Cgi Web Hosting – 3 Vital Scripts for One?s Business

An all round self-skilled web site is the need of the hour for many people. Today the root businesses of many companies are on the shoulders of those sites, which have interactive quality to get a mob of people and can produce the business. Automated features can also play a “behind the scenes” role, by generating the qualities in one’s site like making it easy to use, smooth running and promoting online sales and password protection.

There are several ways by which one can generate such type of automation in his/her site, but all the processes engage either client side or server side scripting. There are several programming languages present specially designed for the web; such programming languages are used for writing scripts. Generally, customer side scripts are written in one of the best web programming languages i.e., Java. But some functions are to be accomplished through the scripting on server side; however, frequently used programming languages on this side are PHP, PERL, and CGI. PHP and PERL are fresher and are on every mouth in the market but one can’t ignore the mother of all web-scripting languages, CGI due to availability of features suitable to it.

Shopping Carts

No one can say that the online sales site is complete without a functioning shopping cart and generally best among them have been written in CGI script. CGI web hosting is ideal for shopping cart scripts because of it’s better interaction with majority of databases, which includes popular MYSQL and MS Access databases, it can be applied with simplicity of similar range on the servers like Windows, UNIX, LINUX, and MACOS, thus simply configured for sales tax and shipping cost calculations. In the market, PHP and PERL are used to apply on the newer shopping cart scripts, but the first choice still prevailing is the use of good old CGI web hosting scripts.

Password Shielding

There are several sites, which require some sort of registration and entry of a password for the user to enter the site’s features. One should need to do it due to the boundations of several reasons like simply a desire to pathway visitors for marketing reasons, like to allow postings on message boards and ensuring that users have paid any required fees associated with use of the site. One should apply the CGI scripts for the automated registration process and in the process of issuing user name/password and generally it is done in this manner only.

Form Managers

There are several people who don’t know about how the forms, they fill out online are handled. They must know that such forms are handled by CGI webhosting. When a user fills in that form and hits the “submit” button, a CGI script takes over and sends the contained data via Email or writes it to a database where the site’s administrator is able to access it later on.

Thus the above mentioned are some of the uses of the uses for CGI scripts on today’s web sites. Like these there are many more and if there is possibility for doing anything on the website, surely it can be done with CGI. PHP and PERL are gaining popularity due to any reasons, but CGI was the one since beginning with the user and is even not going anywhere. So as long as there are web sites, CGI web hosting will remain the Jack of all trade.

Choose a Web Host That Meets One?s Requirements

The most important and difficult decision one has to make while starting an online business is to opt for the host plan, which meets the requirements and is within one’s budget. One can take the help of the search engines for searching the best plan. There are number of web hosting providers offering great packages. It is very difficult to choose best one among them

It is good to write down all the requirements by the customers and then choosing the package suiting one’s requirements and then only the chosen package will have its worth.

Following are the few aspects to be considered when choosing a web host.

Disk Space

It is very important to know how much space will be required and this can be done only after knowing that what kind of business one is running? Is he selling a single product? Showcasing a huge catalogue with lots of pictures? Or, maybe a membership website? Different types of businesses use different amounts of disk space. After he will require knowing all these information one can easily calculate how much space and then he can easily choose the package accordingly. This is very right that no one wants to pay extra for the space he would never use.

Data Transfer

Many hosting plans put a limit on the amount of data one can transfer. Data transfer is the amount of traffic flow from one’s site that includes images, banners, and file downloads, etc. If the user crosses the limit he have to pay extra for it, which results to be very expensive. At this point he will realize the worth of pre study of the requirements. Now he needs to do some homework i.e. to know what is the size of his page? Does he expect to have a lot of visitors? Does it involve transferring many files? If he does, then he surely needs a plan permitting plenty of data transfer.

Email Accounts

Now one should know how many email accounts will he need? One for his personal use and one for support, enquiries, sales etc. One should also have to consider which email package he will need, full Pops access, Web-based email or both?

Up-Time Guarantee

It will be favorable for the user not to accept anything less than 99.5% of uptime. Server downtime is like having a shop without electricity; In this case visitors will not be able to visit one’s site, and thus as a result it would lead to destruction of one’s sale and thereafter-entire business.

Support

User should be very sure while choosing a web host that it will provide excellent support. User can any time face the difficulty, so it is very necessary to choose one that can reply within 48 hours.

Tools and control panel

User should opt the host that provides a good control panel that is user friendly. This is very true that no one wants to waste time sending support tickets asking technical questions and waiting hours for a reply, right? Thus one should look out for tools like traffic monitors, statistics, web mail, file manager, etc.

Testimonials

User should give importance to what others are saying. Email those people to find out about server uptime and other features of the web host he is planning to use. However one needs to be very careful as some people complain more than praising one.

Price

One should always keep in mind that what one pay, is what he gets. If he gets it too cheap, chances are that the cost is cutting somewhere else. This can also happen that they are going to charge for additional services later on. So be careful!

Top 3 Ways for Promoting One?s Web Hosting Business

In the present scenario there is a rush of web hosting companies, and it is stiff to find out the reliable one. There are many strategies one may use to promote his/her company.

The best ways are given below through which one can easily endorse his/her web hosting business. All top 3 methodologies, as given below can be used for any kind of business, not only for a web hosting company. Here there are:

1. Referral Program

It is an ideal way to interact with the new customers. One can modify the setup of the system to show his/her current customers in the mask of new customers. The facility of a special tracking id is possessed by the customer, by giving it; he/she can consult with anybody whenever necessary. This way, the customer receives a reward for the utilization of his/her id. It is too recommended that one should submit his/her customer an account where he/she can do the verification of figures of his/her campaign. One should sign up the user to the referral program so that they can start bringing more users to the site. One

Can use some ready made soft wares available on the web for the accomplishment of management and tracking mentioned at the top.

2. Recommendations or mouth publicity

It is quite similar to recommendable program, but the variation lies only in the fact that in this case the user does not get any form of reward on bringing new users. However, still it is a good route to promote one’s web hosting service. The customer satisfaction is the key thing which will bring more of the users, because only satisfied customer will tell positive views to other people, providing benefit to the host provider .Thus in other words one can say that, a happy customer is the root cause of a business to flourish.

The service host can ask a satisfied customer to submit a testimonial containing the praising views of the customer in respect to the hosting company.

3. Linking to Forum Discussions

There are several good forums, which include web hosting as a topic of discussion. One should join such forums and must share his/her views without forgetting to keep his/her signature along with URL below his/her designation. One can place along with the signature his/her unique weekly or monthly offers.

So, helping others on this kind of forums can send new customers on one’s website, straightly meaning more business for one’s web hosting business. However one should not just rely on any one’s advice rather should go there to post and ad, should become an active member and should also became part of the forum’s community.

Mentioned above are the first three routes which one should use to bring boom in his/her business. Using them will give sure results.

Choosing Host Meeting One?s Hosting Needs

For a user it doesn’t matter that in what way and at which place he/she should host the web site but the whole marketing strategy will get affected when user’s site suffers from downtime. Since, several years there are people using almost a dozen different web hosts providers. By that time, if one talks about really good ones which are virtually hassle-free, then they are just one or two and who charges good amount of fees.

One cannot deny the fact that web hosting costs have declined remarkably in past few years, still one should not measure a hosting service only on the basis of price. It may probably happens that service provider demanding high charges can also be the reason of user’s loses of several dollars in the business.

While exploring a reliable host user should give preference to quality in front of cost. Only paying excessive amount is not the criteria, rather user should find a host through whom he/she can enjoy several features without much hassle.

Technical assistance:

An ideal hosting company provides 24/7 tech support to their clients. User should ensure that company should not only have an email support but also phone support, so that in case of an emergency one can directly contact a representative to tackle down his/her problem.

Period of Down Time:

Every hosting provider will claim one or the other form of uptime guarantee. One should carefully analyze the written material on the small print in order to fully understand their actual assurance. There are certain chances that the assurance provided was only for the website but not for the email services.

One can find several hosting providers in the market claiming for a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Which denotes that they are assuring downtime will be not more than 45 minutes each month. Certainly, if the user is involved in a big business such a small spare of time can be critical and can be quite enough to damage the whole business operations.

The user will certainly get some compensation if the hosting provider fails to meet the assured up time, but it will be not quite enough for the user to fulfill the damage occurred due to lose of traffic and even in the business. If the user is suffering from down time more then one’s a year then he/she should look for another host providing adequate service.

Server Load Monitoring:

One should verify that his/her host should bear the feature of handling the server load that user’s site will produce. Particularly, when user’s site will catch a large amount of traffic while dealing with majority of host’s, it is at that time that user will receive a restrictive amount of bandwidth only. If he/she exceeds it may needs to be compensate with extra amount of money.

Hence, one should have full knowledge of bandwidth allocation. So that, nothing undesirable should not happen while user was enjoying a large amount of traffic.

Secure Server:

Secure server can be very useful for the users who do not want their credit card details or storing personal data to be disclosed to anybody. This is because protection is a demanding aspect for every internet shopper.

There are few of the hosts who navigate their clients to the secure portion of their server and due to this URL will actually change making site inaccessible to the visitors. The drawback of this is that several web sites place their online store on such a secure area which will remove user’s potential web pages making it away from the potential search engine rankings.

To avoid all these problems one can secure an area in his/her own site, which the user can do through buying a secure certificate for his/her domain name. This is later “installed” by the web host providing infinite secure areas in his/her site with own domain. One can consider it as a remedy of professional level getting rid of all sorts of troubles.

In-House Hosting:

There are several companies which are the web hosting providers altogether in favor of hosting their sites on their own in-house servers. Thus, one can get few benefits of doing this but one should go for this if he/she possesses a full-time IT person who is specialized in web server management.

One can promote site accessibility through In-house hosting. The capability by which visitors can access to the site and can download material from it highly rely on user’s local ISP and the connection efficiency. Still connectivity with broadband DSL or cable, cannot provide adequate speed as required. It will raise the time taking for the download and adversely affect the efficiency of site if there is a huge amount of traffic.

There is no assurance of uptime while dealing with In-house hosting and in some way also lag behind in adequate technical support.

However it doesn’t matter whether user’s server is suffering from downtime, or there is no Internet access, or scarcity of power, one’s site will remain inaccessible to the visitors.

Thus at last one can conclude that there are several pros and cons of every hosting need.

What can be the suitable one is up to the choice of the user.

Varieties are spread out….go and search out.

Relocating One?s Existing Website to a New Host

There are several users who got their own website but they are having problems from their hosting providers such as lack of proper service, quite expensive features, and running out of business. In such crises user needs to transfer his/her website to a new host, but the question arises how? This is a common problem prevailing everywhere but users don’t know from where to start. This guide will help the user how to transfer from one host to another as soon as possible.

Step No.1

For the new hosting provider a user’s should know what to transfer so that user can determine his/her requirements. For these questions one’s should consult his/her website designer or current hosting provider.

One should check all the information he/she need to manage with his domains names?

Can a user get the entire backup of his/her website?

Which type of server a user is hosting on? Windows, Linux/Unix, or any other.

Are user’s sites running any kind of dynamic code, scripts, or software, like ASP, PHP, CGI, Java, or something else? Which type? There are several data processing’s like MYSQL, SQL, PostgreSOL, Access, Oracle, etc.

What is the quantity of e-mail addresses, lists and passwords? Is a user having e-mail aliases or set up of forwarded addresses? Are the sites password protected and secured?

Is the shopping cart is not under the user’s domain name or he/she can’t take with them.

Some hosting providers are recommending a shopping cart for their customers only.

Still there are some questions like -

What is the storage space of a user’s website take up?

What is the bandwidth of a user’s website for every month?

User should check whether he/she wants special requirements like receiving delivery receipts for e-mail or not?

If a user is having all the informations then he/she is in good form.Key of success will be in possessing a good record and preparation for anything.

Step No.2: A Host for one’s Needs

Now a user wants someone to handle it. So he/she should go through the companies, check their packages and should contact them to assist in moving his/her website. A good host is one who not only supports him/her on his servers but also help him/her to run it.

If a host runs a different server than one’s old host find out will it affect his/her setup like setting of e-mail, website control panel, or user can get new options or lose some of it.

Step No.3: Setting up of new before the old one

If one cancel his/her services with his old host he/her should aware that his/her new setup is running to his/her satisfaction. Because there can be problems related to services like broken website and e-mail services. The best is one who leaves his/her old host active up until the activation of the new host’s DNS, as well as fully configured and operational websites waiting for it when the domain is repointed. By this a new smoothest possible transition will be there from one host to another.

Now one can access his/her site prior to changing the DNS on his/her domain name. One can access his/her control panel to upload files, and perform all the operations necessary to recreate his/her website and e-mail accounts on the new host’s server.

One should ask for tutorials how to use all the features and tools read it and understand. If still one is confused how to start with anything, than ask for assistance from the host’s support department.

Step 4: Reporting one’s Customers

One should notify his/her customer who visits his/her site for buying or information, that he/she is doing some administrative changes to the site and it is not going to be accessible for some period of time. By informing them it shows that a user cares for his/her customers. One can report his/her customer by showing a notice on his/her website along with specific date.

Step 5: Replacing one’s Domain Names

One should have all his/her files transferred, his/her e-mail accounts set up, installation of

Shopping cart, etc on the host’s server. However one is still being hosted by his/her old provider. Here it is the right time to apply the details of domain management mentioned in step no 1. First of all user needs to locate the names of new host’s Domain Name Server (DNS). At least two are recommended:

Name server 1. ONE’SHOST .COM

Name server 2. ONE’S HOST.COM

One requires accessing this information in the DNS sector of his/her domain manager for every domain that user desires to repoint to the new host. If user is placing several domain on the same site he/she should ensure that the concern host’s DNS can take care of all the domain not only of that with which user kept the hosting account.

Certainly, changing DNS is not a straight forward process. The majority of DNS servers regulate their concern records in the gap of 12 or 24 hour, or rather it may go up to 48 hours (2 days). When user alter his/her domain’s DNS, a notice is also issued to routers throughout the internet that user’s domain is currently using diverse DNS so that proper regulation can be done in DNS tables as per requirement. Thus, all the work can be accomplished properly. The whole procedure is usually gets completed within the time limit of 2 to 3 days.

Step 6: Verification of one’s site and withdrawing former Services

After placing one’s domain and receiving the DNS system the user should carefully go through all the functions and features and should ensure that all the things are as per his/her expectations. After all the formalities and verifications one can terminate the deal and services provided by former host.

Best Way to Start One?s Own Web Hosting Service

There are several webmasters who wants to start their own web hosting company. The first thing one needs to do is he should know that from where he should start. The next important question, which arises in the mind of the user, is from which source he will get the required information. This article will present the basic things that one requires in order to become a successful web-hosting provider.

Before starting, user should be very sure that becoming a successful web host is not possible by just reading the books rather it needs practical experience. It really sounds easy to run servers but actually running it is a damn difficult job. In many cases people who have taken good precautions while choosing an experienced server but still they should know by their own how to deal with security threats, downtime and fixing program errors, then only they can work properly else they have to face big problems.

Starting ones own hosting services is not an easy task rather it is very challenging and some times even irritating. One option to think about is reseller-hosting plans. There are many good web hosting companies offering paid reseller hosting and relieving user form wasting time in maintaining servers. One may consider this option to get a customer base going.

One can rent, lease or buy the servers, if he decides to buy the servers, he should get it custom made according to his specific needs, if user is having sufficient money, he can try to get a server that best fits into his plans. He will need a place to keep the server. He can find local building to do this or he can also keep it at home. But utmost care is required if user chooses the option to keep server as home as else it can lead to problem which one even cant imagine.

After crossing all these steps its time to choose the operating system. Now the next question that arises in one’s mind is-which operating system to be used i.e. Windows, Unix, etc., the next step is to opt the control panel like Cpanel, Plesk, etc., which security to use and many more. All these steps should be followed by proper research and care should be taken before finalizing anything. User should also keep in mind that if everything is going according to his requirements or not. User must also consider that there is several programming languages that can only run on certain operating systems, most web site owners want programming languages such as PHP or PERL.

There are many actions that should compulsorily be performed by the user and one of them is he should always keep his servers up to date with the latest security patches. He will need a good firewall; the firewall is first protection one has and most probably the best one. It’s also very important to monitor the servers full time for any errors, hackers or virus, one slight carelessness can lead to hacking of one’s server and result can be loosing all customers.

If any one desires to get the highest possible server uptime then he will require multiple Internet connections. Depending on the area in which one resides, it may be tough to find an Internet connection provider. One will need a fixed IP address, that won’t change after each use. All providers don’t offer this; so it is the responsibility of the users to check before he chooses.

Another point to consider is the pricing issue i.e. what are the charges one should ask for his web hosting services? If he is charging too high people will leave as being expensive, at the same time if the charges are quite low then too people will leave thinking servers are overcrowded with another web sites and that the services offered will be terrible. Now the question is what kind of plans to offer? Shared, reseller or dedicated hosting or maybe all of them.

When anyone really thinks about all these points, then he knows how difficult it is to become a successful web host and then the option which he considers best is to go with a reseller hosting plan, this will at least give one the taste of what he needs to do and help build him building a customer database