Basic advantages of Linux server hosting and windows server hosting
When you are going to hire a hosting service to build your website for your small business then you need to know the basic things of web hosting. You are the best person to judge that what required features are and what about your budget.
Commonly, this choice to host your website depends upon the scripting language that is used in your website. If languages like PHP, MySQL, or Perl are used in your website, Linux server hosting is preferable. But if you are thinking for ASP Dot Net scripting language then your finest choice would the window hosting.
If you need some interactive facilities like chat or searchable database, Linux may not be the best choice. Also, a Linux-based web server is not fully acquiescent with Windows technologies. If you are using any Windows-centric technologies like Visual Basic, then Windows-based servers would be the required choice for you.
Advantages of Linux server hosting
1. Linux is an open source software product and thus it does not need the high licensing fees that other operating systems do; you can freely download and use it at no cost.
2. A Linux website can easily be converted to a Windows website without much hassle. Also, the website can easily be changed as the requirement of the user grows.
3. Linux web hosting is very economical as Linux is a free operating system. Usually, only the cost of distribution is borne by the host or owner.
4. When the scripting language like PHP, MySQL, or Perl etc. are required for your website then Linux server hosting is the most reliable and cost effective solution for you. Unless heavy load of scripting language, this will not be traceable.
5. There are many kinds of databases that run on Linux hosting, but the most widespread most likely among web host providers are mSQL, MySQL and PostgreSQL. These databases are relational by nature, and permit vastly optimized communication with your website for rapid reclamation of data.
6. By lots of circles Linux hosting is supposed to be much securing than Windows hosting, and for that reason only Linux server hosting is also the more popular choice for web designers and programmers.
Advantages of windows server hosting
1. .NET technologies like ASP dot net VB dot net are available on this platform. If you have a website built with Microsoft .NET technologies then you will have to choose a Windows server hosting plan.
2. If you need an enterprise class database there are some different features that run on a Linux platform but if you need Microsoft’s MSSQL database, a Windows hosting plan will be your best choice.
3. Access Databases are only obtainable with a Windows server hosting plan. Access can only run on a Microsoft Windows platform and thus it is unavailable on a Linux hosting. If your site needs particularly this feature then you will have to accept windows server hosting.
4. If you are using some of the Microsoft’s Sharepoint services a Windows Hosting plan is only reliable choice for you.
5. Windows plans typically much costly because of the license costs compulsory by Microsoft.
Normally, Linux server hosting plans are at least 20% economical than windows server hosting plans. If you need not to have any unique features for your website, like cart, searchable database etc, Linux server hosting is a finest alternative for your needs.
When you are required for specific Microsoft technologies, Windows hosting plans generally will be your favorable think. But for all small business owner needs Linux hosting plans will generally perform quite well for its cost effective features.
Free Website Hosting Vs. Paid Website Hosting Basics
Web site hosting service companies on the Internet permit the user to make their web site accessible through the World Wide Web. There are huge numbers of companies that offer web space on their server for their customers and also offer Internet connectivity in general in a data center. There can be various types of web site hosting companies. The main classification is the free web site hosting and the paid web site hosting service companies.
In case of free web site hosting, the user has the right to upload his or her web site content on the server space that is provided by the web site hosting company without any cost. This type of web site hosting service is great for people who are new to to internet and plan to get familiar with web site creation and functionality of web servers. On the other hand, to get your web site uploaded on a web space that is provided by a paid web site hosting company, you need to pay the company periodic fees. The fee amount may vary from company to company. The paid web site hosting companies are best suited for professional web site owners. People who need large web space to upload their web sites and who expect a certain amount of web site visitors which is restricted on free hosting accounts to a minimum.
The revenue that the paid web hosting service companies get is through the fee that is paid to the company by the web site owners. In case of free web site hosting companies, the main source of income are the ads and banners that can be placed on their clients web pages.
The main advantage of using a free web site hosting service is that they are free of cost and hence make a perfect choice for people who are new into the business and are just looking to start out. They are perfect for people who just want to display a minimum content on the World Wide Web in small amount of web space. The other advantage of using the free web site hosting service is that most of these companies provide integrated, easy tools to upload the pages on to the hosting account. They do this realizing the fact that the free web site hosting services are generally utilized by the newbies.
There are also certain disadvantages of using the free web site hosting services. When using the free web site hosting service, you are forced to place the ads and banners by the web site hosting company on your web pages. Also the revenue that is obtained by the ads goes to the web site company. In case of paid web site hosting service, ads and banners placed on your web site are according to your will and the revenue of the banners and ads placed on your web site goes in your pocket. Also in some case of free web site hosting, the domain name of your web site starts with the web site hosting company name followed by your web site name. This is not the case of paid web site hosting service. You get a unique web site domain. The web space provided by free web site hosting service is limited whereas in case of paid web site hosting service you can buy the web space according to your requirements.
About The Author:
Roger McLean is marketing executive of http://www.mojoscripts.com. Copyright 2007 by Tela IT Inc. The article may be reproduced in newsletters or on websites provided that the complete article text is included, unchanged, and that neither the copyright declaration nor this license are removed.
USA Reseller Web Hosting: Unix or Microsoft?
If you’re in the USA, and you’re planning to get into the USA reseller web hosting industry, you need to consider one major issue, first and foremost: would you like to offer Unix-ready features along with Microsoft-only ones?
Offering Microsoft-only services may seem to be the smart choice, but supporting Unix is its own asset, which could open a world of opportunities for you as a USA reseller web hosting outfit. In fact, if you have avenues to ask for both Microsoft and Unix support from your web host, all the better!
One downside to reselling web space instead of putting up your own server is that you don’t get to control the basics. As a reseller, you may be able to change things around via the standard control panel. You may even have limited access to certain features like merchant accounts and secure site hosting. But when you want to switch between operating systems, or OS-es - it’s unfortunately not your call, but your web host’s.
Web hosts determine the kind of OS-es that run on their servers. Many web hosts offer both Windows and Unix features, by using Unix machines as servers, and then just running Windows programs and servers within these machines. Over time, Unix server OSes have become increasingly tolerant of Windows programs, which makes a Unix server a sweet deal for web hosts and resellers alike.
Unix servers are cost efficient because they are ideal for running open source programs. Preferring open source programs help save on operational costs, since they’re mostly free for use, depending on the specifications of the persons or outfits who developed the codes to be used. When you run paid programs or servers on your machines, you don’t only need to think of the cost of buying the software - you also need to consider the potential costs of license renewal.
There is, after all, no assurance that software licensing will cost the same throughout the years! And you have to consider that in your profit projections if you are running a webhost. Thankfully, you don’t need to be concerned with that as a reseller. However, as a reseller, you should be aware of what software your potential customers will need.
If your web host only supports Unix and open source features, you run the risk of losing a big part of your clientele. But you run the same risk if your host only supports Microsoft and Windows! As a USA reseller web hosting outfit, you should be intimately aware of the needs of your target market.
ResellerShed.com provides you with info on Affordable hosting reseller, usa reseller web hosting and much more, come take a look at http://www.resellershed.com/.
36 Questions to ask your Web Host before you buy
Getting a website is essential for business. Making a mistake could cost you money as well as lost reputation. We have put together 36 questions across 10 areas that you should as any hosting company before you purchase a website. How they answer these questions will determine if this is the right website solution for you.
Technical Support:
Technical support should be readily available. Your average hold time should not exceed a couple of minutes. If the hold time for support is long, this means that there are a lot of problems with the product or there support is understaffed.
1. How strong is their technical support division?
2. What do they provide?
3. When are they available?
4. Does tech support cost extra?
Security:
The website hosting servers should be hosted at a remote location with multiple backup across multiple locations. The servers should also be dual firewall protected. If the websites are hosted in this type of an environment, it means that you are protected against any power failure, natural disaster, or people trying to steal your information. You can check how many servers a company is hosting by asking them for the address of one of the companies they host. Then go to http://whois.sc, and look up that name. Whois will tell you how many sites they are hosting. Use a company that is hosting several thousand websites.
5. How secure is the site?
6. What type of protection do they offer?
7. How can they insure that unauthorized users will not compromise the integrity of your Web site?
Storage:
The amount of storage your website hosting offers is related to how large your website can become. You want to make sure that you have enough space to not only to build your current website, but to expand in the future.
8. How much storage do they offer?
9. A typical Web site uses between 20-30 MB.
10. Do they offer enough extra megabytes to for your business to grow into? 100MB is a good starting point.
Domains:
Getting a Domain name for your business is one of the most important things you could do. To find out more about domains, read our article …
11. Will the hosting company register your Domain name?
12. How long will it take?
13. Is there any extra cost to you?
Design:
There are 3 basic website design options. 1) Hire a web developer to design the entire website. 2) A template solution that is inexpensive, but modifications are limited. 3) A table based solution where the initial content is provided by the hosting company but everything including the entire layout can be changed. Make sure which type you are purchasing and if this is the correct solution for you.
14. Do they have a builder that you can manage easily?
15. What type of computer background do you need to design your site?
16. Do you have internal control over content and updates?
Email:
There are 2 types of email. The first is POP 3. This email type is attached to the domain name, and the email can be viewed from a web mail Internet browser window, or downloaded to a program such as Outlook or Eudora. The second email type is a forwarding address or email alias, where you have an email address that is @YourDomain, but it forwards to a different email address. POP 3 is usually more desirable because you can view your email from a variety of applications, and it strengthens your company image.
17. How many email aliases comes with your package?
18. Will they have your domain name in them for a more professional appearance?
19. What is the cost to add extra emails?
20. Are there any additional costs?
Search Engine Optimization:
You should submit your website to the search engines, such as Google, about once a month. This will help to rank you higher in the search rankings
21. Are search engine submissions included in your package?
22. How does it work?
23. Do you have internal control over content and updates?
Cost:
Make sure there are no hidden costs. Some companies will give you a low price knowing that they can charge you for additional services latter on.
24. What are the costs involved?
25. What are the initial setup fees and what do you get exactly?
26. What are the monthly maintenance fees are what do they cover?
27. Are there any additional charges?
28. If so, what are they and why?
Contract:
29. Am I locked into a contract?
31. May I cancel at anytime?
32. Are there any penalty fees for switching or closing my account?
33. What happens to my content?
Value:
34. What makes them better than their competition?
35. Do they offer extra features, storage space, better technical support?
36. What exactly sets them apart?
For help or questions about Web Hosting, contact G2Apex at contact@G2Apex.com or call 408-454-6543
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Hosting Matters When It Comes To Interactive Marketing
Most people choose a Web host based on price, technology and/or the recommendation of their Web agency. All of these are important factors, but most people overlook the destructive impact choosing the wrong host can have on your interactive marketing initiatives.
How do you choose a hosting company? One of the most important factors when choosing a host is determining which tools and services they support and don’t support. What statistics or Web analytics packages does your host offer? You don’t want to pay a third party a premium for your Web analytics package because your host only provides “free-ware” statistics. Many hosts have strategic relationships with some of the best Web analytics vendors in an effort to provide their customers with powerful site measurement tools bundled into the cost of their hosting packages.
Are you choosing your host because it includes a site building tool? If so, this can be a real advantage to businesses without Web development resources, but buyers should beware that this will most likely impact your Search Marketing initiatives. Most WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) site building applications make optimizing your site for the search engines very difficult at best, with most actually hurting your chances of achieving necessary search engine rankings. These tools in many cases actually prevent Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices from being incorporated into your website.
Does your host provide or offer eCommerce packages? If so, is that the software you will be using to sell your products online? If not, make sure the host will support your eCommerce solution of choice. Many eCommerce solutions require specialized installations which your host may or may not support, even in a dedicated hosting environment.
While website tools and services are important, consistent and reliable email delivery is even more critical to many. How well does your host fight spammers? Do they have controls in place to block spammers from using their servers as launch pads for their spam campaigns? If they don’t do this well, your host may be blacklisted by one or more backbone providers or ISPs.
There are countless instances where email generated from IP ranges or even entire hosting companies has gotten blocked, penalizing non-spamming firms. To emphasize the importance of this let me explain further. Emails from innocent, non-spamming companies can be blocked unknowingly if the company’s Web host is on a blacklist due to a lack of protection of its email servers. The main recommendation here is to do your homework by going to sites like http://www.spamhaus.org or http://www.dnsstuff.com to see if your host is currently blacklisted.
Another obvious issue is server uptime. While being down for a few minutes here and there is unpleasant and causes missed revenue opportunities, the real impact is felt if there is significant downtime. Significant downtime - being down for days, not hours - can cause significant revenue loss, tarnish your organization’s brand and cause temporary losses to your Search Engine rankings. While most hosts boast 99.9% uptime, many have a history of data center, router and/or backbone issues that have impacted their customers for lengthy periods of time. This is not something they will likely disclose freely, but some good Search Engine research will uncover most hosts’ past given the abundance of blogs, consumer sites and hosting review directories.
In addition to server uptime, there is server performance to consider. As we all know Web visitors aren’t going to wait for pages to download. Many hosts pack their shared servers with too many websites. This not only causes downtime, but can cause poor server performance. Imagine a scenario where you’re paying significant money for a well-performing Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign. If your pages are prone to load slowly given your host’s server performance, you are likely to pay for clicks that don’t even view your landing page. This not only impacts your eMarketing campaigns, but will have negative effects on all your Web visitors and ultimately impact your brand’s value in the marketplace.
In summary, choosing a hosting company is more complicated than just comparing the traditional features such as disk space, bandwidth and price. This decision can have a significant impact on your eMarketing initiatives. Do your homework and make sure your host supplements your online marketing initiatives versus creating barriers that work against them.
About The Author:
Brian Easter is the CEO of NeboWeb (http://www.NeboWeb.com). As CEO, Easter has led NeboWeb to explosive growth, attracting Fortune 500 clients and driving strategic partnerships which have fueled NeboWeb’s expansion.
Lies, Damn Lies and 99.9% Uptime
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
-Benjamin Disraeli, popularized by Mark Twain
Lies, Damn Lies and 99.9% Uptime
Statistics don’t lie outright. They just don’t tell the whole truth.
Suppose your hosting provider claims 99.9% uptime during the past month. This means all the accumulated downtime during the whole month was no more than 40 minutes. Sounds great, right?
The numbers don’t answer one important question: when did the downtime occur? What if you were down 40 minutes during your peak usage time on the busiest day of the week? Suddenly 99.9% of uptime doesn’t sound so great. That’s the whole truth often missing in uptime reports.
The All Important Monitoring Interval
Convinced you can do better than 99.9%, you search for another hosting provider. You finally settle on one that offers an additional “nine” or 99.99% uptime per month. No more than 4 minutes of downtime.
Before you get too excited, let’s see where that extra nine comes from by examining the concept of monitoring interval. The monitoring interval is how often your hosted server is checked to make sure everything is working A-OK. Think of it as the lines on a ruler. It’s going to be pretty hard to measure down to one eighth of an inch if your ruler only has one inch lines on it.
Suppose your application is monitored every 15 minutes. Now say your server is rebooted. If the monitor runs while the server is down, your server will show as down for 15 minutes, even though it only takes 3 minutes to reboot. If the monitor misses the reboot window, it won’t show as being down at all.
A provider that offers 99.99% must have a small enough monitoring interval that it can measure down to the nearest .01%. How small is that exactly? Let’s break it down using the shortest month:
28 days x 24 hours/day x 60 minutes/hour x .0001 = 4.03 minutes
A service provider must provide a monitoring interval of no more than 4 minutes to provide a 99.99% uptime guarantee.
Finally, what of 99.999%, the so-called “five nines” of uptime? Well, we would have to monitor every .4 minutes or every 24 seconds. With the reporting period increased to a year instead of a month, it’s possible to have accuracy up to five nines with a 5-minute monitoring interval. Trouble is, who wants to wait a whole year for a report?
The best reporting will include a combination of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly statistics for comparison.
What Do You Mean, Down?
Now that you understand what a monitoring interval is, this next one should be easy: what is the meaning of “down”? If your service provider is providing uptime, how do they decide when something is down? Are they simply doing a “ping” of the server? Or are they testing the application itself?
If “up” to them means your server is running, even though your application is really “down”, your uptime statistics take on a whole new meaning — or lack of meaning.
Also, who is the one actually doing the monitoring? Ideally, you’d like to have a third party monitoring service. That way you know your monitoring numbers are independently verified.
Availability From a Business Perspective
There is a better way. Instead of settling for the one-size-fits-all approach of “nines of uptime”, set your own availability goals. The key is to examine availability from a business perspective:
- What are my business-critical periods?
- How much downtime is acceptable during off hours?
- What kind of monitoring interval is needed?
- How do we know if the application is down?
- Who is actually doing the monitoring?
Always make a distinction between business hours and after hours. You should have different availability requirements for each period, even if your application is used 24×7. Next, create your goal using words and whole numbers, not percentages. For example:
- Zero downtime during business-critical periods.
- No more than 2 unscheduled downtime incidents per month of no more than 5 minutes per incident during after hours periods.
- No more than 1 scheduled maintenance period per month of no more than 30 minutes during after hours periods.
- Monitoring interval of 5 minutes.
- Monitor key aspects of the application, not the server.
- Independent third-party monitoring from multiple locations.
After defining exactly what your availability goals are, you can now strive to achieve it. The difference now is that your goal is 100% achievable. That’s a statistic you can count on. Glen Kendell is a network architect and owner of Release to Production. He publishes a monthly newsletter called In-Production: Achieving True High Availability.
All About Dedicated Web Hosting Providers
Unless overtly listed otherwise, most web hosting packages you’ll come across in your search are what are called shared hosting providers. What this means is that the server or servers that host your website are simultaneously hosting numerous other websites also. This gives you a discounted rate on web hosting services in exchange for tolerating certain technical constraints, like bandwidth, disk space, upload and download speeds, security and privacy, traffic, and probably the most notable restriction — total control.
If you want total control not only over the administration of your website but also over the very hardware and software used to run it, then you should be evaluating not shared hosting providers, but dedicated hosting providers. If your business is large enough or growing fast enough that it requires its own internet connection and server, you may need a dedicated web host.
What’s the downside to going with dedicated hosting providers? In a word: responsibility. In most areas of life, with total control comes total responsibility, and it’s no different with hosting providers. With a dedicated server, the onus is on you to buy, install, and maintain the actual equipment — the server itself — mounted in the dedicated hosting providers’ data center.
Fortunately, you still get the benefit of their presumably top-notch, around-the-clock security over the physical premises, but you remain fully responsible for the security of your cyber-premises. Likewise, dedicated hosting providers will ensure that the systems in the building are all provided with redundant uninterruptible and backup power and environmental controls, but it’s you who must keep your machines and cables maintained and functioning in this idyll environment.
How do you identify whether it’s time to switch from a shared host to a dedicated host? There are 3 main indicators to stay alert for:
Speed
If the traffic streaming through your shared server is slowing down your customers’ pace as they browse your site (or your employees, if an in-house site), it may simply be time to look for more unencumbered shared hosting. But if you’ve tried several shared hosting providers with the same results, then it may be time to remind yourself how impatient the average web surfer is. While you’re jumping from shared host to shared host trying to save a buck, your customers are jumping ship. Your ability to respond promptly and effectively to customer transactions and inquiries cannot be overemphasized either.
Reliability
The limits to your control are nowhere more apparent than in the areas of reliability and security. It’s not simply that problems can arise: problems do arise. It’s the nature of the biz. And if you don’t have unlimited access to your own operating system, software and database apps, etc., there’s not much you can do when one arises.
Customizability
If your company is growing fast, you’re going to be changing many aspects of your web presence along with it. You may regularly need to tweak your disk space and bandwidth and experiment with using different applications to better serve your changing needs. On a shared host, upgrading in such a way usually involves leaping from one “package” or “plan” to another. These packages are generally preset and may or may not serve your immediate needs. They may be riddled with programs you don’t yet need, for example, yet lack in the one singular program you do. Or the next leap up from your current plan has way more disk space and bandwidth than you need at the moment. With a dedicated server, you can make changes incrementally, step forward, step back, heck, step sideways if you need to — and when you need to.
In large part, it’s the size and growth rate of your business that will dictate whether you need a shared or dedicated host. Affordability and personal time commitment are nice secondary considerations, but if your business is booming, you would do it a great injustice to try and save on a few bucks and few extra hours per week of your time in exchange for slower and poorer quality of service for your customers.
By the same token, however, if your business is small enough to function quite smoothly on any of the shared hosting providers out there, don’t squander your precious capital on a dedicated server just so you can have total control. Because sometimes total control isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Hosting-Review.com is the premier resource on web hosting providers. Visit http://www.hosting-review.com for comprehensive reviews and rankings of over 50 web hosts, as well as informative hosting articles.
Web Site Hosting: From Domain Registration to Going Online - Part 3
After your account has been opened with your web host and you’ve set the DNS for your website (see Parts 1 and 2 for more information) you can start to upload your content. The most common way this is done is through FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software, but there are a few other options as well.
The FTP protocol lets you transfer data files from one computer to another. Your web hosting company will give you the information you need to connect to your site with FTP.
You normally would use software like WS_FTP or FileZilla to connect. Your FTP address will usually be ftp.yourdomain.com.
Your web host will also tell you where your files should be uploaded to on the server. There is usually a folder in the root directory of your website called public_html, www or something similar. This is where you need to store all your website files to make them accessible to the public on the internet.
You might have to adjust some settings in your FTP software to make the files upload properly. eg. If you’re running a firewall on your computer (or a hardware firewall) you may need to set the transfer method to “passive”. And if you’re using a proxy server, you’ll have to adjust those settings as well.
Files can be transferred with FTP in either ASCII or binary mode. If you use the wrong mode to transfer, you could end up with errors. Your FTP software might automatically determine which method to use by looking at the contents of the files you’re transferring. It’s possible that you might have to specify the mode manually, however.
Files that should be sent as ASCII include HTML (and variations like HTM, SHTML, etc.), TXT, ASP, JS, PHP, etc. Essentially, any file that you would open with a text editor should be transferred as ASCII.
Binary mode is used to transfer files such as graphics, compiled programs and media files.
With your FTP software, connect to your web server. Open the folder where you’re going to upload the files and then find the files on your computer that you’re going to send. You can transfer individual files or entire directories using FTP.
Most of the pages on your website can be named anything you want, but the home page or main page in any subdirectories should be named index.htm (or .html, .php, etc.) The name “index” tells the web server that this is the file that should be displayed by default.
So if someone goes to www.mydomain.com, what they’re actually going to see is www.mydomain.com/index.html, the web server just displays that file automatically so they don’t need to enter the “index.html” part.
If you don’t put an index file in each directory on your site, people might be able to browse the directory and see “behind the scenes” on your website. This can be a security issue in some cases, so it’s always a good idea to put an index page in each directory, even if it’s just a blank page.
What Other Ways Can You Upload Your Website?
FTP isn’t the only way to upload your web pages. Many web page creation programs have transferring built-in. Probably the most common example of this is Microsoft Frontpage. If your web host supports Frontpage, you can upload your site from within Frontpage itself and you don’t need to worry about how or where to transfer things. Frontpage takes care of everything for you.
Some web hosts also offer online site-builders. These builders work within your web browser and let you layout your web pages. Once your pages are finished, they automatically get saved to the appropriate location on your server.
These online site-builders are usually available through the control panel in your hosting account.
John Lenaghan writes about how to choose ecommerce web hosting, business hosting and other website hosting topics on the Hosting Report website. Find out more at http://www.hostingreport.org
How To Determine How Much Space And Bandwidth You Need For Your Website
How much storage space and bandwidth will you need for your website? This is a question that you will need to answer before deciding on your web site hosting.
You’ll need to look at the content that you’ll be hosting on your site. Is it just plain text? Images? Audio and video files?
Plain text takes the least amount of space. Images take considerably more and audio and video files will need the most space. This applies to both the storage and the bandwidth.
Many web hosts offer what seems like a huge amount of storage space, assuming that you’ll never use it. If everyone hosting websites on their server were to use the maximum space allowed, the servers would likely not be able to handle it.
You’ll see a range of storage and bandwidth being offered. One host might be offering 1 gigabyte of storage while another could offer 500 megabytes at the same price. The quality of service is a key factor in choosing a web host, so don’t just look for the one with the biggest offer.
The rule of thumb in the hosting industry is that 2MB of storage is enough to host 10 web pages and 4 or 5 images. Using this as a guideline, you can determine how much space you’ll need to host your site.
You can calculate your bandwidth requirements in a similar way. Make sure you understand the difference between bandwidth and data transfer, however.
In non-technical terms, bandwidth is the diameter of a water pipe and data transfer is the amount of water that flows through it. If you’re likely to have a lot of data being transferred, you should look for high bandwidth plans.
If you choose a plan with high data transfer but low bandwidth, your site can slow to a crawl when it gets too many visitors. The amount of information you’re allowed to transfer is high enough, but the pipe it’s flowing through doesn’t allow enough to get through at once to keep up with all the requests.
The best way to manage your bandwidth and space is to keep your site as simple as possible. Don’t use large images - optimize them for viewing on the web which will decrease their size considerably.
If you’re not sure how to determine your needs, the better web hosting companies will be able to help you figure out which of their plans will best suit your website.
John Lenaghan writes about small business web hosting and other website hosting topics on the Hosting Report website. Find out more at http://www.hostingreport.org.
All about Linux/Unix-based hosting
What is Linux/Unix-based hosting?
It means hosting that is provided on Linux/Unix operating systems platforms. There isn’t much difference between these two types of operating systems because Linux/Unix is an improved version of Linux/Unix operating system. When just applying for web hosting companies for web hosting that is based on Linux operating system it doesn’t matter which one you are using on your computer as it is commensurable with any operating system.
Usability
Some years ago Linux operating system used to be available only for professionals and if you were not an experienced user you had no future with this OS. In the last couple of years the situation has changed. Providers have done their best to make users’ web sites administrating more comfortable and easier. In case you’re just a beginner you’ll find friendly control panels that include Web- interface. And if you are an experienced user you can control your site by means of shell.
Reliability
Experts claim that Unix-based platform is one of the most reliable ones but it will mainly depend on maintenance stuff professionalism. Thus quality and stability of Linux-based web hosting won’t depend on some sudden system bugs and the operating system consistency itself secures your web site operating dependability.
Functionality
In this area Linux differs the most from other popular platforms. It can handle a lot of processes that happen at the same time. This gives you a possibility to get more from the server.
What Scripting Languages Are Available For Unix?
Unix supports a wide variety of application languages, more than any other operating system. The most common applications of such kind include C, C++, Shell, Perl, Tcl, Python, Java and PHP.
What Databases Does Unix Support?
Databases available for Unix are mSQL and mySQL. The one you choose would depend on your own needs and your Host Provider’s offers. This is important for you to review when choosing a hosting company.
Cost
Linux operating system was developed by Linus Torvalds as an alternative to other operating systems and is being improved by many specialists all around the world. Most of its versions are free of charge. This circumstance makes Linux-based hosting much cheaper than any other. As for Linux versions they are sometimes called Linux Distributions. The most popular Distributions are RedHat and Mandrake. Which are easy to install have a lot of different utilities and suitable for any web hosting type.
Why choose Linux/Unix-based hosting?
So, as it was mentioned before using this platform is cheaper and more convenient than others. All existent scripts, like PHP, function best when using the Linux-based web hosting. Linux/Unix based web hosting upgrading possibilities increase when using Shell and Telnet access. The Linux/Unix-based platform is probably the most stable and reliable.
More hosting articles you can also find here http://www.cheap-web-hosting-directory.com , http://www.web-site-hosting-reviews.com and http://www.web-hosting-review.net .
cPanel Primer For The New Webmaster
If you are about to purchase web hosting, it is very likely that you will be using cPanel to manage your hosting. To get the most from your web hosting, you need to learn the workings of cPanel.
What Can Be Done with cPanel?
If your web hosting doesn’t offer shell access, cPanel will be the only way to manage your web hosting, cPanel is a web based server control software that allows you to do the following operations and a whole lot more. Common operations such as adding FTP users, creating databases, creating mail accounts and a multitude of other hosting operations can all be performed with cPanel.
Creating Mail Addresses
If you have the domain xyz.com and you would like to create a mail address called info@xyz.com, you can perform the following. Firstly click on the Mail tab from the front page. There you will see options to create, modify or delete mail accounts. If you to forward mail to an existing account here you can set an addres to forward to the account of your choosing. To read emails access the Webmail tab from the front page
Managing your domains
You may want more than a single address directed towards one web site, for example if you owned xyz.com and xyz.net, this can be achieved by using the Parked Domains tab, here you can type any address that you own to point to one of your web sites. If you hosting provider allows you to have more than one web site on your account, you can add domains via the Addon Domains tab. If you hosting provider supports the creation of sub domains you can create these via the Sub Domain tab.
FTP Options
You can create additional FTP users, set their access levels and other FTP related tasks using the FTP tab.
Database Tasks
To create a new database, or modify existing databases use the Database tab. Here you can perform all allowed database tasks, to perform more advanced database operations you will need to use phpMyAdmin, this can also be accessed from the Database tab.
Analyze The Logs
When running a web site you need to know what your visitors like, where they are coming from, which search engines are bringing the most visitors and all other data about them. Normally you will have access to the raw log files, but these are hard to analyze, to see data that is formatted about your visitors in an easy to read way go to Web/FTP Stats, here you will have the option to review your sites statistics using a variety of software such as Webalizer or AWStats.
Fantastico
Most if not all cPanel installations these days come with Fantastico which is an auto installer for many php based scripts. Fantastico can be used to install popular php scripts such as Wordpress, Mambo, phpbb and many other php products. Using Fantastico is the easiest way to setup these php based scripts and will save you having to manually upload the scripts, and more often than not Fantastico will do all the configuration of the script for you which is a real time saver.
Final Words
cPanel is a very advanced application for configuring your hosting and learning all the tricks can take some time, but hopefully with this guide you will have the basics down and you can progress from here as your experience with web hosting increases.
David J. Smith has recently written a Bluehost Review, Bluehost use cPanel for hosting management to allow new webmasters and veterans alike to easily configure their hosting.
ASP Web Hosting Simplified
ASP stands for Active Server Pages. It is a technology that enables users to design and creative interactive pages for their websites, using something called “server-side scripting”. What do we mean by interactive? Forms, in-site search engines, blogs, user forums, newsletters, calendars, WhoIs searches, web-based email, polls, surveys, hit counters and more.
Best of all, with ASP, no longer do webmasters have to concern themselves with what browser a visitor to their site is using. With ASP hosting, your website will appear identically on all computers, on all browsers, a claim that HTML simply cannot make.
Anytime a browser requests a webpage that has the .asp extension where the more familiar .htm or .html would be, the hosting provider’s web server interprets any ASP scripts in the program first and foremost, before delivering any HTML info to the browser. This is why you cannot simply run ASP websites with just any hosting company. The hosting company you choose must have servers that support ASP, or else the ASP scripts you use will be rendered useless.
When examining web hosting companies to find one that supports ASP, you must look specifically for ASP support. Do not simply assume that because a hosting company supports “most web-based scripts, from CGI to Perl” that it supports ASP. If it doesn’t say so in an obvious place on the sales site, go to the hosting company’s FAQ and look for ASP. And since most FAQs are searchable, this shouldn’t be difficult to do. If you’re really enamored with a particular hosting company (or their current promotion) but can find no information on ASP support, consider contacting them via email, telephone, or web chat to find out. It’s possible that they do support ASP and just have a lousy sales site (which may be an indicator of an altogether different sort).
Microsoft brought ASP to the world, and as such provides the platform - Windows - on which ASP generally works best. In order to play around with ASP scripts on your web pages, you’ll have to download and install onto your system an ASP server, like Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) or Microsoft’s Personal Web Server (PWS) — one or both of which is included with most Windows packages for no extra charge. If you use Windows on your machine and have never encountered IIS or PWS, chances are it’s because you have to “Add” the program to your hard drive using the Windows software CD-ROM or through your control panel, since it’s often not included as part of the “Basic Install”.
Incidentally, Windows ME and Windows XP Home Edition are lacking in support for ASP scripts. But we’re willing to bet the forthcoming Windows Vista probably does.
For those webmasters on a PC that isn’t Windows-based, all hope is not lost. Sun Microsystems has developed a program called Chili!Soft ASP that allows other servers — such as Red Hat, Apache, and Secure Server — and other operating systems — such as Linux, Solaris, and AIX — to support ASP hosting.
Writing and using ASP scripts is easy too — at least it’s no harder than HTML, with all commands occurring between “<%” and “%>;” instead of “<” and “>”. Not so big a difference, is there? And you can find an abundance of software tools all over the web (many for free) that helps even the greenest novice create interactive web pages rife with ASP.
ASP is such a versatile language that more and more hosting companies are finding themselves compelled to add ASP support to their hosting packages just to remain competitive. This, of course, is only to your advantage as you can comparison shop around for the best ASP hosting offerings right alongside all the other features you’re looking for.
Hosting-Review.com is the premier resource on web hosting. Visit http://www.hosting-review.com for comprehensive reviews and rankings of over 50 web hosts, as well as informative hosting articles.
8 Things You Need To Know When Changing Your Web Host
Changing from one web host to another can become necessary if your website becomes popular and your current host can’t meet your needs for bandwidth, storage, etc. This can be especially true if your site is hosted on a free web host.
If a move become necessary, be sure to plan it carefully. The first step is to decide on a new hosting company, of course.
Once you have found a host that can meet all your needs, you need to move your site on to the new server. Before making any moves, be sure to back up your website from the old host.
If your website isn’t well structured and has been growing haphazardly, this is a good time to consider redesigning things. That could simply mean a new page design or it could mean redesigning your database and content storage.
For the first 48 hours after moving to a new host, you should use a redirect page on your old site, that automatically forwards people to the new one. This will ensure that your visitors will see the new site, even if its IP address hasn’t propogated yet.
It takes about 48 hours for a new website to get listed on most domain servers across the internet, so after that you should be fine.
A few more suggestions for an easy transition include:
1. Find out whether your new host is running on Unix or Windows and make sure it will be compatible with everything you’re moving from the old host.
2. Check to see how much storage you need for all your files and content on your current site, and make sure you get enough on the new host to give you room to grow.
3. Check to see what services your new host offers, and make sure anything you have been using on your current host (like autoresponders, mail forwarding, etc.) is available.
4. If your current website is created using Microsoft Frontpage, make sure your new host supports Frontpage extensions.
5. Check to see what your new host’s policy is for extra bandwidth, in case your site continues to get busier.
6. If the new host’s server is a shared server, check to make sure there are no adult sites hosted on the same system. They can get busy and cause all the other sites on the same server to slow down.
7. Check the review sites and forums for customer feedback about your new host before signing up. These are good indicators of the level of service you can expect.
Once you have your data uploaded to your new host, test your site to make sure it’s working properly. You should be able to preview your site before you fully switch your domain name to the new address.
John Lenaghan writes about free web hosting, business hosting, ecommerce and other website hosting topics on the Hosting Report website. Find out more at http://www.hostingreport.org
Small Business Owners Web Hosting Guide - Part 1
Your small business website needs to be hosted on a web server or simply a server (another name for computer) that is connected to the World Wide Web so that anyone can access your website.
Choosing a web hosting company for your small business website is easy if you follow the guide I have layout for you. Depending on the scale of your business, the type of business you run and your level of technical competency, there will always be a right hosting provider just for your business.
The general rule of thumb in choosing a web hosting provider boils down to:
Excellent Customer Support
Company Stability
Robust Datacenter
Affordability
Excellent Customer Support If all things being equal, I would rate customer support as my number 1 determining factor in choosing a web hosting provider. Relying on testimonials found on the provider’s site is a common approach to assess a company’s level of customer excellence but it is also quite an outdated one. After all it’s not uncommon for some providers to fake the testimonials. Instead I suggest you follow my way of assessing their customer support.
Sizing its level of customer support is sometimes as easy as finding out whether they have enough employees to support their level of business growth. You should look at the Customer to Employee ratio, CE ratio, as a benchmark.
For example, according to our records SiteSell Inc has approximately 15,000 customers and employs about 30 support staff, it has a CE ratio of 500 (15,000/30 = 500), you can expect a much higher level of customer satisfaction and a faster response time when compared to another provider who is serving 100,000 customers but only have 75 support staff. Their CE ratio would stand at approximately 1,333. Basically you should look for a professional hosting provider with a low CE ratio.
Getting As Close As You Can The other accurate way to assess the real status of its customer service is to get as close as you can to the company whenever possible via the following means:
Live Chat - Check to see if it’s 24/7. It helps to know that you can have your questions answered almost immediately with a live chat function. Test it out by answering some basic questions to see its response time and also test its level of technical competency. Not critical but it’s good to have.
Email - Send them a test mail to see how fast they respond, allowed up to 24 hours. Ask about anything but just do not be afraid to ask.
Number of Telephone Lines - Check to see if there are separate telephone lines for sales, customer service and technical support. I hate companies who use only 1 line to serve everyone. A professional small business hosting provider should have this in place. It is not uncommon for reputable providers to charge for telephone support.
Forum - The real condition of any web hosting company’s customer support is really found in its members forum if any. You will get a good dose of complains and praises but if the complains outnumber the compliments; it’s time to raise a red flag.
Company Stability A company’s stability can be measured by the length of time they have been in business, the number of customers they have served and are serving and lastly their financial standing.
Personally as a business owner myself, a web hosting company that has been around for at least 5 years would have weathered all sorts of ups and downs in the online world, and their chance of being around is much higher than a company that has been around for less than 1 year.
Financial Stability Though public listed web hosting providers have better financial transparency than the privately-owned ones, they are not necessary always in a better financial shape than them. Bottom line, you would host your small business with a company that you know is growing in their customer base. For example, Interland having been in business since 1995 is currently serving less than 200,000 websites and this number has been decreasing. It is most likely less profitable when compared to IPower in operation since 2001 and is serving over 400,000 websites as of this writing!
Another aspect of company stability lies in its ability to remain relevant in this highly competitive industry. For example, as the number of internet users increase and streaming multi-media becomes the norm, you want to place your business with a profitable web hosting company who is able to constantly improve on their offerings so that the performance of your website is able to keep up with visitors’ expectations.
Robust Datacenter Datacenters are where the web servers are resided on, and ultimately where your webpages will be accessed from. A strong and credible small business web hosting company would have the ability to own and managed their data centers or through colocation.
On one hand it might seem that is the best thing any decent web hosting company would do, but on the other hand, there seems to be a trend whereby the marketing and sale aspect of the hosting business has been outsourced to resellers.
The rationale behind this is quite simple, a web hosting company should focus on what it does best, i.e. make sure all servers are up and running. And a reseller role is to sell the hosting plans and is to focus entirely on doing just that without getting bogged down by technical issues.
Almost all the state of the art data centers should come equip with high level of security, uninterruptible power supplies and most importantly employs the latest technology to enable your website to be always up and running and is always accessible by high connectivity, i.e. fast access to your website.
Affordability Before I elaborate further, it’s important to establish that after qualifying a company with the above points, there is no such thing as the best small business web hosting plan, but only the right hosting plan for your business. This is probably the last thing you should look at before deciding on the hosting provider.
Generally there are 2 main types of hosting that are available for you to choose from. They are the Linux web hosting and windows web hosting. Within these 2 platforms there are also another few subcategories of web hosting types that you need to understand before you can finally decide on the right web hosting for your small business.
To continue reading this article, please visit my site Small-Business-Web-Hosting-Guide.com for a no-nonsense approach to assessing web hosting companies for small business owners.
Cynthia Wang, a small business owner shares a wealth of information about web hosting for small businesses on her website, Recommended Hosting Companies For Small Businesses.
Web Site Hosting : From Domain Registration to Getting it Online - Part 2
Once you’ve chosen your domain name and got it registered, what’s your next step?
Your web host will give you the details you need to get your site up and running. This will include passwords to log into your website account, the paths to the directories where you need to upload your information, and most importantly the addresses of your domain name servers.
DNS servers are the link between your domain name (mydomain.com) and your IP address (a numbered address like 123.456.78.9. Every web server on the internet has a unique IP address.
If your website is hosted on a dedicated server, your IP address is unique to your website. Your website will respond whether someone types the domain name or the IP address into their browser.
Most websites are hosted on shared servers, however. What this means is that a single server hosts many websites, and each one shares the same IP address. If you enter the IP address of a shared server in your browser, it won’t display your website.
DNS is the “translation” layer between domain names and IP addresses that allows multiple sites on one server.
Configuring Your Website On DNS
When you register your domain name, it will be pointing to the DNS servers for your chosen registrar. Until you have a account set up with a hosting service, your domain will usually point to an error page or an “under construction” page.
Keep in mind that there’s no time limit between registering your domain and choosing a web host. Some people register domains and never actually get a website hosted on them.
If you’ve bought your domain with plans to use it, you’ll need to sign up for an account with a web host and upload your website’s files to their server.
The first step in making your website active is to change the DNS servers on file with your domain registrar to the ones that are given to you by your web host.
The DNS server information will look similar to this:
Primary Name Server: NS1.SOMEDOMAIN.COM (123.456.78.9) Secondary Name Server: NS2.SOMEDOMAIN.COM (123.456.7.89)
You’ll get this information from your hosting company when you sign up for a hosting account. If you can’t find this information, you’ll need to contact your web host to get it. Otherwise your website won’t be accessible from the internet.
Once you have this information from your host, you’ll need to change the settings on file with your registrar to the new addresses. If your domain name was included with the purchase of your hosting, the web host will normally update this information for you automatically.
Once the DNS servers are registered it can take up to 48 hours for your site to be accessible across the internet. This is because of the way the DNS system works.
The domain names and IP addresses are stored in a database that is distributed through thousands of computers around the world. Each computer keeps a small part of the database cached and if they get a request for an unknown domain, they have to forward that request to another computer until the information is found.
This database gets updated on a constant basis on each of these computers, but it can take some time for your new website’s information to spread throughout the world.
John Lenaghan writes about how to choose business web hosting, ecommerce hosting and other website hosting topics on the Hosting Report website. Find out more at http://www.hostingreport.org.
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