Just Web Hosting Solution

Archive for November, 2009

Having a blog is equivalent to having your very own personal space on the Internet. You can use a blog for personal, or for business reasons. However, to start a blog, you need to be familiar with various blogging platforms. A few popular ones include WordPress, Blogger, and Typepad.

If you have never setup a blog before, the wide range of scripts out there may confuse you. The script is just one issue. There is another issue you must take into consideration – blog hosting. Whatever script you eventually choose to work with, make sure that your web host offers full support for the script. Otherwise, you will end up spending more time ironing out the technical issues than blogging.

Here is a simple guide to help you choose the right blog hosting.

1) Linux or Windows.

Most blogging scripts are developed based on Linux. Therefore, it’s always wise to choose Linux server. You can still run some scripts on Windows servers, but expect some features to not work correctly. A popular choice among webmasters is Cpanel hosting. Cpanel is an admin control panel that is included with Linux hosting plans. You can use it to install your blogging script easily.

2) Ease of installation.

Traditionally, installing a blog is a hassle. You have to download the script, and upload all the files to your server using FTP. Then you have to setup the database, and make sure the scripts can connect to the database. Sometimes, this results in errors, and you have to spend many hours trying to fix the issues.

Fortunately, you don’t have to go through all that now. Cpanel comes with a special feature known as Fantastico. This feature allows you to choose your favorite blogging script from the control panel, and install the script with a few simple clicks. The entire process takes about 5 minutes. There is no software to download, no files to upload, and no database to setup. Everything is done for you when you click the Install button. The most popular blogging script is WordPress. You can also install WordPress using Fantastico.

3) Reliability of servers.

Finally, always ensure that you sign up with a reliable web host. You don’t want to sign up, only to realize that your server is down half the time. That means you will be trying to contact their support department to find out what is happening. Your time should be spent on creating content or promoting your blog. You shouldn’t be wasting time trying to get the servers to work. That is the responsibility of the web hosting company. Usually, the better hosting companies have got competent server engineers who can fix problems very quickly.

Blog hosting is very affordable these days. You can get a shared hosting account for less than $10 a month.

An eCommerce website can make you a lot of money. But being an online business, you have to be comfortable dealing with the technical aspects as well. For instance, you need to know which eCommerce script to use, and what type of hosting to sign up for. The hosting that you choose, depends on several factors.

1) The type of eCommerce software that you choose.

There are two types of shopping scripts that you can use. There are commercial scripts (which you have to pay for), and there are open source scripts (which are free). If you are buying a script, always check to see if the script is meant for a Linux or Windows environment. Most open source software are written for Linux servers. There are some that are written for Microsoft servers though. Both perform reasonably well. So it comes down to how comfortable you are with the programming platform that has been adopted. For instance, do you prefer to work in PHP or DotNet?

2) Bandwidth and disk space constrains.

Running a shopping site means that you will be uploading a huge number of product images. Make sure your web host offers you enough disk space to store all your images. Most shared hosting plans offer unlimited disk space these days. So that shouldn’t be much of an issue.

With more files, you are going to need more bandwidth. You can’t scale your business if your website is constrained by limited bandwidth. Fortunately, most shared hosting plans also come with unlimited bandwidth.

3) Stability concerns.

Your eCommerce website is your virtual store front. If it goes offline, it’s tantamount to having all your cash registers shut off at the same time. The site just stops registering sales. Therefore, you always want to sign up with a reliable web hosting company. Most hosting companies offer 99.97% up time guarantee. But don’t just sign up based on the guarantee on the website. Always ask around to see if the hosting company offers reliable services. If there are lots of customer complains, that may raise a red flag.

As the owner of a shopping site, you want to be spending time processing and fulfilling sales orders. You certainly don’t want to be caught up with technical and support issues. So make sure you choose the right hosting company.

4) Fantastico.

This neat feature deserves special mention. It’s a feature that is found only with Cpanel hosting. Using this feature, you can install free eCommerce scripts within minutes. All you have to do is to login to your Cpanel control panel, and look for an icon by the name of “Fantastico”. Click on that, and a list of scripts will be displayed. Choose your preferred shopping script and follow the instructions provided by the installation wizard. Within a few minutes, your shopping site is up and running! You may then login to your website and configure the site.

If you are new to the internet you’ve probably heard about hosting. You know that you need it for just about everything from websites to blogs. Whether you are doing it for personal reasons or as a business endeavor you’ll need to get find a web hosting company in order to get started. There are so many hosting companies to choose from. Everybody claims that they’ve got the best deal. But how can you be sure? You need to pick a company that is going to make it the easiest way for you to get up and running on the web. Here are some tips to do just that.

What exactly is cPanel webhosting anyway? Basically, it is the gui (pronounded as gooey) that is included as an automation tool with your hosting account which makes it easy for anybody to create a website. It is a graphical interface you see that makes everything look so pretty and amazing. It has become so easy now that children are now creating their own websites. Instead of paying a lot of money to have a professional create your site with cpanel tool you can make the site of your dreams all by yourself.

What are you trying to accomplish? If this is a personal blog then you’ll probably only need a regular hosting account. If you are creating a site to resell sometime in the future then you’ll need a reseller hosting account which you will be able to transfer to the new owner. With either scenario you’ll want to ensure that the hosting provider that you choose includes backup services. You don’t want someone going to your site via a link and there is nothing there. Every customer is priceless. You’ll build up a terrible reputation even before you’ve begun.

Does your hosting company provide tech and customer service support? If you should have any concerns or questions they should be available for you. How often do they update their software and security installation? You don’t want your site to be compromised by hackers. They need to have a dedicated server with plenty of space to fit your needs.

Free isn’t always better. Sometimes it is often worth it to pay for the level of service that you want. If you are trying to save money by getting free or cheap hosting it will only cost you more in the long run in time, customers, lost sales and traffic. Neither should you spend an exorbitant amount either for services that you don’t or wont need.

Getting your website up on the internet shouldn’t be difficult. And it doesn’t have to be costly either. You can create the site of your dreams. Make sure that you check the level of customer service, tech support, and security of each possible webhost candidate to help narrow your choice. And as long as you pick the right webhosting company that has the cPanel tool to simply the process you can be the next internet success.

Great web hosting is a must when building your brand online, selling products or services, or even when you just want a personal blog. The last thing you want is for your visitors to think that your online presence looks cheesy or unprofessional.

Several web hosting companies will offer cheap or even free web hosting. As tempting as it may be to go with a cheap, or even better yet free web host, several people including myself would strongly discourage this. Just to save you the headache, find a competitively priced web hosting service at the beginning, because you will end up switching anyway. Several reputable companies will offer hosting for less than $10 a month. That is less than you would typically spend on one night out for dinner.

When looking for top website hosting make sure they offer customer support 24 hours a day. This is important when hosting a website, because typically you will have visitors to your website at times other than just from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. If your website is down for any amount of time, it is very likely visitors will never come back to your site.

Another important feature to look for is that they have a money back guarantee just in case you are not happy with the service they are providing. If they do have a money back guarantee it means they are confident with the service they are providing.

Finally, the very best web hosting companies will offer unlimited bandwidth and allow you to host an unlimited amount of domains. This is the best feature because whether you decide to have two websites, ten or even more, you can do this for the price of hosting one website. You will also only have to access one cpanel for all the back end work you have to do to your websites.

Okay. So you have designed your website and want to publish it or you have every intention of designing but you need to make plans for the hosting first. Whichever is the case, there are questions that need to be answered before you choose a web host. Hosting a website is like opening an office. Your site is actually an internet based office or home where friends and visitors can visit, get to know you better or make business deals. So just like choosing a befitting home or business environment, you need to choose a good web host for the success of your site.

Who is a web host? A web host is an individual or business organization that maintains a web server that runs 24/7, 365 days. They use special hardware and software applications that make information stored on their systems to be accessible to the entire world via the internet. Web pages, documents and applications are stored in their computers and can be viewed or downloaded by visitors.

So how do you choose a good host? There are thousands of hosting companies out there in the world. Many new ones are opening daily, each with its own (often mouth watering) promises on what it can and cannot do. But before you pick out one, stop!

- Is it really the best for you?
- What makes it good?
- How are you sure their server up to the task?
- Are they fraudulent?

Ask those questions. There are lots of bad hosts out there. Do not fall into their trap. Before you pay them you should check out their offered services, read their terms of service and if possible, try their demo Control Panel. Most good hosts have demo C Panels where you can test their features before buying.

Secondly, look for hosts who offer you unlimited or large amounts of bandwidth. That is the most important. Bandwidth is the life blood of your site. If you exceed your monthly bandwidth, your site will become inaccessible for the rest of the month. Why is bandwidth important? Bandwidth is the calculation of the number of bytes downloaded by any visitor to your site. For example, when visitor A watches a movie of 200MB uploaded on your site, he is actually using up 200MB of your bandwidth to stream the movie. Bandwidth is so important that you cannot do without it so choose a host that offers you unlimited bandwidth. That way your site will always be open.

Third, we talk about space. Unless you plan to host a relatively small website you should look for a host that offers you large amounts of space. Many hosts offer unlimited space but I must point out to you that there is nothing like space. However hosts advertise unlimited space but actually provide limited space that can never never be exceeded by you based on their calculation.

Another thing to go for is to use hosts that offer you additional domain hosting. Select a host that allows you to host multiple domains on one account. This allows you to host as many websites you want without paying any extra cost! You only need to register the domain name.

These are the most important features you need to check out. Additionally, make sure you choose a host that offers you 24 hour support so that if there is ever a problem you can be confident it will be taken care of immediately.

Extra features you need to check out are: MySQL Databases, E-Commerce features and Data Back up.

If you’re new to online marketing you’re probably debating on whether you should get your own domain or web hosting account. You see all the free hosting sites and wonder what could be so bad about them…so why not just go with what they have to offer.

And then someone says, “You get what you pay for…if it’s free it can’t be of any value.” Part of you believes it and the other part doesn’t want to believe it, perhaps you’re broke, or you just don’t want to loose your hard earned money. So what do you do without knowing all the facts?

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter which route you choose at this point. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Free hosting will work for one but not the other, and likewise with paid hosting. The main thing however is that you do not give up! There is no success in giving up.

Experiment. If you are new to online marketing then you should set up a site with a free hosting provider just to get a basic understanding of how it works. This will get the ball rolling and you can learn at the same time. If you make mistakes you can easily start over without having to worry about loosing money.

Educate yourself. Start learning html and css to get the basic understanding on what is involved in designing your own site. Go to http://www.w3schools.com/ to learn everything you need to know about html, css, and more. Keep a journal to help you to memorize it all without loosing your mind.

Then when you are ready, you can purchase your own hosting plan without feeling overwhelmed by the whole process of setting up your own website.

You can then use your existing free websites to link to your new site to help get the word out about your new site. When you look at it from this perspective, you really didn’t waste any time by setting up the free websites, because now you can build your own backlinks.

There are many articles on the internet that talk about the benefits of free hosting but very few articles actually tell you what are the downsides of free web hosting. Most people know that free services are not as good as paid services but not many people know that these free services can actually cause problems. The following paragraphs will tell you what are the downsides of free web hosting and why you should stay away from them.

Free Hosting can Actually Cause More Harm than Good

If you thought that you are profiting by saving a few dollars every month on hosting then it is time to think again. Free hosting services are not reliable since these services do not have to answer to users. These free sites promise users a unique domain name but they actually give a domain name that is linked to their main website. This means that your website is linked to the mother site without your permission and your website can go offline when the mother site has any problems. Free web services provide slow sites that do not load quickly or process information fast.

Paid hosting isn’t as expensive in the long run

If you are using the internet to promote your business or sell products then you should consider paid hosting. Websites that charge for domains often charge $7 – $10 a month and this fee is inclusive of technical support. The cost incurred by you is usually repaid by itself when your client base increases or you sell products through a professional website. Researches indicate that customers are more likely to visit a website that loads fast since this saves time and effort.

If you often wonder what are the downsides of free web hosting then you should consider opting for a more reliable service. Websites that charge for their services are reliable, efficient and they provide benefits that are well worth the cost.

If you often wonder is free web hosting no good? Then chances are that you may have heard about the downfalls of these free services. The following paragraphs will elaborate on reasons these free hosting services are not recommended and how these free services can cause more harm than good.

Is Free Web Hosting A Scam? Tell Me More

Free web hosting is indeed a scam. These companies promise users free websites with a unique domain name but they actually give users a domain name that is an extension off their own site. Free services also promise users a fast site but they only allow a limited bandwidth and a low data transfer rate. These services are very risky since they can go out of business at any time which will mean that your website will also go offline. These free companies do not guarantee that your site will remain online at all times and when the main site is down your site will also be affected. Most free web hosts also post adverts on your webpage which looks very unprofessional and annoying.

If Free Hosting is No Good then what should I do?

If you want a professional site then you should consider spending $7 – $10 a month and register with a paid hosting company. Unlike free services, paid hosting companies are reliable since they have a reputation to take care off. These companies allot users with a unique and customized domain name. Paid companies do not place adverts on your site without your permission and they provide technical assistance in case you ever need help. Companies that charge a fee every month also provide faster bandwidth, an email box with a large capacity and a good data transfer speed. Some paid services also provide a discount if you pay for 3 months or more.

If you thought that free services are better than paid ones then you should consider checking the results of paid web hosting VS free web hosting. This article will tell you reasons why free hosting can actually cause harm to your business and why paid hosting is preferred by millions of people around the world.

Paid Web Hosting VS Free Web Hosting – Free Hosting Features

Since majority of the people think that free services are better we shall first discuss about the features of free web hosting. Free hosting services provide a domain name that is linked to their main website which means that your domain name is not independent. Users get a website that has a limited bandwidth and low data transfer speed. Users who opt for free hosting are also given a complimentary email box with a low capacity and less features. People who opt for free hosting usually notice that their website is not online for a few days a month since the main hosting site is not working.

Paid Web Hosting VS Free Web Hosting – Paid Hosting Features

Now that you know why free hosting isn’t the best, we shall discuss the features of paid web services. Paid hosting services provide a unique domain name that is not linked to any other website and the domain name can be customized depending on your requirement. Users who opt for this paid service get a website that has a high bandwidth and high data transfer speed.

This means that the website will be fast, pages will load fast and your customers will not have to wait for many minutes while surfing your website. Users who opt for paid hosting also get an email box with a high capacity and many features. Paid hosting companies guarantee users that their website will be fully functional at all times and in case of any problems technical assistance is available to paid members.

If you feel that I need a website for my business then you may have spent a lot of time finding a cheap hosting company for your site. Cheap hosting companies enable users to use the internet to promote their business for a low cost. The following paragraphs will tell you why cheap hosting companies can help you create an ideal site and reasons to avoid free services.

I Need a Website Built for My Business – Which Type of Hosting Service Should I Use?

Paid domain services are indeed the best option if you want to build a professional site. Paid services allot a unique domain name to users who register with them. The domain name that is allotted is not linked to any other website and this name can be customized. People who want to create professional sites usually opt for paid services since this allows them to create better sites. These paid services provide benefits like a faster bandwidth, fast data transfer speed and an email box that has adequate space. Services that charge $7 – $10 a month also provide technical assistance over the phone and email.

I Need a Website Built for My Business – Why Should I Avoid Free Services?

Free services are fine for people who want to create a casual site. People who want to use the internet to promote their business often do not use free domain services since these services provide a limited bandwidth, low data transfer speed and a small email box. The domain name provided by these complimentary services is usually linked to their own site which causes the domain name to look unprofessional. Technical assistance is not provided with free services and if you face a problem you will need to find a way to solve the problem yourself.