Posts Tagged ‘web hosting’
Is Hostgator Really as Good?
Anytime anyone is looking for good and unique web hosting deal one of the companies that is bound to come up is HostGator. They are one of the larger hosting companies in the world. One million domains currently make their home on HostGator servers. So they must be an option people must look at when considering web hosting options. They offer a few different packages depending on price and if you need share or dedicated options.
When you look at HostGator they appear to be a good option. Their support is available 24/7 with 99.9% guaranteed uptime. They will allow you to look around at their control panel which is cPanel in a demo version. HostGator also offers a site builder and flash templates for all the users to use.
With my experience of six months on their baby plan at $7.95 monthly I have had plenty of space and bandwidth. Throughout my time with HostGator and their web hosting I have experienced no down time with my sites. I have not lost a single email through their servers. They have answered my questions quickly and professionally even faster than they advertised. They allow you to pay your monthly bill by paypal or by credit card. They send you a bill into your email account each month.
HostGator is a newer company and are located in Dallas, Texas. All of their servers are powered by earth friendly energy. They have many upgrade options and their prices are in line with most. I am completely satisfied with using HostGator for my hosting.
Great and reliable Domain Names and Reseller Web Hosting
The Disadvantages of Free Web Hosting
Any product or service that requires storage or access on the internet will use the services of a web hosting company to do this. Anything that is stored or accessible on the Internet will require some form of storage; sometimes this is even supplied free of charge but is normally part of an overall package. Anything uploaded to a web host will be stored on the host’s server which means that other internet users can then access your website for what is essentially a huge digital storage facility.
A majority of providers even offer free hosting to individuals, not usually profit driven organizations, where they are able to have websites and blogs without any charge. There are many disadvantages to non-paid web hosting services and they are not usually considered as an option for serious web owners as the total storage is small along with many other features a web user may require. You can find on the Net for many of the paid hosting services but their prices may vary depending on the packages they’re offering.
In the early days you may be quite happy to have your files on a server which is shared by many others while you try their hosting services. When the need for more space and security is needed then a dedicated server at extra cost can be obtained at A2Hosting. You need to have a registered domain to have a web hosting package otherwise files, websites and other digital information cannot be stored or accessed. A file is anything that is stored on the server and can include images, documents, programs, video or audio files, in fact anything that can be stored digitally; prices for storage continue to fall so limits are constantly rising.
The advantage about paid domain names and hosting means that all your email addresses will contain your domain name in them and not that of the free service provider you may have been using before. 100megswebhosting offers free domain name with every hosting plan. Owned domain name email addresses are an important sign that a person or company is serious about their internet presence and provides a sense of credibility which cannot be achieved with the many free service providers that are offered on the Net. Then you have bandwidth, which refers to how much data is being transferred over the internet, this is something that many people overlook simply because they’re enamored with the low prices of hosting packages and don’t consider how quickly bandwidth is used up.
If you only settle for a package with a minimum amount of bandwidth then there will be times when visitors will have trouble viewing your web site or using its facilities. Of course this won’t matter if you only have a basic website but as soon as you start adding large images, audio tracks, video footage and other big files, your bandwidth will be used up very quickly. Some people and web hosting companies decide to become their own web host but this is not recommended as the security issues involved are huge unless you are proficient in this area, it is something to be avoided.
Web hosting Basics
Web hosting is an idea that is difficult for many, especially when they are beginning to develop their web site. They have terms mentioned like web site names, web hosting, web site design and graphic layout design. Shared web site hosting when you understand it is an easy concept to understand. To summarize, shared web hosting is a place to hold your ASP files and flash files.
Those deciding to purchase an affordable shared hosting solution will want to learn the different features you get with shared web hosting, such as hosting disk space, bandwidth, number of email accounts and types of languages supported.
Disk Space
Disk Space is exactly as the title states, and is similar to the hard drive space you have on your own computer. It lets you know the size in GB available to the site owner to host your PHP files and images you have for your website. Multimedia, such as images will take up more of your disk space, while your web source files will take up less of the space. The requirement for the disk space you are wise to look into purchasing depends ultimately on the file types you will be hosting, and the overall file size of your web site.
Transfer Limit
Transfer amount for a hosting account is very similar to the bandwidth you use for your internet. Every time a file is viewed from your site, it is added to your total for bandwidth used for your web site. Bandwidth will be different depending on the plan, and you will need to pick the bandwidth amount you will use based on how much traffic your site receives and the total disk space your site uses.. There will be lower bracketed offerings of bandwidth all the way up to web hosting service providers giving unlimited hosting plans.
Hosting Server Configuration
The final topic to cover here is the types of hosting servers available. The type of server will limit the file types, like JSP, that will run on your hosting server. All hosting servers will run HTML, CSS and JavaScript, since they are handled by the actual web browser, like Safari. One point to highlight is Linux hosting is generally cheaper and Linux server hosting with Apache Web Server supports PHP. Windows server hosting runs with Internet Information Services and is most commonly used for Active Server Pages (ASP) files. Linux is more commonly picked as most open source projects like Joomla run off PHP.
Take all these factors into account when purchasing your next web hosting package.
A Beginner's Guide To Website Hosting
When a user visits a website, the web page that is seen on the web browser is basically downloaded from a web server. The website consists of web pages, each composed of graphic images and content. In order for the website to be available to online users, all the web pages have to be stored on web servers. So if a user decides to own a website, the website has to be compulsorily hosted on a server. In this way users on the Internet can access the website using browsers. The companies that provide the service of hosting a website are known as web hosting providers. Some of good web hosting company are blue host, host gator and IX web hosting
The web host provides different hosting requirements that users need, with each providing a different plan, rates and type of web hosting. For a novice Webmaster, it is important to understand the type of web host the website would require, depending on business and other feasibilities.
1. Shared Hosting
In this type of hosting, numerous websites share space on a single physical web server, i.e. virtual web hosting.
2.Dedicated Web Hosting
In dedicated hosting, the user website is allotted to a specific web server that can be used by one user only, for this reason, the name ‘dedicated.’
3. Co-location hosting
In co-location hosting, the server hardware is owned by the customer, but stored inside the web hosting company’s safe and reliable data center.
4. Reseller hosting
In this type of hosting, a third party buys the web server storage from a web hosting provider at discounted prices and resells it to other customers.
While the hosting industry is booming, there are plenty of companies that offer such web services. For beginners in web hosting, there are plenty of free web hosting services that do not require the user to pay a cent. Once the business expands the user can then get a paid hosting service. Since the free services offer limited space, bandwidth and sub-domains. However when choosing a web host, newcomers should be careful. A thorough research on the web host and user reviews should be conducted and it always good to use a web host that comes recommended by friends or someone who is in the business.
Handy Pointers On Buying Web Hosting
Here are basic pointers for those checking out effective web hosting:
- The cost of hosting can range from a couple of dollars up to hundreds. Personal internet sites don’t usually come with the full package of tools and have a smaller bandwidth, in anticipation that the web site will be simple and will not attract a lot of visitors. Free hosts will often advertise with banner ads to make up the cost.
– Too high visitor numbers can sink a web-site financially. A web site heavy on media will run out faster than one coded conservatively. It should also be noted that Google will not index any media (video, flash, music), which means any information stored in them will be ignored by search-engines. Text is the best way to present data.
– You can tell a good web-host from a bad one if they let you upload files, manage accounts, view your site’s statistics and have management over your FTP accounts. The control panel is key, so examine each host’s panel before choosing a host. You want to be able to monitor visitor numbers so you can plan your marketing campaigns properly. A good host will also offer 24-hour technical support via email, phone and possibly live support.
– Storage space is an important factor to consider when choosing a web hosting outfit. The hosting firm will usually offer you storage space in megabyte (Mb) increments. Depending on the amount and type of content available on your web page you’ll need to choose a web hosting company that can supply you with an adequate amount of storage space for a reasonable cost. Text files are relatively small, image files are bigger and multi-media files are still bigger.
– System redundancy is important when choosing an ecommerce web-hosting company. It’s important to look for an ecommerce web hosting outfit that offers a high level of redundancy such as multiple lines into their server facility, redundant power lines to the server and a routinely tested backup-generator on-site.
– Many companies offer hosting for free but these web hosting companies often include ads on your web pages and have a higher rate of failure. If your web pages are for personal use, you likely wouldn’t mind. However, if your web-page is for business and you plan to have a lot of visitors to your web site and cannot afford lengthy web-server failures, then it is wise to invest in a hosting firm that will provide you with more reliability than a free hosting firm offers.
– You may realise that some services are apparently superior to others in both price and features offered. Keep in mind that there could always be hidden conditions, unforeseen downsides, or the company could even be lying about what each package offers. The term “unlimited” is a good indication you should find another firm.
– You should choose a reliable web-hosting vendor with few timeouts, or else you will spend a long time trying to upload a small amount of content to your site. A fast web server is also important so files will download quickly. You ought to choose a monthly bandwidth that will reflect your visitor’s use, as well as a storage space to fit all your files. These are very important to ensure your site will succeed.
I hope these few handy tips will help you in looking for inexpensive web hosting.
About the author: Nick Svengali is an author for ecommerce web hosting and unsecured debt consolidation web sites in London in the UK.
Reseller Web Hosting
The fastest growing sector on the Internet today is the web hosting market. Using Website Source Turnkey Reseller hosting plans has made it possible to build flourishing online businesses. Using a private label, you can resell your hosting space and make money as well. Doing this can compliment your main business and is an ideal venture for home based entrepreneurs. The whole of thought of reseller hosting is to sell different types of hosting solutions. But small hosting companies purchase a small reseller-hosting plan or a dedicated server and set up an establishment that sells hosting solutions to individual customers. This is done by bigger hosting companies too, but on a larger scale for higher profits. Some of the companies that follow this concept are BlueHost, HostGator, etc.
In order to start a business in Reseller Hosting, here is a step-by-step idea of how to get into the business. Initially you must select the platform that you would prefer using. There are plenty of open source software programs compatible for Linux as compared to those available for Windows. This is the reason that Linux falls cheaper. The next step is to choose the control panel. The control panels can used can be anywhere from basic to fully loaded. For resellers, a control panel is available to set up and control the other hosting accounts. The third step is to select a good web host; the success of the business depends on the quality of the web host provider. So when looking for a web hosting, most people consider support, uptime, communication and price.
The next step in starting a business in Reseller Web Hosting is to setup the plans and prices of hosting. The ratio of the bandwidth and disk space that can be offered by you depends on the ratio of bandwidth and disk space you have. Consider every possible ratio and if required you can upgrade to a better package and offer the packages on this support. This should then be followed by setting up a business website, which helps in promoting your plans and is a necessity if you are a part of the web hosting industry. Other things that should be taken care of once you are settled is to make the website e-commerce equipped, with the help desk, billing and email responders, including welcome mail and an excellent marketing strategy.
There are always two sides to a coin, and reseller hosting too has its share of advantages and disadvantages, though the disadvantages are negligible and dependent on external factors. The advantages of a owning a reseller account include better flexibility over the web hosting accounts, more profits at a smaller investment and the technical support is managed by the web host allowing you to provide better customer support. All maintenance costs are taken care of the web host and this helps you to save. The disadvantage of Reseller Hosting is that the hosting solution you provide is only as good as your web host provider.
Web Hosting Features Explained!
When it comes to web hosting there are a number of features that are related to the services. These features are required to be used in combination with each other so that it managing and maintaining a website becomes easy. There are plenty of web hosting services available in the web hosting industry today, but each offers different extra features with a few common amongst them.
Here are some of the web hosting features that are explained so that you can understand how exactly they are capable of helping in hosting your website.
1. Disk Space or Web Space: This space is in context with the volume of disk storage provided by the web hosting service to store a website on the web hosting company’s server. It can range anywhere from one GB to 10GB; this means that if each web page is about thirty KB and it is possible to store approximately three thousand static web pages on 1GB disk space. A single website can use anywhere between five to fifty MB of disk space. However, the disk space is also provided for other functions besides the web pages, like email, database files and archived web log files.
2. Bandwidth or Data Transfer: This is the total volume of data allowed to be transferred from a website every month, or is better defined by using the term ‘monthly traffic.’ This means that the more users visiting a website, the more the bandwidth required.
3.Protected directories: This is an critical feature for websites, using a password webmasters can prevent access to directories or pages of a website. Only users that have a login ID can access these restricted areas. In order to enable the password protection webmasters are needed to create and modify the “.htaccess" as well as ".htpasswd" files, though majority of the web hosting services have a Control Panel to do this.
4. Email Features: When signing up for a web hosting account, the providers also give email accounts. These can be anywhere from 20 to ‘n’ in number. The right of such accounts is that they have it in sync with the website address as the forward address, for instance, xyz@example.com assuming the web address is www.example.com. These email features made available with the web hosting services also have additional functionalities like Email Forwarding / Alias, Auto responders, Mailing List and Spam Filtering.
5. FTP: File Transfer Protocol, these accounts are used to upload the websites that have been created on the computer. Web host providers support multiple FTP accounts, incase multiple users are needed to upload web pages on the server. Majority of the times, one FTP account is not sufficient, this is the reason that you are provided with multiple accounts. Of course FTP is not the only way of uploading files to the web server, programs like FrontPage Extension help in uploading directly.
Shared or Dedicated Hosting
When people start looking into web hosting they often get stuck on if they need dedicated or shared web hosting. Each will have their advantages over each other. Before moving forward we need to define each. Shared web hosting is when many websites are on one web server with each person getting their own part of the server for their own web site. When you purchase dedicated hosting you will get an entire server for your sites and you will get more options with the server.
Depending on your needs both can be good. Usually shared hosting is better for startup sites. A good web hosting company will get you more space and bandwidth than you will need. Though with dedicated web hosting you are safer if your site quickly gains the attention of Google and starts pouring traffic to it. Shared servers can shut you down if you bring in too much traffic. Having a dedicated server will protect you in that situation. The worst case scenario is that you have to purchase more bandwidth for the month if an increased amount of traffic comes through. When traffic starts rolling in like that you will start seeing more money also.
As you go to purchase web hosting you will need to look at the upgrade options. Most companies have dedicated and shared hosting available. Because of this they will offer upgrade packages that they can quickly implement. This allows you to start with shared hosting and then move to dedicated when necessary. You than get earn money from your sites to pay for your hosting.
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Deciding Which Web Host to Choose
When looking for web hosting there are plenty of companies looking to do business with you. With this you will be able to pick the best company for you. Now with all these options it can be difficult on choosing which plan and web hosting company to use. Here a couple of tips to look at when deciding on what you should choose.
The first thing to look at is to see what the company is offering in guaranteed uptime. This is when your web site will be available for people to visit on the internet. Most companies offer guaranteed 99% uptime with their web hosting services. This is very important since you are going to be placing in a lot of work to build traffic and you do not want people to not be able to access your website.
Next up is budget concerns. With web hosting most people can find a package to fit their budget. This might be a dedicated hosting account that costs a bunch or a free hosting account. Once this is known you can narrow down the list of the sites you are going to look at.
Having good customer service is important in web hosting. Use a company that puts customer service as a top priority. One way to figure this is out is by dropping them an email and watching how long it takes them to get back to you. Also look for other people’s reviews to get a good feel for the company.
Lastly find out the control panel they will offer you to use. Most are very similar and people get used to using one type or another . Look around their site for a demo you can use. Finding a control panel that you understand will help out in the long run.
Great and reliable Domain Names and Reseller Web Hosting
A Guide for Managed Hosting
Managed web hosting is a fresh trend in the Web Hosting industry, and is to some extent different from dedicated web hosting. Though dedicated web hosting has been around for a while now, it has its share of disadvantages that are overcome in managed web hosting. There are a few technicalities that are difficult to operate in dedicated web hosting and the demand for additional services by web hosts has increased. These additional services are available in managed web hosting, and the services provided are managed load balancing, monitoring and reporting, managed security, managed databases and managed storage. Companies that own a dedicated web server and looking to contract out their IT-hosting requirements or businesses should consider opting for managed web hosting.
Managed web hosting includes a lot of services, so it is not possible to give it a definition since web host providers can include almost any service when hosting. However, it is basically seen as a hosting solution that has an outsourced technical workforce and website monitoring. The difference in managed hosting and standard dedicated hosting is that the web host provider provides customers with extra services that help them improve productivity in their online efforts. Web host companies that provide managed hosting services offer a variety of hosting associated applications that include private networking, server security products, database administration etc. This indirectly results in a successful business since managed web hosting provides a holistic approach when it comes to server needs and other requirements from manpower to maintenance.
The concept is so innovative those web host companies that provided dedicated and shared hosting solutions are now providing managed services. Web host directories and search engines are excellent places to look for managed hosting services. By doing a simple search you will get a list of providers. Contacting web hosts that already provide dedicated hosting solutions and asking them if they can provide managed web hosting is another way to find a solution.
Hosting per item and pre-configured plans are the two offers that managed hosting companies allow their customers to choose from. When opting for a hosting per item plan, the services you require can be selected while a pre-configured plan as the name suggests has the services offered with the dedicated server and at a monthly charge.