Cheap Webhosting Is It for You?
There’s an old adage which states that “You get what you pay for”.
In most areas of life, and business, this holds true. Not necessarily so, however, in the webhosting industry. Often, you pay too much, and don’t get what you pay for.
Several weeks ago I got a call from a web designer friend of mine.
“John,” He said “You won’t believe this”.
He went on to tell me about a Plastic Surgeon he was redesigning a website for. This client was paying $600.00 per month for his webhosting account.
“The incredible thing is” He related, “I can’t get the current host to return my phone calls or emails”.
After looking at this clients needs, I was shocked to find that there was nothing special about his site that justified his being on anything other than a basic shared webhosting plan. We quoted him a monthly rate of under five dollars.
In this case, the client was being raped by an unscrupulous host who was not only overcharging him, but not even providing the basic support he needed.
This is an extreme example, no doubt, but it all to often characterizes the poor deal which most website owners fall into.
Several years ago, there was no such thing as a webhosting industry. Nearly all websites were hosted by local ISP’s. The average monthly cost for hosting a website was $20.00 per month. Often, if you called the ISP with a technical question, they would tell you to buy a book or take a class.
Around 1996, we saw the emergence of a few “webhosting” companies. These were companies which were strictly committed to hosting websites. Using the economy of scale, they were able to offer incredibly useful webhosting packages for around $10.00 per month. What’s more, some of these companies provided useful tech support which was geared towards meeting a website owners needs.
Fast forward to 2005 and we now see the emergence of a new type of web host – the cheap webhosting provider. These are companies which offer hosting for less than $5.00 per month.
Generally, cheap webhosting providers are newer companies. There’s a reason for this. It’s extremely difficult for the older companies to lower their prices when they already have a large customer base which pays higher prices. They’d be slashing their gross, and most companies just can’t afford that.
So how do cheap webhosting providers offer such a low price to begin with?
Part of it is that servers, hard drive space and bandwidth are much, much less expensive than they were several years ago. Cheap webhosting providers capitalize on this.
Another part is that cheap hosting providers use a different business model than the older providers. Webhosting is a very competitive business. Until recently, web hosts attempted to compete by providing the most tools and features. The problem with this model is that not everyone needs everything. Most web hosts provide free backup services to all of their clients. Backups are costly, and not everyone needs or wants them, but everyone pays for them because they’re built into the cost of the package.
A cheap webhosting provider, on the other hand, might give you the basic features that everyone uses, but offer weekly backups as an available add on feature, putting the cost of backing up websites on only those customers who want that service.
This all sounds great, I know, but what about service? Will I get competent and fast customer support from a company which charges me $4.00 per month?
The answer, surprisingly, is usually yes.
Obviously, not all cheap webhosting providers will give you great service. But not all expensive webhosting providers will give good service either. Our Plastic Surgeon friend couldn’t get his $600.00 host to return his emails.
But, with a cheaper provider, the key for the providers success is customer retention. A savvy web host will endeavor to please his existing clients by providing the best support possible.
John Pierce is the webmaster of cheapwebhostinginfo.com and the Customer Service Manager for Gold Zero Web Hosting – http://goldzero.com.
Step by Step Procedure to Select the Best Web Host for You
Choosing a host for your web-site is no small thing! Once committed to one, it will become very difficult to move your business elsewhere – not to mention the damage that can be done to your business if you make the wrong choice. This makes it very important to “get it right the first time”.
In this article I will tell you everything about what you need to know about web hosting and will help you in noting down your requirements. So let’s start…
Paid server or Free hosting?
If you want to build a professional business site than it is highly recommended that YOU SHOULD choose paid server. If you just want a personal site than you can choose either a paid or free server. So which one do you want ? This article will mostly deal with Paid web hosting but is equally useful for those who are looking to have Free hosting. You are also encouraged to visit Free Web Hosting page to get more information on Free Web Hosting sites.
So let’s start from Commercial Web Hosts
I am assuming that we are looking to target 10,000 visitors every month, which is a average number, if you think that this is too much than still you should keep in mind that we are thinking for the long term, and the traffic will get increased.
How much do you want to pay (monthly fees to the service provider)?
Well it is better if you DO NOT COMPROMISE ON THE PRICE of web hosting. Don’t worry, there is so much competition that price of web hosting has touched rock bottom and almost everyone charges the same. Anyway you will never have to give more than $30/month for a average 10,000 visitor/month site. So let’s come to the MORE important factors.
Web Host should be reliable and fast!
Many people don’t even think about this factor but I think this is very crucial aspect of web hosting. Make sure that it is functional all the time. It should be up round the clock. On an average you want the host which remains up 99+% time up. Make sure to ask this via email from the host provider which you are interested in. What’s the point of having a wonderful site when no one is able to access it!
How much disk space you want?
It depends on what do you want to host. If you are providing lot’s of downloads from your server than you need lot’s of space otherwise 500 MB disk space will be alright. Remember that your mail account space will also come into this space and you want to keep at least 200 MB space for your mail accounts.
I have seen people managing in less than 25 MB space as they hardly keeps too many images on there sites and have less than 20 HTML pages. If this is your case, than you can take 25/50 MB space. It is always better to take more space than you need as you will always be expanding in future.
How much bandwidth you want?
BANDWIDTH is the amount of data transfer when a visitor visits your site. Say some person visits 4 pages of my site (total size 345 KB) than he used 345 KB. Now let’s calculate how much Bandwidth you need.
10,000 Visitors X 1 MB per visitor = 10 GB of Bandwidth per month. Again this is a lot more than what you will probably need. If you are tight on budget than feel free to make it 5 GB or even less but remember if on 25th of the month your site crosses this limit than your website won’t be accessible for the remaining days of the month. It is important to monitor your site Bandwidth.
What kind of scripting and database you are looking for in your web host?
Again, If you are really looking for more than a simple HTML site than you should make sure that the web host is providing FTP, PHP, Perl CGI-BIN access, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, SSH crontabs to you. This are fairly basic things.
FTP helps you in transferring files, where as PERL/PHP will help you to provide interaction to the user. SSL is for security purpose, cron is for scheduling jobs, htaccess is for customizing errors. You can know more about them in articles.
How Many POP email account you want?
You definitely need few email accounts like contact@yourdomain.com and admin@yourdomain.com other than your personal ids. Make sure to get all the details about email account like how many accounts you are allowed to have, do the allow forwarding emails and whether you can access them from Outlook/Thunderbird.
Technical Support!
After making a probable list of the hosts, feel free to ask all your queries. This will make you clarify things better and also allows you to know how fast and reliable is there technical support. If the are taking too much time in replying than may be you want to try some other provider after all you don’t want to wait for 4 days for there reply when your site or database gets crashed!
Other than these you also SHOULD look for:
How many Sub domains you want?
You may want to create sub domains like service.yourdomain.com so make sure that the host provides you this. Normally all of them do provide this option but still why take a risk.
which Server – Linux/Windows?
If you are looking to run ASP scripts than you have to go for servers running Windows otherwise it is always better to choose cheaper, more stable and feature-laden Unix systems running the Apache server. I am hosting this site on BSD, another variant of Linux OS. It is highly advisable to choose these Unix servers as they also provide high level of customizability.
Plans?
Web hosts provide various PAYING plans like monthly/quarterly/annually and normally annually looks cheaper than monthly (total for 12 months) but it is advisable to choose monthly for a new web host. Let’s test it first and than you can always upgrade your plan to yearly afterwards. Again make sure to ask them and clarify all your queries. Don’t make your own assumptions or get satisfied early. Also some sites charge Setup fees. Make sure to verify this.
What is the reputation of host provider (to me this is very important)?
It is highly advisable that you should do a good research on the reputation of your web host. What others think about your host. It is better to not blindly follow what the reviews that web hosts write on there sites. Mostly they are fake. Try to get independent reviews or ask people personally like your friends. You can also check on forums as you will get independent and more correct reviews there. And of course allwebhosts is all about them only.
FINAL WORDS.
So you must have got a good view of what you want and what you can get. Now you can start your search for the best web hosts for your needs. on allwebhosts we had provide you a huge list of web hosts which are hugely popular to the hosts which are really cheap to the hosts which we think that are offering best offers. Make sure to find the best one for you and Don’t forget to get all the details about them before selecting anyone. BEST OF LUCK!
For More articles, you are welcome to visit – Web Hosting Articles.
I am Arpit, the webmaster of the site All Web Hosts. I am a computer engineer and enjoy working in front of computers. I like to spend my time building websites and participating in various forums.
Web Hosting Dos and Don’ts
Web Hosting Dos
Follow these guidelines and you will have a better chance of finding a reliable hosting solution.
Research
Spend time reading what others have to say about the hosting companies you are looking at. Read reviews and investigate into the history of the company. How long have they been in business? What data centers are they located in? How many customers do they have and do they have enough employees to support them? These are all questions you should know before choosing a web host.
Contact Support
Contact your potential hosts and ask them a few simple questions about their service. The main goal is to gauge their response time and the quality of their reply.
Know Your Requirements
You may WANT gigs of space and bandwidth, but do you really NEED them. If not, do not waste money paying for bandwidth and storage space that will not be used. On the other hand, if you use a lot of resources you should purchase hosting with a little head room just in case you have spikes in traffic. This way you can avoid any overage charges.
Have a Good Backup Plan
Do not rely on your host to keep backups of your sites. Most don’t and if they do they could be weeks or even months old. If you keep good backups you will suffer little downtime and data loss if you ever do have problems with your host and need to move elsewhere.
Web Hosting Don’ts
Avoid these hosting mistakes at all cost or face the consequences!
Choosing a Host On Price Alone
Do not chose a web host based only on their pricing. Their are many cheap hosting providers and with most you get what you pay for. Very little. If the price you are quoted seems to good to be true, it probably is. Expect to pay at least .50 cents for every gigabyte of bandwith for average reliability and three or four times that if you want high quality hosting.
Purchasing Hosting from an Auction Site
Not that you will not find good hosting from an auction site, but the chances aren’t good. Especially if the company does not even operate a web site to market their services.
Trusting Customer Testimonials
Most testimonials simply can’t be trusted. If the web host lists contact information and the web site of the testimonials listed they may be trustworthy, but the majority should not be taken at face value.
Free Domain Included with Hosting
It is always better to keep your domain seperate from your hosting company. Many hosts offer free domains with their hosting plans. This practice is fine as long as the domain is registered in your name and belongs to you. If they register it to themselves and only let you “borrow” it you face the risk of them holding your domain hostage if you ever decide to move to another hosting provider.
Michael Shelton
Owner of Host-Resource.com
Linux Web Hosting
What Is Linux:
Linux is an operating system that was initially created as a hobby by a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that exceeded the Minix standards.
Linux is developed under the GNU General Public License and its source code is freely available to everyone. Linux may be used for a wide variety of purposes including networking, software development, and as an end-user platform.
Linux is often considered an excellent, low-cost alternative to other more expensive operating systems. Due to the very nature of Linux’s functionality and availability, it has become quite popular worldwide and a vast number of software programmers have taken Linux’s source code and adapted it to meet their individual needs.
At this time, there are dozens of ongoing projects for porting Linux to various hardware configurations and purposes. Here are 10 reasons why Linux could be the best operating system for you.
A Linux Distribution has thousands of dollars worth of software for no cost (or a couple of dollars if purchased on CD).
Linux is a complete operating system that is :-
Stable – the crash of an application is much less likely to bring down the operating system under Linux
Reliable – Linux servers are often up for hundreds of days compared with the regular reboots required with a Windows system. Extremely powerful.
Comes with a complete development environment, including C, C++, Fortran compilers, and toolkits such as Qt and scripting languages such as Perl, Awk and sed. A C compiler for Windows alone would set you back hundreds of dollars.
Excellent networking facilities: allowing you to share CPUs, share modems etc; all of which are not included or available with Windows 95
The ideal environment to run servers such as a web server (e.g. Apache), or an FTP server.
A wide variety of commercial software is available if the free software doesn’t satisfy your needs.
An operating system that is easily upgradeable. After any length of time a typical installation of Windows and software gets into a complete mess. Often the only way to clear out all the debris is to reformat the hard disk and start again. Linux, however, is much better for maintaining the system.
Supports multiple processors as standard.
True multi-tasking; the ability to run more than one program at the same time.
Excellent window systems called X; the equivalent of Windows but much more flexible.
Linux holds a major share as a server operating system and has the largest market share for the entire Internet. It is also increasingly popular on the desktop as well. Internet Presence Division provides value-added service and support on all versions of Linux.
For more articles Please visit Articles at All Web Hosts.
I am Arpit,the webmaster of the site All Web Hosts is a computer enginner and enjoys working in front of computers. I like to spend my time in building sites and on various forums. AllWebHosts site is mainatined by me and one of my friend, Prashant. In my free time, I like to play table-tennis.
What is Windows Web Hosting?
Web hosting has been around for several years now and has evolved from simple HTML pages hosting small simple sites with a few images into full blown web based hosted applications where end users can visit a site, interact with the web site owner and even purchase goods and services all over the internet.
Web hosting platforms vary from different types of operating systems. Microsoft Windows Server and Redhat Linux are just two examples and probably the most well known web hosting platforms. So, what is Windows web hosting and what are the advantages and disadvantages to hosting your web site on a Windows Server. Well, that’s just the answer isn’t it?
Windows Web hosting utilizes the Microsoft Windows Server operating system to host websites containing simple HTML pages and even applications written in ASP or ASP.NET. Windows uses a built-in application or “service” called Internet Information Services (abbreviated as IIS).
IIS is the “Service” or “application” that runs on a windows server that is responsible for serving or rendering your HTML pages to a browser. Whenever you visit a site, say www.3essentials.com and you view the content, your web browser is “downloading” or “Viewing” the pages that are stored on our Windows Server, via IIS.
Why use Windows and not Linux, or Unix? This usually comes down to a couple of “proprietary” requirements you may have when searching for a web hosting provider. If you need to use ASP or ASP.NET, then these scripting languages are only available on Windows. If you have never designed a web page before then most likely either Windows or Linux will work fine for your needs.
With Windows Web Hosting from 3Essentials, you have many different options in getting your HTML pages that you design uploaded to your web hosting account.
You can use File Transfer Protocal (FTP), there are many Free FTP programs available and some that you can buy at very reasonable prices. If you use FrontPage or Macromedia DreamWeaver you can upload your pages directly from the application.
Sending and receiving email is done easily on a Windows hosting account. Once your mailbox has been created you can use a WebMail interface to send and receive email from a web browser or you can use Outlook and Outloox Express email clients.
Self Management of your website on a Windows Web Hosting Plan with 3Essentials hosting is made very easy with our Implementation of the Award Winning Control Panel software by Sw-Soft called Plesk. Plesk is a web based interface to your Windows web hosting account that allows you to create e-mail addresses and mailboxes, view your web site traffic statistics, set permissions on your HTML, ASP, and ASP.NET pages… and more.
For more articles Please visit Articles at All Web Hosts.
Thank You.
I am Arpit,the webmaster of the site All Web Hosts is a computer enginner and enjoys working in front of computers. I like to spend my time in building sites and on various forums. AllWebHosts site is mainatined by me and one of my friend, Prashant. In my free time, I like to play table-tennis.