Monthly Archives: January 2013

01.23.13
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How to Build a Successful Hosting Company


There are a couple of key things to look at when starting a hosting company. There are four major factors:

1.Site design is the first thing a prospective customer sees. Creativity into a well designed “professional” looking home page for your company. The bottom line is a new customer will not even consider you as their host if they feel you are an armature no matter how great or cheap your packages are.

2.Develop your website as a total package to its clients. Don’t just present your hosting packages and leave it at that. Offer tutorials, articles, support forums etc. These additional services not only provide additional content for you clients, but if developed correctly will bring additional traffic to your site which will potentially lead to more sales.

3.You must understand how search engines work. Over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. So it is absolutely essential to optimize your site for search engines.

4.Find your niche. The hosting business as a whole is a huge industry which is very competitive. Your best chance at success is to simply find a market and develop your business to cater to that specific niche.

You have to develop a business plan which works from all angels. If you can develop a hosting company which has a professional design, some extra content, and search engine friendly and which targets a specific niche, you will have a far greater chance at success. There are many other factors to consider but if you can master these four, everything else should fall into place.

01.23.13
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Good Web Hosting


There are few points while selecting a good web host:

Services – A lot of times we are sold on the idea that bigger is better. Web hosting companies with a quality over quantity perspective. A lot of web hosting companies will oversell their and rely on the little sites that won’t reach their limits to keep things running. A host that is going to meet your sites current needs and that also allows room for growth.

Prices – Getting more than you pay for isn’t normally a good thing, as chances are you aren’t with a top quality host as they recognize that to keep things running they need to charge more. Another way in which Web Hosting companies will often cut costs is in their Customer Service. Most hosting companies online are simply reseller services, and can have terrible response times and customer support, as they are over extended or simply don’t care.

Customer Service – Hosts that provide 24/7 email support. Email is the most common although a lot of hosts will also offer live chat, and some even phone support. Quality hosts will be consistent and timely with their support.

Web hosting can be a pleasant experience or it can be a nightmare. Take your time and test out a company before you join. A little time now, will save you a lot of time/energy/money down the road!

01.23.13
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Myths of Web Hosting


The internet is full of web hosting offers but many popular hosts are using unscrupulous advertising to mislead their customers and set them up for problems. If you are looking for a host for your web site the biggest hosting myths and how to avoid common mistakes. Myth 1: Unlimited bandwidth will solve everything

Bandwidth is the amount of information sent out to people on the internet; the more traffic your web site gets the more bandwidth it uses. Bandwidth costs money, so how much you pay for hosting depends on how much traffic you need to handle.

Your web page files are stored on a special computer called a server, which sends information out over the internet. Like all computers, the server has limits; it can only handle a certain amount of work. Give it too much traffic to handle and it will slow down and become unreliable.

Your actual maximum bandwidth might be quite low indeed. You’ll be sharing your server with many other accounts. If your account starts using too many resources, it’s very likely that you’ll be suspended or forced to upgrade to a much more expensive plan. So much for “unlimited” hosting!

Since offering unlimited bandwidth hosting is such a blatant misrepresentation, it’s not a good idea to use such hosts, regardless of how much traffic or disk space your site uses. If their business model depends on deception, can you trust them with your web pages? Even if your own site is small, other customers on your server may try to take advantage of the supposedly unlimited bandwidth and cause problems.

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01.23.13
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Free Web Hosting is not better than Pre Paid Web Hosting


The main downside to selecting a free web hosting service is the advertisements and pop-ups that are non stop. Also your URL will have their company name in it,

Free web hosting services allow a lower bandwidth then paid hosts. Sometimes free web hosting sites have been known to change their terms & conditions, or even cancel their free hosts and force you to either pay them or lose your site. The free host controls everything you and your website does, and this isn’t good.

If you are planning on using your website as a person site for family and friends, then a free web hosting is sufficient. However if you are using your website for business purposes, then it is highly recommended you invest in a paid web hosting service.

There is only one downside to paid hosting, they cost you money. However there are many upsides included in this investment. With paid hosting you host your own domain, so if you change the web hosting service in the future you can easily transfer the domain to your new provider with out any loss of traffic.

Paid hosting services usually offer 24/7 customer support through email, live-chat, or toll-free phone support. With paid hosting you are generally offered enough disk space and bandwidth.

01.23.13
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Overselling Web Hosting


Overselling is a big trend in the web-hosting world at the moment. It’s an easy way to get more out of your servers than normally is possible. The basic idea of overselling is that the majority of your clients are only going to use a fraction of the resources allocated to them so there’s going to be a lot of wasted bandwidth and space. Overselling involves taking a gamble and selling more than you can handle assuming that the unused resources will cover it.

The advantage of overselling for the host is that they make more money off each server than they otherwise normally would be able to. The advantage for the client is that this extra revenue is usually transferred on by cheaper hosting packages with more features. The problem is that these features are often ‘smoke and mirrors’. A few users would be able to use their entire allotment without any trouble, but if every single client were to build their website up to maximum capacity the host wouldn’t be able to handle the sudden increase in demand without adding extra hard drives, buying more bandwidth, or perhaps even another server. This would most likely lead to a fair amount of downtime.

Web hosts aren’t going to advertise the fact that they oversell. It’s not something that will gain them customers and it’s likely to drive away a few. They’re likely to get away with it without any real problems. The reason the idea even exists is that it is true that the majority of websites don’t use all of the space that’s allocated to them. The problem is that it’s not a particularly honest way of dealing with clients. It’s a little like the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ where the host is just hoping that no one notices the fact that a package is in fact a little nude.

Overselling will not be a problem unless a host gets too greedy and ends up selling much more than they could possibly provide for. On the other hand, it’s not even necessary as the host can usually make enough money to make ends meet without overselling.

01.23.13
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Cost Effective Web Hosting


Choosing the right web hosting company is an important aspect in cutting your web hosting costs down. The web hosting industry, boosting several thousand web hosts, is still young and growing at a remarkable pace; hence finding the right host is not only difficult, but very time consuming; There are a few things to keep in mind when exploring; when deciding to form a partnership with the host. Below are just a few things to consider, which directly attribute to final cost.

Bandwidth — Figure out approximately how much bandwidth your web site requires. As above, ensure you get more bandwidth than your site uses.

Disk Space — Knowing how much web space your web site needs and compensating for a bit extra, for growth. As a rule of thumb, an average web site should cost you no more than $1 per 10 MB

Add On — Ask the web host if they have “Add-ons” facilities for purchasing projected extra disk space or bandwidth. But, be careful, if your web site needs only 2 GB extra bandwidth, you may have to buy an extra package in blocks of 5GB bandwidth; in this case, look for the host which will allow you to purchase extra disk space and bandwidth allowance as per your needs, this is crucial to cost savings

Caution: Ensure that you know the over-usage allowance rules; you need to know what happens if your web site uses more disk space or bandwidth than you have been allocated. The web host who informs you of possible over-usage well in advance, allowing you to take measures to reduce or budget for extra usage, is ‘worth their weight in gold’.

No. of Web Sites — If you have more than one web site, sign up an account with a web host who provides multiple domains hosted on one account; this will work out a lot cheaper than an account per website.

Databases and Scripting Support — Ensure that all the applications your web site uses (FrontPage, ASP pages, databases, cgi, PHP, etc.), are supported within the chosen account type. Find out if there are any extra fees for particular applications or associated database support.

Mail Server — Emails are the lifeblood of your online business. Ensure that you get a sufficient number of email addresses with your own domain name preferably unlimited; these are necessary for other email features like forwarders, and auto responders, etc. There is no need to pay an extra fee for use of a mail server as many hosts offer this service now for free, within the hosting plan.

Avoid Long Term Contracts — Many web hosts offer huge discounts on yearly or half yearly payments in advance, this may appear a good way to go but note how long you are locked in. If possible avoid long-term contracts until you are sure about the services and reliability offered by that particular host. Paying on a monthly basis obviously has its benefits

Savings are mostly a matter of common sense, but in this industry of high technology most people forget this rule and try to look for the best, most efficient and most expensive technical programs and software to save them a buck or two. As in most businesses good cost effective groundwork is the best start to cutting costs.

01.23.13
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Affordable web hosting service – How to get it


There are some steps you can take to help in minimizing cost with a web hosting package. Some require some efforts on your part while others are simply a matter of common sense. No matter what your particular needs are, you’ll likely find that there are companies out there are offerings web hosting with those in minds.

The most important step to minimize cost with a web hosting package is to shop around. To save your money you have to do comparison shopping. Find the service provider that offers the best bottom line price for web hosting might not be the provider that saves you the most money.

If you are not computer savvy, one way to minimize the costs with a web hosting package is to find a company that offers free setup. While this is a fairly common part of web hosting for most companies at this point, you should be sure what it’s going to cost you to establish the account. If you find a company that offers a great bottom line price but has you pay an enormous fee up front to establish the service, it will probably take you a long time to recoup that fee in your monthly savings. While set up fees and monthly maintenance fees are pretty straightforward, you should also look for other fees that might be charged by a particular provider. Depending on your needs, you might find yourself paying extra for a service you expected to be provided in the monthly fee. There’s no substitute for carefully considering your options as you search for a company to help minimize costs with a web hosting package. If you need services in addition to web hosting, look for a company that can combine all your Internet service needs – that could save you some additional money.

You should look for a company that offers a web hosting package specifically to meet your needs. You might be paying a significantly higher monthly fee for a plan that simply exceeds the needs of your company. If you don’t need a larger space, don’t buy a larger space. But with an eye to the future, know the company’s stand on upgrading an account later if you should need additional space.

Finally, know the company. While it’s a good thing to search for the most competitive bottom-line price, the best set up deal and a plan that fits your needs, it won’t do you any good if you are constantly out of commission because of down time. Each time you find yourself without the web hosting service, you’re running the risk of losing orders, clients and your own reputation – all potentially devastating to a business. Even if you truly want to minimize costs with a web hosting package, saving a few dollars is probably not worth the reputation of your own business.

01.23.13
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Shared and Static IP Addresses


One term you see tossed around a lot in web hosting is IP addresses. There are basically two types of IP addresses: static and shared.

When someone types in the address: http://www.yourdomain.com that name is translated into numbers (called an IP address) and then the computer is directed to that IP address which is the web site. Every web site on the internet is found not by its domain name but by its IP address. IP addresses are in the format similar to 192.168.0.1, four discreet blocks separated by periods. You can reach a site by typing in the IP address alone and that will take you directly to the site.

Now every single website has an IP address specifically allocated to it. For example, every single website on this server does not use different IP addresses. If every site used a different IP address there could potentially could be a problem with running out of IP addresses. A lot of the sites on this server, and other servers on the internet, use one IP address for multiple sites. The server basically steps in and does a millisecond of work and saves an IP address. Using more than one site on an IP address is called sharing IPs or a Shared IP address. If a site has its own IP address, and shares with no one else, it is called a Static IP address. You can always reach a site which has a static IP address by using its IP address alone, but you can’t reach a site using a shared IP address by typing in the IP address alone because when you type in a shared IP address you arrive at the server but the server doesn’t know which site you want because you haven’t told it which domain name you want.

The main reason for having a static IP address is that you can only use SSL encryption (the stuff that makes e-commerce happen) on a static IP address. In order for a person to transmit sensitive data over the internet at times this data must be encrypted to prevent someone from intercepting the information. You can only use this encryption (called SSL) when the web site has its own IP address (static IP). It doesn’t work on a shared IP. So when a website takes in order with a person’s credit card it needs to encrypt this data and it uses SSL with its static IP. Another reason for having a static IP address is that if a web site wanted to have anonymous ftp transfers (basically where anyone can download files off a site) the site needs to have a static IP address to handle the anonymous ftp transfer. Other than these two reasons there is no need for a site to have its own IP address.