Things That A Multiple Web Hosting Service Must Have

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

If you have multiple websites, then multiple web hosting is the best option for you. This is nothing but the expanded version of single web hosting. With single web hosting, you are looking for hosting of a single website, but with multiple web hosting, you are hosting several websites with the same service. The fees that you are paying them go toward the hosting services for all these websites and also for registering their domain names. Typically, there should be no other fees involved in the package that they provide you. But if there are additional fees, you need to look at them carefully.

Now, if you are going for a multiple website hosting package, you need to look for some things. The following is a checklist of the things that you must make sure you are getting with the service.

1.    The first thing you need to look at is the server up time. With multiple sites this is going to become a problem. If the up time is high, you are going to lose out on a lot. See what other people are saying about the service you are contemplating and whether you should go ahead with it or not.
2.    Check out the band width. If you are going to host more websites, it is understandable why you would want a higher band width. With less band width, the speed with which your website loads on the user’s browsers becomes slower and that can get frustrating.
3.    Another very important and related thing that you have to check is that you should have a vast amount of disk space on the server, preferably unlimited. Most multiple web hosting services provide unlimited band width as well as hosting space. Later in the day when your websites will begin to grow, a smaller space on the website will be a big detriment.
4.    If you are buying multiple web hosting, you can expect some things to be thrown in for free. Some of the multiple web-hosting providers provide free domain name registration. You could shop around a bit and find out about such a service. It could save you some costs when already your initial investment is high for multiple websites.
5.    Are your websites ecommerce? If you are launching an enterprise out here on the Internet, chances are that your websites are ecommerce. If so, you will need to look specifically for what features the hosting providers have. They must mention ecommerce explicitly. Note that not all hosting providers have ecommerce capabilities worked in.
6.    Check the scripts that they will allow. If your different websites use different scripts, you have to see that your web hosting provider is compatible with all of them.
7.    Similarly, you need to check if they provide some site building software applications. Do not be surprised; a lot of free web hosting providers on the Internet provide for such free services.
8.    They may also provide some email accounts that you can use for your business purposes. Check how many they provide.
9.    Check whether they will allow you to put up multimedia content on all your websites.
10.    Of course, you have to make sure that their customer support is commendable. You should settle for nothing less than live 24/7 support because that is what most of them provide.

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The Web Hosting You Choose Helps Your Brand Identity

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

Most webmasters do not think about this in advance, but the web hosting that they choose does have a bearing on the kind of brand identity that they have. We are not just speaking about the domain name here, though that is important too. The name that you choose is, after all, a brand in itself. You have to be very careful when you are choosing your domain name; that is beyond any question. When choosing the domain name, you must not be overtly conscious just about its search engine value, but you must take care that it also has some recall value. Think of www.yahoo.com or www.wikipedia.com. These names mean nothing actually, and when they were planned, there was nothing like SEO in making these names. But today they are so highly popular that they never need any introduction. So the domain name is important in branding.

But our discussion is not about your domain name or your company name. What we are here to tell is that the web hosting you choose influences the kind of brand identity you create. Now consider the following example.

Suppose you were to be on a free web hosting service. Of course, you are saving money, but what about the reputation of your website? If you are thinking that the end user will not come to know whether you are on a free or a paid hosting plan, think again. When you are on free web hosting, you will have to put up with banner ads and popup ads on your website. You will not be able to post certain kinds of content. Your website name will be tagged to the name of the host that is providing you the service. Do you think your end user will not come to know about all this?

Well, it will torment them even as they are using your service. Imagine a user coming to your website for information and being slapped with a popup ad right in their face. They are certainly not going to like this. Chances are that they will not want to return to your website at all.

It is now very clear to see why web hosting is an important ingredient in the overall impression that your website creates. You have to make absolutely sure that the web hosting service you select is on par with the standards you are expecting of it. The best way to do that is to go for paid or, better, a dedicated web hosting service.

With either of them, you are buying space to host your site. This space is yours and yours alone, and no one but you will decide whether you want to share it with advertisers or not. You have complete freedom to use this space the way you want, and make the kind of website you want. Yes, being paid services, they will set back your budget a bit, but if they are providing something as vital as branding to your commercial website, they are something that you just cannot ignore.

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The Pros And Cons Of Dedicated Web Hosting

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

Dedicated web hosting is when you have a server for yourself. You can upload your website on this server from where it will be available on the Internet. This is in contrast to the shared web hosting concept where several website owners will be allocated a particular amount of space on the server which they will have to share with each other. In shared web hosting, the website owners have to share the bandwidth and the amount of web space that is completely available on the server. Due to that, their bandwidth and web space is lesser than what a dedicated server will provide. This seems to be the best advantage of dedicated web hosting.

There are two kinds of dedicated web hosting that are available, which are known as managed and unmanaged. In the managed web hosting, the web host manages most of the technical aspects of the website such as the applications needed to make it live. Because the host manages all these services, the website owner has the freedom of concentrating on most important tasks such as building the website and taking care of the business that it runs. In case the website operates a big business, managed dedicated web hosting becomes the best choice to choose.

Apart from the various features that the managed service will provide, there is also the fact that the dedicated web hosting service will provide almost unlimited bandwidth and web space to the website operator. This will ensure that the website will never be cramped for space in case the space available on it will expand in the long run. Most websites need to change their hosting after they have become popular and build in content, because of this reason. However, with a dedicated web server, this will never be a problem because the entire server and all its resources will be owned by the webmaster.

At the same time, dedicated web hosting provides restriction-free usage. There is no restriction on what kind of scripting tools can be used, what kind of content can be managed on it, what genre the website must belong to, etc. These are limitations found with shared and free web hosting services.

The best part is having a managed dedicated web hosting. When the web hosting is managed, the website does not have to bother about problems of security, about the tools needed to build the website and such other things. They can use ecommerce solutions without qualms.

Another advantage with dedicated web hosting is that it provides for ad-free hosting. Free web hosting is replete with ads through which these companies earn their revenues. However, the presence of these ads could be unappealing to the prospects of the website. This is where dedicated web hosting scores.

But there are cons to this too. The biggest problem with using dedicated web service is the high cost. Unless the website is a big one and makes a lot of money, having a dedicated server makes no sense. Also, for all the talk about dedicated servers being unrestricted, one must know that there are some kinds of restrictions mainly about using scripting tools.

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Who Does Free Web Hosting Not Work For?

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

There is a lot of matter on the Internet about how to go about getting free web hosting, but very little is spoken about the fact that not all webmasters can use this kind of service. There are several problems with free web hosting that webmasters do not consider at the start and then find that their online prospects have been severely curtailed.

We already know of the main limitations that exist with such free web hosting services. There are usually several ads on them that the website owners have to put up with. There are limitations on the kind of content that can be posted and the kinds of scripts that can be used. There are limitations on putting multimedia content such as videos on these free hosting websites. Then there are problems such as low bandwidth and space available to host the website. Now these are things that the web owners can do nothing about. They have to abide by these restrictions if they have to continue getting the free service or they have to become paid customers.

For online businesses that are just starting up, these could seem to be good choices because budget is of the main concern in such cases. However, webmasters must remember that there are some kinds of websites that will certainly not do with free web hosting services. Let us take a look at some of them.

1.    Content managed websites will find it very difficult to go ahead with a free web hosting service. When a website is content managed, it keeps getting continuous inputs from its users. This is how the website gets populated with content and gets enhanced in its prospects. That is the reason free web hosting becomes difficult for them because they only provide a limited space and bandwidth.

2.    Webmasters who have multiple websites will find free website hosting difficult because of the same bandwidth and low space reasons. They will find it tough also because they might be using different scripts on their different websites and the hosting services may not be providing for these different scripts.

3.    Websites that need to have ecommerce solutions built in will definitely have to go for paid services. Hosting ecommerce solutions is not only an expensive but also a risky affair. Free web hosting services will most likely not like to put their hands into such an activity. If the website is directly selling something, it will need an ecommerce solution and in such a case paid web hosting is what will be required.

4.    Another category of websites that cannot do with free web hosting is the websites that contain questionable content. The best example of this is content that deals with adult entertainment. Free hosting will prohibit such content because of legal issues. The fact that such websites require a lot of space for exhibiting their photo and video galleries becomes another reason why they are not given the privilege of free web hosting. There are many such websites with questionable content that are not provided free services.

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The 5 Essentials That Should Help You Decide Your Web Hosting Service

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

Deciding a web hosting service is integral to your business. It is not just a service; it is something upon which the reputation of your online company will depend. Hence you do need to look into a few things, and cost is not the only criterion that you should base your decision on. If you are shopping for a web hosting service, there are five essential things that you need to look at. Here they are.

The Web Space they will provide

This is directly related to your needs. If you want your website to be larger, you will need more web space. Do not just think about the present. Your website is going to grow. You have no idea what kind of web space your site will require one year down the line. Nowadays most websites are content managed, i.e. they have a pattern of growing content. Many websites allow their users to add content too. If that is the case, you will need an increasing amount of space. Now think if a website like YouTube worked on a server that provided limited space. The very idea is laughable. Well, you get the point!

The Bandwidth you will get

If your website is just starting to breathe, you will not require much bandwidth at present. But again, you have to think of the future. Bandwidth is important for many things, and one of the most important of them is the speed with which it enables the website to load. If you get more bandwidth from your server, your website will load faster, thus increasing its usability. Go for a web hosting service that provides as much bandwidth as you can get. There are some that provide unlimited bandwidth. If you can get them, there’s nothing better that you can do.

FTP Features

You have to upload files to the server so that they are present on it and can be transmitted to anyone who asks for them. You will certainly not want to spend much time on this. Now if the web server provides a File Transfer Protocol, popularly known as FTP, you can upload files faster and in simpler ways.

Web Building Applications

Many web hosting providers bundle some web building applications with their services. If you are just starting out with an online presence, these web building tools can help you. Even otherwise, since you are getting them for free or at least for a low cost, they become economically sound decisions to make.

Ads and Other Restrictions

Some web hosting services, especially the free ones, will burden your website with ads. These ads could be banner ads and popup ads. You will definitely not want such ads to dampen the reputation of your website. But if you are trying to save costs, at least in the initial stages, you might consider having them. Then there are other restrictions that such hosting providers may impose on your website, pertaining to using particular kinds of content, scripts, etc. Whether to bow down to such limitations or go ahead with a paid option is a decision you have to make.

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Questions To Ask When Choosing Paid Web Hosting

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

If you do not want to go with the restrictions that a free web hosting service provides, you will naturally want to go with a paid web hosting service. However, there are such a lot of players in the market of paid web hosting that you will be hard-pressed to make a good decision as to who to choose. Here are some of the questions that you need to ask yourself before choosing a paid web hosting service.

What will it actually cost you?

This is one of the first questions that you need to ask, since the cost of a web hosting service ranges from free to thousands of dollars. You have to assure yourself that the web hosting service you are choosing will provide the kind of service you are looking at. It should have the costs transparent too. There are loads of web hosting services that will slap you with additional hidden costs later in the day. You have to know that the costs for web hosting will actually contain two main aspects – the cost for the hosting of the website and the fees for registering the domain name. You should be wary of anything that is charged for any additional service.

Is the web hosting service really reliable?

You have to take all the claims and promises of the web hosting company with a big pinch of salt. Rarely do the cheaper ones adhere to their claims. Some of them might promise a 24/7 service. So make sure you call them at odd hours of the day just to make sure that they are really providing that kind of service. Call them also on Sundays so that you know they have a support system on the holiday. If you can communicate with someone who has used their service, you could get the best review from them. Most web hosting services are discussed on forums. Do a Google search for some of these forums to see what the users are saying about them.

What options do they have for support?

This question actually ties in with the first. You have to see that the web hosting company is accessible through the highest number of ways possible. Just online access is not enough, because if your website is down, the problem is with their own server. You have to check that they have telephone access too. Make sure you know their phone number and physical location before you sign up for their service. It is also good if they give live online support through chat.

Are they really helpful?

Most web hosting services are quite surly, especially if they can be classified as cheap or free web hosting services. You have to check that out. See how ready they are in helping you use their services. They must provide you with an interface that you can use. It is also commendable if they have a help file or, better still, a web tutorial that can guide you on using their service.

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How To Find A Cheap Web Hosting Service

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

The good news is that there are a lot of options out there for you in case you are looking for a cheap or even completely free web hosting service. Some of the cheap services won’t want you to pay more than tens of dollars per year, and that is certainly quite cheap. Some of these will throw in domain name registration too, thus adding to their value. Naturally, if you are looking for cheap web hosting, such are the options that you need to consider. These are ample on the Internet. If you are looking for them, just make a general web search and you will find several competitive options, one such option is 123 Simple hosting

Now, there are two kinds of options here actually. Since one of them is cheaper than the other, you need to know about them well. The first option is when a web hosting company directly provides you with hosting space. These are usually cheaper because you are purchasing the hosting from the point of source itself. The second option is that of reseller web hosting. Here, some third person buys reselling rights for the hosting from the provider, usually repackages it, and then sells it to people like you. Since this kind of business is done for direct profit through the hosting service itself, you can expect to pay some more money than you would have paid had you purchased the hosting directly from the provider.

It is not wrong to go for cheap web hosting, but you must know what you are in for. It is a fundamental law that all businesses exist to make some kind of profit, so you have to see where the money for these cheap and free web hosting companies comes from. In this case, it mostly comes from the advertisements that are placed on the websites. These ads can be annoying banner ads or even more annoying popup ads. You have to see if you can deal with them just to save some hosting costs.

When you are scouting for free web hosting companies, make sure you have your eye on the two most important necessities of these services – the bandwidth and the space. With a low bandwidth, your websites can take forever to load and certainly your users are not going to like that. Similarly, with less space, you will be restricted in the amount of content that you can upload on your website. This could be regressive to the prospects of your website. You have to think about all these things when you choose your cheap website service. You have to also see if they allow you to post all kinds of content that you require and use the kinds of scripting tools that you plan to use.

Quality is important when you are selecting a web hosting service. You should not base your decision on the costs alone. You could search a lot of these companies online, but make comparative shopping to decide which has the best features. Also, make sure you check out the support system of the web hosting service before you make your decision on which one to choose.

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Free Web Hosting – Is It A Good Idea?

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

If you are planning on having a website, a web hosting and domain registration service is inevitable for your requirement. You will need to make use of these services. But the options available out there are immense. You can choose from web hosting that is completely free to use to the web hosting that might cost up to thousands of dollars. Naturally, when there is something free available, we tend to go for that, but the thing that you must consider is that there will be some catch when they are ready to give away something as important as web hosting for free. So what’s the catch actually?

When we encounter the word ‘free’ on the Internet, most of the times it means that there are advertisements you will have to put up with. Well, this is one of the things that you will need to contend with when you are using free web hosting. These advertisements can be in various forms. Most of the time, they will be banner ads. Mostly, you will have no control on the manner in which these banner ads appear. Some of the free web hosting services will insist that you keep the banner ads right on top of the webpage. You might think this is something that’s really all right, but when your website begins getting an identity of its own, you are not going to like it.

Worse than the banner ads are the popup ads. This can be seriously detrimental to the prospects of your website because no one likes things popping up when they are browsing. This is one thing free web hosting services might make compulsory for you to use, much to your chagrin.

Most of the free web hosting providers will repeatedly remind you that if you do not want the banner ads or the popup ads to be part of your website, you must buy their paid services. So, the free web hosting is actually a ploy to make you a subscriber for their paid service.

There are other restrictions that you might have to contend with. In most cases, the free web hosting providers will control the matter you post on your website. They will be against certain kinds of matter for their own reasons. This might hamper your website’s prospects when it is planning to expand, because initially you will accede to their requests. They may also prohibit you from posting certain multimedia content on your website, such as videos. In the world of Web 2.0, not using videos could be quite detrimental to most websites.

Another big problem is that they might want you to use a website name tagged with their own name. Your website name might have to appear like http://www.thehostname.com/yourwebsitename. Naturally this is something you won’t want. But if you want your name to appear as http://www.yourwebsitename.com, you will need to turn over to a paid option with them.

For every limitation that the free web hosting service has, there will be an alternative paid option for you to choose. You must remember that though a free web hosting plan may look appealing to you in the initial stages, you cannot stay with it forever. The best thing is to go for a paid service right from the start so that you create a favorable impression on your clients the moment your website is launched.

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Different Kinds Of Web Hosting Packages

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

If you are looking for web hosting for your online ventures, you need to know that there are different kinds of packages available for you. These differ in their methods of functioning, the way they provide their services and, most importantly, in their costs. Here is a lowdown of some of the different web hosting packages available so that you can decide which of these you would like to choose.

Shared Web Hosting

This is the most common kind of web hosting in which space is allocated to websites on the same server. The number of websites sharing the same server could be in thousands. Because all these websites share the same space, they will have some similar features, such as a uniform bandwidth among all and, if the host disallows certain scripting tools, the same kinds of scripts on all websites that it hosts.

Free Web Hosting

This is also shared hosting with the difference that the website owners do not have to pay anything to the hosts. Instead, they have to place ads from the host on their website. These ads are typically banner ads, but some free hosting providers make it mandatory for the websites to have popup ads too. Additionally, there are restrictions on the kinds of content that can be used, the scripting tools that can be used and other such limitations. The bandwidth and web space given to these website owners is also limited.

Reseller Web Hosting

Here, website owners can first buy web space for their own needs and when their websites are up and running, they can provide the remaining space to other website owners. In some cases, people just buy web space and then sell it to others for a little profit. There are various kinds of features available for the resellers; the servers available to them could be dedicated, shared or co-located. Resellers may or may not provide support to their clients.

Dedicated Web Hosting

This is an expensive kind of web hosting in which the website owner gets their own server. They can use this server in whatever manner they like, though the server still belongs to the host. The amount of web space and bandwidth available with dedicated web hosting is the largest and that is the greatest incentive for having such hosting. Websites that have considerable content will operate through dedicated web hosting providers.

Managed Web Hosting

This is a slight deviation from dedicated web hosting. Here the website owner gets a complete server but does not get complete management of it. This allows the hosting provider to keep tabs on the server and also improves the accessibility of live support. This method of web hosting could be likened to a lease contract where the property is only given to the tenant without complete rights. In a similar fashion, the web space is given to the client for a fixed amount of time, but without full control on it.

Some other kinds of web hosting that are less popular are co-location web hosting, cloud web hosting, clustered web hosting and grid web hosting. You need to read up on each of these before you make a decision.

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Cloud Web Hosting – An Efficient Hosting Solution

By admin | Published: March 30, 2009

Cloud web hosting, also known as cloud computing, is the new buzzword in the world of cheap web hosting today. It is a sophisticated method and at the same time, the perfect web hosting solution for those who are just starting out with an online business and have big plans for it. Because of its efficiency, it is also being looked upon as an alternative to dedicated server hosting. Today, cloud hosting is definitely top on the popularity charts with website such as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft having switched over their loyalties to this kind of hosting. This is an indication that cloud hosting is not just a flash in the pan – it is here to stay for a long time.

So, what is cloud web hosting? Basically it is a type of web hosting when several servers come together and aggregate their individual resources so as to provide a huge bank of resources for the clients. As an example, many servers can come together and pool in their web spaces or their bandwidths. The client will then have an access to this high quantum of bandwidth or web space or any other resource. Resources are centralized from all the servers onto one data center which acts as the overall center. This reduces the administrational difficulties and provides the clients with the humongous resources that they are looking for. With large websites, hosting can be cumbersome if the servers are small. But with the one large data center that the cloud web hosting concept can provide, these hassles can be minimized.

There is much less botheration for huge website owners when they decide to use cloud web hosting. For one, they get a large accumulation of the resources taken from the individual servers. Second, they do not have to contend with problems such as different operating system. The web hosting is also managed in most cases, which takes care of most of the technical points. At the same time, changes can be implemented as and when required because it is only the data center that will need to be changed. This also enables the websites operating through cloud web hosting to provide upgrades as and when they wish.

The following are some of the benefits available with cloud web hosting which makes it an unbeatable technology today:-
1. The single data center makes all technical tasks such as providing support and enabling upgrades much simpler.
2. It becomes an economically wiser decision for companies that operate huge websites.
3. There is cutting edge technology implemented here because the web hosting can use some of the most sophisticated tools. The fact that the cloud web hosting is an accumulation of various servers gives it the resources to use highly sophisticated features.
4. The price of using cloud web hosting is quite high, but there are many freebies that clients can hope to get. They can get free static IP addresses and load balancing. Both of these are provided as free bonuses, but they are highly useful to large websites that see a large volume of traffic each day.

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