequate, the server will use a swap file. This will lead to higher CPU usage and increase in server load.

This can be prevented by installing higher level of internal memory. This can help to reduce the size of swap file, CPU usage and ultimately, server load. The server is able to process requests at a faster speed and hence, provide quick results.

If the server load is constantly high, resulting in slow processing and downloading, you should ask your web hosting provider to correct this problem. If it persists, you must consider shifting to another web host. Reputable web hosting companies ensure that the server load is minimized to provide maximum results in the shortest possible time.

A business website cannot expect to do well if customers cannot access relevant content and get orders processed in a timely manner. If you want to establish an online presence, you must choose a web hosting provider which can handle server load without compromising on quality.

Tips For Becoming A Web Hosting Reseller

A web hosting reseller is one who rents space from a web host and distributes it for housing websites of customers. For successful web hosting, you must find a web hosting provider who offers certain essential features to make your business profitable. An effective web host will enable you to earn good profits even after charging low fees from customers.

Firstly, you must get a multiple domain account to start your web hosting reseller business. The web host may offer one website per account but it is much better to go for an account which provides multiple domain names. As you can use one domain to create your own website while allocating the rest to your clients, you can benefit from this opportunity to pay less and earn more.

Secondly, it is imperative to have maximum administrative control over the customer’s websites. A good web host will provide an efficient and easy-to-use control panel for your multiple websites as well as a separate control panel for each customer’s website. Moreover, you must be able to conceal the identity of your web hosting provider to appear as the web host and not a reseller, to the customers.

Thirdly, there is need for creating your own policy and terms and conditions for customers. Many resellers ignore this aspect of business and take copies of the web host’s terms and conditions or the ones framed by them for resellers. It is best to frame your own policies and not adapt those written for other purposes for this function.

Fourthly, the web hosting company should provide consistent and reliable support to ensure hassle-free functioning of your own and the client’s websites. Select a web hosting server according to the current requirements of your customer’s websites and the desired flexibility for future expansion.

Effective technical and customer support is also an important determinant of the success of your business. You should be able to solve your client’s problems smoothly and without delay. Higher the website downtime, higher will be the loss for websites. Moreover, service failure and unhappy clients reflect badly on your business.

Finding a good web hosting company is a primary factor for setting up a successful web hosting reseller business. it may seem to be a daunting task initially but a little more time and effort can help you get substantial rewards later on. Once you find the right web host for your business, you can reap the benefits of reselling by getting returns through high-quality services.

Affordable Web Hosting Is Not Just About Prices

Before you get excited about a free web hosting package, stop and think about the benefits you will get from it. A free deal is not necessarily the best one. If you are looking for an affordable web hosting plan, you must look beyond the price. There are numerous web hosting companies which claim to provide unlimited features like bandwidth and disk space at rock-bottom prices.
It is better to steer clear of such web hosts to avoid wastage of your time, money and effort.

Moreover, any good website will need a quality web host to generate financial rewards and keep the customers happy.

One of the most important factors to be considered while selecting a web hosting provider is the speed of the server. Unlike disk space and bandwidth, server speed or responsiveness doesn’t have the flexibility to change according to website upgradation. When a web hosting company provides unlimited features at a cheap price, it indicates that many similar websites will be hosted on the same server. This will inevitably lead to a slower connection and loading of pages of your website.

Another key element is the service rendered by the web hosting company. You will come across a large number of web hosts claiming to be the very best but in reality, offer a large number of services in a single package to attract customers. These features usually falter while application. There may also be security loopholes which may expose your and the customers information to hacking and other forms of infringement. This can prove to be disastrous for your business sales, profits and most importantly, reputation.

You may not be able to use most of the updates either. This is due to the incompatibility between the webmaster coding and the server. Finally, you may have to change your web hosting company to one which can provide all the features required for a successful website. Make sure that the new server is able to support such features and does not compromise quality for price.

Free web hosting plans will rarely provide good technical support for your website problems. This is essential if you want to minimize the downtime for your website and ensure that it functions consistently. It is better to go for a reasonable web hosting plan which offers prompt service rather than a freebie which has no troubleshooting options.

Remember that your web hosting provider can make or break your business. So, it is best to ignore the marketing gimmicks of unreliable web hosts offering unlimited services for all your needs. A reputable web hosting company will provide you all the requisite features at a reasonable price. Compare the various hosting plans to get the best deal. You will find a lot of relevant information on the Internet through online forums, experts and websites of web hosting companies.

Nuts And Bolts Of Unlimited Web Hosting

Nowadays, a lot of web hosting companies offer unlimited web hosting option in the web hosting package. This may seem to be an advantage for most people who are starting an online business but may not prove to be advantageous in some cases.

While free hosting may seem to be a great idea initially, there are various factors which may be compromised due to this offer. There may be no or very less quality control provided by the web host. This can be risky for the quality of content and security of the website. Hence, you must choose a web host offering free service only after complete investigation and comparison with other web hosts.

As a newcomer, you must know the web hosting basics before choosing a web hosting package. Web servers are computers or servers which house your website along with other websites or exclusively, depending on the kind of hosting you want. This may be:

Shared hosting

Dedicated hosting

Co-location

For small companies, shared web hosting is a good option as it offers unlimited services and is easily affordable by all businesses. Simple websites with personal information will prefer unlimited hosting to get the benefits of no cost and flexibility to try different hosting companies.

However, there are several hidden costs of unlimited web hosting. These include:
Clients may have to display advertisements on their websites

Server may take fee for using domain name or website address

Limited or ineffective technical and customer support

If you are planning to go for shared web hosting for free or discounted price, you must ensure that you are sharing server space with reliable websites and not inappropriate websites which may cause slow connectivity, spamming, etc.

With a reasonable amount of investment, you can get good web hosting services for your website. There are many reputable web hosts offering quality packages at reasonable prices. You must research online for good web hosting providers and compare the features and prices of different packages to determine the best web hosting plan for your online business. Remember that it’s important to choose a web host carefully because you will only get what you pay for.

An Introduction To Virtual Web Hosting

So you have designed a fantastic website and registered a domain name. If you think that’s enough o start an online business, think again. All this is worth nothing until you find a good web hosting company to provide support for your website. Online users should be able to access your website before you can attract them with the website’s features and services.

Web hosting providers house your website on a server to provide continuous connectivity between users and the website. This makes it essential for you to find a reputable web host which offers a reliable server for storing your website’s information.

Virtual web hosting is the best alternative for small businesses and individual websites. This implies purchasing a part of the server space from a web hosting provider. This is much cheaper than a dedicated server which will be quite expensive but provides services to your website alone.

Shared hosting is another name for virtual hosting. As the name implies, many sites are housed in the same server under shared hosting. Apart from being an inexpensive option, shared web hosting has various other benefits too.

For small and medium-sized businesses, the management of a dedicated server can be overwhelming. A server must be regularly updated for technological advancements, website changes and customer demands. All this is done by a web hosting company when you purchase a hosting plan from them.

There is also the issue of downtime, which the amount of time your website remains inaccessible by users and customers. More the downtime, higher is the loss of sales, profits and most importantly, reputation of the website owner. To avoid such a problem, it is best to choose a good web host which offers adequate uptime (at least 99%).

If you are not technically skilled, virtual web hosting can help you setup and maintain a good website. This may not be possible otherwise. Most of the web hosting companies offer design templates, applications, email accounts, payment mechanisms, security systems, data backup, file transfer, statistics, etc. also, you can get technical support for troubleshooting any problems that your website faces.

All these features make virtual web hosting a much more realistic and advantageous option for beginners in the online world. Moreover, this type of hosting is very easily available and affordable by most businesses. Surely, this is the best way to run your website initially and have a rewarding online experience.

Get Ready For Self-Service with Server Colocation

If you are ready to take over the reigns of your website completely, colocation web hosting is the best way to do that. Web hosting companies provide you the space to keep your hardware, give access to security systems and provide connectivity. However, the responsibility for website maintenance rests with the website owner.

You should prefer this sort of web hosting only if your website has:
• Advanced hardware/software configuration requirements
• Need for total control
• Particular hardware specifications which require the business’ own setup

Selecting a web hosting provider
ideally, you should visit the physical office of a colocation provider to ensure the authenticity and quality of service promised by them. If you are hiring a host online, you can ask various questions about the location of the warehouse, storage capacity, security, connectivity, etc.
While colocation provides more user control than other forms of Web hosting, you will still lack control when it comes to connectivity. You still face downtime should your colocation provider suffer a network outage. Some colocation providers offer "network neutral colocation," which allows you to make your own peering and bandwidth arrangements with other providers.

It is very important that your web hosting provider allows flexibility in operations as well hardware configurations. It will be very difficult to upgrade your hardware and software if there is restriction on hardware movement or configuration. Also, you should be able to add various applications as and when required to customize your website. Compare various web hosting companies before you choose the best one for your website.

Selecting a colocation host is not a very difficult task. However, you need to ensure that you have the expertise and trained staff required to operate a website themselves. As the web host will not be responsible for the administration of your site, you need to be well-equipped with the technical aspects of the website. Even though this may prove to be time-consuming and resource-intensive initially, you can earn great financial rewards later on.

Are you confusing web hosting bandwidth with data transfer

So you thought bandwidth and data transfer are the same thing? Not really.
While bandwidth means the total data which can be transferred, data transfer is the data which is actually transferred. A lot of web hosting sites refer to bandwidth and data transfer as interchangeable words. Yet, there exists a significant difference between the two. It is important that you know how to differentiate one from the other.

How do they affect your website?
If your web hosting company provides low bandwidth, your website is bound to suffer from slow downloading. This will result in your website being inaccessible, leaving your customers unhappy.

Data transfer limits determine the amount of data which can transferred over a certain period of time. If exceeded, your website may be withdrawn or taken offline. There are options for upgrading your data transfer and bandwidth limits. You can also compare different web hosting packages to get more flexibility and bandwidth at lesser prices.

How much is enough?
Refer to your website statistics to estimate the amount of data transfer you need. If your site hasn’t been launched yet, you should keep a margin for growth in traffic before settling upon a particular package.

It is not easy to change bandwidth limits. You need to choose a good bandwidth offering package to avoid excessive traffic load making your site slow and unavailable to users.

Finding the solution
The best way of making your site efficient and keep it up and running is to work with simple web designs. This will reduce the amount of bandwidth and data transfer your site requires and help you accommodate well within your web hosting plan limits.

Try to use effective graphic formats like compressed images and CSS. Another way is to let your website be cached by web browsers. Such strategies will help you to save bandwidth and avoid the need for an expensive web hosting plan.

Always evaluate the various web hosting plans for the amount of bandwidth and data transfer available and purchase from good quality web hosting sites like PlanetOnline.net for reliable services.

How To Choose Web Hosting Operating System

Principally, you will find web hosting providers having two types of operating systems- WINDOWS NT and UNIX. As the operating system is an important determinant of the server’s performance, it would be foolish to ignore this factor while deciding upon a web hosting package.
Let us understand the essential features of a good operating system before discussing the various options and their respective merits and demerits.

1. Strength:
Stability in terms of ability to withstand heavy traffic load without breaking down, is very important for a reliable operating system.

2. Security:
the operating system should be have strong security systems to keep out hackers and avoid virus attacks.

3. Manageable:
the Operating system should have user-friendly management tools.

4. Features:
the operating system should have adequate software and applications to enhance the web server. If it doesn’t have such features, third party software should be available and be capable of easy integration.

5. Flexibility:
this means the ability of an operating system to accommodate upgradation.

The various web hosting operating systems include:

Windows
This operating system provides trouble-free integration of Microsoft applications. However, they are prone to virus attacks and hacking. There is also the issue of instability under heavy traffic load.

UNIX
UNIX and Linux operating systems are much more stable as compared to Windows. Even if your website has been developed using Microsoft FrontPage, you can easily integrate applications through UNIX and Linux servers.

As a beginner, you would be better off with a UNIX operating system supporting the web host. It has various benefits such as good uptime, stability, security and lesser price as compared to Windows OS. There is also a vast amount of online information for solving any problems you might face as well as smooth integration with third party applications. Do your homework and enquire about the available operating system before you choose the web hosting company for your website.

Is it time to switch to dedicated web hosting?

Business is booming and every day brings much more traffic to your site. However, problems are booming too. You’re less than satisfied with a shared web host, but do you have an option? Yes, you do.

There’s no better time to switch to dedicated hosting than now. If your customer base is expanding along with your space requirements, you need to move to dedicated web hosting for supporting the increasing dynamics of your online business.

The main indicators for understanding your need to switch to dedicated hosting are listed below:

1. Check the tempo
if your customers can’t access web pages on your site due to high traffic load, you can surely blame shared web hosting for that. Web surfers don’t wait for too long at one site and you must be ready to meet their needs before they jump ship. Cut your losses by finding a good dedicated web hosting company.

2. Mission control
When problems arise, are you in control of your website or do you take a backseat? you need to have absolute control of the software, applications, design and content of your website. This can be easily achieved by using a dedicated server.

3. Revolutionize your business
For a rapidly growing online business, it’s very important to keep changing the various aspects of their website. This includes more disk space, bandwidth, faster connectivity, graphic and design updates, interactive add-ons and better inventory and backup systems. Shared hosting packages are not very flexible and may fail to meet your immediate needs. A dedicated server allows you to make as many changes as and when you want to.

In the end, you are the best judge regarding the hosting needs of your business. If you can run it smoothly with a shared web host, don’t go for a dedicated web hosting package which will give you control, albeit at a higher price. But for a fast growing e-commerce site, it will be disastrous to ignore the implications of an incompetent web host.

Get Server Smart with Colocated Web Hosting

Are you sure that your dedicated server is the best option to enhance your online presence? Welcome to the world of Colocated Web Hosting, where you can get all the features of a dedicated server at a lower cost. Instead of renting the server from a web hosting company, you can buy it yourself and keep it with the host.

Check out these smart tips to know more about colocated web hosting:

Lesser overall costs
If you’re buying the server on your own, there will be higher initial costs but your monthly charges to the web host will be much lower. A good quality server will provide you with superior service for a longer period of time.

Factors affecting the price of server include:

a. bandwidth
b. space occupied by your server

Finding a seller
There are various server purchasing options to choose from:
a. buy the server from a local supplier
b. get it from a mail order retailer
c. buy the server directly from the host

Understand your liability
You are solely responsible for the maintenance of the hardware and software. Unlike the replacement facility available with dedicated servers, you will have to organize insurance and software policies yourself.

Super control
With a colocated server, you can have supreme control and flexibility in operations and network configuration.

Paying the host
There are various element of the fees you pay to the host for colocating your server.
These include:
Rental charges:
this includes the rent you pay to a web hosting company for keeping the server. It varies according to the space taken up by a server on a rack, size U of the server, be it 1U, 2U upto 7U.

Connection charges:
these are costs of connectivity charged by providers in terms of ‘pipe’ ranging from 1 mbps to 1000 mbps.

Location
It is best for the server to be located near its targeted area. This will induce the response rate and enable faster connections due to shorter routes.

Infrastructure
Ensure that the host has reliable infrastructure. There should be provisions for data backups and additional facility for avoiding power breakdown.

Server security
Enquire about the safety mechanisms used by a web hosting company before letting them house your server. There should be limited and authorized access to the server or server room.
It may not be easy to find the perfect host for colocating your server but if you do your homework and be cautious about the various elements involved, you can get all the benefits of colocated web hosting.

10 tips on starting your own hosting business

Web hosting is a booming business. That is the reason there has been a spiraling growth of the web hosting companies all over the world. You too can start your own web hosting business.

However, you need to precisely know how you to go about it.

Here are ten important tips that can help you start your own web hosting business.

1. Get all the information with regard to the various aspects of web hosting.
2. Study the web hosting market, technology, and your prospective competitors.
3. Analyze what all web hosting packages are offered by the various big and small web hosting companies. Also, you got to know the pricing of all these web hosting packages.
4. Equip yourself with the expertise to handle servers, networking issues, and technical support.
5. Know how to protect your clients’ websites from hackers, cyber crimes, and other unethical threats.
6. Get technically equipped to resolve issues of unexpected downtime and fixing program errors.
7. You should be aware of the right hardware, software, operating systems, control panel, and security programs.
8. Learn the ins and outs of the hosting business, so that you are always ready to handle all kinds of technical and managerial problems.
9. You should know what would be the best servers for your hosting plans.
10. You should know the back-up and storage technicalities.

10 steps to ensure shared hosting security

Security in shared hosting is a key issue that needs to be handled carefully. You have to ensure that your confidential information is not accessible to anyone else. Besides, you need security against viruses as well.

Here are the 10 important steps to ensure security in a shared web hosting environment.

1. Keep close tabs on the cage structure. Proper cage structure helps your website’s privacy.

2. You must ensure that your web hosting service does not permit any unproven binary code in the hosting environment.

3. Ask your web hosting service provider to configure its hosting automation software and operating system. This will ensure that there are no reported exploits or loopholes in the code.

4. Check whether or not your web hosting service provider conducts regular audits on hosting security.

5. Check whether or not your web hosting service provider verifies the security of resources by validating network security on the network and on the server.

6. Check whether or not your web hosting service provider prevents any unauthorized access to your personal and confidential data.

7. Check whether or not your web hosting service provider has installed proper firewalls to prevent hacking of unauthorized access from internet.

8. Check whether or not your web hosting service provider has apprised you of strong and weak passwords.

9. Check whether or not your web hosting service provider regularly updates antivirus software.

10. Check whether or not your web hosting service provider documents all kinds of technical issues.