Understanding Your Web Hosting Service With a True Business Sense

July 25, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Web Hosting Basic

Since you want to get involved in a web hosting business, you might have already decided the various facilities that you are about to provide to your customers. Example:

You must have already figured out what packages to offer, the required pricing schedule and you must have also thought an automated system etc. Now, in order to be successful in your web hosting business, you certainly need to understand the technical requirements. However, there is another important side that you need to understand while dealing with your web hosting business. It is all about how you handle your business plan. In this article, I am going to talk about managing a web hosting business with the right business attitude.

Like all business, a web hosting business cannot be directly dependent on future profits alone. You must first begin to search for sources of finding your web hosting business plan. You must have funds to finance daily operations. You must arrange the necessary finance towards basic day expenses for the coming few months. If don’t adopt this strategy of working, then you are likely to get stuck for want of basic cash and you will not be able to focus on your business targets. You might then end in debts. In order to avoid this situation, you must arrange funds and then you must start maintaining the business by using your funds wisely.

Initially, you should not spend on expensive equipment or try to get involved into corporate infrastructure. Start on a low profile. Firstly, spend towards basic equipment set up and then slowly upgrade your systems when you realize that your business is growing. If you straight away spend money of high grade system without feeling your business pulse, you will end up being equipment rich but cash poor. In other words, you will end up towards being out of business very quickly. You can initially start investing on low cost web hosting equipments that are easily available and that are fairly in expensive but yet adequate enough to start your basic web hosting business along with automated hosting platform and broadband connectivity.

You can even consider outsourcing certain job works in order to maximize your cost savings. Always keep your operating costs as low as possible. Also, you need to be customer friendly in order to win more orders from people. Your web hosting business must incorporate all types of facilities that are required for a good customer service. A good customer support will act as a key towards a successful web hosting business. If a customer contacts you, as a service provider, you must then immediately try to contact them and help them towards their web hosting related problems. In this way you will make the customers happy and satisfied. Ensure your customers that your web hosting business plan involves facilities liked good technical support, toll free number, help desks and trouble ticket systems.

Understanding the Method of Making Money Through Web-hosting Service

July 23, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Web Hosting Basic

Web hosting can be considered as a subscription oriented business. Once a customer subscribes to your hosting service, you will then earn constant money, on a monthly basis and that too with no additional investment from your side. If you don’t have the right quantity of money towards a web hosting business, then in that case, you can start a reseller web hosting business for a far lesser price. You will then comfortably be able to offer the reseller hosting package, along with the whole seller free and domain name registration facility. On the other hand, investing in a web hosting business through the traditional way will involve huge investment whereby you would be investing big time money towards purchasing the equipment and software. Hence, starting a reseller web hosting business is the right choice.

Starting a reseller web hosting business is a better option to earn money. A reseller hosting account involves a particular web hosting plan, by which the reseller can buy the hosting service at a discount or at a wholesale rate and then offer the same hosting service to a third party. Resellers of web hosting plans are nothing but entrepreneurs who act as middleman. Resellers of web hosting plans basically lease their hosting service from another web host’s server rather than taking the pains to purchase and maintain their own equipment. By this way, a seller saves on basic investment over heads. This is because a reseller who deals with web hosting service, don’t have to worry about maintaining equipment or software. In case there arise any problem with the server, it is the whole seller who will resolve the issue, not the re-seller. The customer will not be aware as to who actually restored the server issue.

A reseller web hosting business can be conducted from anywhere around. The basic criteria required for a web hosting business is the internet access. If you want to be successful in your web hosting business, you need to think local. Check for new customers who are around you. In other words, look out for customers at your workplace, your neighborhood, friends and relatives too. You could also find customers from your cell phone numbers and email contact list. This is a simple idea of fishing for customers who are within your source of contact. You can promote your web hosting business by posting on relevant blogs, forums and using text link ads. You can send your company related information through news letters to targeted customers. You can also have a website, containing various sections, in the form of advertisements. Your visitor will then select on the appropriate advertising section of interest and thereby get access to more information about the concerned web hosting package and thus be tempted to buy what they need. By this method, you are actually helping your visitors to narrow down their search and be able to select a package that is suitable for their business.

A reseller web hosting business can be started by a person who knows basic windows experience. You don’t have to be an expert in java developer or any kind of software programming expert. When you enter into the reseller web hosting business, it is important to know the reliability and the credibility of the company. Otherwise, you can be in losses and ultimately end up in subsequent closure of your reseller hosting account. I would like to conclude this article by encouraging you to take up a re-seller web hosting business which involves a very small investment plan. The investment is in the form of a monthly or yearly fee for availing this opportunity of conducting the concerned reseller web hosting business.

The Little Web Hosting Service That Shouldn’t

July 21, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Web Hosting Basic

Is bigger better?

Everyone has their own opinion on that, including web hosting companies. They say it is. That’s why when you look at their hosting packages, the feature list goes on and on and on. You’d think they cover their customers in gold with how much they apparently give away. Mail accounts, shopping carts, disk space, diesel generators – the works! But wait, along with that huge list of items you get, comes that huge price. Maybe you think you need all that stuff, though, so the price is justified. I mean why else would they include all this stuff if you didn’t actually need it, right? You might not like the answer. The unfortunate but TRUE answer is that they believe the more features you see, the more likely you are to PURCHASE.

How do you fight back? By actually evaluating what it is they offer and figuring out if you’ll actually NEED it. Why pay for something you won’t use? If you’re going to do that then, please – I need a new pair of shoes!

What you DON’T need.
Ok, let’s look at some of the commonly useless items found on these lists.

Bandwidth. Basically that means “action” or “traffic”. How much “action” do you think your site is going to get per month? Here’s a great tip: if this is your first time, start out expecting less traffic. Most companies can give you that upgrade if you need it with a click of the button. Most people, though, are paying for bandwidth they NEVER use.

SSL. It stands for “Secure Sockets Layer” and it means you have a secure server. It’s a great thing to have IF you plan to accept credit card payments. You may also see shopping cart software, also useful if you have an Internet business. However, there are well over a billion Internet pages and the vast majority of them are not there to accept payments. Most of the Internet is simply about free information – giving it out and searching for it. Again, don’t pay for something you simply don’t need.

Search Engine Submissions. Sounds great, except most of the search engines are free to be a part of anyway. And if you are really looking to be ranked in the top 10 or 20, you’re going to need to hire a professional. Don’t think that because it says “free search engine submissions” that it will help your site rank higher. That’s a business of its own.

Scripts. A script is a type of computer language like ASP, JSP, PHP, etc… If you could just pick the ones that you plan to use, that would be nice. But -whether you use 1, 2, or 4 – you’re going to pay for all 12 every month. It is more wasted money that most people just don’t pay attention to.

Catch-all Email accounts. Here’s how they work: I want to spam your website so I type in webhost@yourdomain.com. You think you won’t receive my spam email because you never created an account called “webhost”. Well, if you DIDN’T have a catch-all email account, you wouldn’t get my spam, but since you do have a catch-all email account – who knows what I can dump into that bin. If someone can’t get even the first part of your email address correct, do you really want to receive that email?

Be Smart.
This small list is just a part of the actual list. The full list of useless material you pay for would at least double this one. Imagine how that affects your bill. So, as you are shopping around for your web host, first understand what you NEED and then find a trusted company that matches that. Because anything else is just flushing your money away.

Understanding Cpanel in Web Hosting Service

July 16, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Web Hosting Basic

These days, web hosting is easily reachable to even those type of people who may have low level technical skills and training. All this is possible due to the existence of the user-oriented control panel. One of such popular control panel is the cPanel ( control panel). The full form of cPanel is Control Panel. It is a way to allow the website owners to maintain and keep their websites updated. This website based cPanel was developed by Darkorbc communications Inc. and it was basically made for the consumer to conveniently control every aspect of their activity on the concerned website. cPanel type of control panel is very suitable for the beginners. Through cPanel, emails can be conveniently operated. You can use cPanel with many browsers, like IE, Opera, Firefox and others. cPanel provides various facilities such as :

1) It provides a backup facility:

Through backup facility, you get the opportunity of creating a reserve copy of an account file and also databases. You can also restore some part of the user’s account.

2) Organizes emails:

You can create, add and also change password during managing of email accounts. cPanel is also used for Auto responders, forwards, mailing list and spam filtering.

3) Stats:

The websites efficiency and website popularity can be measured with different tools such as webalizer, web stats, analog stats, view latest visitors, view bandwidth usage and also by using the view bandwidth usage facility.

4) Sub domains provision:

You can use cPanel to create and manage sub domain’s. Also, statistics of its use can be viewed. In other words, you can add or remove sub domains and perform sub domains redirects too.

5) FTP:

FTP accounts can be managed with the help of cPanel. In other words, accounts can be created in order to access to certain directories or domains. You can add, remove, change passwords for accessing. You also will have the ability to kill FTP sessions.

6) Site tools facility :

There are tools available for protecting the website. The front page password can be changed, do redirects, MIME types can be edited and also apache handlers can be edited. There is also a provision for search engine tool submitting and File Manager option. Pre-Installed CGI scripts are also available for usuage.

cPanel is a user friendly interface. Anyone with any level of Internet and computer usuage ability can successfully use cPanel. It was designed with the aim of encouraging more average website owners and also to accommodate most ages and educational groups of computer users. cPanel has also included a facility called “Fantastico” which allows website owners to easily install programs such as WordPress, Moodle, phpBB, mambo and Joomla with one click. It would take a lot of time of the website owner would try to install these programs alone.

cPanel offers great assistance in terms of saving time of people who are not experts in creating databases. The cPanel provides databases and database management from the main screen. People of all levels can use cPanel program. cPanel gives the website owner a feel of respect for the website as a whole. It is very easy to accomplish tasks of maintaining website. Hence, whenever you choose a web hosting provider, see that the company that is chosen is having cPanel as part of its package.

How to Get Support From Web Hosting Service Providers

July 10, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Web Hosting Basic

It would be very frustrated when your web site is broken and cannot be access. At this time, if you know about what kinds of support you can get from your web hosting service provider, you will be in a better position to get your site up.

If your web hosting service providers are really care about their service, you will be able to find 4 types support channel from them. You can leverage those services according to the serious level of your web site.

1) Online Knowledge Base

This is the documents center from your vendor, you can see a lot of online help document which will tell you how to handle some very common issues. If the issue from your web site is not too serious for you, and you also happen to have a lot of time, if should be fine for you to go through the online knowledge base to see if your issue can be resolved by yourself. And this is also very helpful if you want to learn some technical knowledge about web hosting.

2) Email support

In the most web hosting vendors site, you can find a place which will allow you to open a ticket to describe the issue you have met, and very soon you can receive an email from the engineer in their company to tell you how to handle your case. Email support system is treated as a very important part of the web hosting service. If they cannot manage this well, they will lose their customers very soon.

Try the email support if the situation is not too bad and you don’t know the answer as well.

3) Live Chat Support

Live chat support is the one I like most,. By this method, I can chat with the engineer immediately, and get the problem resolved steps by steps with the guide from them. But not all the companies will provide this type of service, you need to pay attention to their support system to see it is there. Usually, I only sign the offer with those who provider Live Chat support.

4) Toll free phone support.

This is for very urgent case, you want to get the problem resolved as soon as possible. At this time, you can pick up the phone and ask for help. The same as live chat support, not all companies provide you with this type of service, if your business is really very important to you and cannot be offline for even 1 hour, you should only work with those who provide toll free phone support, and it will be better that the support is 24*7 available.

As for above 4 types of support channel, email support is very basic, if a web hosting service cannot reply your email prompted, you should not work with them, since this is also happened in the company with very poor service.

And you should try to signup with those providing live chat support, which will ease you a lot when you are in trouble with your site. For toll free phone support, this is just a nice to have feature unless your web site is not very critical.

reference:
Top 10 Web Hosting
Reliable Affordable Web Hosting Review, Guide and Awards
Webmaster Tutorials

Tips For Free Web Hosting Service

July 3, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Free Web Hosting

Are you opening your own website for the first time? Then you must have gone through all the preliminary details about how to install your website on the net? No, then what method are you adopting to launch your website?


Are you going to purchase your own server or are you going to avail the services of the web hosting companies? You have still not decided? Okay what about the website that you have prepared? Have you taken the help of the web building sites to design your website? Yes, that means you have prepared your site maintaining all the basic guidelines of web building which will be helpful in launching your site. Now it is time to decide about the type of web hosting service that you are going to use.


What are the steps to be followed to choose a good web hosting company?


As you are a fresher in this line the best option for you is to choose a company which will provide free web hosting service. Where to search for a good company? The best place to search for good web hosting company is the directories for web hosting companies.


There you will get all the information about the web hosting companies which provide free web hosting service. Browse through the information and choose the best free web hosting company which will cater to all your needs. But what are the basic services that must be provided by the companies? To know about it read the tips that is being provided to select the best free web hosting service.


Effective Tips to Consider for Free Web Hosting Service


First of all consider the location of the web hosting company. If it is a foreign company go through all the terms and conditions very carefully and gather all the information about the legal formalities of that state so that when you face a problem you are not left stranded due to some terms and conditions which you overlooked.


Next is the security system of the company. Ensure that the security system provided by the company is really applicable or is it only for namesake. This will help you to maintain your own privacy and the privacy of the visitors who come to your site.


Check the reliability of the company by gathering all the information about their technical knowledge regarding the maintenance of your website. Also do some research to know about the number of websites they are hosting and what is the response of the customers who are availing the services of the company? The free web hosting companies will install advertisements on your website which will be their source of income.


On your part you should verify about the type of advertisement that they are going to put on your website as it may have an adverse effect on your visitors, there are free web hosting companies which allow you to host your own banners and text so it is better to choose that type of company. Also find out about the storage space and the bandwidth that is provided by the company.

Choosing A Web Hosting Provider By Their Customer Service

July 3, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Web Hosting Basic

When choosing a web-hosting provider, there will be tons of questions you need answered before settling on the service that is right for you. Most often, when dealing with customer service, there tends to be a conflict of interest. Of course, they are trying to sell a service to you, so their ultimate goal is to make their web hosting features sound much better than the next choice.

Some companies will even stretch the truth just to attract business. For these customer service representatives, it is all about securing the deal and achieving a sale. But, what about the customer? In the long run, it is actually detrimental for businesses to lure a customer under false, misinformed or vague pretenses. If customer needs are not successfully satisfied or the company doesn’t deliver as promised, consumers are sure to place negative feedback and spread the word about their experiences.

Customer service is put into place to help customers make the decisions that are right for them. Just because a company offers low prices, doesn’t mean it will provide the proper services that a particular customer needs. They may need specific features to achieve all of their Internet goals and desires. It is the responsibility of customer service to make sure that all inquiries are answered with customer satisfaction in mind.

As a customer, familiarizing yourself with the ins and outs of web hosting providers and services is quite beneficial. Arming yourself with relevant knowledge will help you pinpoint the type of questions you need to ask a customer representative when searching for a service. How will you be able to comparison shop if you don’t even know some of the basics of web hosting? There are numerous aspects of choosing a web-hosting provider that you should take into consideration. Below you will find a few areas of web hosting to keep in mind when researching web-hosting companies:

Email: Having access to more than one email account through a web hosting company is quite desirable. Good questions to ask customer service regarding email is how many accounts you will receive. Will they provide a catch-all account? Will there be any limitations to the space per account or the size allowed for attachments?

Disk Space and Bandwidth: The answers to questions pertaining to these topics will determine your limitations regarding website space and Internet traffic. Ask web hosting customer service reps how many sub-domains are allowed. How much hard disk space will you receive? How much maximum bandwidth?

Information Protection: For some, backing up information is extremely important. A potential customer will want to know if a web-hosting provider has any backup policies. Will it cost additional fees to retrieve these backups, if offered? How many times during a week, month or year are files backed up?

Knowing a little bit about related web hosting topics before approaching customer service allows you to get the most out of your questions. In the end, with the help of a reliable customer service rep with good intentions, you may or may not choose a particular web hosting company for your business.

Godaddy Dot Com: My Favorite Web Hosting Service

June 27, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Web Hosting Basic

GoDaddy.com states that they offer world-class hosting as good as or better than most hosting companies offer, but I think they are referring more to their state-of-the-art, World Class Data Center rather than to their actual web hosting products and customer services they offer. A web host can have all the technological bells and whistles in the world backing them, but if a host service doesn’t have solid customer support and a few key features, that host will fall short of the competition. GoDaddy.com does offer some very attractive and affordable packages. I have personally been using Godaddy.com for around 2 years now. I have not to this day encountered any difficulties using their web hosting and domain name registering services. Some of their features described in more detail below. Before that though, I just want to say that I personally recommend them as they are still somewhere in the top 10 web hosting providers list.

Feature Set:  

GoDaddy is not a bad value, but lacks a lot of features that competitors offer for virtually the same price. GoDaddy offers 5 GB of disk space storage, 500 email accounts, 250 GB monthly data transfer, and limited on languages/platform support. Many other web hosting providers offer more for less. All plans with GoDaddy include these features: World Class Data Center, online set-up and instant account activation, FrontPage Extensions, 24/7 FTP Access, best-of-breed routers, firewalls and servers; Web Site Statistics, free setup, daily backups, 24/7 monitoring, 24×7 email, telephone and web-based tech support, 24/7 physical security and secure SSL Certificates (an optional extra) GoDaddy places their emphasis more on technology than on customer support.

Customer Service:  

Customer Service is what separates great hosts from the mediocre. GoDaddy offers an array of support options, such as Email Support, Telephone Support, an FAQ Section on their Web Site and access to various user guides. Unfortunately, there are a few items that are definite drawbacks with their Customer Service. If you use their Email Support, you will not get a response for 10 to 12 hours. Too long for most customers! GoDaddy even posts this right on their Web Site. I wouldn’t be boasting about a 10 to 12 hour response time. If you don’t want to wait for an email, there phone support is a little better. The average waiting period we experienced was 30 minutes. This is still too long of a wait and much longer than the wait we experienced with other web hosting companies that we reviewed. The tech I finally did speak with was not well-informed about the products or services offered and not eager to help. Unfortunately, Go Daddy does not offer live chat, a valuable customer service tool that allows you to receive instant help online.

Control Panel:

GoDaddy is not too difficult to use, even without a technical background. Most functions within the Account Management tool are similar to other control panels, but GoDaddy.com’s panel lacks certain features that competitors offer. On the plus side, with GoDaddy.com you can perform account management tasks, email management, web security, database setup and management, manage statistic tools and install FrontPage Extensions (without these supported by your host, you can’t take advantage of all the perks FrontPage offers).

Summary:  

Overall, GoDaddy has some catching up to do with the competition. Other than that, they are basically easy to use, reliable, and I definitely recommend them. Read this post for more information on web hosting services.

Choosing Between Unix Or Windows Web Hosting Service

June 24, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Unix Server

Have you designed your website? That means you are ready to launch your website. Have you selected the web hosting company whose server you are going to use to launch your website? Yes, the company has been chosen.


Did you thoroughly verify about all the facilities that the company is going to provide in the package and what are the services for which you have to pay extra charges? Yes, then now you can go ahead and launch your website. Wait! Now what is the problem? It is not a problem but it is the most crucial decision that you have to take.


Surprised? Yeah, all the important matters have been sorted out then what else remains to be considered? Here is the catch; this is the main moment where you have to decide about the type of web hosting that you are going to choose.


Type of web hosting, what does that mean? It is true you are confused as most of the companies offer UNIX or LINUX web hosting system but there is one more web hosting platform and that is windows web hosting. What is the difference between UNIX and windows web hosting and which one is better?


Difference between UNIX and Windows Web Hosting


Do you know what windows mean? Yes, it is the operating system which is fitted in your personal computer so you are very familiar with it and to operate it you do not need any special knowledge. It can be operated with the click of the mouse button and all the sites can be accessed with the help of the mouse.


UNIX is a open source which means that the operating system does not include any charges. It has the capacity to incorporate all types of documentation and is easy to distribute as it is free. So you see most of the hosting companies charge extra money for windows hosting and UNIX is free. So in that case UNIX is a better option.


UNIX is better as it has more stability and does not require frequent rebooting like windows so there is lesser chance of a crash in UNIX system. Due to this stability it is able to bear the burden of servers that have high loads.


So UNIX is able to provide more uptime than windows and is more reliable than windows hosting. The Compatibility factor is greater in UNIX than in the windows. What is the compatibility factor? It means that a program designed on the windows can easily run on UNIX but the windows may not be able to run all the programs designed by UNIX.


For the small scale web designing which is done offline the windows hosting is better as you will not need any change in your present system. That is you can work on the operating system that is already there on your computer.


But if you are opening a business website then you have to think about the future as your business will expand and then windows will not be able to bear the high load. Another draw back with windows is that its license has to be renewed frequently so it becomes a costly affair in the long run whereas UNIX is free so the web hosting company offers discount to the customers which makes it cheaper.


On the whole we can say that UNIX hosting is a better option than windows hosting.

Choosing Between Unix And Windows Website Hosting Service

June 21, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Unix Server

Have you designed your website? That means you are ready to launch your website. Have you selected the web hosting company whose server you are going to use to launch your website? Yes, the company has been chosen.

Did you thoroughly verify about all the facilities that the company is going to provide in the package and what are the services for which you have to pay extra charges? Yes, then now you can go ahead and launch your website. Wait! Now what is the problem? It is not a problem but it is the most crucial decision that you have to take.

Surprised? Yeah, all the important matters have been sorted out then what else remains to be considered? Here is the catch; this is the main moment where you have to decide about the type of web hosting that you are going to choose.

Type of web hosting, what does that mean? It is true you are confused as most of the companies offer UNIX or LINUX hosting system but there is one more web hosting platform and that is windows web hosting. What is the difference between UNIX and windows web hosting and which one is better?

Difference between UNIX and Windows Web Hosting
Do you know what windows mean? Yes, it is the operating system which is fitted in your personal computer so you are very familiar with it and to operate it you do not need any special knowledge. It can be operated with the click of the mouse button and all the sites can be accessed with the help of the mouse.

UNIX is a open source which means that the operating system does not include any charges. It has the capacity to incorporate all types of documentation and is easy to distribute as it is free. So you see most of the hosting companies charge extra money for windows hosting and UNIX is free. So in that case UNIX is a better option.

UNIX is better as it has more stability and does not require frequent rebooting like windows so there is lesser chance of a crash in UNIX system. Due to this stability it is able to bear the burden of servers that have high loads.

So UNIX is able to provide more uptime than windows and is more reliable than windows hosting. The Compatibility factor is greater in UNIX than in the windows. What is the compatibility factor? It means that a program designed on the windows can easily run on UNIX but the windows may not be able to run all the programs designed by UNIX.

For the small scale web designing which is done offline the windows hosting is better as you will not need any change in your present system. That is you can work on the operating system that is already there on your computer.

But if you are opening a business website then you have to think about the future as your business will expand and then windows will not be able to bear the high load. Another draw back with windows is that its license has to be renewed frequently so it becomes a costly affair in the long run whereas UNIX is free so the web hosting company offers discount to the customers which makes it cheaper.

On the whole we can say that UNIX hosting is a better option than windows hosting.

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