Hi,
I want to host my newly built website.How To Choose A Good Web Host (When They All Look Alike).

Choosing a web host is never easy. There are just so many unknowns when it comes to finding a host. It’s hardly ever possible to walk into a web host’s office, look around, meet the owners, and get a feel for whether or not you’d like to do business with these people.

It’s important, though, that you bend over backwards to establish whether your prospective web host is a credible provider – or a fly by night artist.

The webmaster industry is awash with horror stories about signing up with a web hosting company, onlty to find out later that this ‘business’ is run by a 14 year old who lives at home.

you can make your decision using whatever information you find online about the web host.

Start out with the website of the web host you are considering.

Is it professionally designed and written? Typo’s and spelling errors may signal that this is a company ran by kids or amateurs.

Is the website easy to use? Is it designed with a view towards helping people? Are help materials available online? This should give you a flavor for whether the company is client oriented.

Where is the company located? Is there an address? Can you email them?

Look at the Terms of Service. Does your prospective web host clearly spell out what may be expected of them and what is expected of you? Every deal is different, but both parties should clearly know what the deal is.

Next, do a search for the company on Google. Are you finding any negative statements? Try different searching techniques, like typing the company name followed by the word “scam”, or by the words “poor support”.

Now, try emailing their customer support department. Do you get a fast reply? What about their sales department? Do they answer inquiries quickly? Let’s face it…if they won’t pay any attention to you when they’re trying to get your business, how much more will you be neglected after you sign up?

If you follow these simple suggestions, your chances of signing up with an excellent web host increase substantially

There are some leading web host in this web hosting industry. What Unique Features that leading Web Hosts Now Offering ?

Some web hosts are offering more than others for the same price or even for a lower price. There is no denying the fact that as competition increases amongst web hosting services, many are looking for ways and means to stand out and be different from their competitors. The result is that web hosting service standards are constantly on the rise and webmasters are constantly enjoying amazing new features that were previously not there. Let us take a look at a few that some web hosts are now regularly offering to their clients.

There are website hosts that help clients publish and manage their own email newsletters or ezines. This is a powerful marketing tool that helps increase sales. Some hosts go further and also offer an unlimited number of auto responders. This helps a site owner automatically follow up with prospects and thus dramatically increase the chances of making a sale.

Some hosting services are also addressing the rapidly increasing menace of junk mail and provide quality filters to protect your email accounts. Some even provide built-in anti-virus software so that email that arrives with viruses, is automatically deleted.

Another popular emerging new feature from hosts is the service that helps you protect your download page where you are selling digital products like e-books or software from your site. The number of hackers is on the increase and this is an increasingly vital service for many webmasters

Some web host like cpwebhosting.net hosting services help you to set up your own affiliate program. Affiliate programs are the proven most effective way of getting traffic and profits for webmasters. From this you enable other website owners to promote your site and products on their site and in return earn commissions from the sales that result from traffic that they have referred to your site.

How Your Hosting Affects Your User Traffic ?

There are a number of ways that your web host and the package you choose can affect your user traffic. Many site owners overlook one of the most obvious ways, however. This article tells you what that is, why you shouldn’t overlook it, and your best options for making sure it doesn’t adversely affect your visitors.

Picking a Host

You are considering which web host to use for your web site. You consider whether it supports your scripting languages — is it Linux or Windows based? If you do JavaScript, you want to know whether that is supported as well. You consider how much space you need. You also check the email options, the additional scripts, security options, speed, testimonials — you may even (rarely) fiddle with another user’s control panel, before walking up to the sales representative and declaring the specifications you want.

Whoops! Missed a spot, or did I? It seems everybody misses this particular spot; I have listed everything that most people consider.

But as a web designer who does search engine optimization (so that you know where this article is coming from), I discovered that bandwidth is one of the most important design considerations you have to look at before picking a web host. I first ran into bandwidth when I was hanging out with an Internet service provider who metered bandwidth to its clients. This caused sluggish service, severe customer complaints and general heartache all around.

The bandwidth that a web site needs is in download bandwidth. This is how much bandwidth the site has available on a monthly basis for users. If this bandwidth ends before the month runs out, your website is inaccessible to anybody that wants to surf it.

A little design consideration

I have actually never seen a designer (during the design stage) mention bandwidth and how it could affect the performance of the site; all they worry about is the size of the site. When your bandwidth ends, your site users will be unable to access your site’s page at all! This ought to be sufficiently disturbing to any web site owner. The majority of web sites never run into problems with their bandwidth, but those that do get to do all sorts of interesting things like buy extra bandwidth for their sites.

Most webmasters never consider how important bandwidth is until they start running out of it. Some then paste notices all over their site begging users not to save every page. Consider that it is the same bandwidth that is consumed by the user when viewing pages, that is consumed when the user saves it. Methinks the web master does not want every page on his site to be read for the sake of bandwidth; however I am sure that when the site was being uploaded the web master did not believe that he or she would have to spend extra money every month on bandwidth (and perhaps the money is not there; we will talk briefly about monetizing so that you can at least pay for bandwidth). We will talk about what you have to do as far as anticipating traffic and bandwidth. We will also discuss the best kind of hosting that will, over time, afford you protection against an upward surge in traffic.

Web Site Hosting For Your Business: Free or Paid?

It’s time to choose! Should you spend some money to get a web hosting solution for your business or get one for free?

Your business is on the verge of taking the next step forward. It will establish a web presence. This is an important step as from now on your business is able to reach more customers, is able to get more exposure, and hopefully enjoy online recognition.

Space, bandwidth and domain name all come with a cost, but there is a possibility to get them all for free. Resource management principles will probably tell you to choose the free solution.

Nowadays the cost for web hosting services is very reasonable partially because of the technological progress, partially because of the stiff competition on the web hosting market.

Still… why pay for it when you can get it for free?

Dozens, even hundreds of free web hosting providers offer their services on the Internet. Could there be one that meets the needs for your business? Hardly, if any.

Please let me state clearly that this is not intended to attack or discredit hosts or advertisers. Its only purpose is to assess and understand how can be best met the hosting needs of a business. Any business. And yes, in spite of everything stated here, even the author of this article has resorted at some point in time to the services of free web hosts!

You probably learned too, and at a very small age, that in life everything comes with a price. However, there it is … all over the Internet: Free Web Hosting.

Nothing in this world is free. So why is there free web hosting?

The definition of the term “free” according to The New Lexicon Webster’s Dictionary is:

adj. not subject to external restraints or domination; not captive, at liberty; not having to be paid for; unhampered; open to all without restrictions; etc.

adv. without expense; without penalty
v.t. to release from constraint, set free

Therefore a literally free hosting service would mean no restraints, no expenses and no restrictions for the user. Webmasters would design only limited by their imagination and skills. All the space and the bandwidth you would possibly ask for at no cost whatsoever. Real-life scenario? Could anyone really think so?

Indeed nothing in this world comes without a price, even if it is not apparent. And the price you must pay for free web hosting comes in many forms, as free web hosting providers must pay too for bandwidth, not to mention other costs.

While some free web hosts require you to have one of their banners on your web site, others place pop up adds, or flashing advertising messages. So it’s free for you as long as you fulfill their set of requirements and meet their conditions. In addition to this, you should consider that host’s service is free with let’s say 25 MB of space; more space means different conditions and you could have to pay for it.

I want to host my Business Site. Which Web Host Should I Choose To Host My Business Site?

I want to host my personal site. Which Web Host Should I Choose To Host My Personal Site?

Usually personal web hosting ranges anywhere from free to $10-$25.00 per month. You might be asking yourself why you would consider paying $25.00 per month versus free. You can’t go wrong with free, can you? Well, that depends whether free is TRUELY free. Most hosting companies or services that offer free hosting will plaster ads on your own personal web site, some of which can be quite aggravating (blinking and moving across your screen come to mind). Also free hosting generally entails many very restrictive policies on how much you can upload to your site (if you have a lot of family photos or any video clips this could be a problem). Free hosting also almost always comes with very low bandwidth allocations which if you have a large family that likes to visit your web site, or a lot of recruiters visiting your online resume, your site may be shut down if it exceeds bandwidth restrictions.

As with most things in life, hosting is no different, you get what you pay for. That is why it is my recommendation to find a cheap/budget hosting company that will allow you the freedom of running your own web site without nasty little ads everywhere, or tons of restrictions which hinder you from building the kind of site you want. Your best bet when searching for this kind of hosting is to check out our Budget/Cheap category: http://www.cpwebhosting.net/web_hosting/

Some of the particulars you will want to note are as follows:

1. What are the bandwidth restrictions on traffic going to your site
2. What are the FTP restrictions (ie how much can you upload to your site)
3. Can you pay month to month or do you need to enter into a contract
4. How long have they been in business
5. How does technical support work (do you get to call someone or is the only technical support they offer available online or via email)

If the hosting company you are considering offers a money back guarantee or at a minimum does not force you into a contract, if you are unhappy with their services you can always find another host. Moving your site is pretty easy, simply download everything to your computer and upload it to your new hosting company.

what is the difference between a static and a shared IP Address?

An IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each of the four numbers can be from 0 to 255, an example would be 192.168.0.5 . The IP address identifies a sender or receiver of information across the Internet. When you request an HTML page or send e-mail the Internet Protocol part of TCP/IP includes your IP address in the message (actually, in each of the packets if more than one is required) and sends it to the IP address of the server to which you wish to communicate. The recipient can see the IP address of the Web page requestor or the e-mail sender and can respond by sending another message using the IP address it received. Each machine on the Internet is assigned a unique IP Address for the purposes of communication.

Based on this definition, we can establish that an IP Address is analogous to one’s home address. If someone is to send you mail, they put your address on the front of the envelope, and the mailman delivers it right to your door. IP Addresses work precisely the same way.

There are typically two types of IP Address that can be used in web hosting, Shared or Static. While there is no difference in the IP Address itself, there are some configuration changes on the servers they rest on.

A static IP Address is when a website has their very own IP Address. This means that whether you type in your URL or the IP address of your website, both will bring you to the same page.

A shared IP Address is when multiple websites all share the same IP Address. In this case, the web server does a little bit of extra work when it receives your web request, and passes you to the correct website. Typing in the IP Address will not bring you to your desired website, under most conditions. Why do we need this? I’m sure you noticed that, based on the above definition of an IP Address, that there is a finite number of IP Addresses available before we run out completely. If every single website on the internet had it’s own IP Address, there would be no room for any new ones.

Back to our home address analogy, you might consider a static IP Address to be a stand-alone home. There is only one house who gets mail at that address. You might then consider a shared IP Address to be an apartment building. Many different households get their mail at the same location, and in turn it is distributed to the correct location.

How does this affect you? In most cases, it wont. A static IP Address may be required if you need to have some sort of special access to your website, like SSL or Anonymous FTP. If you have no special requirements, then a shared IP will work under most conditions.

I don’t have a dedicated server now. When should I make the decision to switch over to one?

You may want to move up to a dedicated server if your needs match or surpass the following:

• Programs require access by system administrator
• A backup server is required
• Multiple IP addresses are needed
• Daily data transfer becomes excessive
• Storage capacity becomes excessive
• Third party software needs to be run on your site

Thanx starsearch

What should be my main concerns when searching for a dedicated hosting provider?

First, you need to determine whether or not your website is large enough to justify the cost of such an endeavor. That aside, the most common concerns are:

• The cost
• Security of Data and equipment
• Bandwidth Availability
• The knowledge and integrity of the web-hosting provider
• Technical support from the web-hosting provider
• Uptime
• Hardware maintenance

How many have you signed up with a hosting company just because they had a phone number available for sales or support? How important is phone support for you?

No, phone support is not my 1 priority

In my opinion phone support should be the last option for technical support. However customers still feel more comfortable when they see a toll free number available

Being able to talk to some one in the company before signing up puts more confidence in a customer I guess.

Most definitely. I think a hosting company would do much better at sales if there was direct phone to company management. A lot more customers would be impressed with the fact they can call and speak with the VP or the owner of a company and see what state the company is in. Certainly not for support issues, but its a great way to connect with customers.

I think that phone support and telephone sales are very important for any hosting companies.

I can’t say that phone support is very important for me. Definitely not. I prefer ticket system, live chat and e-mail.

many times the customer may feel neglected by the phone support as opening a ticket will be the right way and sometimes they fail to understand that but when the question comes on the smaller issues which can be solved in an instant by the phone support and which doesn’t need a ticket to be opened; that time phone support is quite useful and quick in making the customer satisfied with their service.

I think that phone support is the bes deal to ask pre-salles questions.

There are a couple of reasons why I both don’t require phone support nor do I offer it:

1. Logging. – This is the number one thing for me. I like to have records of communication both as a client and as a host in everything I do. Nine times out of ten, I prefer email and/or helpdesk. On the company side of things, I am able to log communications so when we’re blamed for something, I can look back and prove that we did our part or can see where we made a mistake.

2. Perception of instant support. – As stated above, some think that one phone call should resolve the issue. I’d rather not have someone yelling in our ear why we simultaneously try and resolve the problem or setup the appropriate measures that need to be taken.

3. Cost. – True phone support costs money and it’s not really worth it until a company has a substantial client base, IMHO.

My experience pretty much agrees with the poll, though it is a small number right now (the poll). Most people don’t require phone support. There are those that do, and that’s fine. Good email/helpdesk support does the job.

phone support can be a cool thing to have but it can be more annoying than help. there may be the possibility that the person doesn’t understand, then gets frustrated. I would rather choose a host that has 24/7 tech support with or without the toll free number

Still there some people who are offering unlimited diskspace, bandwidth ? When it’s impossible why do they claim this?

Probably because they are new to the industry and havn’t done their research. Or maybe because they still think it’s a valid marketing technique. There could be any number of reasons why.

The average website doesn’t really get very many visitors and doesn’t take up much space. Most of my websites are good with about 5-20 megs of space and less than 1Gig of transfer.

They say it because not only is it a marketing ploy but it works to get people to signup. Even though people are becoming more and more educated about these types of issues, if hosts are still offering it it’s because it is still working. I’m not sure there will ever be a day when nobody will claim to offer such a thing. Of course you won’t see those offers here — or at least not for long.