Ensim Appoints New Director

Ensim Appoints New Director
July 28, 2006 -- Web hosting automation software provider Ensim announced on Thursday it has appointed Dilip Khandekar as director of engineering.

Virtual vs. Dedicated: Which Type of Web Hosting Do I Need?

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The choice between the type of web hosting, virtual or dedicated, is governed by several factors that need to be taken into consideration by the site owner. The key for a site owner is to try and fulfill his requirements while staying within his budget. An understanding of the pros and cons of both forms of hosting is the first step in deciding which to choose.

Virtual hosting: This type of hosting is preferred by most small websites. Several websites are hosted on a single server in this form of hosting. Hosting providers offer packages with different combinations of disk space, domain names allowed with each hosting account, and bandwidth allotments. Small sites and blogs that do not require too many resources to run can select a smaller virtual hosting package.

With virtual hosting, the distribution of resources means that the speed of web pages loading depends upon other web sites sharing the web server. If quick download and upload are essential to a site owner's plan, then virtual hosting which offers sufficient bandwidth should be considered. A good host will ensure that websites with similar resource requirements are hosted together so that site owners pay only for the resources and scripts that are used by them.

Virtual hosts may or may not allow access to non-public directories, these are directories used for storing files that are not meant to be accessed via the word wide web. Small sites that hold sensitive data should check for this facility. SSH/Telnet are important for site owners that wish to communicate directly with the servers and run queries on the databases.

In terms of security, websites can get compromised even when there are no lapses on their part; carelessness on part of neighboring websites on a virtual server can lead to the server getting hacked into and every website may be at risk. However, choosing a good host with solid security will mitigate this risk.

Dedicated hosting: With dedicated hosting, all the resources of a server are made available to the site owner exclusively. Dedicated hosting is best suited for sites that attract a lot of visitors and have a high bandwidth requirement, ecommerce sites that may need special software, or web sites that hold sensitive information and therefore need greater security.

Dedicated servers allow unlimited domain names and greater freedom in managing the website. Dedicated hosting is divided into managed and unmanaged hosting. Managed hosting implies greater support from a technical team that performs regular technical updates and routine maintenance without the site owner having to look into it. Unmanaged dedicated hosting is cheaper than managed dedicated hosting but additional support can be an added cost.

Dedicated servers are accessible only by the host and the site owners; by using features such as secure FTP and encrypted terminal sessions, site owners can be assured of greater security. Webmasters who run multiple sites can also host all their sites on a dedicated server; this enables better management and may work out cheaper than hosting the sites separately on different virtual servers.

About the Author

Paul Hanson recommends Net Explorers for reliable UK web hosting.

Web Hosting Company, Lunarpages, Offers $2.99 Domain Names

Web Hosting Company, Lunarpages, Offers $2.99 Domain Names
Cheap Web Hosting Directory, CA - 17 hours agoBuena Park, California - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) - July 26, 2006 - Lunarpages.com, a multi award winning Californian based web hosting company, is ...

Web Host and Design Firm, SiteGround, Debuts Customized Mambo ...
WebSite Host Directory (press release), OR - 16 hours agoSan Antonio, Texas - (Website Hosting Directory) - July 26, 2006 - Web hosting firm, SiteGround, is offering free Mambo and Joomla templates for IT business ...

365 Main Reaches Out To Community

365 Main Reaches Out To Community
July 10, 2006 -- While community involvement is by no means a new strategy for corporations to increase their presence, there is a substantial difference between submitting a charitable donation and taking a proactive approach in reaching out.

The Ocean Group Redefines the Web Experience for the Tourism ...

The Ocean Group Redefines the Web Experience for the Tourism ...
Market Wire (press release) - 6 hours ago... Core capabilities offered are: Web Site Development, Programming & Technology, Marketing and Analytics. Come visit us at www.TheOceanGroupInc.com. ...

Digital Insight Reports 18% Increase in Second Quarter Revenue
PR Newswire (press release), NY - 1 hour ago... Internet banking, online lending, electronic bill payment and presentment, check imaging, account-to-account transfers, Web site development and hosting and ...

JotForm WYSIWYG Build Reaches Record Weeks

JotForm WYSIWYG Build Reaches Record Weeks
JotForm WYSIWYG Build Reaches Record Weeks

Dotster Hosts Happy Hour Promotion
July 25, 2006 -- Domain registrar and Web hosting provider announced on Monday it is holding its tenth virtual "Happy Hour" event scheduled for July 26.

Virtual vs. Dedicated vs. CoLo: Which Web Hosting Do I Need?

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You know you need a web host, but you don't know where to start. So you do a web search to research potential solutions and get a bit overwhelmed with all the jargon: UNIX, dedicated servers, POP3, CoLo... the list goes on.

Step back a bit. You don't need to learn everything about web sites to choose a host. You do however need to know what a web host is, and the basic types of web hosting. This knowledge will lead you to know what type of hosting you need, and ultimately you can make a sound decision.

To begin, let's define the term. Web hosting is a service that hosts web pages on servers that can be accessed through the Internet. There are three primary categories of web hosting providers that cater to the requirements of site owners; these include virtual web hosting, dedicated web hosting, and co-located hosting. There are various sources online that offer detailed information and reviews on these services, but there are several details you should pay most attention to. The points to consider before selecting a web hosting provider include the number of clients they service, years in business, customer service reputation, hardware specifications, and backup routines. With that out of the way, let's jump in and explore the basic types of web hosting.

Dedicated hosting

A dedicated web server is basically like the name sounds: it's dedicated to your site only. Typically it is leased to a site owner. The hosting company is responsible for the maintenance, backing up, security, and power management. The site owner manages the software-related issues.

Dedicated hosting is useful for websites that need extra bandwidth and system resources because of the use of technologies such as e-commerce software, customized server applications, and heavy traffic. Such websites are often better served by a dedicated hosting provider rather than developing and running an in-house solution. Dedicated hosting is possible with Windows, Mac, and Linux servers. A dedicated server can cost upward of $100 / month.

Pros and cons: 24/7 tech support is available. Speed, dependability, and customizability of website are often enhanced. The response time of dedicated servers is fast as compared to shared servers where the activity of other sites affects server speeds. Reliability and customizability of websites are improved as dedicated hosting offers greater storage capacity and greater freedom in terms of hardware configurations and software installations; hard drives can be upgraded and bandwidths increased with growth.

Shared servers and CoLo hosting are cheaper alternatives to dedicated hosting. Moreover, as the server is not owned by the site owner, security of sensitive data can be an issue.

Virtual hosting

Virtual hosting, also called shared hosting, is a popular and cost-effective web hosting solution. The hosting provider leases the website hosting server, services, and bandwidth to more than one website. Small and medium-sized websites, which do not have high traffic and have limited bandwidth requirements, benefit from virtual hosting. A virtual hosting offer by a service provider usually includes features such as Internet connection, domain name registration, file storage, email account, and may also include website design assistance. The cost of virtual hosting is in the range of $5-40 per month. It can be more or less depending upon the package selected.

Pros and cons: Virtual hosting enables the establishment of an online presence with no expensive equipment purchases required on part of the site owners and therefore is the perfect solution for SMBs.

One of the limitations of virtual hosting is that sites compete for the provider's service; this may result in slow server response times in periods of heavy traffic and make browsing inconvenient. Since websites hosted on a server may be grouped under a single IP address, there is a chance that a site owner may have to share an IP address with adult or scam sites. This can lead to debarring from search engine placements which will have an adverse effect on the traffic. As the software components are shared between websites, a site owner may not be able to personalize the website as per his business objectives and target audience.

While purchasing virtual hosting services, it is useful to have an idea of the total anticipated traffic during the day as well as the visits during the peak period. This helps in obtaining a package with sufficient bandwidth for immediate and near term needs. Also, the cost of an upgrade and changes to the package should be understood.

Co-location (Co-lo) hosting

In Co-location hosting, the server is owned by the site owner and it is leased at the co-lo facility, where it is installed along with other servers in the facility. A co-lo service enables site owners to make maximum use of network access points and the freedom to choose between telecom lines provided by the hosting company and other telecom lines. Co-location hosting enables site owners to utilize high bandwidth at a cost that is not significantly higher than that of a normal web hosting package. The site owner maintains the server while the hosting provider ensures smooth running by providing regular power supply and IT support.

Co-location hosting services can be standalone data centers or companies that operate by leasing server space from a co-location web hosting reseller. The cost of the server and the volume of rack space required by the servers of a site owner influence the cost of co-lo hosting. Servers that fit in with the dimensions of the racks can help to save costs; co-locating tower servers usually cost more. Additional services provided by the hosting provider and insurance are other factors that affect cost. The monthly cost of a co-lo service for a half-rack of server space can be up to $1000.

Pros and cons: The benefits of co-location hosting include temperature and humidity controlled environment for the servers; security from hacking, fire, and theft; provision of redundancy and backup. It enables the site owner to control the critical features of web hosting such as bandwidth allocation, routers, VPN, server space, and VLAN.

Site owners may not find it easy to locate a co-lo service that is situated close enough to facilitate easy and safe transfer of servers and at the same time provide the best connection speeds. Co-lo hosting is of greater advantage to those who have hosting experience and consequently are better placed to recover the costs involved.

Ultimately, it is the requirements of the site that dictate the choice of web hosting solution. Online stores and sites with heavy traffic are better off with dedicated hosting, personal blogs and small sites without ecommerce activity that do not have high bandwidth consumption can function with virtual hosting, and websites that require a high degree of customization and deal with sensitive data benefit from a co-lo hosting arrangement.

To determine what type of host you need, ask yourself what type of site you have, and it should all flow naturally from there.

About the Author

John Hasson writes for Find a Web Host.

6 Reasons You Need A Website

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If you don't have a website, then you might not realize all the great things they can do for you. Maybe you think there wouldn't be any point, because your business is too small - or maybe you don't even have a business! Perhaps you think it'd be a lot of work for little reward. Or maybe you paid big bucks for a site back during the dot-com 'boom' days, only to get nothing but trouble out of it and shut it down a year later.

Whatever your situation is, though, you need a website, and I'm here to tell you why.

1. People Will Look for You Online.

Sooner or later, someone's going to type your name into a search engine. What do you want them to find? Nothing? These are people who want to find you, and if you don't have a website then you're letting them down - they expect you to be online. For many people, you might as well not exist if you can't be found with a search engine. Not having a website is like not bothering to get listed in the phone book. Whether it's customers or old school friends you're hoping for, very few people are going to find you if you aren't online.

2. Websites Cost Next to Nothing.

Once, it cost a lot to run a website - but those days are long gone. There are 'pay as you go' services out there now charging as little as $1 per gigabyte of bandwidth. If you're sensible about the size of your pages, that dollar could last you a whole month, or even longer! If you don't want to pay for design, it's never been simpler to do it yourself, or find free software to do it for you. Really, it's never been cheaper to have a website than it is today.

3. Websites are Great Advertising.

Whatever you're advertising - your services, your products, or just yourself - a website is a great way to do it. Every other kind of advertising going costs a premium, especially if you want to target a specific kind of person, and there's no guarantee that they're paying attention. Websites are like brochures that are free to reproduce, interactive, and quickly distributed to people who are already looking for them. No advertising medium even comes close to the ease-of-use and effectiveness of a website.

4. A Website is a Worldwide Presence.

On the web, it doesn't matter whether someone is next door to you or on the other side of the world - they can see your website just the same as anyone else can, at no extra cost to you or to them. Phone and post both cost enormous amounts long-distance, but a website lets you send information anywhere without any extra effort or expense. You can make friends and contacts in places you've never been and will never go - suddenly, working globally is no more effort than working locally.

5. Your Website Can Make You Money.

There's a lot of money on the web, and it's not hard to get some - the longer you're online for, the bigger your share can get. If you have something to sell, you can sell it worldwide, thanks to credit cards. Doing business online eliminates almost every overhead there is: all you need to do is have the goods. If you've written something useful, you can put it out there with a few ads. You won't get rich overnight, but you can set up a steady trickle of income... and there's no limit to the number of trickles you can set up.

6. Your Website Can Save You Time.

Giving out information takes time, whether it's on the phone, or in brochures, or even if it's just emailing your family. Websites are designed to save you time. All your family and friends can read your online diary (known as a weblog), but you only had to write it once. Customers can see your whole product catalogue without ever needing to talk to you or visit you. This is the power of the web: things on it are written only once, but can be downloaded endlessly - a good website runs itself, and keeps being useful to people for much longer than you'd expect.

About the Author

Gregg Hall is a business consultant to many online and offline businesses and owns over 400 domains himself. Check out the virtual hosting at http://www.virtualwebhostingplus.com

Virtual Dedicated Web Hosting

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=================================================== Most webmasters on the net today are familiar with what the industry calls "shared" web hosting accounts. A shared hosting account is where you rent a small amount of space on a server which is shared among many other users.

This is a cheap way to get started online but it has many disadvantages - you will encounter email delivery problems because of spam complaints against other sites on the same server. You will find your site's grinding to a halt when someone else does some heavy database work on your server. You might even find your site going down because of a denial of service attack against someone else hosting hacking or piracy related material on your server (these type of sites attract antisocial elements!)

How can you avoid all of this drama?

By upgrading to a virtual dedicated server. A virtual dedicated server lets you run your sites as if you had your own "dedicated" server, except it is cheaper because you are really just using part of a server that has been split into multiple virtual dedicated servers.

You can find out more about this by searching Google for "virtual dedicated hosting". Virtuozzo is the main commercial software that web hosts use to run virtual hosting services.

You will find virtual dedicated server accounts starting at just $30 a month. You'll get a much larger chunk of bandwidth compared to shared hosting, and none of the problems that go with a shared host. You can also get multiple IP addresses that are exclusive to your sites.

So what's the catch? Not much. You'll probably spend a bit more on hosting each month. The main disadvantage of upgrading to virtual dedicated hosting is that you will need to be more technically proficient so that you can administer the server.

This requires a bit of time learning the necessary Linux skills to make sure your server runs smoothly.

Many hosting providers will have a "premium" support offering that includes a bit more hand holding - this is definitely recommended if you don't have much experience with Linux, or are new to virtual dedicated hosting.

With the increased speed and bandwidth that a virtual dedicated host offers, and none of the shared hosting headaches, the move is one you will never regret. So, the question now becomes, are to ready and willing to take-on the challenge of virtual dedicated web hosting and save yourself some hard earned cash? The choice is yours.. ===================================================

About the Author

For website hosting please visit www.299host.net
Complete hosting plans starting at $2.99 per month.

(You are granted the right to reprint this article but the title and content must remain unchanged and the authors name and contact information must be included.)

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How To Select A Good Website Hosting Company

I constantly encounter people that want me to design or update a website for them, and they are already signed up with a hosting company. The only problem is that many of these people should never have signed up with that particular hosting company. I'm dealing with a client now who is paying almost two and a half times more a month than she should, and the service the hosting company provides is substandard.

I constantly encounter people that want me to design or update a website for them, and they are already signed up with a hosting company. The only problem is that many of these people should never have signed up with that particular hosting company. I'm dealing with a client now who is paying almost two and a half times more a month than she should, and the service the hosting company provides is substandard.

I run into many problems with hosting companies, including:

• Prices being too high. I often see people paying $15 to $25 a month, when the average is $9 or less. The $15 to $25 fee is okay, if you are getting monthly updates, or some other service, from a website designer.
  
• Very important features are missing, such as form handling and some e-mail features.
  
• You can only post websites that you make using their design software. This means you must stay with them or completely redesign your website if you decide to go to another hosting company. If you can't recreate your website you will wind up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to have someone else do it.
  
• Terrible technical support. I have called technical support at several hosting companies to get some needed information only to be told, "We aren't going to help you with that." You usually hear this response from companies that really don't care about their clients.
  
• The hosting company has listed themselves as the owner of the domain name. This means that they own your domain, you don't. This is considered very unethical. It can take months to have your name put on as owner, if they will do this at all. Do you own your domain name? Go to http://www.WhoIs.com and do a search for your domain. You should be listed as the registrant. If this is not the case, then you don't own your domain.

The features offered by web hosts vary widely, as do their costs. Following are the minimum features a decent hosting company should offer, in my opinion.

• A minimum of 500 MB of storage space. This is equal to about 500,000 pages of text. Yes, this is more space than you will probably ever use, but quite a few web hosting services offer this amount. I have almost 150 pages on my website and over 300 graphics, but I only use 38 MB of disk space on the server.
  
• Unlimited POP3 E-mail Accounts. This lets you have an unlimited number of e-mail accounts so you can keep e-mails separated for different departments or personnel.
  
• 6 GB (Gigabytes) of data transfer (bandwidth) per month. This is equal to about 6,000,000 pages of text. If you have a website that contains 10 pages, and each page is a MB (Megabyte) and a person goes to each of your pages, then that person would have used 10 MB of your bandwidth.
  
• No long-term contract. You should be free to pay monthly, quarterly or annually. The longer you sign up for the less it will cost you. Also check into what happens if you want to cancel the hosting service. Will you get any unused money back?
  
• Technical support should be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You should be able to contact technical support by phone (with a toll free number) and e-mail.
  
• Unlimited e-mail autoresponders, so you can set up links on your site that will automatically send information via e-mail when a person clicks on the link.
  
• A control panel or site manager so you can control all the aspects of your website, including e-mail, backups and software installation. You should also be able to check your site statistics to see how many hits each page is getting.
  
• Mail list manager, so if you have an ezine you can manage your list of subscribers.
  
• 30-day money back guarantee. Many hosting companies don't offer this, but many do. The hosting company I use is Westhost (www.Westhost.com), and they offer all of these features, and more.

Avoid Free Hosting like the plague. These hosts don't charge a monthly fee, but they do put ads on your site. These ads may run across the top, the side or pop-up anywhere on the screen. People find these ads annoying and distracting. Using a free hosting service will put many people off and you will lose visitors. Customers will also be more reluctant to buy any products or services from you. Would you buy something from a business that couldn't afford to pay $5-$10 a month for website hosting? It will also be more difficult for people to remember you web address. Instead of www.Acme.com, your web address may well be www.TheFreeSite.com/acme.html. And if the company goes out of business, then your site is gone and all the listings you have on search engines will no longer work.

Free sites may also change the rules about what you can have on your site. You may suddenly find that one or more of your pages are banned because of their content. I started out with free hosting years ago, but soon outgrew it and had to buy my own domain name, create a new website and start all over again getting my pages listed with search engines. When my free site was removed, all the links on search engines to that site no longer worked.

Avoid a hosting company that gives you Shared or Virtual Hosting. Shared hosting means that the server, the computer where your website resides, is shared with possibly hundreds of websites who all use the same server software. The hosting company gives you a certain amount of storage space on the server's hard drive for your site, and that hard drive stores as many sites as space allows. The problem is that since all the websites are sharing the same server software, if one website is attacked by a virus or hacker and the server software is damaged, then all the websites on that server will be affected the same way that single site is affected.

Look for a host that offers a Virtual Private Server. This means that your website resides in a partitioned section of the server and has its own server software. I've used Westhost for several years with no problems. They have great tech support and constantly improve the features they offer. You can find a banner link to them at the bottom of my page at http://www.creativecauldron.com/WebsiteDesign.shtml

To look for other web hosting services try these links.

• Compare Web Hosts http://www.comparewebhosts.com/BudgetWebHosting.asp
  
• Consumers Review http://www.consumersreview.org/webhosting.html
  
• Host Index http://www.hostindex.com/
  
• Web Hosting Reviews http://www.web-hosting-reviews.org/
  
• Web Hosting Unleashed http://www.webhostingunleashed.com/
  
• Web Site Hosting http://www.web-site-hosting.md/
  
• Webhosting Top 10 http://www.webhosting-top10.com/us32/

As you check out web hosting services you will encounter some words that you may not have heard before. Here's some useful terminology that will clear things up for you.

• Auto Responder - An automated program that, when it receives an e-mail, sends out an e-mail with a message and/or attachment to the person who sent the e-mail. This is often used with websites that sell ebooks and other electronic information. The person clicks on an e-mail link for the ebook they want and the autoresponder sends it to them. It's a real time saver.
  
• Bandwidth (Data Transfer) - This is the amount of data that you or others upload to your site and download from your site. A typical site uses less than 5 GB (Gigabytes) per month.
  
• CGI Bin - the Common Gateway Interface bin is where programs are stored that let you put things on your site like a guestbook and bulletin board.
  
• Control Panel - This is an interface that lets you control the tools, settings and utilities that your web host provides.
  
• Disk Space - This is the amount of space you have on the server's hard drive to store your website. Unless your site is loaded with graphics, which it shouldn't be, then you don't need a lot of space.
  
• FTP - File Transfer Protocol is a common way to upload and download your website pages and files.
  

Once you find a few place you like, check them out at the Better Business Bureau at http://bbb.org/ and do a search on Yahoo and Google to see if anyone has posted anything bad about them.

It can be difficult to know what to look for in a hosting company if you're new to the Internet. The best solution is to do a lot of research, talk to people you know who have websites and start trying different hosts who offer a 30-day money back guarantee. As long as you own your domain name, and you have created your own website, or had someone create it for you, then you will be fine. With these two things done, you can take your site to almost any host without any problems.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

http://www.CreativeCauldron.com
Jeff Colburn is a website designer and writer. His goal is to make the process of creating or updating your website easy and simple for you, while creating a website that meets all your needs and expectations. Jeff can also create all of the copy for your website.

Vortech Hosting Announces Acquisition of RocketColo

Vortech Hosting Announces Acquisition of RocketColo
ORLANDO, FL (9/6/05) - Vortech Incorporated (http://www.vortechhosting.com), a web hosting provider currently hosting over 120,000 domain names, announced today that it has acquired Florida based RocketColo.net (http://www.rocketcolo.net), a co-locatio

Do you know what your hosting SLA is?

Also known as "Terms and Acceptable Usage Policy" your Service Level Agreement, SLA is probably the most important piece of text you will need to read. And read you will have to; the entire text. Once you have familiarized yourself with this SLA you can start to skim read and look out for the most important details you feel are most important to you as you search for other hosting companies.

An SLA basically tells you what services you will be paying for and what rights you do not have and what rights you do have. You are agreeing to pay for your web hosting and for what is in the SLA and nothing else. In this document or text, the web host provider is letting you know in print, what you will have to agree to if you wish their services. But remember, that it also tells you, what rights you have. If the web host provider does not live up to the SLA, you now have a right to use this agreement to your advantage.

Web sites and web pages are very powerful marketing tools to appeal and encourage the client to act or buy the service that company is offering. Web pages can contain images, Flash, colors and even sounds and music. A web page can even be interpreted as one big advertisement to the buyer. This is why the SLA of a company, or in this case, a web host provider is so important. It is straight to the point and to quite a number of people, simply boring. Many times the SLA is written in small text, is very long and to some people confusing or complicated. You may notice some SLA's are almost hidden or at the bottom of a page in small text or only available on the order form.

Is there a reason why this is so? To have your SLA on the first page would look very odd and highly unusual. There are many reasons why some companies choose to have their SLA located where they are, written the way they are. Some are simply so they do not confuse the buyer. Some are so they do not scare the buyer so he or she thinks that what they are "getting into", is way out of their league. Unfortunately, some companies "hide" these service agreements because it reveals too much about the company and what you are really purchasing. Remember the colorful and bedazzling web pages? Well these SLA's are just the opposite. They get straight to the point. It's like opening the hood of a car and looking at the engine to see exactly how it works.

If you do not find an SLA anywhere on the website and have looked on just about all the web pages, then simply move on to another provider. This must be present on all web host providers selling services, even if they are free. You can always ask for their SLA, but this is not advisable if it comes in the form of an email as there is no way for both parties to revert to a static SLA.

This is also another important matter. The web host provider can always change their SLA if need be, but find out if you are told so and how much time you have to adapt to these changes. It is not good agreeing to their terms and then having them change it later on to something you did not agree to. You may wish to make a copy of their SLA page and save it on to your computer's hard disk. You may also find it much easier to read their SLA by copying and pasting the text into Notepad and reading it from there. There is actually no need to read the small print on the web page itself, just copy and paste.
Another "tactic" for some web host providers is to provide their SLA on the order form. This is where you are just about to enter your credit card details and pay for your web hosting that they inform you of their SLA. A check mark is needed beside the agreement which usually has a link to the small text. 9 times out of 10, buyers can't be bothered to read this long complicated text and just get on with getting their web hosting. A mistake done all too often. Roughly 70% of all customers read their SLA after they have purchased a web hosting account.

Let's discuss what the SLA can contain. You can always "verify" if what the web pages say are true, as well as get the finer details in the SLA. For a while, a few years back, the most heated discussions involved unlimited bandwidth and web space. To cut a long story short, unlimited bandwidth or web space is simply and always will be an outright lie. There is no such thing; again, read the SLA.

30 day money back guarantee.

The phrase sounds simple enough but there are still just a few things to think about. Can you receive a refund on the 30th day? Or do you need to give them 7 days warning that you wish for a refund. Is is truly a "30 day guarantee"? Does it regard all types of payments, check, money order credit card etc. Is it mentioned in the SLA? Remember, you are basically buying the services within the SLA.

Uptime guarantee.

Another very important feature to look closer at. Again, web pages can look wonderful, but the business takes place within the text of the SLA. You may even want to compare how these uptime guarantees are calculated by other web host providers. Do you need proof to in order to tell the web host provider that your site was down more than x many hours a month so the web host provider can give you a refund? Or is it more complicated, where your site needs to be down for x many hours in a row? In other words, down 2 hours on Monday, 3 on Tuesday, and 1 hour on Sunday but not 6 hours in a row, therefore not receiving a refund? Or if their uptime guarantee does not involve third party software crashes, server maintenance, internet congestion etc. What does the uptime guarantee cover? Not, what does the uptime guarantee not cover. It is extremely unlikely for any web host provider to offer a 100% uptime guarantee, without some exceptions.

What files are permitted?

There are more than just .html, .gif and .jpg files on the Internet. Apart from those files, what other files are you allowed to upload? Do they include any multimedia files; mp3 or movie files? Are you allowed to upload software files? and etc.
How is the bandwidth and disk space quota handled?
If you go over your quota, how is it handled. Are you automatically charged the extra fee? And if so, how much? Or, is your account suspended until you pay the extra charges or pay for the next hosting account? Or, are you notified about the "problem" and asked to pay the extra charges or upgrade to the next hosting plan within a certain number of days?

Domain names.

If you have registered a domain name with a registrar you should not encounter any problems. If you are registering a domain name through your web host provider, make sure you retain all rights to the domain name. This is especially true if you are given a free or a very inexpensive domain name with your account. Some web host providers will register the domain name for you, but in their name, which means you do not own it. In some cases, if you wish to move to another web host provider you will have to purchase the domain from them at a much higher cost.

Miscellaneous categories.

A few other categories to study are server resources, background running programs, mass mailing and other technical areas like Cron Jobs, telnet or SSH etc. Some of these topics mentioned in the SLA may sound rather strict or stringent but it is actually very common to read these same restrictions on almost all web host providers. This is, as mentioned earlier, to inform you of your rights and most importantly in this case, to protect the customer from harming or congesting the server for the company's other clients. You do not want someone slowing down the server which you are using so your web pages load slowly or not at all. So you can actually be more reassured that if this happens, action will be taken, thus an advantage to you and not necessarily a hindrance. (This mainly refers to all virtual hosting accounts.)

If you are uncertain about a certain part of an SLA, you should always ask the web host provider. Never assume something is adequate unless you are sure and have checked. Always think ahead. Will I need this or that in the future? What happens if my website grows much bigger? What if I need to upload x type of files from now on? What if the third party company or software I work with needs this or that enabled? Should I have read the whole SLA? Never assume your web host provider will have or offer what you wish. Find out, and if you are not sure, ask!

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Plausibility is a term that is most often overlooked in regards to web hosting. Our goal is to educate the reader and at the same time, improve our hosting services. For more infromation and articles or to comment, please visit http://www.HostingAndDesigns.com.

Web Hosting Terminology

This article will define what various terms used by web hosting companies mean. It's not possible (and sometimes insulting to the reader) to cover everything so this will just cover the most commonly used and important terms.

Bandwidth (or Transfer or Data Transfer)
Bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is sent (and recieved) by your website. It is usually measured in gigabytes (GB), where 1 GB = 1024 megabytes (MB), and it is usually allocated on a monthly basis, for example you could have 5GB/month of bandwidth, which means that there is a limit of 5GB of files that can be downloaded from your site within a month. Bandwidth is only a concern if you host a lot of files, for example images or movies, as webpages are usually small file sizes.
Colocation Server (or Colocation Hosting)
This is similar to Dedicated Hosting (see below), except the server is owned by a customer and they pay the colocation hosting company to host the server for them - that involves paying a charge for bandwitch which the hosting company provide, the physical space which the server takes up and the power that the server uses. With this set up the customer is responsible for their hardware.
Control Panel
This is a web page with a usable interface which the customer can connect to when they want to tweak their hosting settings, view the transfer statistics, or utilise other features provided with their hosting.
Dedicated Server (or Dedicated Hosting)

This is a server which is owned by the hosting company which they will rent out to you for a monthly fee along with an allotment of bandwidth which you can use with it. This means that you get a whole server to yourself to use for what you desire, this is needed for scripts which use a lot of server resources (for example large message boards, for one of which I pay for a dedicated server). As a customer, you would have full control over the server and could change the configuration as required, a facility not available when you have to share a server with others. With a dedicated server, the web hosting company is responsible for the hardware as they own it, not the customer.
Disk Space
This is the amount of space on the server that you have to upload your files on, it's usually measured in MB or GB.
MySQL
This is a type of database (as is PostgreSQL) which allows the customer to store and retrieve information on the server. A lot of scripts require that a database is present to function.
Reseller Hosting
This is similar to Virtual Hosting (see below), but the customer is given the ability to create small hosting accounts of their own, which they can then give or sell to people if they desire. It usually allows the customer more features, bandwidth and diskspace than with normal virtual hosting.
Scripts (eg PHP, Perl, ASP)
These are server side scripting languages which allow the customer to use already written scripts, or write their own, which provide additional features for the website and increased interactivity (for example message boards and content management systems).

MySQL
This is a type of database (as is

PostgreSQL) which allows the customer to store and retrieve information on the server. A lot of scripts require that a database is present to function.
Virtual Hosting (or Shared Hosting)
This is where a webhosting company puts many customers' webpages on the same server - so the server resources are shared amongst all the customers using it. This means that applications which cause a high server load are not suitable, and if one customer uses one then other customers will suffer.
vdhri.net is a website dedicated to providing free lessons and tutorials in many programming languages.

Guidelines for choosing web hosting company

With the whole world getting global and switching on to the web, web hosting is receiving an awesome response. The aftermath of this powerful response has led to the emergence of various web-hosting companies offering numerous services. The services offered are so diverse and competitive that they actually make the choice tough for you to single out one good company. Prior to choosing any good web hosting company it is advisable to possess the detailed knowledge of the company and their web hosting features. This would make the selected package match your requirements.

In the current scenario, free web hosting is gaining more popularity. But at times it fails to match the clients' requirements. Majority of the free web hosting services are reliable, however sometimes they tend to disappoint. Various web-hosting companies provide minimum free services and compensate by charging the expanded services. If your company is amateur and requires only a home page then this it is the best option to go for. Before selecting a web hosting company it is sensible to do a market research about the company's reputation and reliability.

When you look out for the web-hosting package, the first thing you should know is the disk space. If you are in the process to have an extensive web site then your disk space requirements will be very high. The set limit usually ranges from 5 MB to 300+ MB. So keep a check that even if your company is amateur, the chosen web hosting company grows along with you in the near future.

Email accounts are the second checkpoint while choosing a web-hosting package. It is sensible to have sufficient email addresses in the beginning and make sure you are not charged for more than you need. The same question arises again, that what are your requirements and that web-hosting company can satisfy you when you're expanding in future.

One important factor that should be kept in mind while selecting a web hosting company is the support provided by them. Majority of the people having websites are not aware of the latest technology. So they require a superb technical support in all the technical issues. You should be aware of the fact that the chosen web hosting package provides you a 24/7 support. It is sensible to check their downtime reputation too.

So for a final look there are few important web-hosting features, which can be included in your package or you may require them at the time of expansion.

FrontPage extensions FTP directory wDaily backups Hit counter Website statistics Redirect URL File manager SSL Shopping cart Autoresponder Access logs Mailing Lists Customized error messages Unlimited bandwidth Your own CGI-BIN Site search engine

EV1 and The Planet Announce Merger

EV1 and The Planet Announce Merger
Combination Creates Industry-leading Dedicated Hosting Company; Combined Company Will Continue to Deliver Industry-leading Client Experience

Host The Best Integrates WHM Software

Host The Best Integrates WHM Software
Host The Best, a web hosting provider, today announced that it has launched a new WHM Software called WHM Account Manager, which will help its hosting customers to oversee and maintain their hosting accounts.

Hosts Find Niche at Microsoft Show
July 18, 2006 -- Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, held last week in Boston, was a big event by any standard - with more than 7,000 partners in attendance, it was no-hotel-rooms-left-in-the-city big.

Hosting multiple domains on shared IP?

What are the pros and cons of the sharing ip? This article explains some hard facts about sharing ip in multiple domain hosting. This has been a long time debate whether to host multiple domains/websites on single ip. Some people and veterans say 'one must have unique ip for each domain' and some people say 'no need to have it because search engines take the URLs in to account not ips'.

Most of the hosting companies with reasonable hosting prizes don't offer static ips for the customers unless the customer really needs it like setting up SSL on their websites. If you insists of getting a static ip for your domain it will cost you few more dollars per month.

Before going in to that topic, we will see what is the meaning of 'ip'.

***What is static ip and shared ip?***

Static ip:

Static ip is unique to your website. For example 123.2.234.234 is your website ip address, you can access your website by typing-

http://123.2.234.234/ in the browser.

That means this unique number represents your website in the WWW.

Shared ip:

Shared ip is shared by two or more websites/domains. You can access the websites that share the same ip by-

http://www.123.2.234.234/~user1/

http://www.123.2.234.234/~user2/

http://www.123.2.234.234/~user3/ etc,

***Questions regarding shared ip:***

1. Problem with banning: Years back the search engines used to take in to account the ip address of the websites. Search engine Technology has changed and virtual domains becoming popular, the URLs becoming the priority than ip addresses of the websites.

So if one website that sharing the same ip was banned means all the websites that were sharing the same ip was banned by search engines. Even now somewhere I read that some search engines like Google crawl by caching the ip to save bandwidth.

Virtual hosting is a fairly common setup with many web sites, more common than many people think.

It is said that sharing ip is not that bad if all domains are behaving good with out spamming search engines.

-----------------------------------------------

When I write to Inkotomi support desk, about this sharing ips check the answer that they gave to me:

My question:

Are search engines index only one site from one IP address (one DOMAIN (not URL) per one IP address) even though I submit both of them regularly?

Inkotomi support service:

When submitting sites, search engines only take into account the URL that is being submitted. Not the IP it came from. If the pages are different then there will not be a problem.

Virtual domains are very common on the internet, so if what is mentioned was true in all cases, search engines basically would not be effective in finding anything.

The problem mentioned is most likely not all that common, especially when priority submission are used due to the frequent refresh of details.

My question:

If 10 sites are hosted on one IP. If one site was banned because of spamming or someother thing. This banning is based on IP or domain name? If it is based on ip then all other sites are affected in search engine positioning?

Inkotomi support service:

Most engines will only ban the name(URL) and not the IP, although some may ban the IP as well. It is pretty much up to the individual engines how they do this.

If you suspect an IP has been banned you should contact the engine in question and sort it out with them.

Published with the permission of Karl Anderson,

Trellian Support.

----------------------------------------------------

2. Are shared ips are slow to access when compared to static ips?:

This is completely disbelief that sharing ip slows down the websites. There are thousands of websites on one ip and if all those sites slow down, that hosting company must have lot of angry customers.

3. What is HTTP/1.1?:

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) defines how Web pages are requested and transmitted across the Internet.

HTTP/1.1 improves the virtual hosting business by including the hostname as a header rather than by IP address. This means that the server can support multiple virtual hosts without wasting IP addresses. If you are running a browser that support this feature of HTTP/1.1 (Netscape Version 3 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 and all higher versions) your site can be viewed by header and not IP address.

HTTP/1.1 accounts for over 95% of the browsers running today. There are more important security reasons for upgrading older versions of Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer rather than using old versions.

Older browsers that are not capable of resolving several virtual hosts to a single IP number will instead displays a default index document that would show all virtual accounts that were assigned to that IP address, allowing the visitor to click on a link and go to their desired web site.

4. Do I really need dedicated ip?:

If you are hosted by a Linux (Unix) system with a web server capable of virtual hosting using headers, there is no reason at all for needing a dedicated IP. The IP address of the machine is enough to allow you access to your site using FTP or Telnet, and browsing your site with HTTP/1.1 compliant browsers is not a problem. There are no measurable speed or access restrictions experienced when hosting with headers rather than IPs.

5. Are there any drawbacks with Shared ip hosting?: There are not really that many noticeable differences for the surfers. However, there are few limitations to 'shared IP hosting'.

1. You cannot use Anonymous FTP 2. Older browsers such as lynx, Netscape IE less than version 3 cannot view your site on a shared IP. 3. You need dedicated IP for SSL on your site.

But How many people still using these older versions of browsers is the next question. People always try to upgrade to newer versions of browser softwares.

***Follow these priciples in choosing shared or dedicated ip hosting:***

==If you want Anonymous ftp for your web site and

==SSL feature or

==If you don't want to take risk of getting banned because of other sites activity by sharing same ip. (Nobody knows whether search engine bans the sites based on ip or domain name.)

Go for multidomain account that hosts only your websites. So nobody share that particular ip except your websites. So no question of banning because of other websites.

While you selecting hosting company for your multidomain account, check what version of HTTP they are using. If they are using HTTP/1.1, then you can go for that webhosting. Most of the webhosts use this.

If you still don't want to take chances about sharing ip, then go for a multidomain account that provides unique ips for your websites for little additional fee.

http://www.hosting-essentials.com/

You can host all of your websites on your single dedicated IP.

DISCLAIMER: All these are from my experiences and opinions. So follow these based on your own judgement - Radhika

About the Author

Subscribe to 'EbookBiz' Magazine and get FREE Ebooks with Resale rights. http://www.ebooks-world.com/freetosell.shtml

IPOWER Donates to Thanksgiving Charity

IPOWER Donates to Thanksgiving Charity
IPOWER Donates to Thanksgiving Charity

Request an Interview
Have your business interviewed with WebhostGear for free, let people know about your company.

Affinity's Collins Discusses Web Hosting Services Worth Paying For

Affinity's Collins Discusses Web Hosting Services Worth Paying For
E-Commerce Times - "'Free' completely misses the point for small businesses," said Jim Collins, President, Affinity Internet. "In survey after survey, small businesses tell us that the most valuable resource for them is not money, but time. What small businesses want

What Retailers Want From Search

What Retailers Want From Search
MediaPost - THIS WEEK I WAS LUCKY enough to learn the ins and outs of working a booth at a trade show. The exhibit hall at the Internet Retailer show in Chicago was filled with marketing professionals at small, medium and large retailers, ecommerce solution

Venda Continues Wave of Growth in 2006 Following a Stellar 2005
Onlypunjab.com - Rather than working with multiple vendors for multiple countries, retailers are adopting Venda's on-demand eCommerce solution to overcome the costs and risks, such as complex regulatory environments, payment process standards, and taxation issues

Hosted Solutions Keeps Marketing Local

Hosted Solutions Keeps Marketing Local
WHIR - Carolina-based Web hosting provider Hosted Solutions ( hostedsolutions.com ) has chosen a similarly novel route by marrying its logo to a number of different local sports teams, including NHL 2006 Stanley cup champions, the Carolina Hurricanes. In

Default Index Page on New Accounts

Default Index Page on New Accounts
With this addon clients will have a default index.html page when they visit their new account instead of a directory listing.

Internap Extends Performance IP Service Footprint

Internap Extends Performance IP Service Footprint
WebHosting.Info - Web Hosting News Deployment into 365 Main data center increases ability to offer bundled colocation and IP solution. Internap Network

WebCinch Launches Hosting Services

WebCinch Launches Hosting Services
WebCinch announced today it has entered the web hosting market. The company s owner a veteran of the industry built the company with an emphasis on customer support and service reliability.

Sim Dynasty Announces Exciting Changes for Next Season in Its Online Baseball Simulation
The highlights include added statistics, improved all star and award tracking, and improved site performance. (PRWEB Jul 13, 2006)

Marketworks Offers Outsourcing Solution for Ecommerce and eBay Sellers

Marketworks Offers Outsourcing Solution for Ecommerce and eBay Sellers
Auctionbytes.com - Marketworks, an ecommerce software solution for eBay and multi-channel sellers, announced the launch of its U.S. Managed eCommerce Solution. The new offering provides customers with a complete outsourced ecommerce solution that includes technology

More Than 1 Million Bots On The Attack

More Than 1 Million Bots On The Attack
At least a million machines are under the control of hackers worldwide, said security experts in Germany, indicating that the bot and botnet problem is worse than anyone thought.

Do you need a Dedicated Server?
Perhaps you are wondering what dedicated servers are for, and whether you need one. Or perhaps you already know you need a dedicated server, but are stuck when it comes to choosing a host. Whichever way, here are a few guidelines that may help you in maki

Soholaunch Launches Pro Edition 4.9

Soholaunch Launches Pro Edition 4.9
WHIR - Increasing popularity of the Soholaunch product as a comprehensive business Internet solution has created a huge need for new templates and plugin software modifications to aid in Web site development," says Jim Buckler, CEO of Soholaunch. "The new

E-commerce three costly mistakes

After building and transferring many e-commerce sites it still amazes me that owners of e-commerce businesses are still wasting money in three basic ways. For fear of stating the obvious, saving money is the same as making money $100 saved is $100 added to your profit margin. Here are three basic ways to save money on your e-commerce site and increase your profits. While they may be simple we know they are overlooked time and time again resulting in thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

ABORTED SALES
While most modern shopping carts come with many features, they all involve the collecting of information from clients. Name, address, telephone number, user name, password, email address and so on. Yes we understand that these details are only required for the first order but let's take a look at the new buyers experience.

They have browsed your site and found a product they wish to buy, they begin the checkout process and input all the details above. Your cart then builds the order and transfers them to paypal 2 checkout or what ever payment gateway you use. What happens next? "Please input your name, address, email, telephone number......" The result? Lost and aborted sales, surfers are lazy creatures we know that. In an ideal world your cart would have passed all those variables to the gateway and the user would not have to input them again, however because there are so many gateways and they all require different variables this is difficult.

So now you log in to the admin section of your cart and see an order only to find there is no matching payment. Thje solution is simple, fire up your email program and send them an email. "We noticed that you placed an order for our xxxxxxx however unfortunately we did not receive payment for that item so were unable to despatch it. Did you have difficulty with our ordering system? Is there anything we can do to help you? If so please contact us in one of the following ways....."

Taking a few moments to send them an email can recover the sale, or at worst you can find out which part of your ordering system isn't working for them and have it worked on. If you have your own merchant account you could have them call you and take their order by phone. Customers like to feel like customers not numbers, the fact that you took the time to contact them to find out what was wrong will give them confidence in your store and may recover the sale.

CHARGEBACKS
The curse of any e-commerce store the dreaded chargeback. We are sure you have all experienced it. You take an order, despatch it and a few weeks later get a chargeback. The result you have sent goods and have to refund the price of the product and pay a chargeback fee normally around $15.

Firstly make sure your payment gateway offers some sort of seller protection. aypal for example have a full seller protection policy. This is useful to prevent fraud. It is totally unfair that some dishonest people initiate chargebacks after receiving goods, however as long as your gateway has seller protection and you have saved order details and proof of despatch you can go someway to protecting yourself against that.

Surprisingly most chargebacks are not fraudulent, they are caused by the seller forgetting who they bought from, especially if your registered company name with your gateway is different from that of your site. An example your company is called freds enterprizes but your website is widgetsgalore.com, the client buys a widget and at the end of the month sees a charge to their card from freds enterprizes. They don't recognize it they contact their card issuer and chargeback.

This is very easy to avoid. Before they get transferred to payment sate clearly in your cart "Please remember you will be billed by freds enterprizes not widgetsgalore.com". When they are returned to your site thank them for the order then remind them again, "Please remember you will be billed by freds enterprizes not widgetsgalore.com"

When you send them an email telling them their order has been dispatched tell them again "Please remember you will be billed by freds enterprizes not widgetsgalore.com" By now they should be getting the message. However, and this alone has reduced the number of chargebacks to many of our clients, we recommend that you FOLLOW UP YOUR ORDERS and a couple of weeks after the purchase send the client another email. Thank them for their purchase, tell them you hope they are enjoying your product and once again remind them "Please remember you will be billed by freds enterprizes not widgetsgalore.com"

Repetition is the key the more you tell them the more chance they have of recognizing your company name on their credit card statement.

HOSTING
The money being wasted on inflated e-commerce hosting is incredible. Many of our clients have moved to our service due to the limited and very expensive packages of many so called e-commerce hosts. Let us be very clear on this, if you have your own store this is what you should have.

1. Your own design. Your store should not look like everyone elses, or be template built. If you used an online store designer to build your site we guarantee there are 100 other stores that look just like yours only with a different name. Hardly good for your online image.

2. You should have your own hosting. Not a sub folder of some larger site or virtual hosting. You should be able to add things like a links directory, message boards, support forums, guestbooks and what ever else you think would enhance your site. You should be able to have features added or removed from your cart so that it operates as you want it to. To find out if you have your own hosting email your host and ask them if you can add any of the above. It never ceases to amaze us how many store owners do not even have access to simple things like MYSQL or ftp.

3. There should be no fees payable by you other than a monthly hosting fee. Incredible as it sounds we have seen sites charge a monthly fee, plus a per item listing fee, a per item maintenance fee, commission on sales and other such ridiculous charges.

Many e-commerce hosts charge inflated prices for what is nothing more than virtual hosting (a sub folder of someone elses site) It never ceases to amaze us that most online stores are paying upwards of $50 a month for a restricted and sub standard service. E-commerce hosting is no different than regular quality web hosting. It requires only mysql and php capabilities. Of course stores can use up more space than an information site for example, however in our opinion you should not be paying more than $30 a month to host your store. For $30 you can get ample web hosting for a fairly large store. If you are paying $50 plus then change your host, this can be done without interruption to your site by a competent host.

A saving of $20 a month either adds to your profit or gives you $240 extra per year to spend advertising your site.

Just like a major corporation as an online business owner you need to look at your bottom line, it affects profit. You need to monitor and improve the shopping experience of your clients.


About the author:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary McHugh is SEO of http://www.2001web.comA design and hosting company specializing in e-commerce. Their service is a complete solution for webmasters including design, building, hosting, editing, programming and ongoing support. They also have a very reasonably priced site transfer service for new clients.



Keywords and SEO. The facts.Joe Balestrino

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential for the success of almost every website. The majority of traffic to websites is brought in by search engines. Keywords are an important part of SEO. Unfortunately, many website owners overdo it. Keywords are one of the most important tools in ranking high on search engines. Abuse them and you will suffer the consequences.

Many novices read about places to add keywords, such as ALT tags, anchors and other areas. While these are meant to be used if you want to help boost your keywords, they should be relevant to the image or the place where you are linking. Many people try to stuff keywords into every possible place. There is no benefit whatsoever in doing this.

As a general rule, I would say you can optimize one page with 3 keywords or phrases. I would recommend starting with one or two. Depending on who you talk to, your percentage of keywords in your text should be between three and five percent of the total content on the site. I have seen site tops with percentages as high as ten. There are some free online tools that can tell you the percentage of each word on your site. This one is http://www.googlerankings.com/ultimate_seo_tool.php
This tool will also show under which of those words your site comes up on.

One huge mistake I see all the time is repeated keywords in the keyword tag. Here is an example: shoes, brown shoes, blue shoes, and red shoes. There are two things wrong here, Do you know what it is? First, of all, the use of the word and is not needed. This is called a stop word. Search engines ignore these type of words. Some common stop words are and, the, because, this, that and there. The second thing wrong with the keywords is the word shoes. It is repeated four times. You do not need to repeat shoes. The corrected keywords should read; shoes, brown, blue, red. The search engine will know you are offering shoes and will match the color with the word shoe. Repeating shoes will just penalize your site.

One final tip on using keywords. Make sure you use your top keywords in the TITLE of your site as well as in the description tag. Do not load the title with keywords. These are the first places the engines will scan. Your description tag is usual what is displayed on search engines when relevant keywords are typed in. So, be sure they are there. Do not just type in key word phrases. No one will know what your site is about. What is the point of coming up in rank if no one understand the description.




About the author:
For more information on SEO visit http://mr-seo.blogspot.com
Or, http://mrseonewz.blogspot.com/for the latest on SEO news. For Joe's Affordable SEO service visit his site at http://www.mr-seo.comJoe is also a merger-partner of Web Presence, a full-service web design firm exclusively serving small businesses nationwide. Visit his web site at: http://www.jnb-design.com

What is Web Hosting and What Do We Get From Cheap Web Hosting

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Web hosting basics

All web pages are downloaded from a source called the web server. All these need to be stored in a server so that a visit to your website is possible. Therefore, if you would want to manage a website, you need to host it on a web sever. Once your website is hosted, people from any points of the world can have access to your pages. A company or institutions that do all these stuffs for you are termed as web hosting providers.

There are several types of web hosting, let us discuss some of them.

Shared Hosting is basically a type wherein several to hundreds of websites are being hosted by a single physical web server. The issue of slower performance often arises in here. Yet a reputable web host don't easily add up web sites without considering their would-be effects to the entire system.

Because this type of web hosting is shared, website owners can expect cheaper rates but must learn to deal with occasional system break downs and slower server response time.

Dedicated Hosting is the reverse of shared hosting. This has the principle of one server per customer. Therefore, web hosting rates are much higher in here but with the assurance of higher traffic.

Co-location hosting is much like dedicate web hosting, only differing on the actual ownership of the web server hardware. However, the server is located in the web hosting provider's center.

Reseller hosting works in a third-party principle. The web hosting provider resells the web server storage to customers who can then structure their own branding and prices.

With that said, we can now discuss how can you make the most out of your cheap web hosting.

Cheap web hosting is now a popular choice among web site owners. However, choosing one may prove to be hard. But with bits of efforts and intensive data gathering, you can arrive on a cheap web hosting that is ideal for all your requirements.

Here are the things you need to check:

Your needs. Identify what you truly need, anything in excess may add up to the cost of your web site so examine them well. Develop criteria for features selection that you will need and start from there. Say, do you need to have a large bandwidth? Or website builders and spam protections?

Reliability. Check the ability of the provider to cope up with troubles on system breakdowns. Also check on their uptime guarantee. However, it must be understood that they normally only cover issues pertaining to Server OS crashes and hardware failure.

What's your budget? Its always getting what you paid for. Your willingness to spend for a web hosting provider will determine how much would you gamble for an account. There are a number of cheap web hosting providers that will give you the services you paid for. Normally, you would benefit for their very low rates. However, it must be noted that they normally don't generate good traffic.

It is not like discouraging you from seeking a cheap web hosting provider, only that be keen when selecting one. Always equate the benefits that may be had from them and the corresponding disadvantages.

But we must take into consideration still those cheap web hosting providers that produce satisfied and happy customers. Usually, their prices range from $6 to $7 a month. Prices lower than these must be thoroughly evaluated though.

About the Author

Khieng 'Ken' Chho - Online Cheap Web Hosting Resources. For more, visit Ken's website: http://cheapwebhosting.1w3b.net/

WHG FTP Backup

WHG FTP Backup
WHG FTP Backup is a free backup tool for Cpanel and Linux users alike. It has automatic scheduled backups and can transfer and entire directory to a remote FTP server.

WHMXtra Review Cpanel Addon

WHMXtra Review Cpanel Addon
WHMXtra is a Cpanel addon module that adds useful features for the root user of WHM. It is recommended for new server users and we managed to get a chance to let you know what we thought about it.

Dear Diary, Dear World - All About Blogging

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The Internet has changed the way we live, breathe, and even write - in fact, it is mainly due to the blogging phenomenon that we receive headlines, change them, and even get the latest buzz on issues newspapers and popular media will not dare tackle. Blogging has become so common, it has prompted dictionary makers to create new terms. For instance, each article on a blog is called a "post," "entry," or "blog post." A person who blogs is called a "blogger."

But what is blogging, and why is it so popular?

Blogging refers to the activity of updating one's blog. What is a blog? A blog is a web log, or an Internet-based publication which contains articles about a variety of topics. Blogs are either run on dedicated hosting services, or they can be run on any ordinary web hosting service using scripts meant for blogs.

Blogs often focus on a particular subject. They can tackle movie reviews, political issues, important local news, or one's personal opinion. Most blogs serve as online diaries, and will contain personal images, artwork, and writing.

Blog posts will contain the following elements.

* A title - Some personal bloggers have modified this, and have added subtitles to add "meat" to their entries. They may indicate the music they are currently listening to, their current mood, and the subject of their post. Journalistic bloggers will often link their title to similar articles available online.

* The body - This is the main content of the blog. It can be a fictional entry, in the case of story or novel blogs; or a non-fiction entry, in the case of other blogs, such as news blogs or diaries.

* A permalink - this is the link to the individual blog entry, which other bloggers can use if they would like to link or refer to the article.

* The date - this is simply the date, time, and sometimes place in which the entry was first posted.

Some blogs may also contain the following.

* A comments section - this enables readers to make comments or react to the blog entry. This is also a useful way by which other bloggers can make themselves, and their blogs, known.

* The tags - this is the section where bloggers list the categories under which their current article falls. For instance, a post on "Saving the Whales" can be categorized under "environment," "whales," and "ecology."

* Trackback - Also known as pingback, this is a list of links of other sites that refer to the article or post.

There are many different kinds of blogs available, depending on the topic they tackle. A few types include the following

* Personal - These blogs focus on personal experiences, and feature an online diary, usually with images or artwork. Some photoblogs fall under this category, where bloggers post pictures instead of writing about their experiences.

* Paid - Some bloggers are paid to blog their career experiences, or the latest news about a company.

* Socio-cultural - Some blogs are devoted to socio-cultural experiences, and can allow people of other cultures a glimpse into the quirks and specialties that make other cultures unique.

* Science - Some scientists have taken to blogging about their research findings, or to share laboratory techniques. Such a method, however, has been met with derision in the science community, since it overrides the traditional peer-based review of research.

* Political or News - Some blogs focus on the latest news, and can even offer political opinions on certain subjects.

Blogging is definitely here to stay, and it can influence cultures and headlines through the widely popular medium of the Internet. Have you tried blogging yet?

About the Author

Khieng 'Ken' Chho - Online Blogging Resources. For more, visit Ken's website: http://blogging.1w3b.net/

Dedicated VS Shared Website Hosing

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In this article we will learn what is a difference between a dedicated and shared hosting web site server. This article will discuss the pros and cons of each services and provide suggestions for the reader to make an informative decision when looking for a website host.

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is term that deals with storing a site on a computer that is accessible to the Internet users. Web hosting could be as simple as storing it on a local desktop computer that has a web server software installed or hosting it in a dedicated data center with redundant backup and load distribution.

What is a Dedicated Web Server?

Dedicated server is usually leased by the data center to a site owner on monthly or yearly basis. The site owner is in charge of maintaining the server and hosting one or more sites on it. Many site owners choose to pay for server management so that they can focus on developing and running their online business.

The sites hosted on a dedicated server are usually safer and perform better as the server owner has a full control of which sites are hosted on the server. Further the site owner can monitor the performance of the server and make necessary adjustments to the server software and hardware.

The advantages of Dedicated Server are better performance, control and reliability.

Disadvantage of running your own dedicated server is cost associated with renting and managing the server. The site owner needs to have substantially higher level of knowledge available to run his/her dedicated server. Once can expect to pay anywhere from $60/month for a basic dedicated server.

What is a Shared Web Hosting?

Shared website hosting companies usually rent or own a dedicated server and then distribute website space among many website owners. This is primarily done to lower the cost of hosting individual web site. However, shared website hosting providers host multiple websites from multiple owners on one server. This is usually safe practice if the site owner is dealing with a reputable company whose priorities are performance and security. However, if a hosting provider decides to sacrifice the server performance and security to making more profit, the problems arise. Quite often, spammers, hackers and phishers use cheap shared hosting servers to attack their victims. This usually puts intolerable loads on the server and quite often makes server unusable for the rest of the sites.

Another disadvantage of shard hosting is that the site owner doesn't have a full control over the servers performance or software that is running on the server. This is usually done to increase security of the server, but could be a crippling factor for many developers who need a variety of tools for their sites.

Advantage of hosting on shared server is low cost and low maintenance required on website owners part. Even though there are many cheap, even free, web hosting deals out there one should expect to pay about $10/month for about 500MB of storage and 10 GB of website transfer.

What do we do?

Our Regina Website Hosting Company Look Matters, rents dedicated servers and hosts our customer websites on these serves. So we are a dedicated hosting customer and shared hosting provider. We only host site that we develop or for the people that live in our community. This decision was made to lower the risk of rogue website owners hosting on our servers. If someone doesn't comply with our security requirements we can disable their account and in extreme cases make a report to authorities against an individual or a company that is using our servers for illegal purposes. However this business model would be very hard to justify if we were a primarily website hosting provider as opposed to website design and hosting company.

When one is looking for a website hosting provider, they should ask a range of questions that deal with server location, security, backup and performance. Be aware of companies or individuals that keep their servers in their office or home. These servers are not secured against factors such as power failure, fire, theft etc.

About the Author

Zlatan Fazlagic is the owner of Look Matters, a Regina Website Design, Website Hosting, Graphics Design and Programming Company.

In past 2 years Look Mattes has developed, Content Management Systems, Shopping Carts for Online Stores, Membership Database Software, Forum Board and Online Photo Gallery websites. Look Mattes is a leading Regina Website Design company, which mainly deals with cust

CDGcommerce Launches FREE Fraud Defender Service

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New Sales and Business Development Managers Appointed by Jennic to Drive ZigBee Markets in Europe and Asia
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Shared, Virtual, and Dedicated Web Hosting - What Are The Differences?

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Before committing to a web hosting plan it's important to understand the differences between the most popular types: shared hosting, "real" dedicated hosting, and "virtual" dedicated hosting.

Shared Hosting

Shared web hosting makes it possible for hundreds or even thousands of users to host their sites very cost-effectively. However, there are a few drawbacks.

Because so many web sites are hosted on the same physical server each site must share that server's resources. These resources include bandwidth, disk space, memory, and CPU usage to name a few. The need to share resources is rarely a problem for small and medium size web sites.

The biggest limitation with shared hosting, therefore, is that you cannot control any of the system-level software such as mail servers, http servers, et. al. You also are not able to choose your own operating system, compile programs, or perform other administrative activities such as installing firewalls and spam filters.

Real Dedicated Hosting

"Real" dedicated web hosting, on the other hand, solves all the problems with shared web hosting, but at a significant cost. With real dedicated hosting you have exclusive use of an entire server: all the memory, all the disk space, all the CPU horsepower.

Therefore, no other web sites' problems, glitches, or whatever, will have any effect on your web site. You have total control over the server, its resources, and its administrative functions.

This is the ideal web hosting solution but it isn't cheap. You have to pay for an entire server with no one else to share common expenses. So, typically, a "real" dedicated hosting plan will cost a minimum of $100 per month and goes up from there. And, unless you opt for managed hosting which is even more expensive, you have to do all the technical server administration yourself.

You run your business. I'll run mine.

The fact is that most web site owners don't need total control of their servers as they simply want to run their businesses. They have neither the interest nor the ability to perform all the technical tasks associated with a fully dedicated server and are more than happy to let their shared web hosting provider handle them.

However, when an online business begins to ramp up its transaction volumes, expand its product line to a large number of online offerings, or simply needs more control over its environment, there is a very cost effective alternative to a fully dedicated server.

Virtual Dedicated Hosting

Virtual Dedicated hosting, also known as virtual dedicated server, or VDS, is the term for a physical server which, by means of software, has been partitioned into a number of "virtual" machines operating independently of each other as if they were standalone dedicated servers.

At Web-Host-Watch.Com our nine-part Introduction to Web Hosting

covers everything you need to make an informed decision when selecting choosing a hosting plan or looking for a new web host.

About the Author

Anthony Hamill is the founder of Web-Host-Watch

which provides webmasters with all the information they need to find a hosting plan that's right for their business.

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