Choosing a Web Hosting Company

KyleGraham.TV – Thinking a building a website? It’s easier than you think! In this video (Part III of our video series), I show how, once you’ve chosen a domain name, how to choose a web host and connect it to your domain name. In this video, we discuss 1. Choosing a Web Host (See who I recommend: kylegraham.tv 2. Setting up an account 3. Hooking it up to your domain name

CPA Websites: Choosing an Effective Domain Name

Tips and tricks for choosing an effective domain name.

10 Tips For Choosing a Perfect Domain Name

10 Tips For Choosing a Perfect Domain Name

Don’t Forget About Email Requirements When Choosing A Web Host

One of the factors that many people forget about when they are looking for a web host is email. The types of accounts offered along with sizes and limitations are as varied as the web hosting companies are themselves.

Every web host should provide you with the ability to have several email accounts, most will offer up to 10 with a basic low end account. Another feature to look for is a company that offers an account that will accept and hold any email sent to your domain that does not match an email address. This is due to the fact that many people misspell names and such and therefore emails get lost.

You basically have three different email services available to you. The first is probably the one that most are familiar with, the POP or post office protocol works like a normal inbox such as your Outlook Express. You will be given a certain amount of storage space you are allowed but generally can only access from one computer.

The second choice called IMAP or internet message access protocol will allow you to use your email account on many different computers so that you can access it at work and home.

The third choice you have is a web based email which is of course the most flexible, allowing you to access your email from anywhere on the planet with a computer and an internet connection though a web browser. I like having all the options.

The next consideration that you have is on the size limit of storage you have. Nearly every web hosting company will have some sort of restriction on the size of account you can have as well as on the size of messages that can be sent. This is especially crucial if you are using your email to send pictures or documents. One key thing you want to do if you are using outlook or outlook express is to select the notify option for when your email is opened so that you know it was received. Many times if a file is too large you will have no other way of knowing. If you don’t get the notification then you know they didn’t receive your message.

Now, back to actual storage space, you should pick a web host company that offers a reasonable balance between the bandwidth limits and the size of the mailbox storage. For example if you have an account that offers 500MB of bandwidth but only a 3 MB data storage for email accounts.

Another important issue to look for is outgoing email limits. If you are using your account for business you may need to send emails out to a large number of people several times a day, if the system automatically flags that as spam you will not be able to send them. Check the limitations on outgoing mail and be sure it suits your needs.

Choosing a Web Hosting Services Provider

Choosing a Web hosting services provider can be a challenge. There are literally thousands of companies that offer countless products and services. It can be a difficult task for a novice as well as for a seasoned professional, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve broken the process down into three steps:

Step One: Free or Paid Hosting?

Step Two: Determine Expectations

Step Three: Compare Hosts in the Right Category

Step One: Free or Paid Hosting?

To Pay or Not To Pay?

A large percentage of Web sites are ‘free’ and posted by individuals for personal reasons. Typically, these sites are associated with one of the larger portals such as Yahoo or AOL and consist of a page or two with limited content. If you’re looking to put up a personal site like this, look no further than the solutions offered by these two companies. The tools and applications such as email, community interest portals and photo management software provided are straightforward and make setting your site up very easy.

The downside to free hosting? Generally you’ll have to put up with banner ads on your homepage or other ads you don’t get to pick. To be fair, its how these companies can afford to set up your infrastructure for free. All the same, you have no control over whose ad shows up on your site. If that’s unacceptable, a paid hosting solution (some start lower than $5/mo) might be your best bet.

Most Web hosting companies bundle services into a series of packages. The standard hosting service component is normally a bundle of disk storage space (where your site is stored) and bandwidth (the capacity for data transfer of a wired or wireless communication system.) In addition, hosting companies usually bundle email services with standard plans. The email service contains POP and IMAP solutions which direct email received through your site to desktop applications (Outlook® or Exchange®.) “Web-mail” is also provided to view and manage email through a Web browser.

Frequently, small businesses want a Web site that functions only as an online brochure that provides information about the business but not sell products. Standard packages are ideal if you’re building a simple brochure site. Additional service packages offer eCommerce, media intensive applications for video and audio sharing and dedicated servers, designed to back-up more complex business requirements. Paid solutions pretty much come down to whether you’re going to sell products and services online or just display information in a brochure format and what kind of customer and technical support you’ll require.

Step Two: Determine Expectations

You Get What you Pay for

There are basically two price levels prevalent in Web hosting. There’s a large group of Low Price or Discount hosts that offer nice solutions from below $5 to $15 per month and there are hosts that offer solutions that start above $15 and the pricing goes up from there. Companies such as Affinity have developed a number of different hosting brands to help simplify the customer experience. As an example, Affinity uses the Host Save and Win Save brands for their low-cost hosting solutions and the Value Web brand for their premium services.

Customer service is usually the primary difference between inexpensive hosting solutions and the higher priced options. Here’s where the “you get what you pay for” maxim comes into play. Prior to choosing a provider it’s important to determine how serious you are. In other words, if the site is your small business lifeline, where you’ll find customers, display, sell and even ship products you probably don’t want a hosting company that won’t answer calls when there’s a problem. On the contrary, many experienced professionals would rather not talk to someone and prefer technical support and customer service through email or online chat.

Clarifying expectations ahead of time can mean the difference between a great online experience or completely frustrated and without support. The extra $10 per month may be worth the piece of mind it buys.

Step Three: Compare Hosts in the Right Category

Once you know whether you need a standard hosting plan or an eCommerce solution and whether low price or premium (a.k.a. better customer support) hosting is right for you, it’s time to shop. Any of the major search engines will provide a multitude of responses with a query such as Web Hosting or eCommerce hosting. You can even narrow your search with more definition. A search for “Cheap eCommerce hosting” will yield mostly companies whose solutions fall in the low price category.

Take some time and visit several hosting company’s Web sites. Go over plan options and see which offer the services and support that match your expectations. Because of the similarities, hosting plans can become confusing. Most major providers have a “Compare Plans” page you can print. It’s good to print out the various packages and have them in hand while you shop.

Using Affinity’s Value Web brand as an example, some hosts offer a portal where you’re free to ask existing customers if they’re satisfied and recommend the provider. Look for this function as you shop, it’s an excellent tool in how to determine whether a company is right for you. Unless you’re an experienced professional you shouldn’t buy a solution without at least first talking to a sales rep at the company. This gives a sense of the company’s commitment to its customers. Many also call the technical support numbers to see how long it takes to answer and how friendly and knowledgeable the staff is. Companies such as Affinity combined sales and support departments so when you order an account you’re talking to a technical support representative as well. This creates a forum in which all questions can be answered without having to be transferred to other departments.

It’s important to find a hosting relationship that fits your needs and whose level of involvement you feel comfortable with. Following these steps will make choosing a Web hosting solution easier and, hopefully, even fun.

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Choosing a Web Hosting Package – Unix Based or Windows?

 

Do you want a Windows or a Unix Based Web Host?

 

The fact that you are reading this article indicates that you have been looking for a Web Host, and will therefore have noticed by now that most web hosting companies off you either Unix (or Linux) Hosting, Windows Hosting or both – to some this is an unexpected decision to have to make, many unless they own a Mac will be largely unaware of the capabilities of any other platform than Windows. So what are the differences between the two systems and what are the advantages of each?

The first point to note is that you do not need Windows Hosting just because you have a Windows based PC, nor do you need Unix if you own a Mac, the HTML code or Java Script you upload onto the server is universal as is the server’s output of that code, so your website will look the same on either. The difference lies in the software which is used to output that website.

 

Unix Hosting uses a Unix based operating system which was developed primarily for use on severs, Unix Hosting is generally cheaper than Windows because most web hosts use Linux – a Free Open Source version of Unix (which is used in some supercomputers) and consequently do not have to shell out thousands of pounds in licensing and support to Microsoft, a saving which is passed on to you the user. Another advantage of using free open source software is that anyone can make changes and improvements to the source code, and in doing so add functionality and updates without contravening any license, this factor has lead to Unix based systems naturally evolving over the years to become relatively bug-free. As a result Unix based operating systems are renowned for their inherent stability and their ability to  run for years before a reboot is required, thus requiring less attention from technicians and reducing costs – an attractive feature for a server.

 

Windows Hosting as the name suggests uses MS Windows as an operating system and although more expensive and slightly less stable does have some benefits over it’s Unix based conterpart. Primarily this has to do with what you want to host; if you want to use an MS Access database or upload MediaPlayer files such as music or Videos you will require Windows Hosting, (N.B. MP3, Quicktime, Shockwave, Flash and Real can be handled by either system).

 

Making the decision as to which is best thus comes down to what you want to do with your web space. Both Systems can host Multimedia both can host dynamic content and with PHP, MySQL and CGI, but the question becomes you need to run Windows based applications on your server? If so then you have no choice but to use a Windows Hosting solution, if the answer is no then can make your decision based on other factors such as choice of host, cost and reliability.

 

For Further information on choosing a web host visit, WhichDomainHost 

 

Consider These Factors While Choosing the Web Hosting

Web hosting is the term we used several times. As we know that web hosting services are of many types such as free web hosting, paid web hosting and shared web hosting. For the beginners who are not aware of these things we are going to discuss them and their utility.

Shared Web Hosting

This hosting is suitable for anyone who is looking for an economical Web Hosting solution with total Web Space Requirement not exceeding 2 GB.

User should decide his/her requirement before going for anything. User should know in advance that which hosting plan he/she requires as well as which software is best for him/her. If a user has already purchased a hosting account with a web hosting company and then starts looking around for the required one, then this decision is not at all going to be a right one. When a user chooses the software after selecting the hosting company then mostly it happens that the software is not compatible with the web hosting account. Generally in a Shared Hosting environment, any kind of customization is not possible.

The conclusion of this problem is that the user should make the decisions of all the requirements before choosing the Web Hosting Provider.

What are the requirements of the user?

If one is new to web hosting and just starting out with his/her online Web Presence, then there is no requirement for him/her to start off with a fancy Hosting Account. He she can begin with a Basic Hosting account and upgrade with the increase of the requirements.

E-Commerce site

An E-Commerce site requires the web-hosting services that are somewhat different from the plain vanilla hosting services. Problems like SSL set up and Payment Gateway Integration are critical and needs to be solved. These two stated problems are quite critical for a user but are easily sorted by the web-hosting company. The most concerned point is compatibility between what is required and what Web Hosting Company is offering. Have a look on the example of Payment Gateway Integration. One might have decided to buy Payment Gateway services from one service provider whereas the Web Hosting provider would be in a position to provide Payment Gateway Integration for another service provider.

Qualities of good hosting company:

There are number of companies present in the market and claiming for providing the best services, but it up to the user to select the best company. The criteria for choosing best company is that the company should offer Unlimited FTP Access, 24*7 Web Support, and Uptime guarantee, Money Back Guarantee in case of non-satisfaction. Some of the other expected features are No Set Up Fee, Web mail with email, Web Based Site Admin, Email Forwarding, Unlimited Email Aliases, Email Auto Responders, server anti Virus Protection, etc.

Deciding Criteria

One should not make decision in a hurry; rather he/she should collect all the information about the company he/she desires to choose. He /she should look at the past record of the web hosting provider, number of years in web hosting business for the service provider, type of clients they have, their SLA, location of Data center and technical specifications of the hosting servers that are being offered for his/her shared hosting. If the service to be signed up includes some advanced features like Tomcat support, look for compatibility between the requirements and the hosting features offered by the Hosting provider. Look at the Control Panel offered by the Web Hosting Provider and what exactly is offered in that Control Panel.

These are the important features one cannot afford to miss if he/she wants to have a reliable as well as supporting web hosting service.

Choosing Your First Linux Web Host

 

Choosing Your First Linux Web Host

Choosing your first Web host is an important decision. You will, hopefully, have a long relationship with whatever host you choose. To make a decision, first you need to decide that what you need and then visit the sites of several hosting providers and evaluate what they are offering in regarding your requirements. If you choose wisely you should get good value for your money, consistency and prompt well-informed support. Get a Good Linux Web Host at OnSmart.net

Linux and its predecessor UNIX and Windows 2000 and its close relate Windows NT are types of operating systems that web servers use to do its operations.

In most of the cases Linux Web Hosting Account is recommended because Linux is considered as more reliable, stable and more universally compatible with any operating system. This is due to the functionality and speed of the Linux operating platform. Without any doubt, Linux is far more stable than Windows in a shared-server, or multi-user environment. Get a Good Linux Web Host at OnSmart.net (http://www.onsmart.net )

 

On the other hand, if you know that you will be using Microsoft applications extensively, or you plan on developing extensively using FrontPage, especially FrontPage 2002, MS SQL, ASP.NET or if you are looking for E-commerce add- ons or you will be using high-end databases then Windows/NT Hosting is the right choice for you. But if you are looking for universal compatibility regardless of the operating system the end user has, Linux has the ability to run a much wider variety of custom scripts and programs than Windows 2000/NT, and it offers easier, lower-cost set-up for advanced applications such as CGI scripts, databases.

Under Linux web hosting operating system, there is, database, server software and gathering of coding. Linux is the most preferred and demanded operating system because of its features and vigorous environment and it is the next best alternative to Microsoft and UNIX operating system. Linux is widely used and chosen worldwide due to its permanent network and server operating system. Linux operating system and APACHE web server, MYSQL database, PHP server coding applications are clustered under one roof that is Linux web hosting and for this, it is also known as LAMP server. The most reliable web hosting under web based applications is the Linux, and Apache is grabbing the market of Microsoft servers according to a survey over million of sites. Get a Good Linux Web Host at OnSmart.net

 

Advantages of Choosing Linux Based Web Host

Following are the advantages of using Linux based web server compared to Windows based web server:

1. Stable:

Linux/Unix operating systems has traditionally been believed to be very stable and robust. A web site housed on a Linux operating system will have very high up-time (of the order of 99.9%). Of course, other factors such as power supply, network admin skills, and network load etc. also matter when it comes to maintaining the system uptime.

2. Low cost of ownership:

The Linux OS comes free of cost (or at very insignificant cost, usually cost of distribution). Also, it has full fledged server, and desk top applications that comes free along with the OS. These server applications (such as FTP, Web Server, DNS Server, File Server etc.) being free, are also very stable.

3. Ease of use:

When it comes to web hosting, it is easy to host on Linux web servers. The process of uploading and hosting is almost same for both Linux and Windows web servers. If you want to use a Windows based tool such as Front Page for uploading a web site on to a Linux based web server, make sure that the Front Page extensions are enabled. This is only required if you are uploading using HTTP feature of Front Page. Front Page also makes it possible to upload a web site using FTP. Note that if you select “Front Page Extensions” during web site design, you must enable Front Page extensions on a Linux web server also.
You can use almost all types of file extensions or scripts when using Linux web server. Commonly, the following extensions are supported: .cgi, .html, .htm, .pl, .php, .shtml, .xml, and others. Basically it means that you can host web sites that use different types of server side scripts including .cgi, .pl, .php, and .asp with plug-in. Get a Good Linux Web Host at OnSmart.net

 

 

4. Easy to move between hosts:

A web site designed to be hosted on a Linux based web server can be hosted on a Windows web server easily, where as the reverse is not always true.

Most widely used: Linux/Unix based web hosting is most widely used compared to Windows based web hosting.

5. Scalability:

A web site is dynamic. Usually, a web site starts with a few pages of html and grows over a period of time to suit the customer’s requirements. It is preferable to design a web site keeping these requirements in mind. A web site designed for compatibility with a Linux/Unix based web server meets the scalability requirement easily without making any site wide design changes.

On the downside, Linux based web server is not fully compatible with Microsoft technologies. If you are using any specialized applications or VB for development of your web site, it is preferable to host with a Windows based web server.

 

About Author :

 

OnSmart.net offers Premium Reseller Hosting, Web Hosting, and Dedicated Server solutions with 24/7 Support and 99.9% Uptime at an affordable price. OnSmart.net is a Established Hosting Company with an established customer base, that specializes in Linux-based web hosting. OnSmart.net provides budget, shared, advanced and other types of web hosting services to a wide range of clients ranging from small business to individuals

 

Tips For Choosing A Web Hosting Company

There are literally hundreds of web hosting companies with multiple hosting plans vying for your business. While most are good and will do an adequate or better job of hosting your site, there are a number of considerations to make when looking at various companies.

For most web sites, shared hosting provides the most cost effective solution to web hosting. While the basic hosting is just that, each offer many different features and incentives. Before even looking at a hosting service, it is a good idea to thoroughly assess your present and future needs. For example, an ecommerce site will require much more in the way of storage and features than a personal or hobby site. If you will be hosting multiple domains or sub-domains, you need to know if a given company will support them without additional charges. Plans may include basic shopping carts, free domain registrations, multiple scripting options, etc. The list is endless, but the first order of business is to develop some criteria based on what you need right now and what you may require in the future. Its always possible to switch companies in the future, but much easier to get it as right as possible the first time.

In evaluating various companies, there are several aspects generic to all that you should look at.

Is the company established? Look for a company that has been in business at least 3-5 years and has a physical address and phone number posted on their web site. Use caution with a company whose only contact information is an email address. Also look at the number of domains hosted by the company. An established company should be hosting at least 50,000 (if not more) domains.

Is 24/7 monitoring and service available? The company should have someone monitoring their servers at all times as well as someone available to handle emergency service in the event your site goes down.

Is their a money back guarantee? It is common practice for a company to require a year or two payments up front in order to obtain the best pricing. Check to see if the company offers a pro-rated refund if you choose to switch companies.

How much are additional services? Should you exceed your plans allotted bandwidth or storage, it is important to know what additional transfer or storage will cost. Most companies are quite reasonable, however some require that you purchase additional storage / bandwidth in large blocks. Most companies will send you an alert if you are approaching your plans limits and allow for arrangements to be made. Others will simply shut down your web site until you have paid.

Testimonials? They are nice to see, but should always be taken with a grain of salt. Check to see if the testimonials include a web address and visit the web-site.

Is the sales staff available to answer questions? They should be. Look for a toll free number and call with any questions before making a commitment.

The last thing you need do is evaluate the pricing and assure that it fits in your budget. While you certainly don’t want to choose an obviously shady hosting company for the sake of saving a few bucks, it has been our experience that more expensive does not necessarily mean better when it comes to shared hosting.

7 Prime Notes to Judge Before Choosing a Website Hosting Server

Nowadays people are looking for selling their products through the internet marketing policies. Thus they quickly choose a domain name and then choose the cheapest web hosting plans to host their website. These two works had done too faster manner thus we can assume that small business owners won’t waste their valuable time for that. After that they spend maximum time to design that profitable website.

Obviously cost is a big issue to host a website through a web server. I am not denying that part but my question is how many people verifying the market reputation, data transfer credibility, web server hosting reliability and the previous client overview of that web server hosting company?

The first but the very significant part while you are stepping into the web world is to choose a proper and affordable web hosting firm for hosting your website appropriately. Let us assume that your designed web site is really very appealing and it is obvious that after few months you will get the best positions into search engines. But if your web server gets down in regular basis for long time and your visitors are unable to locate your website that comes through search engines then can you tell me one thing what is the outcome of that low price hosting server which decreases your business growth?

Yes, thus the preliminary but most important part on internet business is to choose a perfect website, through that you can extract the juice from your targeted market area. Keep the cost issue into your mind that can be a part of your business policy and that is a good sign of a really thoughtful businessman but don’t go always for cheapest web hosting plans only.

Following tips can help you while choosing a web hosting server for your site.

Judge their professionalism

A professional web hosting company is always absolutely dedicated to their service at all times because they are all concerned about core business. They know that they have to fulfill their own business goal through their web hosting services only. Thus they always have been focused strictly on their services and this reason makes them punctual.

Judge latest features

The technology used in web servers changes rapidly day by day. Professional web hosts are always upgrading them to provide latest features which can helps their clients to handle or host websites smoothly. If you stand with current trends then it may possible that you get the edge over your competitors by integrating these latest features.

Judge their market reputation

Market reputation is the main thing of any internet business. Collect their previous or ongoing client’s opinion and verify them properly. Are they really able to host your site or are they spreading good words only about their business and doing nothing?

Judge data transfer credibility

All kinds of windows server hosting or Linux server hosting firms should have genuine data transfer credibility. This will be your main judgment point which will includes web server speed, disc space and mainly the bandwidth compatibility.

Judge web server hosting reliability

A major question arises that how much the web server is reliable for your business? Because all kinds of business documents are stored into the databases, if they risk to be stolen then that will be the worst case for you as that would be a mistake without your fault. Thus judge the security issue of that particular web hosting company properly.

Judge their 24/7 support service

24/7 support service is one of the best feature of any leading professional website hosting company. They are always very punctual to solve your problem as quickly as possible for increasing their own market reputation. Verify this before choosing your web hosting firm.

Lastly Judge affordability of their packages

I told you earlier that the cost is always knocking the mind of any business owners and it’s not a bad thinking too. When you prepare a list of web hosts by verifying above all these tips then go for perfect package detailing and then choose the most affordable web hosting company from that list which will hosting your website.

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