best web hosting

Where do I host my website, best webshosting company

2010-10-14T18:01:00.001-07:00

I really don’t understand how I ever lived without my current web host. I have being using ICD Host for just over 4 years now, and I can’t imagine using anything else.
My biggest concern with a hosting company has always been support. I don’t want to wait around for nearly two days on a help request that will probably only take five minutes to resolve. This is something that has irritated me to no end on my previous hosts. ICD guarantees a response within one hour and quite frequently, I have tickets resolved in under ten minutes during the day!
Now, with support like this I wouldn’t mind paying a premium price. I don’t though. Their most expensive package costs $10.00 (Business Package) a month , with their basic package being only $6.00 (Universal Package) and both packages include also a domain!. You really can’t go wrong with 15 gigs of transfer bandwidth for a mere $6.00.

Website Creation Tutorial for Beginners

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Want to learn the ABC's of creating a website? Congrats! You just stumbled upon one of the few tutorial sites that encourage you to GET THE FACTS before you create a website. Start here!

The Perfect Site Guide is Free!

No need to pay for books to learn how to create a website and make money online. The only guide you will ever need is right here and it's free!
Download The Perfect Site Guide here.
(Right-click your mouse and Save As)

What You Need to Start Your Website

There are two things you absolutely must have to build a website:
1) A domain name (yoursite.com or yoursite.net, etc.)
2) A web host
Watch a video that shows you how to register a domain and choose a host.
However, before you just jump into the website creation process, you should define the type of site you want so you choose the right kind of web host for your needs.

Create a Website or Blog?

Don't know the real difference between the two? Can't decide which one you should create or do you need both?
Learn more about creating a blog here.

Great Web Host For Making Money With Your Site

Site Build It! has more online success stories than any other web hosting company on the Net. This unique hosting plan offers a system of tools and outstanding training materials that can help anyone, regardless of experience, how to make money online.

If you buy SBI!, you don't need to register a domain name or sign up with hosting from another company. The domain and hosting come with the SBI! package. Web page building tools are also included.

I used SBI! to create my site Flat Stomach Exercises and made my investment back in 3 months. Watch the quick, 2-minute video below and follow the link at the end of the video for more details...

Watch a demo of me using my SBI! account
See my SBI! site's traffic success video from August 2009

Have You Planned Enough for Your Website?

Planning and doing the necessary research is crucial, especially if you want to make money online. Don't just jump into creating your website. Take some time determining the best topic.

Check out my website, 2 Plan a Website. It focuses on selecting the right topic, the different kinds of websites and common mistakes people make.

Make sure you read 2 Plan a Website before you begin creating your website!

Google Can Fund Your Website

Do you hate the idea of having to pay to create a website? Sure, we'd all like them to be free, but the reality of it is, you limit your site's potential and longevity if you use a free web host. I'll never make that mistake again.
Not to mention the condition of many of these companies offering free websites is sometimes uhhh...let's just say unstable. :)
You read my story above, right?
So the solution to your problem is to get Google to help you fund your website. I did! Now they fund much more than my site. :)
Want proof? See one of my commission checks and then learn more about Google Adsense.

How to Make Money With an Affiliate Website

Want to make money with a website, but don't have a product of your own to sell? No problem! You can become an affiliate where you recommend products on your site and earn commissions.

First Time Creating a Website?

I'll be blunt. Most web hosting companies do not help you build your website. Their business is to provide the space for your pages, not to teach.
Well, you'll be happy to know that I have developed a book that I am giving away completely free if you choose WebsitePalace.com as the company to host your site.
It's an electronic (PDF) book so you can read it right from your computer. You'll be able to download it directly from the order confirmation page.
In this book, you'll learn about the different ways to create your web pages and how to publish them to the Internet. There's also info about how to setup a blog, make money and build traffic.
But don't rush over to their site just yet. Make sure you understand what's involved with creating a website. It all starts with registering your domain name.

Web Hosting E-Commerce

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If you are selling a product or a service, e-commerce might be a smart way to do business.

Internet E-Commerce

E-Commerce is about selling products or services over the Internet.

E-Commerce Systems

It is not a very good idea to build your own e-commerce system. Building an e-commerce system is a complicated process, with the potential for a lot of errors.
You might buy a ready-to-use system and run it on your own server. Many systems are available on the market today, and most of them will cover your basic needs for order management and processing. But again, if you are not familiar with hosting your own web site, starting with an e-commerce site is not the right thing.
The best solution, in our opinion, is to find an ISP that offers an e-commerce solution.

E-Commerce and Hosting Providers

E-commerce covers a huge range of products. With different ISPs you will find anything from very simple to very complex solutions.
Most ISPs offer a simple and inexpensive solution, that allow you to run a "virtual store".

Your Checklist

How does it handle customers?
How does it handle product catalogs?
How does it handle orders?
How does it handle inventory?
How does it handle back orders?
How does it handle shipment?
How does it handle accounts?
How does it handle billing?
How does it handle payment?
How does it handle foreign currency?
How does it handle credit cards?
How does it handle taxes?
How does it handle security?
How does it handle integrity (encryption)?

Also check if the most time-consuming tasks are automated. Look for automated billing, invoice handling, accounting, and report generation.
Before you sign up with an ISP, surf some other e-commerce sites on their servers. Find out how it works. Try some shopping, and see if you get a good feeling. Also compare the other sites against yours, to see if it looks like you have the same needs. Contacting some of the other customers is also a valuable option.

Tax Issues

Taxes is a complex issue for on-line stores. Especially VAT (Value Added Tax).
If you are selling on-line, you will most likely be in the export business.
Exporting goods may not be the subject of VAT in your country, but often your customers will have to pay their local VAT when they pick up the goods.
In addition, there will be the issue of income tax for your shop, depending on how you report your income from sales.
Before starting an on-line store, be sure to consult a tax adviser.

Web Hosting Types

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Web Hosting Types

Hosting can be FREE, SHARED or DEDICATED.

Free Hosting

Some ISPs offer free web hosting.
Free web hosting is best suited for small sites with low traffic, like personal sites. It is not recommended for high traffic or for real business. Technical support is often limited, and technical options are few.
Very often you cannot use your own domain name at a free site. You have to use a name provided by your host like http://www.freesite.com/users/~yoursite.htm. This is hard to type, hard to remember, and not very professional.

Good:	Bad:
Low cost. It's free.	No domain names.
Good for family, hobby or personal sites.	Few, limited, or no software options.
Free email is often an option.	Limited security options.
	Limited or no database support.
	Limited technical support.

Shared (Virtual) Hosting

Shared hosting is very cost effective.
With shared hosting, your web site gets its own domain name, and is hosted on a powerful server along with maybe 100 other web sites.
Shared solutions often offer multiple software solutions like e-mail, database, and different editing options. Technical support tends to be good.

Good:	Bad:
Low cost. Cost is shared with others.	Reduced security due to many sites on one server.
Good for small business and average traffic.	Restrictions on traffic volume.
Multiple software options.	Restricted database support.
Own domain name.	Restricted software support.
Good support

Dedicated Hosting

With dedicated hosting, your web site is hosted on a dedicated server.
Dedicated hosting is the most expensive option. This option is best suited for large web sites with high traffic, and web sites that use special software.
You should expect dedicated hosting to be very powerful and secure, with almost unlimited software solutions.

Good:	Bad:
Good for large business.	Expensive.
Good for high traffic.	Requires higher skills.
Multiple domain names.
Powerful email solutions.
Powerful database support.
Strong (unlimited) software support.

Collocated Hosting

Collocation means "co-location". Collocated hosting lets you place your own web server on the premises (locations) of a service provider.
This is pretty much the same as running your own server in your own office, only that it is located at a place better designed for it.
Most likely an ISP will have dedicated resources like high-security against fire and vandalism, regulated backup power, dedicated Internet connections and more.

Good:	Bad:
High bandwidth.	Expensive.
High up-time.	Requires higher skills.
High security.	Harder to configure and debug.
Unlimited software options.

Your Checklist

Before you choose your web host, make sure that:

The hosting type suits your needs
The hosting type is cost effective
Upgrading to a better server is possible
If needed, upgrading to a dedicated server is possible

Before you sign up with an ISP, surf some other web sites on their servers, and try to get a good feeling about their network speed. Also compare the other sites against yours, to see if it looks like you have the same needs. Contacting some of the other customers is also a valuable option.

Example: eUKhost

eUKhost is a leading web hosting company in the United Kingdom.
eUKhost offers services including:

Shared Hosting
Reseller Hosting
VPS Hosting
Dedicated Servers
24/7/365 Support

on Linux and Windows platforms, powered by control panels such as cPanel/WHM, Plesk and DotNetPanel.
An account can be setup within a few minutes.

Create a free Flash website with our simple, online web design editing platform. Stunning templates and user-friendly tools make website building easy and fun.

Web Hosting Database Technologies

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MS SQL Server or Oracle for high traffic database-driven web sites.

MySQL for low-cost database-access.

MS Access for low traffic web sites.

Web Databases

If your web site needs to update large quantities of information via the web, you will need a database to store your information.
There are many different database systems available for web hosting. The most common are MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, and MS Access.

Using the SQL Language

SQL is the language for accessing databases.
If you want your web site to be able to store and retrieve data from a database, your web server should have access to a database-system that uses the SQL language.

SQL Server

Microsoft's SQL Server is a popular database software for database-driven web sites with high traffic.
SQL Server is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.

Oracle

Oracle is also a popular database software for database-driven web sites with high traffic.
Oracle is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.

MySQL

MySQL is also a popular database software for web sites.
MySQL is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.
MySQL is an inexpensive alternative to the expensive Microsoft and Oracle solutions.

Access

When a web site requires only a simple database, Microsoft Access can be a solution.
Access is not well suited for very high-traffic, and not as powerful as MySQL, SQL Server, or Oracle.

Web Hosting Technologies

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This section describes some of the most common hosting technologies.

Windows Hosting

Windows hosting means hosting of web services that runs on the Windows operating system.
You should choose Windows hosting if you plan to use ASP (Active Server Pages) as server scripting, or if you plan to use a database like Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server. Windows hosting is also the best choice if you plan to develop your web site using Microsoft Front Page.

Unix Hosting

Unix hosting means hosting of web services that runs on the Unix operating system.
Unix was the first (original) web server operating system, and it is known for being reliable and stable. Often less expensive than Windows.

Linux Hosting

Linux hosting means hosting of web services that runs on the Linux operating system.

CGI

CGI scripts are executables that will execute on the server to produce dynamic and interactive web pages.
Most ISPs offer some kind of CGI capabilities. ISPs often offer preinstalled, ready to run, guest-books, page-counters, and chat-forums solutions in CGI.
CGI is most common on Unix or Linux servers.

ASP - Active Server Pages

ASP is a server-side scripting technology developed by Microsoft.
With ASP you can create dynamic web pages by putting script code inside your HTML pages. The code is executed by the web server before the page is returned to the browser. Both VBScript and JavaScript can be used.
ASP is a standard component in Windows 95,98, 2000, and XP. It can be activated on all computers running Windows.
If you want to learn more about ASP, please visit our ASP tutorial.

PHP

PHP is the widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to competitors such as Microsoft's ASP.
PHP is perfectly suited for Web development, and can be embedded directly into the HTML code.
The PHP syntax is very similar to Perl and C.
PHP is often used together with Apache (web server) on various operating systems. It also supports ISAPI and can be used with Microsoft's IIS on Windows.
PHP supports many databases, such as MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.

JSP

JSP is a server-side technology much like ASP, developed by Sun.
With JSP you can create dynamic web pages by putting Java code inside your HTML pages. The code is executed by the web server before the page is returned to the browser.
Since JSP uses Java, the technology is not restricted to any server-specific platform.

Cold Fusion

Cold Fusion is another server-side scripting language used to develop dynamic web pages.
Cold Fusion is developed by Adobe.

Chili!Soft ASP

Microsoft's ASP technology runs only on Windows platforms.
However, Chili!Soft ASP is a software product that allows ASP to run on UNIX and some other platforms.

Microsoft FrontPage

FrontPage is a website design tool developed by Microsoft.
FrontPage allows users to develop a web site without any deep knowledge of web development.
Most Windows hosting solutions support FrontPage server extensions for users that use FrontPage to develop their web site.
If you plan to use FrontPage, you should look for a Windows hosting solution.

Adobe Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver is a website design tool owned by Adobe Systems.
Dreamweaver allow users to develop a web site without any deep knowledge of web development.
Dreamweaver has support for web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JavaServer Pages, and PHP.
Dreamweaver is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems.

Secure Server

A secure server can transmit data encrypted.
If you plan to do online creditcard transactions, or other types of web communication that needs to be protected against unauthorized access, your ISP must provide a secure server.

Web Hosting E-mail Services

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Hosting services should include e-mail accounts and e-mail services.

E-mail Accounts

Hosting solutions should include e-mail accounts for each person in your company.
E-mail addresses should appear something like this:
john@mycompany.com
john.doe@mycompany.com
jdoe@mycompany.com

POP E-mail

POP stands for Post Office Protocol. POP is a standard client/server protocol for sending and receiving e-mail.
The e-mails are received and held on your internet server until you pick it up with a client e-mail program, like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.

IMAP Email

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP is another standard protocol for sending and receiving e-mail.
The e-mails are received, and held on your internet server, until you pick it up with a client e-mail program, like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.
IMAP represents an improvement over POP because e-mail stored on an IMAP server can be manipulated from several computers (a computer at home, a workstation at the office, etc.), without having to transfer messages back and forth between computers. POP was designed to support e-mail access on one single computer.

Web-based E-mail

Web-based e-mail services enable you to access your e-mail via a web browser. You log into your e-mail account via the Web to send and retrieve e-mail. Being able to access your e-mail from any browser anywhere in the world is a very attractive option.
Examples of web-based e-mail services are Gmail and Hotmail.

E-mail Forwarding

E-mail forwarding allows you to have multiple e-mail personalities.
With e-mail forwarding, you can setup aliases for other e-mail accounts like:
postmaster@mycompany.com should be forwarded to peter@mycompany.com
sales@mycompany.com should be forwarded to mary@mycompany.com

Mailing Lists

Some service providers offer mailing list capabilities. This is valuable if you plan to send out e-mails to a large number of users.

Web Hosting Capacities

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Make sure you get the disk space and the traffic volume you need.

How Much Disk Space?

A small or medium web site will need between 10 and 100MB of disk space.
If you look at the size of HTML pages, you will see that the average size is very small. But if you look at the size of the images used inside these pages, you will often find the images larger than the page.
Expect each HTML page to take up between 5 and 50KB of disk space on your web server, depending on the use of images or other space-consuming elements.
If you use a lot of images or graphic elements (or sound files or movies), you might need much more disk space.
Make sure you know your needs, before choosing a web host.

Monthly Traffic

A small or medium web site will consume between 1GB and 5GB of data transfer per month.
Calculate the following: average page size * expected page views per month
Example: If your average page size is 30KB and you expect 50,000 page views per month, you will need 0.03MB * 50,000 = 1.5GB.
Larger, commercial sites often consume more than 100GB of monthly traffic.
Before you sign up with a host provider, make sure to check this:

What are the restrictions on monthly transfer?
Will the web site be closed if it exceeds the volume?
Will you be billed a fortune if the web site exceeds the volume?
Is upgrading a simple task?

Connection Speed

In the early days of the Internet a T1 connection was considered a fast connection. Today connection speeds are much faster.
1 byte equals to 8 bits (and that's the number of bits used to transport one character). Low-speed modems can transport from about 14 000 to 56 000 bits per second (14 to 56 kilobits per second). That is somewhere between 2000 and 7000 characters per second, or about 1 to 5 pages of written text.
One kilobit (Kb) is 1024 bits. One megabit (Mb) is 1024 kilobits. One gigabit (Gb) is 1024 megabits.
These are connection speeds used on the Internet today:

Name	Connection	Speed per second
Modem	Analog	14.4-56Kb
D0	Digital (ISDN)	64Kb
T1	Digital	1.55Mb
T3	Digital	43Mb
OC-1	Optical Carrier	52Mb
OC-3	Optical Carrier	156Mb
OC-12	Optical Carrier	622Mb
OC-24	Optical Carrier	1.244Gb
OC-48	Optical Carrier	2.488Gb

Before you sign up with a host provider, surf some other web sites on their servers, and try to get a good feeling about their network speed. Also compare the other sites against yours, to see if it looks like you have the same needs. Contacting some of the other customers is also a valuable option.

Web Hosting Domain Names

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A domain name is a unique name for your web site.

Choosing a hosting solution should include domain name registration.

Your domain name should be easy to remember and easy to type.

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is a unique name for a web site, like w3schools.com.
Domain names must be registered. When domain names are registered, they are added to a large domain name register. In addition, information about the web site, including the IP address, is stored on a DNS server.
DNS stands for Domain Name System. A DNS server is responsible for informing all other computers on the Internet about the domain name and the web site address.

Registering a Domain

Domains can be registered from domain name registration companies.
These companies provide interfaces to search for available domain names, and they offer a variety of domain name extensions that can be registered at the same time.

Choosing a Domain Name

Choosing a domain name is a major step for any individual or organization.
New domain name extensions and creative thinking still offer thousands of excellent domain names!
When choosing a name, it is important to consider the purpose of a domain name, which is to provide an easy way to reach your web site.
The best domains have the following characteristics:
Short - People don't like to type! A short domain name is easier to type, read, and remember.
Meaningful - A short domain is nothing without meaning, 34i4nh.com is not easy to enter or to remember. Select a domain that relates to your site in a way that people will understand.
Clear - Clarity is important when selecting a domain name. Avoid a name that is difficult to spell or pronounce.
Exposure - Names that are short and easy to remember are an asset. In addition to visitors, also consider search engines. Search engines index your site and rank it for relevance against terms people search for. In order to maximize your sites exposure, consider including a relevant search term in your domain. Of course, only consider this if it still maintains a short, clear and meaningful domain name.

Sub Domains

Most people are unaware that they use sub domains daily. The famous "www" of the World Wide Web is an example of a sub domain. Sub domains can be created on a DNS server, and they don't need to be registered with a domain name registrar, of course, the original domain name needs to be registered before a sub domain could be created.
Examples of sub domains used on the internet are http://store.apple.com and http://support.microsoft.com.
Sub domains can be requested from your web hosting provider.

False Domain Names - Directory Listings

Some providers will offer you a name under their own name, like: www.theircompany.com/yourcompany/
This is not a real domain name, it is a directory - and you should try to avoid it.
Directory domains are not desirable, especially for companies.
Typically, directory domains are used for personal web sites and free web sites provided by an ISP, you may have seen www.theircompany.com/~username as an address.
Competition in domain name registration has resulted in a dramatic decrease in pricing, so domain sharing is not common, since it is possible to register a domain name for only $15 per year.

Expired Domains

Another source for domain registrations is expired domains.
When you register a domain, think of it as a rental, assuming there are no legal or trademark issues with the domain name, you are free to use it as long as you continue to pay the yearly fee (you can now register in advance as many as 10 years). Some people register domains as speculators, hoping that they can later sell them, while others may have planned to use a domain and never had the time. The result is that domains that were previously registered, become available again.

Use Your Domain Name

After you have chosen and registered your own domain name, make sure you use it on all your web pages, and on all your correspondence, like e-mail and traditional mail.
It is important to let other people be aware of your domain name, and to inform your partners and customers about your web site.

Web Hosting Providers

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Web Hosting Providers

To make your web site visible to the world, you'll have to store it on a web server.

Hosting your own Web site

Hosting your web site on your own server is always an option. Here are some points to consider:

Hardware Expenses

To run a "real" web site, you will have to buy some powerful server hardware. Don't expect that a low cost PC will do the job. You will also need a permanent (24 hours a day ) high-speed connection.

Software Expenses

Remember that server-licenses often are higher than client-licenses. Also note that server-licenses might have limits on number of users.

Labor Expenses

Don't expect low labor expenses. You have to install your own hardware and software. You also have to deal with bugs and viruses, and keep your server constantly running in an environment where "everything could happen".

Using an Internet Service Provider

Renting a server from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) is a common option.
Most small companies store their web site on a server provided by an ISP. Here are some advantages:

Connection Speed

Most ISPs have very fast connections to the Internet.

Powerful Hardware

ISPs often have powerful web servers that can be shared by several companies. You can also expect them to have an effective load balancing, and necessary backup servers.

Security and Stability

ISPs are specialists on web hosting. Expect their servers to have more than 99% up time, the latest software patches, and the best virus protection.

Things to Consider with an ISP

24-hour support

Make sure your ISP offers 24-hours support. Don't put yourself in a situation where you cannot fix critical problems without having to wait until the next working day. Toll-free phone could be vital if you don't want to pay for long distance calls.

Daily Backup

Make sure your ISP runs a daily backup routine, otherwise you may lose some valuable data.

Traffic Volume

Study the ISP's traffic volume restrictions. Make sure that you don't have to pay a fortune for unexpected high traffic if your web site becomes popular.

Bandwidth or Content Restrictions

Study the ISP's bandwidth and content restrictions. If you plan to publish pictures or broadcast video or sound, make sure that you can.

E-mail Capabilities

Make sure your ISP supports the e-mail capabilities you need.

Front Page Extensions

If you use FrontPage to develop your web site, make sure your ISP supports FrontPage server extensions.

Database Access

If you plan to use data from databases on your web site, make sure your ISP supports the database access you need.

Web Hosting Introduction

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How does the Internet work? How can I have my own Web Site?

What is a Web Host? What is an Internet Service Provider?

What is the World Wide Web?

The Web is a network of computers all over the world.
All the computers in the Web can communicate with each other.
All the computers use a communication protocol called HTTP.

How does the WWW work?

Web information is stored in documents called web pages.
Web pages are files stored on computers called web servers.
Computers reading the web pages are called web clients.
Web clients view the pages with a program called a web browser.
Popular browsers are Internet Explorer and Firefox.

How does a Browser Fetch a Web Page?

A browser fetches a page from a web server by a request.
A request is a standard HTTP request containing a page address.
An address may look like this: http://www.example.com/default.htm.

How does a Browser Display a Web Page?

All web pages contain instructions for display.
The browser displays the page by reading these instructions.
The most common display instructions are called HTML tags.
HTML tags look like this <p>This is a paragraph.</p>.

What is a Web Server?

The collection of all your web pages is called your web site.
To let others view your web pages, you must publish your web site.
To publish your work, you must copy your site to a web server.
Your own PC can act as a web server if it is connected to a network.
Most common is to use an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

What is an Internet Service Provider?

ISP stands for Internet Service Provider.
An ISP provides Internet Services.
A common Internet service is web hosting.
Web hosting means storing your web site on a public server.
Web hosting normally includes email services.
Web hosting often includes domain name registration.

Summary

If you want other people to view your web site, you must copy your site to a public server.
Even if you can use your own PC as a web server, it is more common to let an Internet Service Provider (ISP) host your site.
Included in a Web hosting solution you can expect to find domain name registration and standard email services.
You can read more about domain name registration, email and other services in the next chapters of this tutorial.

What is Hosting ?

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Hosting (also known as Web site hosting or Web hosting) is the business of housing, serving and maintaining files for one or more Web sites, and providing Internet access (bandwidth). Hosting provides individuals or organizations with the systems to store information, images, video, or other content accessible to users of the Web. In a sense, you rent space on a computer to hold your Web site. Your host, the computer where your Web site files are stored, assigns an address (DNS) for your files to your domain name so that anyone can find your Web site on the Internet by typing your domain name.

GoDaddy.com is rated the World's largest Hosting Provider according to Netcraft. Whether you choose Windows Hosting or Linux Hosting, our world-class Web Hosting services also include email, databases, FREE applications, FREE access to the exclusive Go Daddy Hosting Connection community and much more.

Unlike many competing Web Hosting Companies, we own, operate and support our hosting services and pass the savings on to you. Our Affordable Web Hosting is fine for most personal and small business sites. We also offer Business Hosting packages that offer discounted bundles with all the products you need to build, optimize and promote your Web site.

While our hosting plans are ideal for most individuals and small businesses, our Dedicated Servers and Virtual Dedicated Servers are perfect for hosting multiple traffic-intensive Web sites on one server, running enterprise or gaming applications, or operating development environments. You always have the option of purchasing a preconfigured dedicated or virtual dedicated server plan or the flexibility to build your own server.

And if conventional hosting plans can't keep up with your demands, Grid Hosting from Go Daddy puts the power of multiple servers to work for you. With elastic scalability, 99.9% uptime and no need for site migration during growth spurts, Grid Hosting is always at the ready.

Web Hosting Tutorials

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The Getting Started tutorial is dedicated to all users, who are just starting their websites. Here you will find useful information about how to build a website, how to access the user and admin areas, how to manage email and FTP accounts, etc
Here you will find great ideas about how to create your website - you can start a forum site or a personal blog. You can create a web album for your photos or start a community or hobby site with a CMS tool. You can start making money with an online shop application and find new friends, customers, and business partners. You can do all that and much more through your website!
The Website Promotion tutorial will show you how to increase the number of your visitors through the most powerful free and paid website promotion venues. SiteGround prepared this tutorial based on its own experience and years of hard work. We hope to save you time, hassle, and money when fighting for better rankings and lowering your advertising costs
Learn how to add and use reseller credits; how to activate an account; how to renew an account; how to manage an account; how to manage a domain name; how to add extra features; how to get technical support; how to change my details; how to use My Billing section
Here you will learn what is web hosting and how to make use of it, how to choose between free and paid hosting and how to differentiate shared from dedicated hosting. Also, you will find useful tips about choosing the right hosting company and read between the lines about hosting features, prices, technical support, and server technology
The cPanel tutorial will show you how to manage your web hosting account with the help of the cPanel management tools. You will learn how to use email, File, FTP, and MySQL managers; how to set parked and addon domains; how to use cron jobs, hotlink protection and IP deny manager; how to install applications through Fantastico autoinstaller.
The FTP tutorial will show you how to use FTP clients and account to upload files on your website. You might use any FTP hosting services that provide unlimited FTP access.
The Email tutorial will show you how to use your web based email accounts @ your domain name. You might use email hosting services or regular hosting services which allow web access to emails. Here you will learn how to configure email clients, how to secure your email, how to set email forwarding and autoresponders, how to change MX record, and more.
The PHP/MySQL tutorial will help you learn more about PHP and MySQL and how to use them. Here you will find out how to create MySQL database and user, how to manage MySQL database with phpMyAdmin, how to backup and restore MySQL databases, how to connect MySQL with PHP, how to execute PHP commands on the server and more

Web Hosting Tutorial For Beginners

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Web Hosting tutorial for beginners has a collection of information pages on general website hosting tutorial for beginners, new webmaster or anyone starting to learn about webmastering and web hosting, you can get a better understanding of what web hosting is all about, learning on how the process of getting a web page or a complete website from the computer where they have been worked out right up to the web server, as well as the process of selecting a good domain name, steps to register a domain name and pointing the domain name to the website.
You can start by getting to know an Overview of World Wide Web, and then follow on to understanding What is web hosting? to have a basic overall understanding.
After getting an overall understanding of web hosting, you can browse through the rest of the tutorials in our knowledgebase to pick up more information of setting up a blog, step by step guid on setting up popular open source programs in your web hosting account ,best practice on creating a website and more.

How to Choose a Good Web Host

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It is very important that you choose a good web host. Good doesn't mean expensive. Good means reliable with great support. If the host you choose doesn't have those two qualities, it's going to make your life miserable. You are going to be really frustrated because your site is never up and your emails are never answered.

You can save yourself a lot of hassle by just choosing a good web host from the start. So, how can you tell if a web host is good or not? After all, let's face it - they all look pretty much the same and seem like they know what they are doing, right?

Well, there are a couple of ways. The great thing is these are pretty much foolproof and will enable you to find out before you pay any money whether the host is good or lousy.

What to Look For and What to Look Out For

1. It is very important that the web host you choose provides fast, quality support. If you have a problem with your web site you want help now, not in a day or two. Some web hosts advertise 24/7 support, but only actually respond Monday-Friday. To see how responsive your web host is send an e-mail to their support department and see how long it takes for them to get back to you. If you send the e-mail on Saturday and they don't get back until Monday, that isn't good.

2. Don't be fooled by a phone number. Just because there is a phone number
on their web site doesn't mean someone will actually pick it up, especially on weekends. If there is a phone number - call it after hours or on weekends and see if someone answers.

If it goes to voice mail, leave a message and see how long it takes them to call you back. In the voice mail message you leave don't tell them you want to host with them, say that you have a question on your account and just leave your number. That way they will think you are a current customer not a potential one.

My first web host had a phone number and it's automated system placed you on hold. No one EVER answered. My web site went down on a Friday afternoon and I desperately needed it back up. I called all weekend and was on hold for hours until I realized there was no one on the other end. Although this happened several years ago, it still happens today. Don't let it happen to you.

3. Don't transfer control of your domain name to a web host. Most web hosts will "suggest" that you transfer your domain name to them and make it seem like you have to transfer your domain to them in order for them to host your web site. You don't. Always keep your domain with your domain registrar. That way you always have control over it and can easily switch to another host if the one you're with turns out to be bad.

Some web hosts insist that you transfer your domain to them and won't host your account unless you do. These are becoming more rare, but if you come across one of these hosts, run. Run fast. The hassles you will have to go through if they are bad aren't worth any benefit they could possibly give you.

It's definitely okay to keep your domain and hosting together if you are getting your hosting from a domain registrar, like Act Now Domains, because you retain control over all aspects of your domain account. Always keep that control.

What is a Web Host?

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A web host stores your web site and transmits it to the internet for you. To put a web site on the internet you need three things: a domain name, a web site and a web host account.
How it works is that your domain name points to your web host's server which is where your site is physically housed. When someone types in your domain name, the computer looks to the domain record to see where it should go to find your site. It then goes there and gets it. Here is what you should know:

Domain Names
A domain name is your address on the web. It's the information that customers type in to find your website. It's what comes after the www. in www.domain.com The domain name for this site is webhosttutorial.com.
Don't buy your domain name from your web host. A lot of web hosts will offer to sell you a domain name with your web host account or will suggest you transfer your domain to them. Although it seems easier to keep them together, don't do it. You should always keep your domain names with a domain name registrar.
Why? Because this way you will always control your domain name. If you let your web host register your name for you, they control it. If the host turns out to be lousy, you won't be able to go to another web host until your current web host releases your domain. If you're leaving they have no incentive to release your domain name and some hosts drag their feet and keep it hostage. I've heard some real horror stories of bad hosts taking weeks or months to release a domain name.
If you have access to your domain account it will take you less than 5 minutes to change your domain name to a new host. Basically, it's just a lot safer and less hassle to keep them separate. Plus, you won't pay as much. Web hosts mark up their domain prices.
The domain registrar I use is Act Now Domains. I think they are super. They only charge $12.75 for 1 year domain registrations which is cheap, they have great customer service and they are really easy to use. I have over 45 domain names and all of them are there.
Please note: it IS okay to keep your web hosting account with your domain registrar because you control your domain account. Act Now Domains has really reliable web hosting and they are cheap so if you want to keep your hosting and domain together use them.
Some web hosts give free domain names with their accounts - I strongly suggest that you do NOT get one this way. I love free stuff, but a "free" domain can end up being bad news for you. Some web hosts that give free domains retain ownership of the domain. This means that if you don't like their service and want to go elsewhere you can't because you would be leaving your domain behind. In other words, you're stuck.
Other hosts that provide "free" domains will let you take the domain with you when you leave but you have to pay them for it. The fees I've seen for this run anywhere from $35-$100. In my opinion, it's just safer to buy the domain yourself from a registrar like Act Now Domains so that way no one can hold "your" domain hostage.
Building your Web Site
To build your web site you are going to need web site building software. You will need to decide whether you want to use a web host's site builder or use your own. Your choice will affect the web host you choose since some web hosts provide a web site builder and others don't.
I usually recommend that if you are new to web hosting or fairly new that you select a web host that has a site builder and use it. The reason is that a software program like Front Page (the most popular site building program) is expensive and complicated to learn. You can always move up to it later but it's hard to start out with it.
One thing to be aware of though - if you use the web host's site builder it's even more important than it normally is to make sure you go with a good host. Since your site is built with your web host's software you won't be able to take it with you and make changes if your host turns out to be bad.
The web host I recommend with a site builder is iPowerWeb. They are a great host and their site builder is really easy to use. They only offer one package and it's loaded with a lot of free web site goodies. Plus, they are cheap.
Okay, now let's look at how to choose a good web host and avoid a lousy one..

Web Host Tutorial

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Web Host Tutorial
Techie people try to make putting up a web site and getting a web host account sound hard and complicated. It isn't. This web host tutorial will tell you everything you need to know about getting a web host account including how to tell the good web hosts from the bad. It's written in plain, everyday English and it's free!
This web host tutorial consists of several sections. If you are new to all this, you should probably take them in order.
1. What is a Web Host? This section explains what a web host is, the three things you need to have to put a web site on the internet and what you need to know about each.
2. How to Choose a Good Web Host - this tutorial section tells you how to choose a good host and not get ripped off.
3. How to Avoid Paying Too Much - this section cuts through all the techie jargon that web hosts bombard you with and and tells you what you really need to order and more importantly, what you don't.
4. Web Hosts I Like - since so many people have asked I've put up a section that tells the hosts I like and why I like them.
Why I Created this Site
I put this web host tutorial up because so many of my family and friends asked me questions about what they needed to know and the ones that didn't ask got ripped off (and didn't realize it!) or got stuck with a lousy host. I wrote this for them and put it up on the net. I hope you find it helpful too.   :-)
What is a Web Host?
A web host stores your web site and transmits it to the internet for you. To put a web site on the internet you need three things: a domain name, a web site and a web host account.
How it works is that your domain name points to your web host's server which is where your site is physically housed. When someone types in your domain name, the computer looks to the domain record to see where it should go to find your site. It then goes there and gets it. Here is what you should know:

Well, there are a couple of ways. The great thing is these are pretty much foolproof and will enable you to find out before you pay any money whether the host is good or lousy.

What to Look For and What to Look Out For

You can click here to see the web hosts I think are good on my Web Hosts I Like page.
Click here for the hosts I like or continue on to find out what account you should order once you have found a good web host.

Ordering and Registering your Site

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Getting your site online requires two things:

You register your domain name. That's the .com, .net, or other web site name you've picked. davesite.com and davesite.net are two separate web sites, I just decided to buy them both. If your choice in .com is taken, there are several other endings you can pick from, including .net, .org, .info, and more.
When your domain is registered, you hire a web host to take care of all the details. They give you a username and password to post your web site. You can update your web site any time you want, you just use that special username and password. The details of that are covered in Chapter 10.

Here's the best thing. The four companies I work with all combine the two steps above into one. You visit their web site with the link above, type in the name you want for your domain name, and order your package. They do all the complicated details. You get your username and set your password for when you are going to post your site.
Do you need a domain name even though you can use a site like Facebook to update your customers? Absolutely. Facebook is something you do in addition to your hosted web site, not something that replaces it. Most of the Internet is not on Facebook, that's a fact. It's popular in some circles, and its talked about a lot, but the fact is most people, and at least half of your web site visitors, do not use Facebook.
I've worked with all four companies below. They have great track records and are a blast to work with. They offer tons of space, even though in reality most web sites won't typically need more than 1/2 of a GB of space. Pick the one you're most comfortable with and get started.

Hosting tutorial, know the basics of web hosting and find out which type of web hosting is ideal for you according to your needs. Also learn about different type of hosting arrangements available from shared, collocation, dedicated to in house hosting and more

2010-10-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

Basics of Webhosting

nce your business has decided to develop a Web site, you’ll need to understand everything from basic industry terms to additional features. Before you decide to host your website its important to get your domain name registered (click here to know more about domain names). Once you've figured out what your Domain Name is going to be, the next step is to figure out how to make it available on the Internet. All sites on the Internet are hosted on Web servers of one sort or another.
What is Web Hosting?
The term hosting is generically used to describe a variety of services necessary to support a web site. If you connect a couple of computers together at home, or at work, then share printers and even disk drives - you've got a little network set up. Now connect millions of computers around the world together and you've got the Internet.

To make that connection you usually dial into an Internet Service Provider or ISP who gives you the ability to connect to the web, email, and use other parts of the internet as well.

These ISP's not only give their customers a way to connect their home computers to the internet, they also allow websites on their computers which are called servers. By creating a website and putting it on a server connected to the rest of the net, anyone in the world who is also connected to the net can see your site.

Fundamental Web Hosting Needs

In the most general sense, a web site requires (1) hardware, (2)software, (3) a connection to the Internet and (4) an administrator.

1. Administrator The Administrator performs the following duties: - Configure Server / Install Software - Monitor Server - Run Traffic Reports - Run Backups - Monitor site responsiveness - Manage disk storage space - Security monitoring and management - Administer Databases	2. Software Software could consist of an: - Operating System (i.e., Windows NT, Linux) Required: - Web Server (i.e., Apache or IIS) - Traffic Reporting (i.e., Web Trends ) - Credit Card Software - Databases - Digital Encryption (i.e., VeriSign)
3. Hardware - Server - Network devices (switches, routers, wiring) - Tape backup - Secure physical racks or lockers - Storage Area Network (SAN) - Optional - Premise security - Optional - Network Firewall - Optional - Load balancing - Optional - Fire control systems - Optional - Uninterruptible Power Supply - Optional	4. Connectivity Connectivity is the manner in which the ISP or MSP provides Internet access to the website. At a minimum this should be a Frame Relay or T1 connection. Better providers will provide redundant connections to diverse upstream Internet providers.

Levels of Service

Hosting services can be divided into four different categories, with each providing a different set of administrative, hardware, software, and connectivity services. Your choice will depend upon your business requirements and your technical capability. Generally, as the level of service increases, the costs increase. The four categories are:

Hosting Arrangement	Best suited for companies with...	Price Range*
Shared Shared Hosting environment put multiple web sites on one server. All of the web sites on the shared server use the same network connection, the same hardware resources, and the same software. You are only responsible for managing the design and content of the Web site.	Company brochure or profile. Basic e-com. Bulletin board or small chat room. Small and medium sized businesses	Rs.2,500 - Rs.10,000 per year ($15 - $300 per month)
Dedicated You rent your own dedicated server from a hosting provider. The hosting provider is responsible for buying hardware, installing software and maintaining the server. You may customize the server with remote server access and would be responsible for managing any applications.	Mission critical e-Commerce or interactive site Multiple Web sites High speed and significant data transfer requirements Unique software needs Limited technical staff resources	Rs.16,000- Rs.5 Lakh per month ($300-$10,000 per month)
Collocated With collocated Web hosting, the Web host provides your company with space to store your own server hardware and a high-speed connection to the Internet for that server. Server collocation is generally best for companies that have the in-house capability to manage a Web server.	Mission critical e-Commerce or interactive site High speed/significant data transfer requirements Unique software needs Strong technical staff capable of server maintenance	Rs. 8,000- Rs.5 Lakh ($200-$10,000 per month)
In House You set up a server on your own premises. You buy the connectivity, hardware and software, and configure and maintain the system. You need to hire a system administrator or an information technology team.	Multiple Web sites Internet Service Provider Eg: Big Corporate companies like IBM	Expensive; need staff, connectivity and real estate.

*Pricing ranges reflect a wide variation in available features and services. The quotes you receive will vary according to the options you choose. Send this page to a friend!

Get .com, .net, .org domain registration in India for Rs. 500 only

End of Web Hosting Tutorial

Where do I host my website, best webshosting company

2010-10-14T16:56:00.001-07:00

Make Money from Website Hosting Affiliate Program

2010-10-14T16:53:00.001-07:00

I was told by my friends that website hosting affiliate program can generate good money, you can get a very high commission and fast payout for one referral. No wonder I can lots of people create a website or blog to review quality website hosting and put the affiliate link there. If you want to make money from website hosting affiliate program, you can try to do so too.
A lots of people, including me will try to search the best Web Site Hosting from the hosting review websites. We can compare the prices and services from different website hosting companies, it helps to make decision to choose a best website hosting that suit to us. There are lots of website hosting packages available on the net, normally I will going to choose a basic ones because my website don’t have huge traffic like google or facebook, and second consideration of choosing web hosting company is customer service and 24/7 technical support.
Normally a good and quality website hosting review website has huge traffic. Traffic of the website means sales, if you can bring huge traffic to your website hosting review website, then the chances of getting referral by people are high and you can earn more. Sound great, right?

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Top Review of Best Web Hosting Companies

2010-10-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

Web Hosting Objective

Chances are, you are looking for the best web hosting company out there, or at least a reliable place to host your website or WordPress blog. This web hosting review covers most mainstream web hosts, and will be continually updated with more hosts in time. At the end of this review, we will rank all of these popular web hosts based on features, price, bargain, reliability, and overall customer satisfaction rate.
Some notable hosts that you may already be familiar with are: GoDaddy vs. Hostgator vs. Bluehost vs. Media Temple (MT) vs. HostMonster vs. Yahoo Hosting vs. Lunarpages, and many more.
Each individual web host review featured in this series is based on overall customer satisfaction rates, taken from some of the best customer review sites, such as Hostjury.com. Aside from that, there are several other factors taken into consideration to list the top Web Hosting companies on the market.

Before You Choose a Web Host

Before you choose a web host, it's best to make sure that the web host provides certain features that may be required by your website or blog. If a web host does not offer a specific feature, your website may not be operable on that host. One common example of this is video websites and social networks, that require several specific demands in order to operate.
Once you have a list of best web hosts narrowed down that are compatible with your website, you can decide which to go with. For the most part, compatibility issues are not a problem for basic websites and WordPress blogs, as just about every host supports these common CMS.
Finally, when searching for best web hosting reviews, it's crucial that you make sure you are getting an unbiased review. Web hosting review sites will commonly base reviews off of affiliate links. For example, a web hosting review site may list one web host as best because they make a commission off of sales to that website, where in reality, that web host may not really be the best. Check out the following YouTube video, which gives a good understanding for this principle.

Web Hosting Reviews

This completely unbiased, unaffiliated web hosts review focuses on several of the more common web hosts on the market. Here, we will focus on the features of each web host individually, and conclude with a summary list of the top web hosts. To get started, jump to a web host in our review that you may be interested in. From there, you can review each host in detail.

HostMonster Web Hosting Review

Yahoo Web Hosting Review

Blue Host Hosting Review

Media Temple (MT) Hosting Review

Hostgator Hosting Review

GoDaddy Hosting Review

Lunarpages Hosting Review

Alternatively, if you are not interested in a particular web host, you can skip over to the conclusion where we list the top web host and rank the other web hosts in terms of customer satisfaction and other notable features. However, it is highly recommended that you check out each individual web host review, as each review contains more specific, detailed info about a particular web host.

5 Necessary Steps You Should Take When Hosting Your Website

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So You've decided to have an online website for your business. Before doing you will need to follow the following 5 steps in before hosting your website online

1. Design your Website

You will firstly need to design the website for this I would recommend hiring a Web Designer. Before contacting a web designers you should always check the portfolio and there skills. If you just want to advertise your business then you need to look for a web designer who knows how to use graphical programs such as Macromedia dreamweaver, flash, fireworks and Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Imageready, Indesign as well as knowledge of HTML, DHTML, CSS and Javascript. However if you want to sell items online or have some technical calculations etc then you should get a web designer with knowledge of online Databases, PHP, MYSQL, perl, .net , HTML, Javascript and CSS

2. Search for a Domain Name

The Domain name is an important part of your website as this is this web address of your actual website. You need to look for your business name in a domain name but don't sign up to the domain name until you find a suitable hosting company in stage 3

3. Sign Up to a web hosting and domain company

You will now have to sign up to a hosting company which will also register your domain name. Look around and find the cheapest you can find and make sure you check the disk space can fit against your very own website as if your website is over 50 Megabytes (MB) and the hosting company has a hosting package that offers you 25MB disk space then you won't be able to put your website within this hosting package as the disk space is to small. You should also check to see if they can give you a free domain name with this service as well as see whether you get a discount if you pay a year in advance.

4. Upload your website

Now that you have the hosting package you will need to upload the web pages to your website using a file transfer program this you can download for free or web hosting company may offer this to you. They will give you username and passwords wither by email or by post which you need to enter before you transfer the files online and it may take about 24 hours before your website is active so you may have to wait for a little while before you can upload your website to the internet.

5. Advertise Your website

The final step in having a website is advertising your website. This is a very important stage in creating a website as without it you will literally be invisible on the web. You will need to submit your website to search engines and make sure you have appropiate meta tag keywords on your website and within your content as this will attract the search engine to your website. You can exchange your web links with other web sites this is called web exchange and you can buy advertising space with on selected websites.

As you can see you have a lot to think about when putting your website together however if you follow the steps that I have included in this article you should find that having a website is benefical to you and your business.

Affordable Multiple Domain Hosting Plans

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Affordable Multiple Domain Hosting Plans

Providing quality, professional web hosting services and timely support to customers is set to top priority, our ultimate goal is to provide every client a 100% satisfied web hosting services. Every single query from customers is ensured to get a prompt response with solution no more than 24 hours. As a personal website or business website owner, you deserve quality, reliable and affordable web hosting services from a professional web host.

No Marketing Tricks and Fancy Talk, Dotservant.com Means Business !

Apart from the reliable and affordable web site hosting services we are delivering, every business web site hosting plan we offer will carry a 30 day money back guarantee. This is to provide new customers an extra protection while making a wise decision in buying web hosting at a quality web host. Purchase web hosting at DotServant.com today for your personal domain hosting and business domain hosting, you will experience the difference in professional and affordable web hosting serving by a reliable, responsible and professional web host.

MySQL PHP Hosting

Dotservant.com has been offering affordable and professional web hosting services since 2000 and has always been focusing on Linux based shared hosting services. We do not practice giving 'canned' answer to support request as we know how frustrating it can be when an urgent solution is needed but receiving replies that is totally irrelevant, yet needed to repeat over and over again trying to explain the problem to inexperience support staff etc. With dotservant.com, you can be sure every support request is handle with care and indepth study, we aim to provide direct fix or alternate solution to address the issue in the first reply to client and within the 24 hour period, buy web hosting at dotservant.com today to experience the difference.

Budget Website Hosting

Looking for budget and professional web host ? Our budget webhosting plans support PHP, MySQL, PHP5, MySQL5, Ruby on Rails, Cpanel and many other features, check out our affordable hosting plans or look at our domain hosting plan comparison chart for details.
If you have any questions on web hosting service, domain name or website transfer, web site compatibility issue on your personal web site or business web site with our Linux shared hosting services, please feel free to contact us Sales Contact Form, we will be glad to assist you in any of your site hosting issues.

Basic Concepts of Web Hosts

2010-10-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

The one who wants to enter in this web world and desires for a long time survival, then he/she should be familiar with each and every terminology used in this field. If user considers all the important factors before choosing a hosting plan then only he/she will be able to have a successful future in this world .User should not choose any of the plan, rather he/she should opt the best and most suitable one and this can only be made possible by fetching more and more informations and also by studying properly all the requirements. New comers should start from the basics .They should learn the meaning of each and every term used and also in addition those factors that can affect his/her selection.

Web Host

Web host refers to a computer connected to the internet. Web host can also be termed as ‘web server’. The computer that is playing the role of the web server needs to be more powerful than normal PCs and the function of this web server is to serve up websites.
The website content of the user will remain will on this computer, so as the people who are surfing on the internet can get a way to access his/her website.

There can be three main categories in which the web host can be classified based on the economic factor and common features:

1. Free Hosts:

The users who are not professional but are making website only as a hobby then for them free hosting can be a good option. In free hosting space, bandwidth and other features provided are very limited. With free web hosting one can not only make his/her website successful but is also suitable for personal websites or for temporary usage. Generally free hosting enforces pop-up, text or banner ads. Reliability, best performance and customer support lacks in case of free hosting as well. When a user registers for a free host then the word free host gets added with the user’s domain name that gives an adverse effect in the eye of the visitors.

2. Shared Hosts:

The next type of the web hosting to be discussed is shared hosting. This hosting service is used by many of the web sites .This type of hosting service is Suitable for personal, small and medium businesses. This service can be used by paying $1 to $25 per month. The features provided by this service vary from very limited space/bandwidth to semi-dedicated servers. The users host their website by this type of hosting service and it has its own top level domain facility. No doubt that shared web hosting is quite better than free hosting but still it does not provide 100% satisfactory services. In case of shared hosting one server is shared by the number of websites so its performance and availability gets affected. More websites usually means less performance. If less number of websites are hosted by one server then it will be more expensive, but in this case there are more chances of reliability. There are many companies allowing customers to host multiple websites with different domains under a single account.

3. Dedicated Hosts:

The next type of hosting is dedicated hosting. This type of hosting is most reliable hosting. In this type of hosting a full server is dedicated to a single customer. Generally this type of hosting is used by large businesses, professionals and very active websites dealing with thousands of visitors daily. The customers having dedicated hosting can have their total control over the server as well as able to create as many websites as they like. Customers can run their own hosting company on a rented dedicated server. Payment module is mentioned according to specifications and services provided with the server, which varies from $100 up to about $800 dollars per month.

4. Collocated Hosts:

Now the other type of hosting service to be discussed is collocated hosting. This service is very much similar to dedicated hosting. The difference between collocated hosting and dedicated hosting is that in collocated hosting the customer owns the server hardware instead of renting it. In this service the server will be placed in provider’s data center. This service is more expensive than dedicated hosting.

5. Reseller Hosts:

In reseller hosting the providers offers web server storage to their customers, and resells the web server storage to them. Generally providers offer resellers a discount price.

6. Other Hosts:

Including the above type of hosts there are also many other hosts such as email hosts, media hosts, data hosts, etc but these hosts will not be discussed in this article.

Domain Name

Domain name is the name which shows the place where one’s website is located. The actual address of the website is a set of numbers. Each and every web server has its own unique address. Domain name indicates the real addresses of every websites. One can easily remember the domain name of any of the website. Remembering domain name is easier than recalling the IP addresses.

Space / Storage

Space is one of the services provided by the web host. It plays a very important role in the website development. It happens many times that the customer requires more space but the host fails to provide it, so customer should be very careful while choosing the web host. Storage is the amount of web server’s disk space available for customer’s website files, images and databases. Space can be according to the requirement; it can be as small as 5MB in some free hosts and as big as 300GB for some dedicated servers. Earlier prices of the space were very high but prices reduced significantly during the last few years. The hosting plans offering 3GB of space for less than $10 a month can be easily available.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth can be defined as the amount of data transferred from web server to clients’ internet browsers. When ever a person outlook a page the data is transmitted from the server to that person’ PC. If any one is having audio, video and images in his/her website then the bandwidth consumed is more in comparison of the website having only text contents. The bandwidth available in free hosting can be as low as 100MB per month where as in some dedicated servers the bandwidth available is as high as 2000GB a month. The customers who don’t want to pay more for bandwidth can easily find hosting plans offering 75GB of monthly data transfer for less than $10.

Server Type

Generally server means the operating system than runs the web server. Some common types are Windows, Linux and UNIX. Server type refers the server side scripting and database types. The difference between Windows server and Linux/UNIX is that Windows runs ASP and ASP.NET with Access or SQL Server databases where as Linux/UNIX servers usually runs CGI, PHP or JSP with MySQL or Oracle databases. The other difference is that Windows servers are more expensive than Linux/UNIX servers.

Databases

As server type is discussed earlier also, we are able to know that there are different types of databases available. The mostly used is MySQL as it is open source GPL (free) software and can serve a lot of online applications’ requirements such as forums, content management, mailing lists, etc. MySQL, rather its features are limited. MySQL is sufficient for small concern but it is not powerful for the complicated large business sites. Large business requires more powerful databases such as Oracle or SQL Server.
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Server Side Scripting

Usually the new comers prefer to use PHP as server side scripting. The reason behind this is that there are hundreds of open source (GPL) PHP scripts that are able to fulfill the webmaster’s requirements. However PHP also has some limitations in features required by advanced websites same as in the case of MySQL, due to this limitation some professional web developers prefer to use ASP.NET or JSP. Some other developers still prefer to use Cold Fusion, CGI, ASP or PERL.

Email

Now the next very important aspect to be talked about is Email. At present no one can move further in this computer world with having his/her Email account. The one who is planning to do any kind of activity through computer such as to run a business or to provide any kind of service, then the first thing he/she need to do is to open an Email account. There are many hosting plans that include the feature of having some email accounts with customer’s domain. The availability of number and size of email accounts totally depends on the hosting plan one opted. Generally this feature is not included in free hosting. Small plans provide only about 10 accounts where as big plans do not have the limited number. Usually those email accounts are web based and accessible through POP3 clients as well.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

The other service is FTP. File Transfer Protocol is a usual way of transferring files across the Internet. Most of the webmasters used to upload and download their websites contents through FTP. The process of uploading or downloading is performed by using FTP client software. Webmasters require FTP username and password so as to access their web server. There are any hosts who use to provide more than one FTP account to their customers as per their requirement. Rather FTP is unspecified; it is not advisable as per the security reasons.

Control Panel

Control panel is the service available by many of the web hosting companies to their customers. It is a web based application that helps in managing websites. Some important functions performed by the control panel are that it used to manage email accounts, providing statistics, managing FTP accounts, managing domains and sub-domains and managing databases. The control panel application that is mostly used by the user is cPanel. There are many companies who use to develop their own control panel application.

Uptime

Now after having all the services, the thing of concern which remains is how the user keeps his/her website uptime most of the time. If anyone is having a website with excellent features but it remains down most of the time it will be of no use, as when ever the visitors visit his/her website and found it down then later on they will think twice before visiting it. In result he/she will suffer the loss of visitors. Uptime is very important feature of web hosts and that is usually measured in percentage. If a server remains down near about 30 minutes a day will have an uptime percentage of about 99.98%, which is acceptable for most small to medium business websites. If any of the business website is not having at least this percentage of uptime then that website is not suitable for a business website. Mission critical sites cannot tolerate frequent outages, thus they may use web monitoring services to notify web administrators immediately when an outage happens.

Price

Finally the factor left is price. In this option also there is a great variability found like for example customer is having option to choose between the prices ranging from 0 to $1000 per month. For most personal, small and medium websites the total amount of cost involved is just $15 per month. Thus its not at all advisable for business website owners to select very cheap plans let say less than $5 because this price can lead to huge cost indirectly afterwards.