11 Things to Check Before Purchasing Web Hosting

The web hosting industry is extremely competitive due to the fact of the massive growth of the internet and the fact that people want to have their own website. Web hosts compete against each other by offering more disk space and bandwidth for cheaper prices or free domain names along with your purchase of a web hosting plan. Many people get taken advantage of because they don't know what to look for in a web host to ensure that you are getting the most for your money.A lot of people fall victim because they don't do their proper research of a web hosting provider before they make a purchase. While the list below is not a comprehensive checklist it does cover some of the most basic things to check for when you are looking to buy web hosting.Contract Terms/LengthThis is a biggie, especially when it comes to those hosts offering unlimited disk space or bandwidth. The fact of the matter is that web hosting providers can't actually afford to offer anything for free. There is always a catch and the catch is explained within their Terms & Conditions. Yeah the big wall of text that you never read because of the length but that you have to agree to. Read through the contract and you will find out just how limited your account really is and how much freedom you truly have.Server BackupsConsidering we are dealing with computers things can go wrong at any time. When they do go wrong it is usually far worse than expected and this is why you should have multiple backups of your files in different locations. Many of the larger web hosting companies offer multiple backups that are automatically done for you but you need to make sure of this beforehand. Just because a host doesn't offer backups does not necessarily mean that you can't purchase from them, you just need to take extra measures to keep your files backed up in multiple locations.Server UptimeYou have a website because most likely you are trying to draw visitors to it in turn to make money. Having your web site go down can costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars of lost profits. Making sure that a web hosting provider has multiple options for power can decrease the chance that your server will go down. There are many sites dedicated to providing server uptime monitoring for web hosts scattered throughout the internet.Negative Press/ReviewsNo hosting provider is perfect and not every customer is going to enjoy their experience. Before you purchase hosting make sure to do a search for reviews of the web host. There are many sites online that provide you with honest reviews from web hosting customers. Make sure to read over the reviews carefully and to understand the negative reviews. Many times people over exaggerate a situation that could have been simply solved by themselves.AwardsAs stated above, there are many web hosting review sites out there. Some of them may also offer awards to a particular web hosting for having the most uptime or providing the best customer service. It is a good idea to research the awards that have been given to a web host. Some hosting providers like to prominently display the awards that have been given to them while others have the awards tucked away on a sub page on their site. However, just because a web host does not have an award does not make them any worse than a host that does.Compare PricesThis is probably the most obvious point of this list. With the industry as competitive as it is, providers are always looking for ways to provide you the most resources for as little as possible. One web host may provide 1000MB of storage and bandwidth for $10 a month while another may provide 5000MB of storage and bandwidth for only $5 a month. Write down a list of what you need and while browsing for hosting plans write down the information from each host. Then once you are done, go over the list and make comparisons to see which host will give you the most for your money.Look For CouponsAs stated above, the hosting industry is competitive and hosts constantly have to improve their services while keeping the price low. Many providers will offer coupons that give you a free domain name, a discount on a yearly hosting package or a major discount on your first month of hosting. There are many sites and forums on the internet that look for these coupons and provide lists so that consumers can save some extra money.Programming Language SupportDepending upon your site, you will most likely need some kind of programming language. Most hosting providers nowadays offer PHP as a standard because it is widely used throughout the word. However, your site may require additional languages to be able to function so make sure that you are aware of what languages they do provide or what languages they can provide upon request.Customer/Technical SupportWhen things go wrong you need somebody to talk to no matter what time it is. Most of the major hosting companies offer 24/7 phone, live chat and email support. Companies such as HostGator have a great reputation for their customer service and are very eager to go out of their way to help you. While you may not need to contact support everyday, it is nice knowing that if you do ever need to there will be somebody on the other end of the line ready to assist you in any way possible.Hosting Plan DetailsThe 2 major details in a hosting plan are disk space and bandwidth. Disk space is the amount of files that your hosting plan can support while bandwidth is the amount of traffic that your site can receive. Knowing beforehand what your site will require is essential in finding the best hosting plan for your situation. Most web hosting providers do provide extra features however they may not always display them on their main page. You might have to go digging deeper into their site to find out just what exactly they do provide with their hosting plans.Cheapest Isn't Always BestToo many people get lured into big numbers for low prices. As the saying goes, "You get what you pay for". That works for both web hosting and anything else in life. Low cost hosting plans are almost always setup on a shared server which means that your site is shared with anywhere from 10 to 100+ other websites. Meaning that you have to share the resources between all those sites. If one of the other sites starts using up too many resources your site may experience slow load times or completely crash. It may be wise to spend a few extra dollars a month to ensure the quality of your web hosting service.This list is by no means complete but it is a great starting point and should be reference when making a decision to purchase web hosting. Knowing the facts beforehand can save you both time and money in the long run while avoiding unneeded hassle.

What is Web Hosting and is it Cheap?

Whenever you visit a website, what you see on your web browser is an array of files that are provided to for your viewing pleasure instantly. These files are populated to your screen by a web hosting company. In order to have a web site on the internet, you must have a web hosting account from a company. Web hosting companies provide space on their servers so that you can take all the files for your website and put them online! So no matter whether you are designing a small one page site, or a large corporate site with 1 million pages, you need a hosting provider!In order to get your site online with your web hosting company, you will need to do 3 things. 1st you will need to have your website built by a web design company. 2nd, you will need to purchase a hosting account for your small business or ecommerce site. 3rd, you (or your webmaster) will need to upload your files to your hosting account.There are several types of web hosting, and they are outlined below.Dedicated serversThis is a hosting service that is more expensive than other hosting services. This will cost anywhere from $100 to $1000 per month. The benefits of a dedicated server are that you have a lot more control over your hosting, and you have access to more resources. This is used for web sites that have special needs or large amounts of traffic.Shared web hostingThis is a website hosting service that puts you on a dedicated server with lots of other small web site hosting accounts. This is an affordable web hosting service that is recommended for anyone just starting out!When looking for affordable web hosting services, there are several things to keep your eye out for. We recommend that you research and talk to a company to see how good their support will be. Also ask what their backup methods are to make sure your web site information is not lost. Then I would recommend finding a web hosting company that provides telephone support, since this is valuable to have.Choosing a right web hosting service for your website is not an easy task especially since there are thousands of web host providers out there offering almost identical web hosting packages. Therefore, it is important to take in to account a few major considerations before you jump in with a company. To get cheap website hosting services you must do some shopping around, which in the end will be worth the time to save some money on your web host. To find a web host you may need to do some research on the internet to see which website host best fits your needs and specific requirements. If you want instant support, find an affordable website hosting company that offers telephone support. If you need to have lots of addon applications to help make your site more interactive - search for these features.Once you have determined the exact website hosting services you will choose to get your site online, the next step is to actually begin the growing process as a company. It is completely possible to drive traffic to your site without spending a ton of money on website hosting. Find a solid search optimization company so that you can reach your customers.Cheap web hosting allows the company to save money that can be spent in other ways. Shared website hosting utilizes most all of the benefits of dedicated hosting, however you don't pay the premium fees. A Web host provider will offer its clients access to a Web server that will enable the website hosting costumer to put their information and content on the internet.Our website host company, Data Flurry provides outstanding customer service while also providing website hosting services. So when you decide to start your search for cheap website, hosting think Data Flurry for your solution. You can visit Dataflurry cheap web hosting

Top USA Web Hosting Providers - Making Your Hosting Choice Easy

What is web hosting? Every time you visit a website, what you see on your web browser is basically just a web page that is downloaded from the web server onto your web browser. Usually, a web site is made up of numerous web pages; along with a web page is in effect made of texts & images. All these web pages need to be stored on the web servers as a result online users can visit & see your website.So, if you plan to own a new website, you will have to host your website on a web server. Once your website goes live on the World Wide Web, online users can then browse your website on the Internet and see your content from all over the world. Company that provides the web servers to host your website is called web hosting providers.What is Domain NameThe unique name that identifies an Internet site, simply stated domain names allow people to find your web site by business name.Often a hosting company will offer a free domain name registration at the time you sign up for a hosting plan. We recommend that you go ahead and register your domain name as soon as possible; especially if you think it will take some time to develop the site itself."Operating system" Should I choose shared hosting or dedicated?Shared HostingWith shared hosting, numerous Web sites are shared on one serve Shared hosting is much cheaper than dedicated hosting because the cost of operating the server is split between many different customers.Dedicated HostingIn contrast to shared hosting, dedicated hosting assigned a specific web server to be used only by one customer. With a dedicated server all the resources are yours to use as you please. Therefore, dedicated hosting commands a higher premium and typically starts at $50 per month and can range up to $200 - $500 per month."To Summarize"Ok. Now I identify the requirements of my Web Site and how do I identify which Web Hosting provider is better?There are two things that you should focus on. First, compare web hosting providers; make sure if the web host offers all the things your Web Site needs. Second sign up for the plans all our top web hosts offering Money-back guarantees. This way you can always cancel the account if you do not feel comfortable with the hosting service.

Web Hosting - Windows Reseller Hosting

As web hosting has become a profitable online business, reselling hosting business has also become more profitable. Windows reseller hosting solutions have substantially more advantages over the popular Linux reseller hosting because of the various favorable factors that you can offer to your clients such as:
Windows reseller hosting provider can now keep track of multiple clients by using a single control panel
You can have PHP and MySQL based Control Management System (CMS) with ASP.Net SQL website
As a Windows reseller hosting provider, you can host excellent Windows based applications which will help all your clients
Allow users to use Active Server Pages (ASP) scripts and other Microsoft applications in designing great websites
Use exciting new tools like Windows Mobile and Active Sync technology
Use Push and SharePoint technology
Use the ever-popular Microsoft Access or the ever-dependable SQL Server relational database management system (RDMS) for data management and data analysis. SQL Server has proved itself as arguably the most reliable database management system for many top enterprise level businesses all over the world. Your clients can now use this stable, reliable, and efficient RDMS
Use .Net (DotNet) or Visual Basic (VB) web development tools
Use Microsoft's Active Directory technology
Windows based server can host websites running on UNIX based system
Web hosting, especially Windows reseller hosting has now become as exciting as any other online business because Microsoft continuously updates its Windows based web applications with the latest technology
Multiple vendors are offering exciting web solutions that can help your Windows reseller web hosting business
Stronger security, better stability, and speed
Microsoft's Server 2003 hosting solution has proven itself as useful with its high-capacity server operating system and features
The disadvantages of using Windows Reseller Hosting are:
Windows based web applications need licenses and thus make Windows reseller hosting more expensive than the Linux based web hosting, and
Linux web hosting is more stable and needs less rebooting compared to Windows web hosting
Windows web hosting has better scalability factor when clients need to upgrade their web hosting needs as their businesses grow online. Windows web hosting is a better choice for the reseller hosting business considering the fact that Windows hosting has better compatibility with Linux hosting tools. Interactive applications like the Chat tools can run better under the Windows based web hosting. The powerful Visual Basic applications and DotNet can only run under Windows web hosting.So, web hosting businesses, especially Windows reseller hosting businesses, are growing rapidly because the DotNet technologies like ASP.Net and VB.Net have become popular. With Microsoft's Exchange 2007, Windows Server 2008 Web Edition, SQL Server 2008, ActiveSynch and the latest mail server technology Windows hosting is positioned for a rapid growth. SQL Server management tools and other Microsoft Windows based technologies are making the Windows web hosting business grow at a rapid pace and is becoming very popular.Now, Windows based web technology opens exciting new avenues in the mobile applications also. The popular Enterprise level databases like Access and SQL Server are being used all over the world. The new SharePoint Server and services, and many other Microsoft Windows applications for web design and development are becoming popular.All these new technologies will also make Windows reseller hosting business more exciting. The success of these latest technologies will always attract more online businesses to Windows hosting. Web hosting is now definitely tilting towards the Windows hosting services, and that means better opportunities for the Windows reseller hosting businesses.So, for web hosting resellers, the Windows reseller hosting business is proving profitable with its easier management, scalability, and ability to keep pace with the rapid technology changes in the web hosting field.

What is Web Hosting? Web Hosts Explained For the Novice and Techno-Phobic

Put simply, web hosting is the service that allows you to have a website on the Internet. I like to think of my hosting service as my site storage space, but it is on the web, and looked after by my web hosting company.Web hosting is the act of storing the files for a web site on a specific computer (called a 'server') which displays them as necessary to people as they visit that web site. Hosting requires you to have your own allocated space (RAM) on a server, as well as a fast connection to the Internet.A good hosting service runs their own server monitoring to ensure that your data is kept safe and that your hosted websites maintain maximum operational status. Also, on the best services connectivity to the data centres is supplied from diverse telco carriers representing something like 25GBps (gigabit per second) bandwidth in total.Once you have chosen a web hosting service you will need a domain before you see any web site you upload on to your hosted web space. Domain names must be registered in order to be used, and for your convenience many hosting companies will also sell you a domain.Many web hosts provide domain registration services that allow you to buy and use your domain name, but be aware that their charges may be higher than hunting around for registration elsewhere.Some would say that it is also a good idea to register your domains separately. This is because, if for any reason you have a problem with the hosting service, and sometimes sites do get banned for a variety of reasons, you will be able to move your site more easily if the registrant is a third party.Don't let the idea of the cost of domains put you off starting a web site, Domains are very affordable, and registration is very simple.Shared HostingShared hosting is the most popular form of hosting due to its low cost.Shared website hosting permits more than one site to be hosted on the same server. Here, the web hosts provide system administration on up to say 1,000 sites on the same server. Shared hosting is the most basic level of hosting, and usually works very well. However, where numerous web sites are shared on one server there is always the chance that the burden on the processing capacity by other users may slow your site.So, although we like the low cost and this is an economic solution, these types of sites typically cannot handle large amounts of storage or traffic. So, if you are successful with your site you may need to move up to using a dedicated server which a web host can buy for you and locate in their data centre. This will be a natural progression for any successful web site creator, and the cost will not normally be an obstacle as by the time your traffic rises so that you need a dedicated server, you will be able to make more than enough money from the site to pay for a dedicated and colocated server.Nowadays, shared hosting comes with its share of convenient features. Many Web hosts offer powerful control panels that make it easy for users to upload their files, check with statistics, add small functionalities and handle other such small tasks easily. Indeed a lot of the time spent in choosing a web host package will be consumed in assessing the bundle of features provided.Website hosting can be cheap, but also reliable and fast if you choose wisely. Read reviews and look for complaints on forums and in places like Yahoo Answers. Many low cost web hosting plans come with full email (pop3/smtp and imap) support and some even have unlimited email aliases and responders. However, if they appear to offer too much in value, they may simply be unable to provide other things such as reliability or speed.Website-related software for creating and optimizing your web site is getting better and easier to use. Already, many people that possess very little technically-savvy are enjoying running their own websites and email. As time goes by, the bar to doing so will continue to get lower and lower.Yes, website hosting and editing has never been this easy, writing good looking pages, adding or deleting pages, changing navigation labels, and adding links wherever you need them, requires no special skills. So, now is the time to start your new web site, and becoming a respected expert in your favorite subject. Also, earning additional income through this route has never been easier.

Common Web Hosting Terminology Defined

ApacheFree and open source web server software - and probably the most commonly used web server software. The web server software is what allows the web server to accept and respond to requests for web pages from users.BackupsA backup system automatically makes copies of the files that make up a website as well as other important files, with the goal of allowing a quick recovery in case of a loss of data whether through a security problem or some sort of hardware/software failure. There's a lot of variance in what sort of backups that web hosts offer - from none at all to nightly or even more regular backups. Generally there's a cycle that allows for a range of files from different dates to be available.Bandwidth"Bandwidth" is typically used to refer to the amount of data transfer allowed in one month under a web hosting plan. This is usually measured in gigabytes. Whenever a visitor accesses your website, at least one (and usually lots more) files will be transferred from the web server to the visitor's computer. Generally the web host has a limit on the total allowed size of the files transferred - and excess usage is charged at some predefined rate.Control PanelA "control panel" is a web-based system that allows a user to more easily control their web hosting account, allowing things such as setting up email accounts, adding databases, changing apache settings, etc. There's a wide variety of control panel software, and often the functionality will vary based on what the web host allows their customers to do with their site.ColocationColocation or "equipment colocation" allows a company or organization to place their equipment in a web hosts data center, essentially renting space, power, bandwidth etc - but not renting an actual server. This allows the company to use their own custom equipment, but take advantage of the benefits of the web host's data center (reliability, security, 24/7 staffing, etc).Dedicated HostingWhen a single client has their own web server dedicated to their sole use, it is dedicated hosting.Dedicated ServerA web server that is dedicated to the use of a single customer.Disk SpaceThis is the amount of space allocated to the customer's use under a web hosting plan. Typically measured in megabytes or gigabytes (one gigabyte is about one thousand megabytes).DNS"Domain Name Service" - this is the network of servers that allow the user's browser to translate a domain name into an IP address which it can use to contact the web server that hosts the site at that domain. Some hosts allow users control over their own DNS servers, which allows for a greater level of control over their domains and subdomains.Domain NameA domain name is actually an alias to an IP address. Every web server will have at least one IP address that visitors use to visit the website(s) hosted on that machine. The domain name acts as a more easily remembered "name" for that IP address, and the translation from domain name to IP address is handled behind the scenes.FTPStands for "File Transfer Protocol" - a common way to exchange files between two computers over the Internet. It is probably the most commonly used method to upload or download files from a web server.IMAPIMAP is an email protocol that allows users to receive using an IMAP email client. The biggest difference between POP and IMAP is that with IMAP all email, folders, etc are stored on the server, rather than on the client's local computer.IP AddressA numeric address on the Internet. Every web server will have at least one IP address. In some ways they're analogous to a phone number - to call another phone, you need it's phone number.LAMPStands for commonly used set of web software: Linux (operating system), Apache (web server software), MySQL (database software), PHP (scripting language). Variants include MAMP (Macintosh operating system) and WAMP (Windows operating system).MySQLMySQL is a popular free and open source database application, commonly used on linux-based web servers. It allows web applications to store and manipulate data, and is used by a very wide range of free web-based applications such as WordPress and Joomla.PHPPHP is a very commonly used programming language used to build websites. It is arguable the most popular such language used today, and has a huge amount of free software available for it.POPPOP is an email protocol that allows users to receive email using a POP mail client such as Outlook.ResellerA reseller is someone who purchases a hosting plan with the intention of "splitting" it into smaller web hosting plans and reselling them. Web hosts often create special plans for these kinds of customers, giving the plans tools to help manage multiple sub-accounts, more disk space, etc.Shared Hosting"Shared Hosting" is one of the more common forms of web hosting, in which many customers "share" the resources of a single server - and also sharing the cost of the server, making it more affordable than other kinds of web hosting. Generally if a web host doesn't specify what kind of hosting they're offering, it's probably shared hosting.SSHStands for "Secure Shell" - a network protocol that allows a secure console-based connection to a remote machine. SSH allows a user to login to a machine and use the command-line to execute commands. It is typically used for web development and server administration.SSL"Secure Socket Layer" - a protocol that allows end-to-end encryption of traffic between a user's browser and a web server. Critical if a website plans to do anything that involves information that should be kept private, such as ecommerce.VPS (Virtual Private Server)Special software can be used to allow a single server to host multiple "virtual" servers. Each virtual server is totally independent of the others, and is essentially a dedicated server. This provides more reliability, isolation, and flexibility than a standard shared hosting account, but is still usually cheaper than a "real" dedicated server.Web ServerA web server is a computer that is set up to accept and respond to request for web pages that remote users make using their web browsers.

Web Host Review Sites - Can You Trust Them?

Unfortunately the answer to that question is no, well at least for the most part. I'm going to go over the more popular formats of review type sites for the web hosting industry. I will tell you what they do, what to look out for, why they do it the way they do it, and what good uses they can have.Top 10 Ranking SitesMany of the "top 10 ranking" sites rank their top web hosts based on the affiliate pay out of that host. When a person clicks through that link and buys a hosting package from a host they get paid a commission from that web host. A lot of the top ten ranking sites will put the highest affiliate pay outs towards the top so they can make the most money from that web host. It is easy for them to hide that they are affiliate for the web host. What I mean by this is that the link to the web host will look like a normal text link or picture link to that web host. For a lot of them it will also appear as a normal link on the bottom left of your window. The one way for you to tell if a site is collecting affiliate sales is by clicking view source in the file drop down menu of your browser and reading the HTML to find the link. If it says affiliate or aff or any affiliate type of html identifiers than the site is collecting affiliate sales from your click through. Web Host Review SitesThis goes along the same lines as the top 10 ranking sites. They will tell you their web hosts are the best web hosts in the industry, they never ever have problems and they are just flat out amazing. This is just simply not true. Anytime you see reviews that just rave about how great a host is without providing you with any type of problem they have had then the reason they are doing it is because all the links to the web hosts are affiliate links. The site's owner will go out into the industry find out who has the highest affiliate pay out and they will write a review about them hoping that people like you will see the review, see that X host is great, and then buy a hosting plan via the affiliate link they provide you with. This way they get paid, which is all they care about. The site could really be sending you to a bad host or at the least a host that is not right for your needs, but as long as they get paid they don't care.Hosting DirectoriesThese are sites that direct you to a web host via a database of different web hosts that they have. The separate them into different categories such as shared, dedicated, colo, etc. This method is more reliable than the previous two methods but these sites are still generated by money. Instead of affiliate pay outs these sites rely on advertising dollars from banner ads and PPC ads in certain sections of their websites. This makes them more reliable, but still make sure it is a reputable directory, they are not using affiliate links, and they have a wide variety of web hosts.Web Host ForumsHosting forums are where customers come together to ask questions of each other as well as experts in the industry come to answer questions. There are some great forums out there, but the one thing I warn against here is that the people giving you the advice could be working for a hosting company. They could be monitoring for people asking questions and then tell them to go to the host that they work for.User Review SitesThis goes along the same lines of the web hosting forums. User review sites can be great but there are two things that I must warn against here. It could be the web host themselves posting great reviews about themselves to boost their own sales. Another problem to think about is the fact that the majority of the time it is only the people who have had a bad experience who post user reviews. Many times if a person is having a great experience with a web host they won't write a positive review about it, but if a person is having a bad experience with a web host they feel so scorned and upset that they will go on a campaign against the web host where they write anything bad that they can anywhere they can.Concluding RemarksThis article is not by any means meant to bash sites that do this type of reviews. There are good sites out there that do every single one of these different review strategies. Some are better than others but there are good ones out there. Also this is not to say that every time you see an affiliate link it means that the site is bad and can not be trusted. There is nothing wrong with finding a good host, referring that host to other people, and getting paid to do it. That is something that I encourage. The point of this article is to merely warn you about certain types of review strategies and why they can be bad. The best strategy for finding a good host is to do a lot of research in a bunch of different ways. You should visit forums, review sites, user review sites, and ranking sites and take them for what they are worth. If you combine all the pieces of information you hear about a particular host, both the good and the bad, it will give you the best picture of what hosting a website with that web host will be like and allow you to pick the best one for your website. Good Luck and Get Started!

The Best Way to Find Active Web Hosting Coupon Codes

If you know the best way to find active web hosting coupon codes, your new website can suddenly cost you a whole deal less. Web hosting is becoming a bit of a cut-throat business, with new companies springing up almost daily. There are literally thousands of web hosting companies online, all vying for your business, and while prices are tumbling, features are improving. That's great for the consumer that is looking for a web host, but it goes further than just tumbling prices.Web hosting coupon codes are special codes available for specific web hosts, and sometimes specific packages offered by web hosting companies, that you can enter into a box on the sign-up form or at checkout to secure yourself a discount. This discount can be small, such as 5 or 10 percent on a package price, or as high as 100% off your first payment.Bearing in mind that you normally pay your hosting fees monthly this might not seem a lot, but it means that you get a month to get your website up and running without paying anything. If you can earn at least your next month's payment during the month that you are online free, then you could end up getting all your web hosting without having to spend a cent of your own money. How cool is that?Not all hosts operate their web hosting coupon codes the same way, and some might ask you to enter their web hosting promo code when you are checking out, and the amount of the coupon code will be deducted from your payment. Make sure the deduction is showing before you complete the transaction. However, there are other ways to operate such discount coupons other than by a flat deduction.Some might offer you a free trial, or close to it; Hostgator were very successful with their 1 cent trial that you could only get by entering a valid Hostgator web hosting coupon code into the box they provided when you signed up for the trial. You can also be offered either a flat amount of cash off, such as $10 or $50 or even much more than that, or a percentage off your total cost, such as 50% off. That way, the more you spend the more you save, and is a way of web hosts using coupon codes to sell their more expensive web hosting packages.Your coupon code might entitle you to free domain name registration rather than anything off the hosting itself. This is of value only when you buy the cheaper hosting packages, since each domain costs only around $10 a year, although some web hosting companies offer more than one free domain, making it a more attractive offer. You might be offered free hosting further down the line, such as three months free after paying three months. You don't save immediately, but will later on.To find the best coupon code for you, you should first decide upon what kind of web hosting package you require. Don't choose your hosting package on the basis of the coupon codes available for it. You could ultimately end up paying more than you need rather than saving. Decide what is most appropriate for you and look for a web hosting coupon code to suit that kind of package. You might have a favorite hosting company, or already know what you need.Once you find the coupon code, make sure that it is active. Many are past their use by date, so look for an active coupon code that applies to the package you have chosen. However, where should you go to find the best coupon codes? An online search might work, but frequently you find a bewildering array of offers, and it is generally better to look for a web hosting review site that compares web hosting companies and the different packages they offer, and then provides you with coupon codes for each.That's by far the best way, and that way you can check out a number of popular web hosts, the packages and prices they offer and then get the active web hosting coupon codes available for your choice. That's far better than trawling through page after page of sites all offering the same codes for the same web hosts. Far better!

How to Switch Web Hosts With Virtually No Downtime

There are many reasons on why you could be switching web hosts, more storage space, better features, less downtime etc, and for some this migration to a new web host seems pretty impossible, but it can be done and with very little to no downtime at all! If you have already acquired a new host and have stumbled upon the internet's age old question of "What do I do now?" Its a fairly straight forward question once you brush all the stuff you shouldn't be doing out of the way first. One thing you should not do is panic, understand while switching to a new web host might take a full day for the switch to happen while the internet works its redirecting magic on your newly acquired server.The first thing you should do is backup literally everything on your old host, all files, all folders all your information. This data you are backing up will be your new website so don't leave any pieces out. While your backing up all your files and folder, don't overlook backing up any databases you have made, its best to back up your databases as well, even if some of them are being used for testing purposes and will never be gazed upon by the millions and millions of internet users, its better to be safe then sorry. While obtaining extensive backups of everything, if you want to go the extra mile you might want to take a notepad out (Yes actual paper, remember that stuff?) and physically write down your old logins for your previous host and new logins for your new host, once again, its better to be safe then sorry.Backed up data should be easily accessible and also copied to CD/DVD for safe storage in case something goes haywire. This will give you a physical copy of your sensitive information. Your new host should have provided you with their Domain Name Server address which might look something like this (dns1.newwebhost.com) or something similar in form, chances are they probably gave you two DNS's so not only do you have dns1.newwebhost.com but in addition another dns2.newwebhost.com, these are very important to you, these DNS's will be the newly redirected path for your old site. Make sure to have these DNS addresses written down at least for easy access.Also you should make duplicates of your email accounts on your new cPanel(if available) since you will need those new accounts to be functional from the get-go, this should be fairly simple compared to the rest of the configurations you are doing so just take your time and write down all your new host's mail information such as, email username, SMTP server, pop server, IMAP server and which ports they use. This is needed as most hosts tend to change which ports they use for email.Your next step before making the big leap would be to upload all your backed up data to your new web host, think of it as you have two folders on your desktop, named "oldwebhost" and "newwebhost" your backed up data needs to be copied over to your new web space so start uploading (copying) your data directly to your new web space. Do your best to keep folder structures as close as possible to how they were from your old configuration as this will help you should you run into any snags during the transition. Remember, our old host is still online showing the same old website, we haven't turned off anything yet, we just turned on out new web host and began copying our data over to the new web host. Your site should still be 100% functional and operational.Once all your data has been copied over to the new host, make sure to create replicas of any databases you created with your old web hosting. Make sure they are the same database version (example, MySQL 4.0 or mysql5.0 are different versions and may cause errors). We are making an exact mirror of our old website on the new website so when we pop the new web host's DNS address into the old web host's settings the transfer will be as seamless as possible. in order to do this we will need everything from the new web host data to be as close to the old web host data as possible.Ok, so by now you should have extensive backups of all your data, your new web host's DNS address (ns1.newwebhost.com & dns2.newwebhost.com), created new databases on your new web host with the same information as your old databases from your old hosts, and if you are really serious, about 50 sticky notes on your monitor reminding you "everything is going to be ok" over and over. Once you are completely sure everything is copied to the new web host, files folders, databases, oh yea and email accounts don't forget those. Its probably a good idea to have a splash page on your old web host stating "we are updating some stuff so there might be technical difficulties" this will let your visitors know that if they experience some errors or issues that its only temporary and to not mock your site and never come back.Its now time to point your old website to your new website. There should be some DNS settings in your old web host's control panel, sorry I can't help much here since each uses different control panel interfaces, if you've browsed around your control panel and can't fine anything with DNS settings, it would be best to contact your old web host's administrator and ask them for help as that goes beyond the scope of this article. If you found your DNS settings on your old web host however, and feel confident to proceed, enter your new web host's DNS address(s) into your old web host's DNS control panel, dns1 should be your primary address and dns2 will be your secondary (Remember your DNS addresses may vary, this is just a general layout of what your DNS addresses might look like).With your new DNS addresses plugged into your old web host, its now the waiting game, it will usually take up to 24 hours sometimes longer sometimes shorter for the new DNS to resolve throughout the internet or (get to workn). With a little bit of luck your site will not go down at all, but if it does it will be minimal (5-10 minutes at most) intervals until the new DNS changes take full effect. I've done the following procedure with this website and it really works! See I do kinda know what I'm talking about!Congratulations! You have successfully migrated a website from one web host to another. Once your website seems to have completely resolved the DNS (This should be at least a day later) You can remove your folders and files from your old site and remove any databases you have setup on your old web host.That should be it in a nutshell. Feel free to post a comment below if you have any questions, comments or problems following this article, I'm gonna go learn me a book now. bye bye!*NoteBe prepared to deal with minor bugs or issues if they arise, other then that everything should be smooth sailing.

Basic Web Hosting Needs and Linux Hosting Server Advantages

While browsing through the internet it does not matter which kind of server is used for hosting your site. Different web servers are utilized for various purpose of many website. The opinions of the various customers differ and thus they choose web servers according to their needs to promote their site ahead of the others in their required market area.If your website has complex features or you have an e-commerce site that has typical database functionality with enormous dynamic pages of your services or products, then the type of your web server will depend on your requirements.Small business firms who have tiny budget to promote themselves generally require these following things to host their site. These basic things of a host can be very crucial for those who are going to introduce their new business into their required business market arena.1. Web Space: Web space should be given the first importance from your end. This is the place where your all files like html pages, images, video files will be stored. Nowadays web host packages propose enough disk space to host your site at your budget.2. Databases hosting: Hosting the database of your website is really very crucial for your budget. If you don't have any special fascination about MS-SQL then you should choose My-SQL database, because it will work more or less same as MS-SQL databases but the expenditure to hosting the database or server will be exceptionally less.3. POP3 e-Mail Access: For a professional appearance of your business you need an e-mail account from the same domain name of yours. Nowadays most of the webs hosts are give you a POP3 email account setup for your business use along with their packages. When choosing your hosting plan just you need to overview it.4. Security: Secured hosting plans should require for any kind of web business. All small business owners are seeking more or less web security for growing their business into their business market area through internet. Thus this issue should be checked before choosing any web hosting firm.5. 24/7 support service: It is quite natural to face problems while hosting your site or it may be possible that your web server unfortunately may go down any moment. Thus you need to hire those web hosting firms who will guarantee the 24/7 customer support service to their clients.6. Price: People are searching for cheap web hosting packages to host their website and this is necessary from their own view point. Thus for all small business owners Linux web hosting packages are competitively cheaper than others.Linux web hosting is cheaper. The reason must be searched in licensing costs that are lower from Windows hosting plans and in the ability of Linux hosting servers to support higher web sites as per server ratio without compromising the quality of service.Advantages of Linux server hosting1. Linux web hosting packages are competitively cheaper than others hosting packages.2. Linux web servers can hold vast web sites without negotiating the quality of service.3. As Linux is known as open source software product it can afford less licensing cost which in turn reduces the hosting fees.4. Linux website can easily bee converted to any Windows based site with no disturbance.5. While using the Linux hosting you can easily access all cheaper web database systems like My-SQL database which can reduce the expenditure.6. Inexpensive scripting language like My-SQL, PHP, Perl etc. are also accessible for your website while hosting your site from Linux server.7. It is generally known that Linux web hosting servers are much secured than any other hosting servers. The security issue is satisfactorily organized in Linux hosting.

Web Hosting?

Choosing the right Web Hosting package for you can be a bewildering task. With so many packages, prices, terms, conditions, companies and countries vying for your business, it's important that you understand what you need, so you can choose a company who can give you what you want.So here's a list of the major types of Web Hosting available on the market - what they are, and what they're suitable for. And to make it a bit easier, we'll follow the career of Dave*, a budding web entrepreneur making his first forays into the world of Web Hosting.Free HostingFree Hosting is exactly that, and although the old adage 'you get what you pay for' doesn't exactly apply - as you are getting something, after all - Free Hosting is not recommended for anyone with any kind of serious aspirations for their site. Of course we offer Web Hosting so we would say that, right? Well, the two main things to consider when looking at Free Hosting are 1 - someone has to pay for it, and 2 - what happens if something goes wrong.With regards to the first point, it's often the case that your Web Hosting is paid for by advertisements on your site, and as that is what makes the Web Host their money, they could well be as interested in advertising on your site as they are in getting you to use their service so they can have more adverts. This leads on to point two - what kind of support do you think you will get from a company that is giving you something for free? What kind of guarantees can you have that your Web Hosting is reliable or secure?It is also common for Internet Service Providers (ISP's), amongst others, to offer Free Hosting as part of a package with other services (such as Broadband or Digital TV). These are better solutions as they obviously come attached to a reputable (well...) company, and will be able to provide support. Again, though, remember that it is their other service that pay for your Hosting - the Hosting is an enticing extra. Support may well suffer, too, if the company specialises in other products and services.Some companies, for instance Blogger, will offer free online spaces for specific sites (in Blogger's case, you get a free online blog). However, you're limited to what you can do with the templates they give you, and you won't be able to expand your site or even have your own domain name. So, only go for Free Hosting if you are completely satisfied that the company will be able to provide you with what you want. We wouldn't advise choosing Free Hosting for a business-related site in any circumstance!In Dave's instance, he has been given some Free Hosting as part of a deal with his ISP. Dave's never made a website of his own before, and he's certainly never had any Web Hosting. He's interested but a bit lost, and manages to build a basic, personal site with only a few difficulties. He stumbles across Wordpress and finds that he doesn't get any databases with his Free Hosting. As the Hosting is part of his package - and free - his ISP don't have any facility to upgrade his account. Dave decides he wants his blog on the Internet, and after talking to one of his friends on Blogger and thinking dreamily about maybe starting an online business, Dave contacts some Web Hosting companies to see what is available to him.Shared HostingThis is the most common form of Web Hosting available. A company sets up one or more servers to be used for Web Hosting, and their customers in turn pay for a portion of that server and share it with other customers. So a server may be responsible for several hundred web sites at a time.Shared Hosting has many advantages. It is the cheapest form of commercial Hosting, as the cost of the server can be offset by the many customers who can use it at once. They don't require advanced technical knowledge to use and you only need to administer your account - at no point do you have anything to do with the server. As it is a paid solution you will have access to customer support, a contract, uptime guarantees and so on.The disadvantage is that, as you are sharing a server with other customers, you are also sharing the resources of that server. The server, just like a home PC, has only so much memory, CPU and disk space available, and if other customers are using it heavily - or if the Web Host has put too many people on the server - or even if the server isn't particularly fast in the first place! - you may well find that your web site appears to be slow.You will also find that Shared Hosting doesn't allow a lot of the advanced, powerful features that higher end options present to you. There is a slight increase in security risk, too, as you can never be sure how secure your 'neighbours' are - but bear in mind that the server will be very secure in the first place, and the risk is not something to be alarmed about.So our friend Dave starts out with a very simple Web Hosting package, with a little web space and a database. He installs Wordpress and starts to blog seriously, and then decides he wants to start his online business. With his basic account he commissions a Web Design Company to build him an eCommerce site, with his blog built in as one of the features. As his store grows, he finds that he can expand his site fairly easily, without having to worry about any limits like he had with the ISP.Shared Hosting is the ideal solution for most sites and users. With a few exceptions, only people who want their own server and/or control over the contents of it will need anything else. So Dave, like many people, is perfectly happy, until he decides to quit his day job, and go full time with his eCommerce site. At this point, Dave, who is a bit more knowledgeable about Web Hosting now, considers if there is anything he can do to improve his site.Reseller HostingReseller Hosting is a generic term that applies to several different kinds of Web Hosting. It isn't a definition of the kind of Web Hosting on offer, as such, as the kind of person offering it.A Hosting Reseller purchases a larger Web Hosting account from a Web Hosting company, and in turn sells portions of their account to their own customers. They are essentially providing the services of a Web Hosting company, without having to set up and finance the expensive hardware and the maintenance of it themselves. This kind of Web Hosting is popular with, for example, start-up Web Hosting businesses, companies with a large portfolio of sites, and Web Design companies wanting to offer Hosting to their clients.A Hosting Reseller may be offering Shared, VPS or Dedicated solutions (see part two). Customers tend to benefit from cheaper Web Hosting as a Reseller often purchases their Web Hosting at a discount. The only major drawback with Reseller Hosting is that the Reseller is also a customer of the company they have bought their Hosting off of in the first place. The more advanced the Hosting they are offering, the more support the Reseller can give you directly - but as a customer of a Reseller, it is possible that you will contact the Reseller about a technical fault, who will then in turn have to contact his or her Hosting company.Reseller Hosting is only of use to Dave if he decides to sell Hosting to other people, or expand his business with a large portfolio of other sites. If he wasn't looking to do either of these he'd probably stick with Shared Hosting - as it is the most common form of Hosting it is also the most popular, and he'd get more use out of it. For now though, Dave thinks he is happy with a single site, he would just prefer to have more control and performance as his site is getting quite busy and he has a few demanding redesign plans in mind. So, in the second part of this article, we'll look at some of the more advanced Web Hosting options available to Dave (and you, of course).*Dave is not real. He is just for illustrative purposes only, and any resemblance to any Dave or any events that have happened to any Dave, living, dead or otherwise, is purely coincidental.

Choosing A Good And Reliable Web Hosting

A Web host owns (or rents) the computer that serves the files of your Web site to your visitors, usually in exchange for a monthly fee. You don't have to cancel your current Internet account to hire a Web host. In fact, many Web hosts don't offer Internet service provider (ISP) service.Those that do need to be local, or it isn't worth it for you. The great thing about your neighborhood ISP is that it's in your neighborhood, and it gives you a local dial-up number. You don't want to have to dial in to Albuquerque whenever you want to browse the Web (unless, of course, you live in Albuquerque).There's a good chance you already have a Web host, even if you don't know it. Many standard Internet accounts come with a healthy amount of server space for personal Web pages. So, the first step in choosing a Web host is to contact your ISP. Find out how much server space comes with your account. If the answer is none, you might want to inform your customer service representative that many of their direct competitors offer this benefit to their subscribers for a lot less than you're currently paying.I want to use my Web site for commercial purposes. Can I host my site on the personal Web space that comes with my Internet service?Why would you want to? For one thing, your ISP usually assigns you a generic Web address, which doesn't make your business look very professional. For another, you don't need the typical lags in response time that you find on the servers of large ISPs. Plus, commercial sites are probably against your ISP's terms of service, and you don't need the hassle of them closing down your site along with your personal email account and Internet connection.If you'd prefer not to use your personal server space for your site, just go to your favorite search engine, and look up Web host to begin your research. Don't be surprised if your results number in the millions.There are many, many, many Web hosts out there. You can't possibly research them all. You need to narrow your optionsand fast. A good way to start is with the names that you recognize: Yahoo!, Earthlink, Netfirms, perhaps also your phone or cable company. If they don't have what you need or want, work your way down the list.Every Web site is different, of course, and only you can make the choice about the right Web host for your particular site. That said, in general, here are a few qualities of good Web hosts:1) Reasonable monthly charge. Shop around, and see what the competitors are offering. Expect to pay between $10 and $25 a month for a typical personal or small business site. Pay less, and your Web host probably makes up the difference by giving you terrible customer support or tacking advertisements onto your site. Pay more, and you're probably buying services and features that you don't need.2) Domain name registration (preferably free). Many of the better Web hosts offer to register your Web site's domain name for you. Some even front you the yearly $35 registration service charge. Keep an eye out for these hosts. They're worth it, even if they tack on a setup charge (as long as it's less than $35).3) Reasonable (or no) setup charge. Some Web hosts tack on a special, one-time service charge to set up your account. Others do not. Many perfectly reputable and reliable Web hosts charge setup fees. Many do not. Those that don't charge setup fees often make up their money elsewhere, so read the fine print. If you go for a fee-charging service, don't pay more than $35, or you're probably being soaked. And if you can catch a fee-charging Web host during one of its "fee waived" promotional periods, do it.4) Upgrade plans. Your site is successful. It grows. You want your Web host to grow with you. Ideally, your host should offer several levels of service at reasonable price points. Start with the cheapest plan and work your way up.5) Reliable customer service (preferably by phone). You need customer service. Period. And don't fall for the usual 24/7 customer-service sales pitch. Any fool with an email account can advertise 24/7 customer service. But is the fool actually reading the emailah, that's the rub. You want a toll-free phone number for customer support. If you don't have 24/7 access to a live human being by telephone, then you don't have 24/7 customer support. It's far better to go with a Web host who offers toll-free phone support during normal business hours than a host who offers 24/7 support by email.6) Server space. Exactly how much server space do you need? You can figure this out pretty easily. Find out the combined file size of your Web site by examining the properties of its local root folder. If your site is 5 MB, then you need at least 5 MB of server space. Generally, you don't need huge amounts of server space, unless your site includes lots of heavy multimedia files, such as MP3s.7) Bandwidth limits. Your Web host measures bandwidth, or the amount of data its computers push to the visitors of your site over a period of time. Typically, you get a monthly limit, and, if you exceed your cap, your host charges you extra. A good data-transfer baseline for a typical personal or small-business Web site is 1 GB. Roughly speaking, one gigabyte of data transfer equals 20,000 page viewsthat's one person viewing one page of your site 20,000 times, or 5,000 people viewing one page of your site four times, or 20,000 people viewing one page of your site one time. It's hard to know exactly how much bandwidth you need, so start low. If you exceed your limit regularly, consider upgrading your plan. Keep in mind: If you offer a total of 1 GB of MP3s on your site, you can exceed 1 GB of bandwidth very quickly.POP3 email accounts. You may or may not want extra email accounts for your site. But if you want them, go for a Web host that provides them. Generally, you want POP3 email instead of Web-based email. POP3 email works with client software such as Microsoft Outlook and Eudora, which let you jump on the Internet quickly, download your mail, and answer it offline. Web-based email requires you to be online to write and receive messages. Many Web hosts count the amount of email that you send and receive over their servers as part of your overall transfer limit, so be sure to take this factor into account.9) Streaming audio/video and other media. If you want to host streaming audio or video files on your site, or even if you want to display Flash animations and other common media types, your Web host needs to be set up to do this. You don't need special service to host Web images such as JPEG, GIF, and PNG.10) FrontPage extensions. Heaven forbid, but if your Web site uses the stupid special effects that come with Microsoft FrontPage, you should find a Web host that doesn't offer FrontPage extensions. This way, the dumb things won't work, and the quality of your site will improve dramatically.11) CGI, server-side scripting, and database access. If your site uses server-side technology to connect to a database, you need a Web host who is set up to do this. You don't have to worry about this level of service if your site sticks to the client side: HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. All the projects in this book are client-side only.12) Site reports. You want a host that gives you access to the data that the Web server collects about the visitors to your site. You want to see where they're from, what browsers they're using, what pages they visit most often, and which sections of the site they seem to be missing. You don't want this information for evil purposes. You want it to help you improve your site. Definitely check into what kind of site reporting tools the host offers.One feature that you definitely don't need is a shopping cart application, "free" or otherwise. Shopping carts that come with Web host plans are generic, overpriced, feature-poor, difficult to customize, and next to impossible to integrate into your site.If you're serious about launching a Web-based retail storefront, you need to hire a programming team to develop a shopping cart application for you.

Combining Web Design Business With Web Hosting Can Generate More Income For Web Designers

Web designers and developers are the foundation of the Internet. If you are skilled in web design or web development you can make a growing income on the Internet. The secret to making money with your web design and development skills is to include web hosting in your web design or web development quotes or standard packages.You can add $50 a month to your income, hosting your client sites with more ease. You don't need to get a dedicated server and you don't need to worry about trying to compete with web hosting companies. What most people think is just getting a website up. They contact the web designers first, without really knowing that there are web designers and web hosts. Terms with "web designer"get more searches per day than terms with "hosting". People are looking for web designers to get their sites on the Internet.Web designers and developers can incorporate the sale of hosting into their web development and design projects. As a web designer you can bill your customers for the hosting fees within the design and then host the account for a year or on a month to month basis. You will be surprised at how much extra income you can generate from your web design customers.Providing hosting for your web design clients will give you greater assurance that your customers will come back to you to make changes or update their site. This allows you to keep generating income from your work and customer base. Let's look at some numbers, and how billing for hosting on top of your web design work can make you some serious money. Let's assume you get paid $500 - $1000+ for a site design. If you charge your client for hosting as well you could generate up to $50 extra per site, per month in hosting fees. You could make up to $1100 to $1600 per site, per year instead of just $500 or $1000 per site. With 100 clients this could equate to $110,000 or $160,000 per year instead of $50,000 - $100,000 per year. On top of this, remember your client is more likely to come back to you to update and maintain your site which means more money for you, for easy work.With a little effort and focus you could generate a very healthy income in your web design business. With tools like Joomla, WordPress and other highly customizable content management systems you can make the hard work incredibly efficient so you can focus solely on the design. Right now there are a myriad of powerful web applications, content management systems and shopping carts you can quickly install in your reseller web hosting account and produce a design for very quickly. There are also a myriad of ready to run, specialist applications written in ASP, ASP.Net and PHP that you can bolt on to your customers site, customize the design for and really impress your them. With these easily installable web applications you can very quickly impress your customers and raise the value of your web design fees - and the fact that they are specialist customized web applications you have put together, your web design customer will be happy to pay your hosting fees.For your design business you don't need anything fancy, you don't need dedicated servers or specialists billing or server management systems. You can utilize the cost efficiencies of shared hosting to maximize your profit. One way to do it and a lot of designers do this, is get a new shared hosting account for each site they design and charge the customer more than they pay.The better way to do it and really maximize your profit is to get a reseller hosting account where you can host all your customer sites in the one hosting account. This works out much cheaper than getting a separate account for each customer site. A good reseller account will give you far more room to move and even greater cost effectiveness which means even more profit and less effort.Getting up and running with a good reseller hosting account is easy and incredibly affordable. For just a few hundred dollars per year you can host 50 or more sites. A quick search on reseller hosting will give you plenty to choose from. In our experience Windows hosting reseller packages are a good idea as a Windows reseller hosting account will give you the freedom and choice to run ASP, ASP.Net as well as PHP sites with MySQL or SQL Server databases. Linux hosting is incredibly efficient and gives you some of the cheap hosting options available but does not support ASP or ASP.Net applications. For an extra few dollars a month you can get Windows hosting and dramatically increase your options for your web design customers from a wider array of available web applications and freely available code in ASP and ASP.Net.With Windows hosting you can use all your favorite web design tools and you'll have the vast resources of Microsoft development products like Visual Studio at your disposal. As a reseller looking at Windows hosting accounts make sure the host offers Multiple IIS sites and not just unlimited domains. To properly host multiple sites on Windows each site needs to have it's own entry in IIS (Internet Information Server - the Windows web server). Many hosts say unlimited domains and what they really mean is running unlimited domains on one site. All you get with unlimited domains on one site, is your multiple domains show the same site or requires you to write code to detect the domain and redirect to a directory. This is not a great way to run your customer sites.With each site having it's own entry IIS means you can have separate application settings, assign it to different application pools and maintain separate log files. This means you can have more control, more flexibility and produce a much better solution for your client. Being able to put your customer sites in separate application pools means that if one of your customer sites get's busy or some crazy bug causes a problem it will isolate it to just that site and you wont end up with all your customers screaming at you that their sites are down.After 12 years working on the internet. Through booms, through busts, good times and bad times web designers and developers quietly rule the web. Businesses of all sizes look for web designers first and in our experience they really don't want to know too much about hosting. As a designer you can save your clients from the complexity and confusion of hosting and make money from it. To make money from hosting your client work you really don't need to leap out and set yourself up as a web hosting provider with billing systems, hosting plans and support systems and processes. Start off by hosting all your sites in one reseller hosting package and you'll be surprised at just how much extra money you can make for very little effort. The best thing of all you can keep your focus on why you became a web designer - designing web sites!

Why Should You Host Your Web Site With Yahoo Web Hosting

When you start looking for a company to host your business web site, you will find a lot of "budget" web hosts advertising low monthly fees. Like many other situations in life, with web hosting you often get exactly what you pay for. Some budget hosts have good features, service and support, but to be assured of getting the best hosting value, your best choice is Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting.When shopping for web hosting, price is the last thing you should consider. While Yahoo Small Business does have competitive pricing for its web hosting services, cost is not the primary reason for choosing Yahoo web hosting.Above all, your business or web site needs reliable web hosting. You count on your web site to represent your business online. You must have a web host you can depend on. Yahoo Small Business web hosting is a part of Yahoo, one of the oldest and most respected Internet companies. When you choose Yahoo web hosting, you're choosing to work with a company you know you can trust.For business web sites, unlimited hosting is essential. You cannot grow your business if you're worried about exceeding your allotted file storage or, worse, getting "too much" traffic and having your site shut down for using too much bandwidth. Yahoo Small Business offers unlimited file storage, data transfer and email storage. You"ll never have to upgrade your Yahoo web hosting account or find your site suspended for exceeding your bandwidth limits. Because Yahoo Small Business web hosting is designed for growing businesses, you"ll have the room you need to grow your online presence.One thing many business owners worry about, and rightfully so, is designing and maintaining a great-looking site that really expresses what their business is about. When you sign up with Yahoo Small Business, you can build your Yahoo web site yourself, without hiring a designer, and finish in a fraction of the time and at no added cost.Yahoo Small Business web hosting offers an excellent online design tool that makes designing your site easy and intuitive. The design tool includes a checklist to help you get going if you've never built a site before. You can choose a professionally designed template, and customize it to fit your needs. Many businesses find templates specially designed for their industry, and only need to plug in their company information to have a site ready to go.One of the selling points of the budget web hosting sites is low price. Yahoo Small Business is priced affordably and, in fact, offers unlimited web hosting at a lower monthly rate than many so-called "budget" hosts. With Yahoo web hosting, there is no setup fee, and rates start at $8.96 per month for the first three months. In addition to unlimited web hosting and free web design tools, Yahoo Small Business web hosting offers tech support around the clock, backed by the name and reputation of Yahoo.When you're choosing a web host, you will find that Yahoo Small Business web hosting's service, features and price are more than a match for any other web host.

What Web Hosting Type is Right For You

When is comes to web hosting, you have many options to choose from. Depending on the type of website you want to build, you can choose from free web hosting, standard hosting, shared web hosting, dedicated hosting, or co-location web hosting. For those who are unfamiliar with some of these options, deciding which host to choose can be daunting and time consuming.Free Web Hosting
If you want to create a personal web page or a small website for non-business use, then free web hosting is a good option. Instead of paying monthly fees, you agree to allow the service to post online ads on your site. While you have no control over the types of ads, free web hosting is an option for those who have a small budget or those who want to test their website first before investing money in a more expensive web host service.Standard Hosting
Most web hosting services that cater to small and medium businesses fall into this category. Unlike free web hosts, you will have to pay a start-up fee and a monthly fee to use the services provided by the host. There is a wide array of features available through these types of web hosts. Common features include:- Website creation tools- Reports and website statistics- 100 or more email addresses- Free domain name- Varying amounts of disk space, file storage and bandwidth- Access to multiple scripts- Ability to manage your site through a control panelWhen researching standard web hosts, look carefully at what they have to offer. Some offer different monthly packages that contain more features than others.Dedicated Hosting
If you don't want to share a server with other websites, you can choose a dedicated web hosting service or a web host that provides these types of options. While this will cost more each month, you will have more control over the server. This means you can schedule maintenance, upgrades and other events at your convenience.Shared Web Host
Even though most websites that rely on standard web hosting services are stored on shared servers, many web hosting services offer 'shared web hosting', which means you will only share a server machine with one or two other subscribers instead of hundreds.
If you're looking for a way to reduce your risk of cyber theft or hacking, sharing a server with as few subscribers as possible can help. This service will cost more than standard web hosting.Co-location
Co-location is similar to dedicated web hosting, except you only pay for an Internet connection and storage for your equipment. You will be responsible for purchasing and maintaining a server machine. For those who want to have complete control over their business, co-location is the best option available. There are two types of co-location, managed and unmanaged. If your company lacks an IT department, you can turn over management responsibilities to the web host. If your company has an IT department, then you will just have to pay for the Internet connection and the storage costs.Before you choose a web host you should take into consideration what type of web hosting you will require for your business. The type of web hosting offered is just as important as the quality of your chosen web host.

How To Choose A Web Host?

Today, if you look around the internet you can find lots and lots of web hosts. So much so that you may not know which web host to choose. It is important to make a right choice while selecting a web host because many factors need to be taken into account. It is important to make a right choice right from the start because it is very hard to move from one web host to another. As moving from one web host to another may require a significant amount of effort and a significant amount of money as well.When choosing a web host one of the most important features that you must look at is customer support. Customer support can save you from a lot of trouble and probably some money as well. Customer support enables you to report a problem, or ask for help whenever you need it, that is why it is an important feature to have. If possible, try to make sure that your web host has 24/7 customer support. 24/7 customer support is needed because a problem may occur anytime, however you need to be careful to ensure that your web host does indeed provide 24/7 customer support. You can check if your web host has 24/7 customer support by contacting their customer support a few times to test them.The next feature that you will need to look at is disc space and bandwidth. Disc space is the amount of space that is available to you. Bandwidth on the other hand refers to the amount of information that can be transferred. For example, if you have a page that is 75KB. Whenever some one views that page 75KB of you bandwidth would be used. There is no exact way to determine how much disc space and bandwidth you will need. It is impossible to determine how much disc space and bandwidth you will need because each persons needs is different from one another. A word of advice here is that don't get tricked by web host that claim that they will provide 500GB of disc space and 2TB of disc space for $6.95. It is impossible for a web host to provide that kind of service at that kind of price because the cost of doing so will be much more than profit. If you see that a web host claim to give extraordinary amount of disc space and bandwidth than the particular web host is overselling. Overselling gives the ability to the web host to provide more disc space and bandwidth to their customer than they have, however if the web host runs out of disc space and bandwidth you will not get what you have been promised. So beware of web hosts with extraordinary claims especially if the price is at rock bottom.Another feature that you need to look at when choosing a web host is uptime. Uptime is important because if your website is not up no one will see your website. If no one can see your website what is the point of having a website at all. The amount of uptime that you are looking for is 99.9% uptime. 100% uptime although may seem good is not entirely good. 100% uptime may mean that the web host does not update their server or do regular maintenance which may result in sloppy server performance or even cause the server to crash. However 100% uptime is possible but only if the web host perform several complex procedures which may be very costly.One more feature, that you will need to look at when choosing a web host is the Operating System (OS) which is being used. Typically there are two types of OS which are used by web hosts on their server. The two types of OS are Windows and Linux. It is important to look at the OS because depending on the OS you can install different types of script on your web hosting account. Personally I prefer Linux based servers because Linux based servers are more flexible because Linux open sourced. Open source basically mean that people can modify the software giving Linux more flexibility and variety compared to Windows.The last feature that you need to look at when choosing a web host is expandability. Expandability is often neglected by people when choosing a web host. Expandability is basically the ability to expand. The ability to expand is very important because a web site will grow and when a website does grow it will demand for more resources. If the most powerful package of a web host is the one you need right from the start chances are that is not the right web host for you because you cannot grow anymore if you need to do so.All in all, always remember to look at customer support, disc space and bandwidth, uptime, OS, and expandability when choosing a web host. Another piece of advice when choosing a web is to not choose a web host depending on the price. This is because a cheap web host may not be a good web host.

7 Tips - Choosing A Web Hosting Provider

If you are looking for a web hosting provider to host your website or blog, there are several features that you should consider before purchasing the cheapest package you can find. Not all web hosting providers offer the same services for comparable prices. You need to carefully scan each offer and look for the features that you require to host your website.1. Disk SpaceDisk space, or web space, is the term used to describe the amount of information that you can store via your web hosting account. Whether you'll be using HTML, images, sound or video files, they all take up disk space from your web hosting account.Now-a-days, even the cheapest shared web hosting packages offer plenty of disk space to host your site. Do not settle for less than 1 gigabyte of disk space even if you don't need it. Most web hosting providers offer their clients hundreds of gigabytes at incredibly cheap monthly fees.2. Monthly Transfer VolumeThe monthly transfer volume, also known as bandwidth, is a term used to describe the amount of information that your particular web hosting account can receive and send during the month.Most web hosting accounts will give you many Gigabytes of bandwidth per month. The more traffic your website receives, the higher your bandwidth will be. Keep an eye on this traffic. If it gets close to your monthly limit, consider moving to a higher web package that offers a higher monthly bandwidth.Web hosting providers that offer a high starting bandwidth means that you'll be able to stay in that plan longer which is a benefit to you. Most good web hosting providers will offer bandwidth in the range of 250 Gigabytes to over 1 Terabyte of monthly traffic.3. Linux vs. Windows HostingMost beginner web hosting packages will offer Linux based web hosting simply because it's often cheaper for them to run. However, Linux is an extremely fast and reliable operating system. Most Linux systems run the Apache web server which accounts for over 50% of the Internet's web hosts. It does not matter that you are creating your web pages on a Windows PC. They can be hosted on a Linux server without any problems.Window web hosting is ideal for those requiring Active Server Pages (ASP) functionality or need better integration with Microsoft SQL server.Linux plans normally tend to be slightly cheaper, which is why you'll see more of them around. This is probably your best option unless you have specific requirements that only a Microsoft server can meet.4. Web DatabasesWhether it's a MySQL or Microsoft SQL database that you need, make sure that the web hosting plan you purchase has access to some. Even if you don't need it initially, you may need it in the future and most beginner hosting plans offer at least access to one database in their packages. Plan ahead and save yourself headaches later on as you expand your website.These databases have a wide variety of uses. From storing proprietary information for your company to forming the back-end storage for blog add-ons such as Wordpress or Joomla, you will need to have access to a database to make these features work.5. e-Mail Space and POP3 / IMAP AccessIf you want a professional appeal for your site, an e-mail account with your business name is vital. This shouldn't be too much of a problem since most web hosting packages now give you access to POP3 and IMAP accounts to setup for your business use. Just make sure there are enough accounts for each employee who needs access to e-mail on your business site and that there is enough web e-mail space for all those combined users. E-Mail space is usually quoted as a separate listing from web space. Pay close attention to what the web hosting provider gives you since this space is divided up between all allocated e-mail users.6. Free Website Plug-In ScriptsThese are scripts that are available for you to automatically install as needed. Most web hosting companies use the Fantastico Deluxe set of scripts. Some of the scripts included are: Wordpress, Joomla, PHP Nuke, Help Center scripts, Polls and Survey software, Guestbooks, and Form-mail scripts to name a few.The automation allows for very simple integration with your website. Many of these products are very powerful and robust packages, so this is an excellent add-on to have available.7. Secure Shell (SSH) AccessBeing able to log into your web hosting account and make changes from the command line to your web pages is an incredibly convenient feature. However, power users will benefit the most from this option since some knowledge of the underlying operating system, Linux, is required to navigate easily.Not all web hosting providers offer this service, so if you feel you may need it, make sure to find out ahead of time whether or not it's available. Some offer it free as part of the package, others have it listed as a paid add-on.Conclusion:The Internet is filled with literally thousands of web hosting companies all claiming to be better than the other. Do your homework and compare several top web hosting companies before making your decision to buy.In addition to finding a web hosting provider with the web features you want, make sure they have been in the hosting business for some time and developed a reputation for reliability, 99% server up-time, high customer service satisfaction, and a large and growing user base. Remember, when a visitor goes to your web site, any problems that happen reflect on you, since the end-user does not know (or care) who your web hosting provider is. Therefore, choose a rock solid web hosting company that will satisfy your business needs.

Getting New Web Hosting Service for Your Web Site

Due to Various inefficiencies of Old Web Hosting provider like poor technical
support, down web server, inability of old provider to met with your
requirements, expensive web hosting service, an Online Business owner decided
to go for a new Web Hosting provider. Because of all above-mentioned and many
more not in the list you would opt for new web hosting service.
So the next step is to transfer your web site from current web host to new web
host which can be done by following the under mentioned steps.Transferring of Schedule For transferring the old web hosting, planning should be done in advance, at least one month before so as to ensure smooth transfer, as transferring in less
than one month can led to inaccessibility of your web site.
Registering new web hosting service.Once the above step is complete, user must go for a new web hosting service and
must sign it accordingly within 24 hours so as to enable new account earliest.Taking Files Backup.As soon as you created a new web hosting account, you should take back up of
all your web files for the new provider. Generally you already have all files
of your web site on your local computer still it is beneficial to backup all
your files from old web server.Further including HTML files, backup of any script file, database file and even
of server logs file should be taken. Thereafter create a directory structure
similar to directory structure on web server and then load the file in their
respective directory.Uploading of filesYou will receive a notification email from your new web-hosting provider after
the notification of your new web hosting account. Information needed to set up
a website including FTP server information all will be provided within that
email. With the help of that FTP information user can now FTP his new
web-hosting server and can upload all his files. First the user should create a
directory structure and then can upload all his files in their respective
directories. User can also install any script file or databases if used in his
website and also should setup his email accounts with the help of
administration panel.After finishing of uploading of all the files and installation of script files
or databases temporary URL can be used to test the new site. This temporary URL
can be obtained from through notification email from new web hosting provider.Testing of new websiteThe new website can be tested online by using temporarily URL directory. As
different web hosting server require different server environment to work,
that's why user needs to verify all the scripts like CGI, Perl if they are
working as per the requirement or not. Further all the hyperlinks should be
tested in the normal web pages so as to confirm that no broken links are there.
Your website hosted on the old web hosting provider is continued to be
operational, even when you are testing through the temporary URL directory.Transferring of domain nameAfter finishing of testing new website on the temporary URL and verification of
its perfect execution, next step is to contact the new domain name registrar so
as to change the old domain name server to point the new DNS of the web hosting
provider. There after the user will get DNS information through email after he
finishes the successful registration with new web hosting provider and also
would get the information from website of his new web hosting provider.
The purpose of Domain name servers is to control how to resolve the domain
name. Commonly the domain names are in following format:NS1.THE-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COMNS2.THE-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COMSome domain name registrar requires the IP addresses of the DNS. In this case
you have to provide the IP addresses of your new DNS. For example:NS1: 216.193.194.212NS2: 216.193.207.106DNS record to change and propagate through all the WHOIS servers takes
typically 24 to 72 hours. Whois tools can be use on Internet
to monitor the status of DNS transfer. New DNS will be displayed once the
transfer is complete. Even minor modifications are possible like the user can
upload his own file or picture to the new web-hosting server. When the user
checks his homepage through the normal domain name he can notice the new home
page, which makes sure that transfer of DNS is successful.Final Testing Now, your website on the new web hosting provider is officially transferred and
online. You should repeat all the tests to ensure it is fully functional.
Thereafter you can go ahead to terminate your old web hosting account after the
final confirmation is received.

How to Choose a Reliable Web Hosting Provider

Learning how to choose a reliable web host for your web hosting needs is an important and difficult decision. Make sure that you prepare a detailed list of your web hosting requirements before you start searching to find the most suitable web host. Here are few 'verification' points to make sure that your web host is reliable.

Past performance: Go through the web site of the host to find out details like how long the host has been around, up time commitment (I will come to this later), any awards that the web host has won, any well known sites that are being hosted by this provider (normally a list of clients can be found on the host's site or you may find testimonials). These should provide you with a sufficient amount of confidence in the first place to deal with this specific web host.


Up time:This is a very important feature. Web sites hosted on the servers of a particular web hosting provider are subject to technical problems and things can happen and servers crash. This means that during this period if a web surfer comes to see your site, they will be unable to view it. Normally represented as a percentage, this value gives you the idea of the time the sites hosted by the particular host are up and working fine. A value above 98% is good. Nowadays many web hosts guarantee a certain percentage of up-time like 99.8%. This is exceptional.


Flexibility: A flexible web hosting plan is useful because you can start with a minimum plan and later upgrade to another hosting plan when your needs grows. Web Hosts who provide only one kind of plan are always not useful for everyone.


Cost and features: Compare the features and costs of a few web hosting providers. See if the features match your need. Also make sure that all basic requirements are covered and also check out the availability of latest technologies on the hosting feature list. Even if you don't need them, this can show the reliability of the provider.


Payment plans: Check out very carefully the payment plans of the web hosting provider. A monthly payment plan is always good even if it costs you a few dollars more. You always have the choice to change providers at any time you want. Most web hosts now provide a 30 day money back guarantee period.


Support: This is something you will need the most. What kind of support the web hosting company provides the clients such as telephone support, email, FAQ sections, etc... Maybe a dedicated discussion board or forum will help as well. Also check on the delay in responses especially for the email support service. A web hosting provider who supports clients 24-7 is an excellent feature.


Backup: Last but not least. Recently we have been hearing a lot about sites with tons and tons of pages disappearing. Why, because of some technical problems on the servers and no backups. No one likes to see their years of hard work disappear within a few seconds. Now, many reliable web hosting service providers have a daily automatic backup feature.

Learning how to choose a reliable web host for your web hosting needs is really about what is important to you and your needs!

How To Spot A Short Lifespan Web Host

Have you ever visited a web hosting site and thought that what they where offering was to good to be true?If that was the case, it's more than likely it is. There are thousands of new web hosting companies starting each year, and a large portion of those companies have no experience in servers or the most common type of software used for web hosting, CPanel. These are just a few things that new web hosting companies bring along with their company. So how do you spot a short lifespan web host? Well I'm glad you asked.Have you seen a hosting company offer Proxy Hosting along with Web Hosting?One of the most common things you'll see from a web hosting company that is fairly new is, they will offer Proxy Web Hosting, and host regular web hosting account on the same server. Now for those that do not know the negative side of that combination, here is a brief explanation.-Proxies are websites that lets users on the net view websites using a different IP address other than their own. Now, Proxies are one of the top used types of websites on the internet.Proxies take a huge about of CPU usage on a server, meaning, if the web hosting companies server cannot handle a site that uses 20% or more CPU usage, it may be a bad thing to host proxies.Now these new web hosting company owners do not know this, and where they make their first and sometimes last mistake is, they place both types of web hosting accounts on the same server, causing downtime for both unique types of websites (proxies and regular web hosting accounts).This in return places a bad reputation on their company's name early in the stage of their development.*So my tip there is, ask the web hosting company if they allow proxies, and if they do, ask them do they place them on the same server as regular web hosting accounts. If they do, I advise you to stay away from that web hosting company.*So what else should I look for to spot a short lifespan web host? Well I'm glad you asked.Have you ever seen a web hosting company that offers Unlimited Disk Space, and Unlimited Bandwidth?If you have, this can either be positive or a negative thing to sign up for. What do I mean about that? Well, some hosting companies when they first start out like I did, offer these types of deals just to spread their companies name, and provide great support to bring in more recommendations to their company. Another thing a great hosting company will do like I did with my current web hosting company is, limit the number of accounts that someone can sign up for.If a web hosting company has an unlimited number of spots available that one can sign up for, that's a good sign that the company is new, have no knowledge of how crowded the server is going to become, and will not be around much longer.If web hosting companies say they offer "unlimited" bandwidth, they have no knowledge of how bandwidth works, and therefore you are going to have poor support when random issues come up with the server. The reason I say that is, there is NO such thing as "unlimited" bandwidth, but there is such a thing as "un-metered" bandwidth.What is un-metered bandwidth?Un-metered bandwidth is simply when the datacenter or the place the reseller is receiving their hosting from, doesn't put a cap on the amount of transfer (bandwidth) they give out to their clients.*So my tip here is, is a web hosting company listing some of their offers stating they give out unlimited bandwidth, beware! The owner or manager of that company has limited or no experience at all in the web hosting business, and therefore cannot give you the support you deserve.These are only two things to look for to notice if a web hosting company is going to be a short lifespan web host. In my next lens coming soon, I will give you more tips and secrets behind the scenes of a short life web host.