Choosing a Web hosting
There are some simple rules to follow when looking for a web host. The first rules is to avoid free hosts whenever possible, it is easy to think that a free service is preferable to paying a monthly fee however with web hosting this is defiantly not the case.
Paid hosting has several important advantages over free hosting. Firstly you will receive more useful features with paid hosting. Technical support will be much better with help available when you need it. Generally speaking Paid hosts will have much faster connections to the internet so your site will appear quicker. Most importantly with paid hosting you won’t have to display a banner on each page advertising the Hosting Company and advertising to the world that you are on a free host. With excellent hosting packages starting from $6.99 per month there is no reason why you shouldn’t go with a paid host.
The second simple rule concerns what operating system to choose. You will find hosts offering you Windows Hosting or Linux Hosting, it is tempting to choose windows as it’s a name everyone knows and many people mistakenly believe that because their PC runs windows they need a Windows Host but in this case they’d be wrong. Whichever hosting package you choose you will receive a control panel through which you administer your site these are graphical environments through which you can control many aspects of your website from configuring your web mail and installing forum software to creating a database. Take a lead from the marble halls of business most major companies host their websites on Linux Servers. Linux Servers generally runs faster and are more secure than a windows server. This is partly due to how the operating systems are built. Windows try to include every possible function in the base package whilst Linux allows the host company to add the functions they need.
The final thing to consider when choosing a host is the list of features they offer. If you don’t know much about html you can look for a host that supplies you with free website building software and some of the better ones will even supply free Domain names. You should look at a number of different companies and compare what they offer as standard with their hosting plans. Technical aspects to consider are; the amount of disk space available to you and how much monthly bandwidth you have to use. Look at how many email accounts you can have the more the better. Customer support features should not be overlooked check to see what their response time is and if it’s anymore than an hour look elsewhere, also consider if they offer a money back guarantee.
Look to see what additional services they include in the package for example do they offer daily backups? Make sure that they offer support for PHP as this is quickly becoming the programming language of choice with web programmers.
To conclude when choosing a website Host look for a paid host with Linux hosting and then compare the packages on offer from a variety of companies.
About the Author
Petr Sejba is owner of Marble Host ( http://www.MarbleHost.com ), a Web Hosting Company offering 99.9 % Uptime Guarantee, 24/7 Support with 1 hour Response Guarantee, Free Domain Name, Generous Disk Space and Bandwidth, Web Site Builder and more at affordable prices.
How to choose a Hosting Web Package Cheap
If you’re looking for a hosting web package cheap there are many things to consider. To find a hosting web package cheap you really need to do your homework and search the internet for the right host for you. But beware, just because a company might offer a hosting web package cheap you really need to look at what the package offers.
Check the Disk Space. Many companies offering a hosting web package cheap may only give you a limited amount of Disk Space like 100 or 150 MB(megabytes). That’s O.K. if you’re building a site to let friends see and are only expecting 100 people or so a month.
If you want an ecommerce site ( a site that sells products to make you money) then you may need more disk space if you plan on having more customers.
Another thing to look for when trying to find a hosting web package cheap is the amount of Transfer they give you.
Transfer is the traffic or the amount of visitors that they allow to come to your site. If the amount of visitors exceeds what they offer in there hosting package, they may charge you more per month for extra Transfer. Again with a cheaper hosting package you may only get 10 or 15 GB(gigabytes) of Transfer.
Companies like Lowest Hosting may only give 100 – 200Mb disk and 10 – 15 GB of Transfer while sites like Globat and Bluehost can offer much more of a hosting web package cheap. You can click the link below to get a list of quality hosting web packages cheap.
When looking for a hosting web package cheap also check to see how many email accounts they offer. Just about all hosts offer a good number of email accounts. If your more advanced you may want to check if they offer php, Perl, Asp, MySQL and other types of secure directories. But if you’re fairly new to hosting the Disk Space and Transfer are the things you should be looking for.
CGI
Common Gateway Interface, is a protocal script used to make your site dynamic. Flash banners, moving objects. With the right web design program or scripting knowledge and a host that offers CGI you can easily bring your site to life.
Frontpage Extensions
Now-a-days more sites are offering Frontpage extensions. Microsoft Frontpage is a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) web design program that lets you easily create web pages while the software does all the coding behind the scenes. The great thing about using Frontpage and having a host with Frontpage extensions is once you design your webpages all you have to do is click one button that says “publish site” and all your pages go from your computer to your hosting space with one click.
Remember, when choosing a hosting web package cheap make sure there are no hidden fees for over useage of transfer and when you find a hosting web package cheap make sure they have a good support team that will help you.
Nowadays finding a hosting web package cheap isn’t to difficult since there are many to choose from and companies offer a hosting web package cheap to stay competitive with other companies that offer a hosting web package cheap.
About the Author
How to choose a Hosting Web Package Cheap was written by Dale Ronewicz (Top-Web-Hosting-Sites.com). To Compare the Top 20 web hosting sites visit:
http://www.top-web-hosting-sites.com/host
Uptime Guarantee – Good Idea?
When looking for a Web Host there are lots of factors that come into play. Usually the deciding factors are price and bandwidth. A common overlooked item is the uptime guarantee. This is the percentage of time your account will be up and running
What do these numbers really mean?
If we look at these percentages and convert them into the amount of time your site is going to be down we get some very telling information. The chart below lists the uptime gurantee percentage and how that equates to time.
99% – 5256 Min/Yr or 87.6 Hours/Yr – 438 Min/Month or 7.3 Hours/Month
99.5% – 2628 Min/Yr or 43.8 Hours/Yr – 219 Min/Month or 3.65 Hours/Month
99.9% – 525.6 Min/Yr or 8.76 Hours/Yr – 43.8 Min/Month or .73 Hours/Month
99.95% – 262.8 Min/Yr or 4.38 Hours/Yr – 21.9 Min/Month or .365 Hours/Month
99.99% – 52.56 Min/Yr or .876 Hours/Yr – 4.38 Min/Month or .073 Hours/Month
As you can see that while 99% uptime sounds like a lot, it actually allows for the host to have over 7 hours of downtime per month, or a whopping 87.6 hours per year. Your host could be down for over 3 ½ days over the course of a year and still hit their target of 99% uptime. As you go to 99.5% and 99.9%, it gets much better, and with 99.95% and 99.99% you would have little or no downtime.
Is this realistic?
Is it realistic to get 99.99% uptime? Probably not, but it is always nice if you can get compensated for downtime. However, if the host only compensates you for the actual downtime you have, it probably won’t be a large amount. Let’s assume you pay $20 a month for your hosting, which is probably on the upper end of what you’d be paying ofr a hosting account. We will also assume there a 30 days in the month. Breaking that down, you’re paying roughly 3 cents per hour for your hosting. This means if you site is down for 24 hours, 1 full day, you will only get 72 cents of compensation. By no means is this good if it means your site goes down and you get some pocket change.
So what does this mean to me?
So the more decimal places, the better the uptime guarantee. We also now know that we probably won’t be getting lots of money back if our site goes down. The ultimate goal is to find a web host that has an uptime guarantee and maintains that level of service. You don’t need the money back but you do need the peace of mind of having your website up and running.
About the Author
Scott is the owner and chief designer for Smith-Concepts a successful web development firm.
Related Links: http://www.smith-concepts.com
Web Hosting Operating Systems Explained
A few time ago appeared a lot disagreements between opinions on the internet regarding, which is the best operating system for web hosting. There are people who hate windows, there are people who love FreeBSD and many others.
The thing is that the best system that suits you depends on what you are doing. The servers and the softwares, all run on a program named operating system. on a personal computer you will probably have windows ME, XP, NT or something similar to those. You can call this program the operating system. Any hosting server also needs running on an operating system. There are 3 different versions.
The first one powered by Microsoft is Windows. So, Microsoft also makes a system designed for servers. Microsoft products can trill integrate in this operating systems. It also allows web sites to run Active Server Pages. The Microsoft servers also allow the integration of SQL databases. The only problem of the Microsof web hosting servers is that they are very expensive. You will probably find one that costs several thousands of dollars.
The second version for web hosting servers is Linux. Linux was created and developed by some individuals who wrote the main part of the Linux operating system. After that, there were added some other parts to customize the operating system for the particular use of any user. There are many companies that market Linux, like Red Hat, Debian. The main advantage of Linux is that is compatible with PHP. Also it’s very stable and has a great security. The best thing about it is that Linux is free.
The third version of operating system for web hosting servers is Unix. Unix is almost the same thing as Linux. If we think more, we will find more similarities than differences between the two programs. The most important difference is the way they came to the world. So let’s make it clear. Linux is something like a cousin of Unix. There are two main Unix-based operating systems: FreeBSD and OpenBSD. The good thing about this systems is that they seem to be very stable once you manage to install them. But they are very hard to install. OpenBSD is also known to be one of the most secure operating system in the world. But with OpenBSd you will have to sacrifice some features for a plus of security. Again the best thing about these systems is that they are both free.
The best for you depends on what you are going to do with it. If you want great security, you should try OpenBSd. If you are looking for compatibility with all the windows products, then choose Windows. For compatibility with PHP programing language choose Linux.The fact is that one cannot tell which system is best, but employing and using it according to his needs.
For great web hosting packages, domain names, great customer support just visit us at http://www.domainsforall.co.uk
How to Choose a Web Hosting Company?
Nowadays, anybody can afford to order a feature-packed web hosting plan for next to nothing; however, affordable price is not the only criterion which should be considered when purchasing web hosting services. In this article, I’ll explain the basics of what you should look for in choosing a web hosting company, not just concentrating on the best price and features, but also on reliability and honesty. You’re investing your money and effort into finding paying customers and you wouldn’t like to lose them in order to save a few dollars per month on a web hosting service.
When looking for a web hosting company, it doesn’t matter if this is just for the inception of a web or the move of an established site; you need to consider a large selection of criteria to determine which company to go with:
Customer support
Website hosting service isn’t just storage or bandwidth. Based on personal experience and that of others, even a top-notch service is worthless without customer support. If you own a business website, your hosting provider needs to be there for you 24/7 and give you instant access to the technicians you need to solve your problem; otherwise, you may end up losing customers and money.
Downtime guarantee and service monitoring
Having a personal website go down is a minor inconvenience; having a business website go down is a serious matter. What amount of profit would you lose if your site had been down for a week? Long downtime may be very harmful to today’s companies which spend large amounts of money on advertising their websites. Essentially, there are two rules regarding reliability that one should look at:
1. You should check if there is an uptime guarantee offered. A truly service-oriented provider will also give a money-back guarantee, offering a discount or free service as compensation for downtime. Any company which avoids taking responsibility won’t put much effort into the service.
2. I definitely wouldn’t go with a company claiming 100% uptime, as there is no such thing as a server with 100% uptime. If anyone ever claims their server has a 100% uptime they are either lying or they don’t perform the necessary upgrades that prevent a machine from being compromised.
Reputable web hosts will post statistics on their site: What is the frequency of interruption? How about the average percentage of downtime? If these aren’t posted, ask; if the answer isn’t forthcoming, that should be a warning sign. If you still go with a host which doesn’t monitor servers, you’ll have to do the monitoring yourself. I recommend www.siteuptime.com, as it’s one of the best monitoring services available for free in the market today.
Backups
There is no host which is safe against different types of technical and programical failures, so make sure that the company runs scheduled backups. The other advice would be always having a backup of your website yourself, as you never know what might happen. cPanel, which is the most popular web hosting management software at this time, has a very comfortable backup-making tool. It allows you to backup files and databases quickly and easily, so backups are no longer a problem.
Acceptable use policy
Web hosts may have 200-300 or more clients per server; there is no exact number, as companies have different hardware and each hosted website has different resource usage. There always is a possibility that a few of those customers host illegal content. There are web hosts who have had their servers unplugged, resulting in their clients’ websites going down. I’m sure you don’t want to put your business at risk and have your website hosted on the same server together with illegal pornography and software sites, so check host’s acceptable use policy to find out, if the host takes care of what’s hosted on their servers.
Hosting your site on an uncared-for server will also result in a low speed. If somebody on the same server sends spam, the server’s IP address will be blacklisted and you’ll have serious problems as recipients stop receiving your emails. Use the “Spam database lookup” feature on www.DNSstuff.com to check if a web hosting company is blacklisted. Spam is being sent almost everywhere, so having one or two red records isn’t that bad; but, if there are more, it may become a problem later on.
Unlimited bandwidth and web space
In web hosting industry, the adage “you get what you pay for” is almost universally applicable. Do not fall for hosts offering unlimited allowances, as there is no unlimited bandwidth, nor unlimited web space. Host’s pay for each GB of bandwidth themselves. Hard drives also aren’t free, so how can they say it’s unlimited? They simply are performing false advertising in order to attract customers. The average website doesn’t use more than 1GB of bandwidth per month; the customer is happy as he bought something “unlimited” and the host gets a new customer, which won’t cost them any more than $1-2 USD per month. But imagine what would happen if I had a website, burning much more bandwidth than an average site does, and I signed up with a hosting company offering unlimited traffic? The host would simply suspend my account and tell me, that it was using too much bandwidth. There even are companies which offer unlimited bandwidth and have a statement on their terms of service, explaining that unlimited bandwidth means 40GB, for example.
Will you really own your domain name?
When you buy a domain name together with a website hosting package, make sure the host will register the domain name under your name. It usually should be written in their FAQ, but, if there is no such information, simply contact them. This will also give you an opportunity to check how fast their customer support team replies to inquiries. If the hosting company registers domains under someone else’s name, you may have problems switching hosting providers later. If you were in such situation, you would have to file for a Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), which costs much more than both domain name and web hosting service together.
Control Panel
For ease of maintenance, a feature called a Control Panel is a necessity; this tool will normally allow for regular maintenance, be it email mailbox additions/deletions, password resets, web additions, web count reports, statistics and so on. If the site is for any sort of business, this is an absolute must. The most popular web hosting management software currently available is cPanel. It’s a next-generation web hosting control panel system that allows you to manage your domain through a web interface. The idea is to transfer as much of the control of managing your web site to you; you have the ability to manage all aspects of e-mail, files, backup, FTP, CGI scripts, and web site statistics.
Value-added services
Hosting companies offer different value-added services in order to set themselves apart from the competition. Of course, these are an advantage, but a common mistake customers make is choosing a host just because it offers many value-added services which won’t be used anyway. Some of the really useful features are:
1. Auto-installer script – Auto-installers will save you time if you are going to install a forum, image gallery, content management system, etc. Installation procedures on an auto-installer script take seconds and can be performed by novices without the need of doing difficult tasks usually associated with installations.
2. Online website builder – It lets you design a website in a few minutes without having any creation software and knowledge. One very powerful website builder on the market is Site Studio; this editor allows for ease of use, full control of color schemes and themes, one-click publishing, and an array of templates to use.
The last tip
In this article, I’ve mentioned only a few warning signs which are worth considering. You should know yourself that price and allocations aren’t as important as the quality of service; if the budget is absolutely limited, then the price can be a valid criterion, but otherwise it shouldn’t receive much credence.
By going through this article and asking questions, you can narrow down the list of web hosts to the point where a good, sound decision can be easily made.
About the author:
Karolis Petreikis is the CEO of UPHosted, a company that provides reliable hosting services for both individuals and businesses.