You have made up your mind that you will buy a domain name (or several) and take out web hosting from a website hosting provider. First some considerations about the domain name(s) Domain names do not really have anything to do with web hosting and can be registered independently from the hosting package. There are advantages if you have domain name and hosting separate. For example, if the hosting company you selected fails to provide a good service, all you need to do is find a better website hosting company and change the domain name settings. If you have domain name and hosting with the same company and the company ceases trading, the last thing they think about is your hosting or domain name. By having them separate, you are lowering the risk. Disadvantages of registering the domain name with your hosting company Many website hosting companies offer to register domain names on your behalf. You think that your domain name is with your hosting company, when, in fact, they register it through some third party registrar for you. You then receive an invoice in 2 years time from a company you never heard of, ignore it, and in the worst case lose your domain name. Furthermore, in many cases, you will not get access to your domain name details nor will you be given a domain name control panel. Why do you need a domain name control panel? You need to be able to update the contact information for your domain name(s). If you move house for example and do not update you domain name details and for some reason you need to change registrar etc. (or because your web hosting company ceased trading), you are in danger of losing your domain name because you cannot prove any longer that you are the owner of a certain domain name. Also, a domain name control panel allows you to change email forwarding, web forwarding, and most importantly, the domain name servers, as well as some other settings. Check out 123-Reg if you want to find out more about that. Larger hosting providers Have a good look around online and check out different providers. There are many large hosting companies out there such as 1and1. The advantage of registering with a large hosting company is that they have hardly any downtime and their servers will be fast and up-to-date with the latest spam protection etc. Website hosting can be costly though if you register with a large web hosting company and if you want any additional services, you will have to pay for them. Support can be an issue too - you usually have to fight through hundreds of "Frequently Asked Questions" before you are allowed to send an email to their support team. You might also have to call a Premium Rate phone number if you need to speak to someone urgently. These rates can rate from £0.50 to £2 per minute (!) or even more. In most cases, you will receive good support, but in some cases you might be put through to an unexperienced person who has to speak to their supervisor to double-check things frequently - and all that at a premium rate! The biggest problem with large web hosting providers is that if you miss the annual payment and do not react to their payment reminders - they will remove your website, your account, without further notice. In some cases, there will not be any chance to recover your website. With a large web hosting company, your website is just a number in a very large pool of websites. If they lose your custom, so what! Web hosting with a smaller web hosting provider If you find a reliable smaller web hosting provider, chances are that you will receive a personal service, and support questions are answered with a lot more detail and a lot quicker. Most likely, you can call a UK landline or an 0845 or 0870 number which is a lot cheaper than £2 per minute. In some cases, you might be able to receive a reply to your support question - which you sent on a Saturday evening - that same night. If you miss your payment with a smaller web hosting company, they will most likely call you personally and remind you on your late payment. They are keen to keep you as a customer and will probably not remove your account and your website immediately. Web Statistics Ask the web hosting company if they provide extensive website statistics. You want to know how many visitors have accessed your website, what search terms they used to find your website in Google and other search engines, how many visitors you have per day, on a certain day of the week, and so on. Please also ask if you can have access to the website log files. You might think that adding a website hit counter will provide enough information, but that is actually the most inaccurate method of counting your website visitors - and apart from that they look tacky and unprofessional. Your web hosting company should provide statistics that are at least as comprehensive as Webalizer and if statistics are important for you, you need to have access to your log files which can then be analyzed with statistics analysing software (such as Surfstats). E-Mail issues to watch out for Before you take out sign up with a hosting company, ask them if they provide SMTP/POP3 which you need to set up email accounts. If you want one or several e-mail addresses with your website - such as sales@mydomain.com - the web hosting company needs to provide SMTP/POP3 setup. Some web hosting companies only allow you to receive emails sent to sales@mydomain.com, but they will not allow you to use these e-mail addresses to send e-mails from. They will simply argue that you can use your Internet Service Provider E-Mail address - such as joe.smith@btopenworld.com. This does not look professional at all, and you should avoid web hosting companies that do not provide SMTP/POP3 service. Backups Check with your web hosting company how often backups are made. Usually, backups are made on a daily basis. If you have a large online store on your website and the server room at the web hosting premises is on fire, you will lose all your work if they do not back up their web server files. So please check if they have a backup routine in place. Free Webhosting with your internet service provider Please do not use this! Your internet service provider company provide an internet connection. That is what they specialise in. They sometimes "throw in" free web hosting for up to 100 MB or even more. They normally do not provide SMTP / POP3 setup for the sending / receiving of emails related to your website (such as sales@mydomain.com ), nor will they provide databases, server scripting language support and such like. Usually, you can only upload websites developed in pure HTML, and in some cases you will not be able to use FTP software for uploading your files and managing your files on the web server. Your business website will probably use some sort of server-side scripting language - such as ASP, PHP etc. and maybe use a database such as MySQL. If your website is with your Internet Service Provider, the support for this service can be poor and the account can sometimes not be upgraded to include server-side scripting languages, and/or databases. Web Hosting Costs Web Hosting costs can vary greatly. You can take out web hosting for as little as £15 per year, or you can get web hosting, including 5 email addresses, 100 MB web space (which is a lot for a small business presence) for as little as £30 per year (check out Plugsocket). If you buy a web design magazine, you will see many adverts from bigger web hosting companies. Check out their prices, their policies, and maybe give them a call - you will find out how long it takes until your call is answered. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/333338
By now I'm sure you know how important your choice of web hosting company is to your business. But just in case you don't, let's review. At first glance, cheap web hosting may seem like a pretty good deal. Who doesn't want to save money? However, there are some areas in which you, as an online business owner, just can't afford to cut corners. Would you put water in the gas tank of your car just to save money? Choose a cheap web hosting company and you are doing exactly that. While you can cut corners in other areas of your business, your web hosting company is not where you want to do this, if only for one simple reason: with free or cheap web hosting companies, you are little more than a number, just another website. Let's take a look at how cheap or free web hosting companies make their money and how they do business. First, how can they offer such cheap prices? Or even free web hosting? There is only one answer: volume. They host thousands of websites, some smaller, some larger than yours. Do you think that in hosting thousands of websites, they can give you the personalized service that you deserve? Let me answer that one for you: they simply cannot. Why? Because the number of sites hosted, coupled with the low pricing simply makes it an infeasible business practice. Practically speaking, from a business standpoint, they cannot do this. It would not make sense to their bottom line. Second, large web hosting companies generally run lean and mean. That is, in business 101, they do more with less. They are not going to provide more people to service more customers when they can do the same job with less. Granted, customer service will suffer. But to them, this is a tradeoff that they make up for with volume. Now let's look at things from your point of view (an online business owner). You already know that time is money. You have probably already figured out that, sadly, time is not on your side. Thus, every time your site is down you are losing money. Even 5 minutes is too long for your site to be inaccessible to visitors (potential customers). Online business runs 24/7. Does your web hosting company understand that? More importantly, when you have a problem, is your business "just another website" to them? Or will they take personal ownership of the problem and solve it as soon as possible? What about follow up? Are you just another website in the heap? Or will they follow up with you to make sure that you are a satisfied customer and your site is running smoothly? Better yet, will they follow up personally, via phone call? Or will they just send an email - an automated one at that? Many Internet business owners make the mistake of choosing a cheap web hosting company, thinking that it will help save them money. Often, it costs them more in the long run in the form of downtime, time spent waiting for answers from the hosting company and lost customers. Below are 6 tips that should tell you if you are "just another website" to your web hosting company: * Time - Does your web hosting company have an "open door policy"? If you have a question, Will they have the answer or will they refer you to their Help Page URL? As an online business owner, there is nothing more frustrating than calling the web hosting company for help and then being told to go to a URL for help. If your web hosting company does this to you, then you are just a number to them. * Accessibility - Is your web hosting company answering the phone promptly? When they do, who is it? Sales? This is a big tip-off. A web hosting company that really knows you and cares about your business won't automatically try to sell you something and they won't hide behind an answering machine or salesperson. A cheap web hosting company definitely won't know you by name; they will know you by the domain that you have with them. * Business Knowledge - Does your web hosting company know what your needs are as a website owner? Do they care? Are they hiring teenagers from the local high school to answer the phones (who can't really help you)? Does your web hosting company have Internet Marketing experience? If you are with a cheap web hosting company, the answer is no, because they do their business by volume and can't be focused on those kinds of issues. Kind of ironic, don't you think, given the fact that you have a website in the first place due to the Internet? * Advertising/Sales Tactics - As your business grows, how many services is your web hosting company trying to sell you? How many emails do they send you trying to get you to upgrade, pay upfront, etc, etc.? Better yet, how do they make their sales? I'll tell you how: aggressive advertising and sales tactics. For a cheap web hosting company, it's the only way, because it is all about the numbers. And you are one of them. * Relationship-Driven - Does your web hosting company want a relationship with you or with your money? I bet by now you can guess the answer. The fact is, cheap web hosting companies make profits by increasing sales. If one customer leaves, so be it, because they have the volume to make that up. They really don't have the time, resources or the inclination to really make sure they have a satisfied, long-term client in you. * Patience - Lots of Internet business owners don't know the ins and outs of web hosting. That's understandable. When you talk to the sales department of your web hosting company do they use Plain English or "technospeak" that you don't understand? Do they have the patience to explain everything to you? Or do they automatically assume that you should know and become more impatient the more questions you ask? To put is bluntly, do they make you feel stupid or dumb? If you are trying to give the web hosting company your business and they are making you feel stupid for asking questions, they may as well be saying "Next!" Why would they do this? Because your business is just another website to them. Generally, a business web hosting company that gives you personalized service, has answers to your questions (or ways of getting those answers) will serve your online business better. Having tons of options is fine, but even better is the peace of mind that comes with knowing that to your web hosting company, your business and its success is priority one. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/168354
The Internet has become a vast shopping arcade in the modern world. From daily used products to travel tickets to properties on sale, one finds the web world as the easiest platform to catch-hold of his/her necessities. The phenomenal increase in the use of the Internet is perhaps due to the considerable growth of online business firms. As a result, there is huge development in the website hosting industry. Web hosting is the process of making a website available over the virtual world of Internet. Web hosting services allow companies/individuals to introduce their websites via World Wide Web. A hosting company, also known as a web host provides space on the web server as per the business requirements of the clients. The web space is accompanied by providing Internet connectivity in a data center. These days, a number of IT-based companies offer hosting packages designed with multiple features. As a matter of fact, one might get confused in choosing web hosting services for his online business purposes. It is often seen that organizations come across technical limitations with respect to bandwidth, disk space, uploading and down loading speed, privacy policy and lot more. In order to avoid such constraints, one should think about evaluating the services before making the buying decision. Take a look at the important factors that needs to be taken care of while selecting a hosting company: • Determine the platform of the web server keeping into account the website to be hosted. • Analyze the features with the package such as data space, email accounts, FTP accounts, traffic etc. • Have clear idea about the price associated with the website hosting package and confirm about the money back guarantee policy. • Know about the uptime feature, the company provide to its clients. • Be sure, if the company has a reliable name in the hosting industry. • Look for website hosts which can provide customizable packages. • Ensure if the company offers quality customer services for immediate trouble shooting. By following the above mentioned factors, one can assure to have hosting services from a reliable company. Besides these, you can look for that web hosts which have wide varieties of packages under its gamut. A few companies are known to have well-designed services for small, medium and big enterprises. The packages are inclusive of database support and web application development platform. You can consider contacting those companies to experience best selection of a web hosting package. Now, if you are yet to develop your business website and are looking for web-based service providers, then have a look at those companies which provide complete web-based solutions. A brief study of hosting companies over the Internet might help you to find out some companies providing services like website designing, web application development, search engine marketing, social media optimization and web hosting as well. By contacting those companies, you can relieve yourself from the painstaking task of contacting web professionals from multiple sources and might receive affordable web hosting services. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6657600
In promoting products and services over the worldwide web, it is very important for these products and services to be conveniently accessible to practically everyone. The worldwide web is the largest market and has the widest range as well. Thus, it is not surprising why a lot of individuals, organizations, and businesses are anchored in the worldwide web. Indeed, it is beyond doubt that advances in information technology have made everything accessible. With these facts, it is very clear that in order for any business to reach the global market, it should be within reach for everyone. The best way to do this is through hosting. Hosting allows individuals and organizations to create web sites and make these web sites accessible by the rest of the world. This is indeed a pretty advantageous set-up since the web site owner does not really have to be technically knowledgeable about the ins and outs of hosting services. For as long as you have a concept for your web site, you can choose any service provider that you find appropriate and get connected with the rest of the world in no time at all. On the other hand, choosing an appropriate Company for your web site may not be very easy at all. Basically, with the emergence of millions of web sites, hundreds of hosting companies emerged as well. As such, if you are not very familiar with the technicalities of hosting, choosing may not be that easy at all. However, you can always search for the most popular hosts and compare their features, performance, and reviews. By going through top hosting reviews, you can definitely gather some useful information, as well as expert opinions on the various web hosting companies. If different reviews give out different results, you can at least get the common hosting companies that are present in those various reviews. This means that if a number of particular web hosts come out in different reviews, these hosts must be credible and quality. Some of the top web hosting companies today include iPage, Hostgator, BlueHost, FatCow, JustHost, and Hostmonster to name a few. Among these web hosting companies, JustHost offers the cheapest hosting rate at an unbelievable $3.45 per month. Aside from this low rate, JustHost also offers discount coupons. On the other hand, if you want unlimited domain hosting, iPage, HostGator, FatCow, JustHost, and Hostmonster are the best options since these hosts offer unlimited hosting of domains. Basically, all of the top web hosting companies offers unlimited space, unlimited traffic, and unlimited bandwidth. Perhaps, the significant differences lie in the subscription rate per month, additional features, and discount coupons. Other than these factors, the top hosting companies have high host rating and excellent reviews. Here is a list of top 10 web hosting companies. 1) iPage 2) Fatcow 3) Justhost 4) Hostgator 5) IXWebhosting 6) Webhostingpad 7) Bluehost 8) Hostmonster 9) Greengeeks 10) HostiCan Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5486761
Put 'em through the ringer When you think about it, web host companies are like a major appliance, perhaps a washer or dryer. Different brands all perform the same basic function, but each has its own special feature to try to entice you to choose them. Just like washing machines, there is both a low end and high end price tag. At the high end you pay for extra fancy features: maybe extra spin cycles or electronic dials. For web hosting companies these are features like unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, unlimited number of emails. And just like a washing machine, web hosting companies have both good and bad after-purchase support or warranties. You might have a tendency to go for the least expensive hosting company but your decision needs to be more critical than that. A true "best" web hosting company story I fell victim to the "cheapest is the best" mentality. Even though I'm a long time veteran of making websites, I was still duped by the cheap price tag of a new-kid-on-the-block web hosting company. Unconsciously I thought, "all hosting is the same, so the best web hosting company is the least expensive." What a dumb mistake, especially for someone with decent web experience. I happily paid 3.99 a month for unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth -- all the seemingly common things you come to expect in a webhost. However, what I was actually paying 3.99 a month for was unanswered support phone calls, unexplained site downtime and unavailability, and a huge headache. Basically I was stuck with a nice heaping pile of dirty laundry and just wanted my money back so I could buy a different washing machine. In the end, I did end up getting my money back, but only after weeks of stressing and feeling very frustrated. That serves me right for not doing my homework on this particular hosting company and hastily jumping at a cheap price. (By the way, the company is now out of business) UPDATE: 2 years later they still tried to charge me a renewal fee! Unbelievable! Think about price the right way Now, I don't blame anyone for using price as the sole criteria for choosing the best web hosting company. It's only our middle-class nature to try and save a buck or two. However, when I sat back and thought about the nightmare I went through with this $4 per month company, I realized if I went with a $6 or even a $7 per month, reputable hosting company, I'd only be paying 24 or 36 more dollars a year. A price I'd gladly pay for smooth service and peace of mind -- especially considering the torment and frustration I went through. It's easy for me to say after the fact, but I guarantee if you find yourself in the same situation as I was with a deadbeat webhost, you'll come to the same conclusion about paying $2 or $3 more per month! The "Best" equals being the best at the "Basics" Finding the best web hosting company should not be a trial and error experiment, and I certainly do not recommend doing as such. Signing on with a web host (even though it may have a money back guarantee) is more of a commitment then you may realize. For example if you buy a hosting package and later decide that you want a refund within the advertised satisfaction guaranteed time limit, most likely you will have to go through the pains of transferring your domain name (which is never refunded). Also, if they really want to hang you out to dry, they might try to charge you surprise fees for the bandwidth and space that you used in the meantime (read the fine print). This is why you should do some good research and find out who is the best web hosting company for you the first time. When you're ready to shop and compare concentrate on the basics. Who has a good reputation at doing the core web hosting responsibilities? The following is a list of core features and characteristics that you should grade each web hosting company on when shopping around: Transfer Bandwidth Storage Space Support Languages (PHP, Perl, Ruby) Control Panel (Fantastico) Satisfaction history Years in the business Customer Reviews Special tip for the web savvy Here's a tip if you plan on having more than one website/domain: Many hosting companies allow you to have multiple domain names per hosting account. That way you pay a single monthly hosting package fee for the ability to host multiple domains. For example: you can register two.COM domains (for approximately $10/year each) and then use one hosting package for both those domains (which costs around $7/month). This is a huge way to save money. in fact, I currently have 4 domains on one bluehost account. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3618470
The hosting company that is capable of achieving customer demands plus fulfill all that is expected as a hosting provider truly deserves to be the best web-hosting company in the eyes of the customers. In return, the customers help in spreading the word of mouth via forums and web hosting review sites which further acts as a catalyst in the growth of the companies customer base and hence the profits. As a basic expectation, a customer wants their website/s to be online and running with optimum performance so that whenever a user access it should be able to grab the information. Many responsibilities are played by a best hosting company in order to keep a users website up and running smoothly. Some of the basic responsibilities of a best web hosting company are listed below. Monitoring the Servers: Most of the hosting providers do monitor their servers round the clock, or atleast that is what that can be seen on their websites. But do they actually do it? We cannot be too sure about it. But if you observe a serious web hosting provider who aims to be the best web hosting provider, their servers are constantly monitored and so does the websites hosted on it. Usually web hosts offer server monitoring service with their Managed Web Hosting packages. This is a role played by the host in order to offer customer service to its users. There are various tasks such as scanning event logs, trace and rectify the issues related to the server and the website/s hosted on it. The best web hosting company monitors the servers round the clock. Such a hosting company uses complex monitoring scripts onto the servers. In case there is a malfunction, an automatic email is immediately shot to the respective server administration departments, who further investigate the problem takes necessary actions to rectify it with minimum waste of time. It is equally important to choose a hosting provider who operates 24x7 as the problems can be addressed immediately without waste of time. Software Installations: The hosting provider is responsible for providing the necessary software and software licenses required for the client websites. In most cases the best hosting provider takes care of the installation, testing, trouble shooting and the deployment of the software for the clients websites. Software Updates and Security Patch uploads: The best web hosting providers often takes care of updating the software and installing necessary security patches. As a part of server security, the best hosting provider would proactively install the security patches prior to the client requesting for it. Upgrading the Hardware Components: Most of the web hosts who have earned recognition to be the best hosting provider are often seen to offer flexibility for upgrading or downgrading the hosting packages. This is helpful from a customers point of view since, there are occasions when client websites suddenly start getting loads of traffic and the resources offered by the web hosting package starts falling short. It is then that upgrading the package becomes crucial for websites smooth performance. Equally the upgrade process should be made simple and the customer should be moved to the new server as early as possible without facing any downtime. Maintenance of the Hardware and Component Replacements: The hardware maintenance is usually taken care by the hosting provider himself unless the customer has opted for Unmanaged web hosting packages. An ideal web hosting provider would replace the faulty hardware components within minutes from the time it has been reported. Back-Up and Restoration: There are limited number of hosts that offer free backup services to its clients. They automate the process of back ups, which can be set according to user requirements. These backups can be restored on demand from the customers. A professional hosting company also offers additional back up plans for some nominal additional charge that can be availed on request to the hosting provider. These servers are usually located away from the other servers or at different DC's as a precautionary measure against various natural and online threats. Secure Hardware: Since the server hardware is owned by the hosting company, its security is their sole concern. These hardwares should be adequately protected against various threats. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3437798
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