But This Host is So Cheap!

One of the things that confuses a lot of businesses is what type of hosting package to buy. If you are new to the Internet business world and your have never had a website - a host is a foreign word to you, even if you do have a website you may not know what you need in a hosting provider.

I hope this article will help clear up some of that confusion. Some of the most brilliant business people get confused by Internet terminology so let's look at the difference between an ISP and an Internet hosting provider...

ISP - Internet Service Provider

This is the company that actually provides you with a way to access the Internet - if you have a dial-up then it would be something like PC People or Earth Link. If you have cable modem it would be Comcast, Quest - etc.

This is the connection that goes from your computer to the Internet.

Internet Hosting Provider

Which is where you place your website - if you were/are a business owner that had a brick and mortar business you would rent a store and place your goods in that store. The same holds true with an Internet host they hold all the pages of your website, graphics, scripts and everything else.

This is a simplified explanation, but you get the picture.

Now that we have that out of the way lets talk about hosting packages and what to look for.

As a web developer/designer I have worked with the best and worst of hosts.

I have found hosting companies that look inexpensive but nickel and dime the customer to death by the time they are done. They look great in the beginning and even sound like a fantastic deal but are really not a great bargain.

I have found hosting companies I have loved in the beginning but later have gotten so big or changed hands and the customer service was so bad I had to go else where.

I want to warn you of the one stop shop hosting companies that do everything - they will register your domain name - build your website (usually template websites) and host them. Saving you money and touting the convenience of all they do...

Ultimately you feel like you are hostage to them - they own your domain and website.

I know as a business owner you want to save money where you can - which is just good business sense, there are a lot of choices - do your research - make sure that host will meet your needs.

I want you to chose carefully - be wise about the host you pick this is so important because all hosts are not created equal.
Factors to look at when selecting a hosting company

Live Tech Support

This is one of the most important aspects of a host I want to be able to talk to a live breathing person - through chat on the Internet or phone. I do not want to rely on an email period. Which is my position - if my store (website) is down or my email is out of order my business is going down the drain. This is #1...

Do they use a C-Panel

What is a c-panel you say? A C-panel allows you or your web developer/designer to be able to control different elements of your website. You can add emails, change passwords, even point domain names and many other important tasks. It gives you control over many aspects of your website.

What is the up Time

If the the server is down and your website is not up on the Internet 24/7 then what happens when your website visitors go to your store? You lose business ! I look for a 99% up time guarantee . There are ways to monitor your up time their are sites that give you monitors for free. Just google site up time and you will be able to see some free services.

Disk Space

Depending on how large you website is will depend on the disk space needed. If you have a logo and a lot of text you will need very little disk space.

Bandwidth

If you are running a site with lots of images or downloads you will need a lot higher bandwidth than a small site with mainly text. If you go over your allotted bandwidth you will usually pay a lot of extra money or visitors may not be able to download files you need them to download.

CGI Bin

It is very rare you will see a host without a CGI bin. It is important that you have one. If you do not have you own CGI bin you cannot install scripts and programs.

MySQL Database

Some programs require a data-base. If you are going to have a shopping cart, a customer log in or a number of different functions for your website in the future you may want to store the information. Some hosts will want to charge you extra for MySQL included in a hosting package - but you will fine most good hosts will include it.

Even if you don't think you will ever need it, I would find a host who has it in a hosting package even one which is an upgrade from the one you are purchasing. I find most websites grow as the business grows, and eventually you may need a database for something.

PHP

Many dynamic scripts and programs require PHP support. Again, this feature can be extra with some hosts but most good hosts will offer this free. With this you will find free blogging scripts (WordPress) shopping cart scripts (Zen Cart) and many other things. As a matter of fact in the host that I use and would recommend these things are right in the C-Panel and can be applied with a click of a mouse!

Perl

If you do not have Perl, you cannot run Perl programs. Many good scripts that you can get for free or buy are written in Perl.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer)

If you intend to accept credit card orders directly from you website, you will need Secure Socket Layer included in your plan. This is an easily overlooked feature. To use this feature you need a merchant account - there is no essential need to make this a priority if you have no merchant account - or if you use a 3 party processor such as PayPal.

FTP Access

Unlimited and unrestricted ability to transfer files to your site is essential. You will need an FTP program to transfer files.

Statistics Program

I use to say have a great statistics program and it still is an essential tool to have. Most good hosts provide this as well.

My preference is Google Analytics it is an impressive tool and you would not believe how much information you can gain from having that on your website. It goes way above and beyond anything I have seen a hosting package provide. Google provides the code for free you just need your web professional to place it on the pages of your website. You will be able to fine tune your marketing it is outstanding.

Artista design specializes in all types of visual mediums. Being in the business for over a decade Pamela Jacob is an artista from the get go and can "Create the image you need to attract the customers you want!"

For Great Articles & Information go to my blogs at:

http://www.promotionaldesigner.blogspot.com

http://www.artistadesign.com/creatingwealth

Sharepoint - Setting Up Alerts

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is the latest in the family of Microsoft's SP Technologies, software designed for team discussion, collaboration and communication. Complete with a whole host of new features, SP Services 3.0 has more options to stay organized and keep communicating with a team that may be separated by office walls or by continents.

While SP is great software to keep teams organized and reduce dependency on email, it can complicate things, especially when you are trying to remain current when documents may be perpetually undergoing changes.

So as a feature to keep you posted with changes made to the documents, calendars or lists on your hosted SharePoint site even when you are not logged in, you have the ability to set up email alerts to notify you of changes. With relative ease, and flexibility, alerts can be set up on specific content with which you wish to remain notified of changes.

The following instructions are specific to creating alert based on a custom list within a SP site. The alert set-up instructions are consistent across the software, and can be applied to other elements within your site.

So, to get started with setting up alerts on a custom list, do the following:

Access the list where the alerts will be applied. If set up with access to the Quick Launch (left hand menu) simply click on the List name.

Click on Actions, then Alert Me

In the "New Alert" menu, fill in the relevant information for yourself, such as the Alert Title, who you wish it to be sent to (this can be a single person, or multiple people).

Note: the alerts automatically get sent to the email address associated with the SharePoint site's user.

Additional options that you can select are what kind of changes you wish to be alerted about, the criteria of the change, as well as when to send it (immediately after each change, or via a single email once a day)

Click Ok.

Now your alert is ready!

You can set up your own Sharepoint Hosting account by visiting Sharepoint Hosting, visit http://www.Alentus.com

Is Your Web Hosting Company a Pretender?

When is a web hosting company not a web hosting company? When it's a VAR.

There's nothing inherently wrong with being a VAR (value added reseller) - I've been one many times in the past, and will likely be again.

It's just that people typically don't understand what a web hosting company is - or does - and when it comes to their online business they make some questionable decisions because of it.

For instance...

Recently I was consulting with a client and they asked my opinion of a hosting package their web design firm had offered them. *STOP RIGHT THERE* There's your first BIG CLUE...

Your web design firm is in the business of designing web sites. Making your web site look a certain way. Sometimes the web design firm may have coders on staff who can program the site to behave a certain way (and coding a webpage is not the same as coding a database application,) and sometimes the web design firm has writers on staff who can make the site read a certain way (and writing your company profile is not the same as writing your primary sales and landing pages...) And don't even get me started about SEO, Internet marketing and general strategic online business development advice!

But I seriously doubt they have a multi-million dollar environmentally controlled, fire suppression enabled, multi-point redundancy, 24-hour monitored, data center in their back room.

Now THAT'S a hosting center.

Most pretenders err.. most hosting companies are really VARs, and here's the rub, these pretenders often charge 100 times the actual cost of hosting and deliver 1% of the service package.

Now before I get loads of angry letters from quality hosting VARs I should say that they are not all like this. I do however bring up this huge discrepancy and tell you this tale to illuminate a point that drives me nuts.

Just because someone can code up a web page doesn't mean you should entrust them with your online business presence and hosting. It certainly doesn't mean you should trust them with your online marketing, and it especially means you shouldn't automatically trust them with your online brand reputation either.

These are all important points that require special skills - some companies have the mix, some do not. Do you know which questions to ask and how to tell a Pretender?

I know the web is still a brave new world (as of writing, it's just over 14 years old!) and you'd be forgiven if you still don't quite 'get it' - that's why you need to take care and ask more questions and work with a proper web strategist/consultant who's been around the block a few times.

Remember before focusing my efforts as a corporate web strategist and online marketing expert I was a VP of IT and Consulting and managed multi-million dollar software development projects across most major continents for banks, governments and major manufacturers. Managing upwards of 50 people, I've personally built and sold software solutions for over 30 years now, and even pioneered online systems that pre-date the Internet (try creating a TV based hyper linked TeleText system in the mid 80's... now that's creative)

Anyhoo... I'm a little off-topic.

The conclusion of my tale was this. I recommended a direct hosting source (one of the major players in this field) and provided their price. The client declined telling me that it was "too cheap" and that they would stay with the web design firm *sigh* So I pointed out the firm was a VAR and in this instance was charging them nearly 100 times over cost for 1% of the service...

Call me crazy, but spending 100 times more than I need seems unnecessary. But that's just me...

JAMES BURCHILL Shows individuals and companies how to profit from the innovative use of Internet technologies, strategic content and social media marketing. James' innovative and creative solutions are the select choice for those seeking an advantage, and Jim's valuable money making, marketing, technology and business advice is published regularly on his website. You can find out more at http://www.JamesBurchill.com/about

A Dedicated IP Web Host - Do You Need One?

Many large web hosting services are now offering dedicated IP hosting. This is a new feature, and dedicated IP web host companies obviously see a market and a demand for this. But why would you want to use a dedicated IP web host?

You probably have your web sites hosted on a shared hosting system at the moment, as this is the most common setup. It allows a web host to put many sites on a single server. This server will have an IP address, and this address covers all the sites hosted there. In other words, in a shared hosting setup, your site is 'grouped' with the sites of many other customers under the same IP address. This is also known as name-based hosting.

Why might this be a problem? There were rumors some time ago that the search engines would take note of the IP address of spammers' sites, and ban that IP, or else downgrade the sites covered by that IP address. This is a process also known as blacklisting. It appears now that this is unfounded, and search engines are clever enough to take action against individual domain names, though the rumors still pop up from time to time when search engines change their rankings and webmasters lose their traffic, and they look around for reasons.

Again, you may not want your site or sites to be on the same IP address as gambling or pornography sites. Though the association is not apparent to a person looking at your site, some webmasters believe they may be 'tainted' by what other web site owners have on the IP address they are sharing with them, even if they are not spamming sites.

Some search engine optimization professionals now also recommend that webmasters get their own IP address from a dedicated IP web host for other reasons. If you have more than one site, and they are all on the same hosting service, they will all be on the same IP address. There are now reverse IP search tools, which will show all the domains which appear on the same IP address. If you run several e-commerce sites, your competitors will be able to get a list of them all. You can see why this might be bad for your business - most webmasters want the full list of sites they own or run to remain confidential.

Another reason SEO professionals give as a benefit of unique IP addresses is that if you have a network of sites, you can link between them without any risk of the search engines seeing the linking as suspicious, as it might if all sites are on the same IP address. As with most SEO-motivated attempts to understand search engine algorithms, this may or may not be true.

A dedicated IP web host is definitely worth considering, since in many cases, it costs the same as normal shared web hosting and is offered as a free feature. Anything which can benefit your web sites, especially if it has no extra cost, is worth looking at. To see which host I recommend, see my dedicated IP web host page.

Don Break writes about web hosting and how to make it work for you.

Getting Started In Web Hosting

What Is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is a service that allows users to serve their content on internet via their website. Users are provided with a specific space on a web server, where they upload the source files of their web-pages.

Once these files are uploaded on server, the web page can be accessed by the end users. For small websites the files can easily be uploaded by File Transfer Protocol (FTP), but for a complex website, a webmaster may need to install different scripts on server using databases, and to handle some other functions like email etc, so for that cPanel hosting is considered as most useful choice.

Types of Web Hosting

These are the basic types of web hosting according to the usage of service, i.e. complexity of a website.

Free Hosting: As title shows, it's free, so definitely it's provided with a limited set of functions. This type best suits simple sites like blogs. Free attracts everyone so does free hosting, but a major drawback of this type it that it is advertisement supported.

Shared Hosting: In this case your site is hosted on a server that has many other sites on it. All these sites hence share the server resources, i.e. RAM, CPU etc. This type, however, allows customization and advance features, i.e. ready made scripts, email access, website stats etc.

Reseller Hosting: This is an advanced type of shared hosting whereby you want to host more than one site at a single place. You then buy a single account for all your sites. There may be more than one reseller accounts on a single server, i.e. all your sites are on shared hosting if you've reseller hosting, but the difference is that you're managing them from one place.

Dedicated Hosting: This type of hosting allows the webmaster to have full control (including root access) over the server; however, he doesn't own it. This type of hosting suites best to complex and heavy websites, i.e. web community sites with high traffic etc. Another such type is Managed Dedicated Hosting whereby client is not given full control to modify server configuration, and that is to ensure the quality of service from hosting company.

Virtual Dedicated Hosting: This type lets the user feel that he's on his own server, but in actual there are more than one user sharing that server. The user, however, may have root access via Virtual Private Server (VPS).

So, have you made up your mind in which type of web hosting plan to go with? If yes, then it's time for you to pick up a web host. In such case, I would recommend you to check out my favourite web hosting companies: HostMonster and BlueHost.

Web-Hosting - Tips In Choosing The Right Host

If you are really serious in earning money online then having your own website is a must! For those who started out blogging, just like me, they know how addicting and how fast your online experience can be. And if you have been doing your homework, you'll know how massive the earning potential is online. Soon you will no longer be contented with a blog, you will realize how it can be limiting in terms of your earning potential. That is when owning a website comes in and just as important is choosing the right host. A poor web host can very much affect the potential of your website. To help you in choosing the right host, look out for these characteristics.

Versatility - Your web host should be compatible with windows, linux and mac, if they're not then that means they have a poor system. Go ahead and choose another host.

Reliability and Support - Uptime is of utmost importance! No matter how great the features are if they're always down then its useless. Ask around in forums for a feedback on your chosen host. If the web host themselves have their own forum then that is great, that means they are confident enough to be open for criticisms. 24/7 support is a must for providers, if they don't. DON'T!

Web space and Bandwidth - Web space is important so you'll know how many pages you can have in your site, for beginners smaller web space is ok but if you're business is growing then you'll need a bigger space, so right from the start go for those that offer larger web space. Bandwidth determines how much traffic you get, its the amount of bytes transferred from your site to your visitors. As your site becomes popular you are going to need more and more bandwidth. So again, right from the start go for those that offer larger bandwidth or else you'll get charged extra for exceeding your limit.

FTP Access and Website Builder - Creating your own website can be a difficult job specially for beginners (just like me). Having a website builder is an added plus which I think is important but this has its limitations as well, as you become an expert in building websites these free website builders might not have the facility you need, so an FTP access is a must so you can upload your pages.

Domains and Sub-Domains - How many domains and sub-domains will you be able to host. The more, the better.

Scripting - PHP, CGI-BIN, .htaccess, SSI, TELNET, CRONTABS, mySQL. Make sure that your host supports all these. CGI-BIN is used to run scripts like counters, guestbooks etc..if you want to add a database on your site you will need mySQL/PHP support. .htaccess is needed so you can customize error pages, cron jobs are needed for those programs that are run periodically.

E-commerce Readiness - You'll never know when you might think of setting up a store. If you're host does not support this then you'll go through the hassle of choosing another host for your store. SSL is required so you can collect credit card information from your site, a shopping cart and oscommerce would be nice.

E-mail, POP3, Mail Forwarder, Auto responder - Most redirect your emails to you. Having a POP3 allows you to connect directly to their servers and get your messages.

Nice to Have's - like fantastico install popular scripts in your site like blogs, portals/CMS, discussion boards, image galleries etc..

These are the must haves when choosing your web host and this need not be expensive. There is no perfect host but what's important is, how they treat you as a customer, how willing they are and how fast the are in fixing any problems that you might have.

Check out some hosting providers that I recommend here, compare their features and services and choose the best suited for you.

JP Mendez owns the site myspot that aims to provide free and real online opportunities to the public.

For the recommended web-hosts click below and choose the best one suited for your needs.

recommended sites

The Hugeness of the Web Hosting Market

Its been rightly said (by me), that 'Presumptions are often the greatest tools of discovery'. One such presumption of mine was researching on the Web Hosting Market, which has seen a lot of growth in the past 12 months - more than 30% - most of which was driven by the usual trends of virtualization, business continuity services and security technologies.

Despite of the near recession status which is being successfully (?) evaded by the government in the US, the growth does seem nothing less than spectacular. Analysts at Tier1 Research (T1R) deduce that 'Rackspace, Savvis, AT&T and Verizon Business have been the biggest beneficiaries of this market growth, being the clear leaders in the managed hosting sector.' Rather than focusing on the technical aspects of the Hosting Industry and Statistical Analytics, I shall proceed on with some of the reasons which I find have been the leading factors for this growth :

1) Resellers: The term 'reseller' is being linked unthinkably with the hosting sector now, and mind you, there is a lot of logic behind that. Almost all leading hosting networks have special reseller plans for ambitious customers who want to start their own sub-version of a hosting company with their own set hosting plans and much fulfilling profits. Due to this upsurge of resellers in the market, people now, have so many places to choose from; little realizing that the ultimate source of the hosting is the main provider with much cheaper rates and much faster, well-appreciated technical support rather than the fairly expensive hosting resellers(they do need their profits!).

2) Affiliates: Upon delving into the depths of Affiliate Marketing, sooner or later, you realize that the most lucrative and high payout sectors for becoming an affiliate is 'Digital Products' (more specifically, 'Website Hosting'), Drugs, and Electronic Goods (prospect of growth). Almost every web host out there has an affiliate system, where affilates get paid huge amounts (sometimes in excess of $100) and they publicize the hosting site all too enthusiastically. Although, the ratio and proportions of affiliate marketing seems all too dizzy for me. The average hosting packages on a hosting site start from monthly subscriptions ($8.99/mo on average), to biennial subscriptions ($5.99/mo on average). These hosting sites pay about $75 on an average to affiliates for each customer that they refer. Say, a person takes a monthly subscription and leaves after a month, then the hosting company will face losses of $75-$8.99=$66.01. But, who cares about the losses that they incur, because, we finally have thousands of sites pertaining to : 'hosting coupons, hosting discounts, hosting reviews, top hosts, recommended hosts' etc, with all such sites containing affiliate links/banners of the hosting companies.

3) Features: Most of you, who have seen the features provided by hosting companies, would be mind boggled by the disk space and bandwidth that they claim to provide you. These range from 750GB-1500GB disk space and 750GB-15000GB bandwidth. If you notice closely, these offers are only on shared hosting (not on reseller or dedicated). The thing to think about here is, an average server which is loaded with hard disks, can at most contain about 1000-2000GB. And, the same server, is used for shared hosting of about 500+ clients. If you actually start giving 1500GB to each person, then the server would need a disk space of : 500(client)*1500(GB)=750000GB, or 750TB, which, in the real world, can only be possible in your dreams. I call this disk space as: Virtual Memory; Because, you will presume that you have this much space and will work on your site considering that you have lots of memory to burn. Now, if you are wondering about the tall claims here, then there's some news for you: They don't actually allow you to use the disk space. There are some restrictions mentioned in the terms and conditions, such as - Max use of 50000 inodes (number of files); Max use of 5GB for scripts, 5GB for images, 5GB for videos and so on, which results in use of no more than 25GB. Such restrictions, if not followed, result in termination of your account. So, I hope you read the TOS before you actually start believing.

In the context of Shared Hosting, I can think of a proverb: "What you see is 1500GB. What you get is 25GB. What you see is blazing fast servers. What you get is a slow normal site, but darn cheap hosting"

Ok Ok. This proverb won't exactly go down in the books, but it pretty much sums up shared hosting for you.

I expect to see the 1500GB increasing to 5000GB in the coming years. But, the facts will still remain the same. The Hosting Industry will see some terrific growth over time and let's hope for the best and see what happens in the years to come.

This article is written by Ritoban Chakrabarti, an analyst and reviewer associated with Hosting Site Reviews

All the source of content is either through research on the internet or through personal/social experiences.

For great discounts on our Top Web Hosts, visit : HostGator, HostMonster, IPower