How to choose a reliable Web Hosting Company

How To Choose A Reliable Web Hosting Company : A Tip For Newbies

By Elaine Currie [ 22/02/2007 ]
[ viewed 38 times ]

Reliable web hosting is vital for anyone attempting to earn money with a business website.

Choosing a host for your website is not easy when you are an Internet newbie and don't really know bandwidth from Band-Aid. What selection criteria do you use? If you are a total newbie, about the only thing you will know how to compare is price but if you do a search for web hosting you will have ads coming at you for all prices from $10 per year to $25 per month. Should you go for the most expensive on the basis that you get what you pay for or should you go for the cheapest because saving money is a priority while you are getting your business running?

The first thing to rule out is free web hosting. There are many great free resources to be found on the Internet including excellent anti-virus and anti-spy ware software. Free hosting is fine if you have a hobby website but, if you are running a business online and wish to achieve credibility with visitors and search engines, free web hosting won't do the job.

I discovered the hard way that cheap web hosting is not necessarily the bargain it might seem. When I started looking for hosting for a new website, I already had top class hosting that had come with my first website. There was an option to add on further domains for an extra $5 per month. That was cheap enough but I thought it would be a good idea to have my new website hosted completely separately (you know, the old eggs in one basket caution).

When I started checking around, there seemed to be millions of web hosts all offering what (to my untrained eye) seemed to be the same thing but at wildly varying prices, so I settled on a cheap hosting package. The cost was £1 per month (which was about $1.70 in those days) and I certainly got what I paid for!

At first everything was fine: I paid up, they hosted my website. The trouble is, you don't realise you have bought rubbish hosting until things start to go wrong.

The first sign that all was not well came a few months later when I was unable to locate my website. I raised a support ticket and waited. Four days later came the reply "everything seems ok now". Four days of downtime without a sensible word from support made me feel more than a little uneasy.

Things seemed fine for a while after that but then another problem arose: when I tried to log into my control panel all I got was a message telling me the licence fee had not been paid. This time the reply to my support ticket was quicker, it only took two days. Unfortunately, however, it was completely unhelpful. The reply was "It seems to be a site-wide issue". Was I supposed to feel better because the whole site was messed up and not just my bit? They must have got round to paying the licence fee because after a few more days, login was available again.

After that, I wanted to move to a new host but I had never moved a website before and assumed it would be really difficult and technically challenging (actually it is extremely simple). As a result of this fear my website remained where it was.

The crunch came when my domain name came up for renewal. In response to an email from the hosting company, I visited their website to make the required payment. Their PayPal link and credit card options did not work and there were several error messages showing on the pages I visited.

Emails to their support and billing departments went unanswered. My only means of arranging payment was via their website, so I kept trying. Each time I visited, there were more error messages, nothing worked and it began to look as if the site was actually melting bit by bit. It seemed the company had just packed up and left their website to self destruct.

Enquiries revealed that the only way I could renew my domain name ownership was through the hosting company because they had registered it on my behalf and they retained control of it. As they could not be contacted, there were only two options available. The first was to pay an agent a pretty hefty (and non-refundable) fee to try to contact the hosting company and negotiate the purchase the domain name from them. The second option was to lose the domain.

When you have to choose web hosting, the first thing to look for is quality of support. To keep prices low, the easiest way for the company to economise is to provide sub-standard support. Forget the offers of unlimited bandwidth, hundreds of email accounts, spam filters and other freebies. If support is non-existent, give the company a miss no matter how good their other terms might seem.

About the author:
You will find ideas about how to earn money working from home and useful home business resources at Elaine Currie's Work At Home Directory http://www.HuntingVenus.com
For more articles about online writing visit http://www.elainecurrie.com/writingtips
Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com

Web Hosting

Web Hosting

By Jackie Sutton [ 15/05/2007 ]
[ viewed 10 times ]

Web hosting makes a Web site available on the Internet. A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to provide their own websites accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center.

Web hosting is often provided as part of a general Internet access plan; there are many free and paid providers offering these services.A customer needs to evaluate the requirements of the application to choose what kind of hosting to use. Such considerations include database server software, scripting software, and operating system. Linux-based web hosting is provided by most hosting providers. It offers a wide range of different software. A Web Content Management System is also included in the Web hosting packages. It gives the solutions of the more technical aspects to the end users.

Types of hosting
ISPs have different service fees for the web hosting depending on the size of the website. Commercial Web sites with multi pages and the customer's registered domain name are hosted at a very wide range of prices. A single computer can hold dozens to hundreds of small Web sites, while a dedicated computer or multiple computers (from a handful to thousands) may be used for one large Web site.
Free web hosting service: Free web hosting service is free. It is sometimes advertisement-supported web hosting. As compared to paid hosting, the functionality of free hosting is extremely limited.

Shared web hosting service: In this hosting , one's Web site is placed on the same server as many other sites. It may range from a few to hundreds or thousands. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU.

Reseller web hosting allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a provider. Virtual Dedicated Server: It slices up a server into virtual servers. Each user feels like they're on their own dedicated server, but they're actually sharing a server with many other users.

Dedicated hosting service: In this service, the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it; however, the user typically does not own the server.

Colocation web hosting service: It is similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the server. The hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and expensive type of the web hosting service.

Clustered hosting: In this service, multiple servers host the same content for better resource utilization.

Entirely or Partially Managed
The full service of Web hosting organizations includes site design and programming as well as all e-commerce facilities. Some customers wish to use their own servers and software. In this case, all their privately owned equipment can be co-located at the ISP, which provides power, Internet access and some level of management.

Service scope
The scopes of hosting services vary widely. Webpage and small-scale file hosting is the most basic hosting service. In this hosting, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web interface are used for files uploading. The files are usually delivered to the Web "as is" or with little processing. This service is offered for free to their subscribers by many Internet service providers (ISPs). People can also obtain Web page hosting from other, alternative service providers. Web page hosting is typically free, advertisement-sponsored, or cheap.Web page hosting is generally sufficient only for personal web pages.

A more comprehensive package is required for a complex site. This package provides database support and application development platforms (e.g. PHP, Java, and ASP.NET). The customers can write or install scripts for applications like forums and content management with these facilities.SSL is also required for e-commerce.

A Web interface control panel (e.g. cPanel, Hosting Controller, Plesk or View a list of Control panels) may also be provided by the host. It manages the Web server and installing scripts as well as other services like e-mail.

Certain software or services (e.g. e-commerce) are the specialization of some hosts. Larger companies commonly use these services to outsource network infrastructure to a hosting company.

Hosting reliability and uptime Hosting uptime refers to the percentage of time the host is accessible via the internet. Many hosting providers claim '99% or 99.9% server uptime' but this often refers only to a server being powered on and doesn't account for network downtime state. There may be server restarts and planned (or unplanned) maintenance in any web hosting environment.

Real downtime can potentially be larger than the percentage guaranteed by the hosting provider. Many providers tie uptime, and accessibility, into their own Service Level Agreement, or SLA. If performance goals are not met, SLAs may or may not include refunds, or reduced costs.

For more information about Web hosting visit: http://www.webhostinginsider.net/web-hosting.php

About the author:
Jackie Sutton is involved with National Tourism Foundation(http://www.ntfonline.com ) information portal. She frequently participates in local as well as international forums to bring awareness of Tourism Education issues to the public.
Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com

What Is The Best Web Hosting Service?

What Is The Best Web Hosting Service?

By Larry Washington [ 18/05/2006 ]
[ viewed 96 times ]

Is there really a magic formula to determine the best web hosting service? I'm sure thousands of people want to know the answer to this question if there was one. To be honest, there is no absolute correct answer to this. As you know, individual results will vary from person to person in terms of what they want out of a service.

If there was a way to find the "best" web host to ensure you made the right choice, would you be interested?

Hopefully the answer is yes!

I want you to understand that there is no "best" web hosting service but there are some measures or steps to help find what's best for you.

The tips that follow should help someone new or experienced choose the best possible host the first time around. It can even help those looking to switch hosts avoid making the same mistake twice.

Here's a checklist to help you get started in choosing a great host:
* Look at what's in front of you
* How is the service and support?
* Testimonial test

Let's take the first point; look at what's in front of you. No, really. Look directly at what's in front of you. When you visit the web host, how does it present itself visually? If it doesn't look up to par in terms of presentation you may want to avoid them.

Low-quality graphics may indicate your typical "fly-by-night" type of company that won't be around very long. Even though anyone can produce high-quality looking websites, this should raise a red flag if identified. While we're on the look of the website, another turn off should be misspellings.

Misspellings can indicate a business that doesn't take pride in how they operate. Would you trust your website in a company that doesn't take pride in their business? There's no excuse for misspellings when a lot of applications contain spell checkers.

Service and support
This is by far the most important thing to have no matter what type of product or service you get. After all, things do fail or break down and you may need extended support. A way to check the reliability of a web host is to put them to the test.

Find a contact number (some even provide a toll free number) or send them an email to inquire about something they offer. That way you can see how long it takes before you actually talk to someone or for them to respond to emails. A good response time for emails should be within 24 hours. Especially with the large volume of inquiries they may receive on a daily basis. Doing this will allow you to see how friendly and helpful their support staff is as well.

Testimonial test
I'm sure you've seen many websites post testimonials to help give credibility to their products and services. A good cross check you can do is send the person who gave the testimonial an email to find out what they like and don't like about the web host.

You should be able to contact the individual since websites will usually include the person's URL back to his or her site as an incentive for giving the testimonial. Doing this task will help you make a better decision whether or not to invest in the hosting service according to the feedback received from the customer.

Using these three points is a great way to gauge whether or not the host is a good choice for you. Taking the time now to research the service will save you headaches and disappointment down the road.

I know there were 3 tips mentioned above, but I wanted to throw in a fourth way to help you get the best hosting solution possible. A word of mouth recommendation is one way you can't go wrong. Ask a few friends or colleagues if they have used a particular host and for how long.

You may want to ask if they've switched from another host and the reason for changing. Be sure to inquire why they continue to stay with the current host. This is a great way to gather the pros and cons of certain hosts based on the first-hand experience of others. It will also help you make a better informed decision before deciding to invest your hard earned money on a host provider.

Cheap And Good Quality Web Host

Cheap And Good Quality Web Host

By: Mark Waters [Word Count: 673 words] [Viewed: 71 time(s)]

If you plan to own a new website, you will need to host your website on a web server. When your website goes live on the web server, online users can then browse your website on the Internet. Company that provides the web servers to host your website is called web hosting providers.

A web hosting provider will typically have a fast connection to the Internet housed in a physical building called 'data center' and they may host thousands of web sites on many servers. The web host essentially rents out space to you so that you can get your website up on the world wide web.

With a well-managed web host, you can free yourself from worrying the up-keep of complicated server technology and proper technical maintenance. That's the whole purpose of the web hosting companies. You should leave the technical work to web hosting professional while you focus on your own internet business.

There are thousands of web hosting providers on the internet and how do you decide which one you should use? Sites like webhostingspotter.com can help you by comparing all best hosting providers.

The features that web hosting companies are offering are getting quite standard nowadays. There are basic features that you'll need in a web host. You can find out more here.

To give a web host a competitive edge over others, more attractive features are very necessary. You'll find that many hosts are willing to give away free stuff that used to cost over $10 per month.

These are some of the advanced features that our top hosts are offering.

* Web Buider Many of our top 10 hosts offer powerful web builder program called SiteStudio. SiteStudio allows you to make sites without any html, FTP and HTTP knowledge. You can also build site on the fly while at home, school or even at work. Hostgator's SiteStudio has over 500 ready-made templates for you to choose from.

* Ecommerce Enabled If you are selling products on your site, you need a merchant account. A shopping cart is a useful tool if you have more than 1 product in different categories. SSL(Secured Sockets Layer) is a must-have if you need to receive valuable information such as your customers' credit card information. PowWeb, Hostgator and Lunarpages provide osCommerce shopping cart and shared SSL for your ecommerce needs.

* Marketing Package Most marketing package including search engine submission software, keyword generator and link checker. Some hosting companies like iPower have established partnership with Yahoo! Search (previously known as Overture) and Google Adwords to offer you pay-per-click credit to jump start your business.

Popularity

The best marketing method is by far from word of mouth. If you sign up for a web host and are satisfied with the performance, most likely you'll recommend to anyone who is looking for a good host. Big web hosting companies know about this concept so well that they would go all out to retain their existing customer. The more satisfied customers they have, the more popularity they'll get. We take this as an important indicator of how good a host is. # There are a few factors that we judge the popularity of a particular web hosting provider.Number of existing customers. # The satisfaction level of their existing customers: We manage to get hold of their existing customers from the positive reviews they submitted through our host comment form, their comment in the 3rd party web hosting and inhouse forums and the customers' comment found on other hosting directories. # The amount of pretigious hosting awards they won # Their sites Alexa traffic ranking

Netfirms top the popularity among our top 10 hosts. Network Reliability, Speed and Uptime Guarantee

In terms of reliability, we are looking at how redundant is the server, how often the companies backup the server and how well they handle emergency. "Redundant" means that if any of the Internet connections get interrupted, the alternate Internet connection will take over. PowWeb Load Balancing Technology is one of the best that we found to ensure your site is up 99.9% all the time.

Web Hosting Has The Power

Web Hosting Has The Power To Transform Your Business Into An Internet Giant.

By Robert Goldsmith

Businesses all over the world are in search of new and potential customers. They use different forms of mediums to advertise and market their products.

The globalization of economies has lead to the trend of making the world one market. This has been contributed largely due to the introduction of internet and e-commerce in the later eighties. Now, businesses all over the globe search for clients / customers with different intentions. All global companies have their own website to promote their businesses. A professional looking website will give you creditability, and will make your visitor feel very confident in you, your business and your product.

Are Websites Only For Businesses? There are false contentions that websites are developed only for business purposes. The truth is that there are more personal websites than business websites on the net. Many people prefer to have personal websites to have a say on various issues. They also maintain websites to be in touch with their loved ones.

What Makes A Good Website? There are two important aspects which make a quality website:

Good content and design

Quality web hosting

What is Web Hosting? Web hosting is an important attribute for a quality website. Web hosting is the service provided by many companies to host your website on the internet. To host your website on to the net, you require a dedicated server with good space and bandwidth. Many businesses cannot afford to have a dedicated web server for their websites. This brings into picture the need for the services of hosting companies.

What Makes Quality Web Hosting? There are many features which make a quality web hosting package. The important attributes are:

Space:
The first query thrown at hosting companies is the space provided by the companies. You require adequate space to host your web pages and run your applications. You may also need a database support. There are many packages available for you to suit your requirement. The space requirements differ for personal or a business website. There are also free web hosting companies which provide you good hosting services. It is always prudent for business websites to go for paid hosting services which are dependable. Personal websites can be launched by paid or free web hosting companies. A hosting company will be preferred if it provides quality web space.

Features:
Space requirements are not the only criteria to choose a quality hosting provider. There are other features provided by the hosting company are database support, backup support, support for query / script languages and download resume services. Many services will differ with each host provider.

Price:
The price for the hosting package must be reasonable. Quality web hosting solution doesn?t mean costly solutions. The hosting solution must be of best and economical as well. Many hosting companies have their products for different end users. Hosting plans will differ for business and Personal Web Hosting solutions. Normally Business hosting plans are costlier than personal hosting plans.

Reliability:
Quality must go with reliability. Any quality hosting plan must also be reliable. Website hosted on the servers of hosting companies must be reliable. The data transferred are nothing but the business of the client. This implies the hosting company must provide reliable servers to the clients.

Packages:
Hosting companies provide many hosting options to its clients which are reliable and economical as well. Hosting plans will differ for business and personal clients. Hosting plans for business clients must be exhaustive to choose. Personal user plans must be cheap and attractive. Packages are the mixture of price and space provided by the hosting companies.

Bandwidth:
The flow of data in the website is very critical for the success of the website. Many free web space providers.

Choosing Great Web Host

Simple Step For Choosing Great Web Host

By Richa Sinha

There are thousands of web hosts around today with thousands of plans to choose from making what was once a simple procedure seems like a daunting task for both newbie and pro alike. Whether you're looking for your first host or looking to move on to a better one there are certain simple steps you must follow to succeed in choosing a great host. These simple steps include:

Right Platform

The first and most foremost step in choosing a web host is determining the platform the web server should run, usually a choice between Unix/Linux and Windows. Your choice is largely determined by your website and the technologies used to create it, generally a website created with Microsoft technologies (ASP, VB) will run on Windows servers while most other sites using open source technologies (PHP, Perl, Python etc) will run on Linux based systems.

Right Features

Once you've chosen your platform the next step is determining the features you'll need from your web host. Take your time with this step as the feature lists of web hosts are getting longer and longer every day and while some plans may look similar on the surface, a good look at the feature lists may tell another story. Only you can determine the specific features you'll need, but some key things to keep an eye on are:

Disk Space
Bandwidth
Backups
Uptime
Money Back Guarantee
Domains Allowed
Databases (Number & type)
CGI, PHP, Perl, Python, SSI
Cron
Email accounts

The list goes on and on, just remembers to take your time and make sure your new web host is going to provide you with everything you need.

Budget

Often budget is the only thing people consider when choosing their first web host, funds are usually tight and on the surface most hosts look very similar. Sometimes you get lucky and choose a good host, but more often than not it turns out to be a horror story.

Remember that the cost of your web hosting is more than just the monthly fee, think about the total cost of ownership. TCO includes lost sales due to downtime & slow speeds, downtime rebates, extra bandwidth charges, setup costs, extra feature costs, and your monthly fee.

Many hosts will require you to pay yearly to get the best price available though there are some that allow you to pay by the month and still get the best price, it's really a matter of personal choice as to what payment method works best for you.

Customer Service

Customer service is another aspect that is often not forgettable while choosing a great web host. You shouldn't settle for anything less than 24/7/365 service, your website needs to be running all the time so it's no good if your hosting company doesn't work during the holidays. Don't take the web hosting companies word for it, they all claim 24/7 support but few back it up with consistent performance. Be sure to test them out at various times of the day and night via phone, email and live chat if they offer it.

Support

An extensive knowledge base can be a real time saver as well as being an indication of the level of customer service supports and expertise you can expect to receive. Spend some time browsing the support sections of the website and see for yourself the level of support provided.

Longevity

Do a whois on the web host's domain name and find out the creation date, anything less than a year ago and the risk that they won't be around next year increases. They could be a great host, but considering more then 95% of new hosts go out of business within a year that really isn't something you should be taking a chance on.

Uptime

It's a fact of life that a web host cannot be online 100% of the time, servers need to be rebooted for security and software updates and any web host that doesn't get updated faces the increased risk of being successfully hacked.

99.9% uptime guarantees are pretty standard in the industry however a guarantee is only as good as how it is defined and the company behind it. Look for no less than a full months free hosting should they not meet their guarantee, a prorated refund based on the amount of downtime is virtually worthless. Say you pay $10 for a month of hosting and your site is down for 24 hours. They will refund you for one day of downtime, which ends up being about 33 cents.

Hence, it's not a rocket science; just a little research and investigating that can save a lot of heartache in the future and can offer you a great web host.

Web Hosting is vital for business website

Web hosting is vital for a business website

By Ken Wilson

The first requirement of going into business over the Internet is finding a web host for your website. You may find yourself with a very large number of available offers from which to choose, but most of them provide the same kind of services and use the same type of servers. If you are a newbie, the task of choosing reliable web hosting may be a rather demanding goal to achieve. The criteria you will use will be limited.

If you are a total newbie, the one thing you can compare when starting is the prices. The offers for web hosting available over the Internet may vary, starting from a few dollars per year to three times that sum per month. Now the problem that lies ahead is whether to choose the more expensive one, because it would be as reliable as the price, or go for the cheaper one, because you are just starting your business and saving money is a priority. You should consider ruling out the free web hosting option. This is not useful for earning credibility with visitors or search engines. You might find very reliable hosting for an affordable price.

Reliability is an issue that concerns most people. Most web hosting companies keep the website up 99.9% of the time. They operate their businesses from their server like everybody else and ‘lease’ the space from the same places. Therefore, reliability should not raise too many questions in most cases. However, one thing you should consider taking into consideration is support. You should test the support staff first by sending them an e-mail and see how quick they respond to that e-mail. If you do not receive an answer within a few hours, the support they offer does not rise to high standards and you should keep looking for something else. However, most web hosting companies offer great support services.

If you have a website, the process of finding a reliable web host is not very complicated. You should find the web host that is best suited for your needs and try to learn as much as you can about them from their main website. You should not take into consideration the opinions of third parties, because some of them pursue their own interests. One thing you should never do when you search for the appropriate web host is signing up through an affiliate. An affiliate is a site that earns money from the web host, if they convince you to sign up through them. These will double the price you pay for the domain name, because half of that amount would go back to the affiliate for the service it provided.

Another problem with web hosting is bandwidth. If you have problems in understanding the meaning of bandwidth, a suitable comparison would be with the difference in traffic support between a one-lane street and an eight-lane highway. On the one-lane street, the traffic would be very strenuous, especially if two cars were to come from opposite directions. Nevertheless, on the highway, the number of cars that can pass at once is very high, as are the speeds of those cars. The bandwidth is the same as the street. On a small bandwidth, the number of visitors on your website would be very low, because of the traffic support. However, on a large bandwidth, the flow of information is greater and the visitors would not encounter any problems.

Many web hosting companies have contingencies to manage the growth of your website. Even so, you should not take that for granted. Do not be shy with asking questions. This will help you make an informed decision whether the quality, reliability and effectiveness of the web hosting service are suited for you. In your search for a reliable web host, be sure to check our services, here, on targetdomain.com. Here you will find some of the best offers available on the Internet for a domain name, packed with other free bonuses. The services we offer are top ranking when it comes to quality.