Friday, April 18, 2008

The cheapest web hosting examined

There are several hosting websites that can be found on the internet search engines to facilitate any personal web hosting need. These providers facilitate the upload of your web content and make it very affordable to create a personal site.

As a standard you will be supplied with free web hosting tools that will allow you to edit and improve your site easily. Even with the cheapest web hosting you will get a hosting package that will give you a pretty big hard drive space and lots of free email accounts. In addition you will find that you will get a fairly big bandwidth allowance which you will in all likelihood not need to use up.

Many people who chose the cheapest plans on the net just want to upgrade from an unreliable free web hosting provider that had more down time than uptime. These customers will find that many of the cheapest web hosting providers on the net actually are very professionally run businesses which provide a high uptime for your site and respond quickly and knowledgeably to any support queries you may have. The level of support is good enough for hosting small e-commerce sites or online communities. Once they get bigger you will have to upgrade your hosting of course.

On these plans which you will find at www.cheap-webhosting.in you will get a feature rich programming environment which will give you the liberty needed to design complex programs with programming languages such as PHP, Ruby, Perl, or Python. Many successful blogs or web businesses and online communities have developed on the cheapest web hosting plans and I received feedback from many webmasters who have built up sites with traffic in excess of 100,000 unique visitors every month.

The web hosting companies that were researched to find the cheapest web hosting all share an excellent customer reputation and have a flawless track record in the web communities. Most hosts are based in the US and offer their customers support 24/7 via email, live chat and in many cases an online forum.


About the Author

The author has mainly written for hosting related sites which are some of the webĂ‚´s best resources on cheapest web hosting features

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Monitor Your Web Site for Downtime

For those in the Internet business the availability of their web site is a major concern. The cost of downtime for web businesses can amount to $10,000 an hour. And this is without counting the losses caused by missed opportunities and lost sales. Losses in image and credibility these businesses suffer because eventual downtime is even harder to quantify.
Many of today's web hosting providers offer 99% uptime for their web servers. If you have already chosen one or if you are planning to use one with such a high uptime should you be concerned on the whole matter anyway?
Let's see how much 99% uptime means. For a 30-day month you have a total of 720 hours. 99% of this is 712.8 hours. Are you comfortable with your web site taking a day off every month? And this if 99% uptime happens. Can your web hosting provider back up its uptime promises with real facts? How can you tell that?
For companies making business online it might seem a good idea to move their Internet operations in-house. They develop their own infrastructure, hire specialized personnel, only to keep their business online. The cost of such an enterprise would seem rather high for the ones seasoned in the Internet business. Why? Because of the high cost implied: around $20,000 a year, without even thinking of the logistical burden.
The best way to avoid that while ensuring your business is online is to have monitoring reports available on your web host's uptime.
For companies or individuals having their web hosting providers monitored by a third party is a guarantee not only that their money is well spent, but also, an most importantly, that their Internet business is up and running.
Having their services monitored by a third party is beneficial even for the web hosting providers. That is serious web hosting providers. Offering reports of their uptime monitored by a third party and placing links to them on their home page is bound to boost the confidence of existing customers as well as the one of the prospecting customers in the quality of service that host is providing for its customers.
This is a not only a great marketing tool, but also translates to very good customer relationship. This is vital to web hosting providers as the cost of attracting a new customer is from 5 to 10 times higher than the cost of retaining an existing customer.
Having monitoring reports, even better if they are provided by a third party, available on the host's web site is sure to reduce the burden on the technical support center. Many calls to technical support centers from customers regard dial-up problems such as slow connection, download times, web site accessibility or various computer issues that are often related to the personal computer of the customer rather than are problems on the host's side. This is why the number of calls to the tech support center could be reduced up to a third simply by posting the monitoring reports on the hosting provider's web site or by simply providing a link to them.
As shown above, when talking about downtime problems the stakes are high in the Internet business. Disputes regarding the uptime will never be missing between the web hosting provider and its customers, and their resolution is almost every time a delicate issue. This is why independent monitoring provided by a third party can make the resolution of these disputes much easier for the conflicting parties.
Having a web host that provides monitoring of its uptime by a third party is the best guarantee that you can get for your web site's uptime. With such level of service you can be sure that the money you are spending for your web presence can give your or your company the best return of investment.
Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (http://www.hostpinpin.com
), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory. HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans, free web hosting guide, free hosting quote, web hosting glossary and more.
This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the "About" and "weblinks" are kept intact.

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Web Hosting Solutions In Birmingham

Once you have a website you then need to think about hosting your site. There are many hosting companies offering different fees, therefore it can be quite difficult in finding the best deal.
There are many avenues to explore to find this best deal. I would advise asking the company who designed the website, if they know of any hosting companies which they could recommend.
Alternatively you can search the internet using a search engine like Google.
If you have a large number of websites which you need hosting for it is worth considering a reseller account. This is where you pay, normally a yearly fee, and are allowed an unlimited number of websites on the same server.
I myself have a large number of websites and use http://www.fasthosts.co.uk for my hosting. They charge £500 annually and this works out to be a lot cheaper than having individual hosting accounts for each of my websites.
There are other companies out there offering a similar service to fasthosts, however this is a company I was recommended to use, and I have had no problems with them as yet.
The only negative I could mention about fasthosts is that at times when you phone their customer services hotline, you are kept waiting quite a long time before you get to talk to an advisor.
A lot of the questions are though answered at their control panel, therefore it is quite rare that I have needed to phone them.
Stephen Hill has a number of websites including http://www.insomnia-symptom.co.uk and http://www.meditation-symptom.co.uk

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Internet Domain Registration - Establishing and Transferring Your Domain Name

If you're in business, one of the most important things to you may be your ability to establish an internet presence. Operating some type of functional web site for your business helps your customers find you, can present additional marketing opportunities through e-commerce, and offers advertising opportunities that you can not get elsewhere. Companies that do not have a web site lose business to companies that do all the time.
Of course the real key to your web site is the internet domain registration. Everybody wants www.mybusiness.com - the problem is that domain names are unique and can be taken by anyone. If you don't register your desired domain name right away, someone else could take it. The fact is that internet domain registration can turn into a sneaky competitive game. In many cases business owners have gone to register a domain name and found that it had been registered years before they every started the company by some group that is in the business of registering domains and then turning around and selling them for exorbitant rates.
A humorous story came from the 2005 municipal election in North Las Vegas, Nevada when one candidate realized that the incumbent mayor had not registered an internet domain name. The incumbent registered the mayor's name dot com and as many variants of it that he could come up with, literally stealing the Mayor's plans for a web site out from under him. The tactic didn't win him the election, but the candidate managed to annoy the mayor quite a bit and still owns the internet domain registration names to this day.
The key to avoiding these sorts of problems lies in early registration of your desired domain name. If you find the one that you want (or a close variant of it), register it immediately. Even if you're not prepared to set up a web site yet or won't be for several years, register the domain right away anyway.
Registering a domain name before being ready to set up its web site will require the domain name being transferred to the servers of your desired host when you are ready to establish the site. Transferring the domain name once you have selected a web host is a very simple process, but does require you to establish the change with both the registration company and the new host. The new host will provide you with the server information that you, in turn, will need to provide to the company with whom you originally registered the domain. There may be a short waiting period (typically 24 to 72 hours) while both servers get the information updated. Once that process is complete, you'll have your domain safely residing on your host's servers and your site (as long as it's been built) will be ready to go.
The internet domain registration and transfer for your business web site is a simple process and can be completed through automated online systems in most cases. Clearly the most important part of this process is the registration of the domain name and this should always be done as soon as possible, even if it is going to be years before you're ready to get the actual web site up and running.
John Michaels is a freelance author for WebHostPacks.com where he regularly publishes articles on how to find a cheap web host and reviews of low cost web hosting services.

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Free Web Hosting

There is no concept of free lunch in the world, this is exactly true when we talk about free Web hosting for the webmasters. Before going ahead we must talk about what hosting exactly is; Hosting is the process of storing files onto a web server so that it can be accessible to viewers through a web browser.
A lot of new webmasters have to face the decision of choosing the right host for their website and what attracts them is free web hosting that is available all over the internet worldwide. But as mentioned earlier, the free web hosting never comes as FREE as it may sound, it comes with its own limitations such as lack of autonomous domain name.
For the new webmaster, the choice of finding the best host may be very much difficult and even in the case of free hosting providers; the decision is to get the most out of them as most of these free webhosts try to get benefits from those webmasters who plan to use their services. Besides been some limitations, the use of a small server place and non-ability of using the FTP clients, no domain name, lot of ads from the web company and very low benefits may be faced when looking for a free hosting. The webhosts thus try to cover their costs by displaying their ads or some other companies.
Whenever you look for the decision of finding the free web hosting, then there are a few things that one must consider, what is your requirement, what the web host is offering, how much space they are offering, any statistics, what domain name they offer, do they offer the ability to use your own domain name or provide name servers, do their provide email address capability, what sort of ads that they put on your website and where they put that? All these questions are very much important to be answered completely in order to decide the hosting service that you choose for free.
As far as the requirement is concerned, today websites are either static or dynamic, most of the free hosts provide static webhosting and if your website is dynamic then you will have to look for a host that gives you the ability to host your website with the scripting languages that you have used. Very less free hosting companies provide dyamic services and those who do provide have a lot of limitation, like no database availability and stuff like that. Similarly, the requirement is concerned with the space that they are providing, most free webhosts provide from 5MB-50 MB of web space depending upon various other factors, the more space that you use, the more benefits the web hosting company would take from you. Most of the free hosts don't provide the use of your own domain names as it hinders their own benefits in this way. So, most of the times the web address that your website is uploaded becomes www.yourname.freehosting.com or www.freewebhosting.com/yourname
Besides giving the long URLs, another big issue of these free web hosts is their reliability which is always in question. It is often termed that most of the free host providers are one who have old servers and give free space so as to cover the cost by getting free advertising by providing space. That is why most of the free web hosts don't assure you that servers will be running 24 hours a day without frequent breakdowns? Similarly, these free webhosts don't offer a good bandwidth, hence you may be in a problem if your website is popular and it gets beyond the server bandwidth limit and it will block your website till next month.
So, keeping all the factors in mind, free web hosting is not bad, if you are just trying your hands out on the web and want to explore without paying much. Free web hosting have its own set of limitations but are extremely helpful for the newbies to make their impressions on the web.
Yasir Nisar is a 25 years old poet, writer, freelance journalist, script writer, director, software engineer and web master of many websites. He has been writing when he was in his early teens and till then he has written thousands of articles, tens of poems, have handled edited many magazines, directed as well scripted many shows and music videos. He has been handling and managing his own software house where he specializes in web marketing, web development, web promotion and technical writing. He can be reached at yani@yasirnisar.com or at his website http://www.yasirnisar.com

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Sender Policy Framework (SPF) - How to use it to Fight Email Forgery

Spam is a real problem today. Forged email is a big part of the spam problem. Have you ever received a spam email from yourself? How many times have you received an email you know to be spam from someone only to find out it came from an invalid email address? When you try to block the email by choosing block sender, the spammer simply changes the email address to another variation and gets through the block. Until recently, there wasn't much you could do about it. Now there is.
What is Sender Policy Framework (SPF)?
SPF makes it easy for a domain, whether it's an ISP, a business, or a school to say that they only send mail from certain machines. If any other machine is claiming to send mail, they are lying. SPF aims to prevent spammers from ruining other people's reputation. When your machine receives an email from another server that has implemented SPF, your machine can easily tell if the incoming email really comes from the server it says it belongs to. More information about SPF can be found at http://spf.pobox.com/
By implementing SPF in your favorite application or on your server, you can be sure that a spammer will never be able to impersonate you when spamming others. Most well known domains and email applications have already implemented SPF on their servers and products. Some examples of vendors that are already implementing SPF into their products include Sophos, Symantec, Declude Junkmail, Brightmail, IronPort, Ciphertrust, MailArmory, MailFrontier, Roaring Penguin Software, Communigate Pro, and others.
Ready to fight email forgery? Install applications that support SPF today and get protected from email forgery!
This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/, a web hosting company that specializes in helping online business owners increase their website traffic. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely as long as you link back to my website from this resource box.

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Solving Common Problems with Hosting Companies

For those of you with Web sites, you probably know what a "host" is. It's a company that provides a location, or address, on the Internet where your Web site resides.
In other words, just like a physical business needs an address, so does a Web site. You can't have a Web site and just "stick it up" on the Web. Unless you want to set up your own server, you have to go through a hosting company who gives you that address, including server space and bandwidth, that enables the search engines and visitors to find your site.
Let's look at some common problems we often have with hosting companies:

You can never find an actual person to talk to! They may have a 24-hour customer service line open, but you can never get through to a real person.
Hosting companies often think that the "lowest price" will always get the sale, but they fail to realize that what people really want is excellent customer service, servers that are up almost 100% of the time, and a variety of services that come with the hosting package.
Many hosting companies don't provide any other functionality other than Web site hosting. They don't provide a "control panel" full of goodies such as PGP secure e-mail, shopping carts, log analysis, database creation, etc.
Guess what? Technical support people often don't make the best "customer support" people. They may be technical gurus, but their main interest lies in their high tech servers and other functionality, rather than solving the simple problems of their customers.
In other words, weak customer service is a major problem with the majority of hosting companies these days.

Solution:
I recently had the pleasure of being introduced to Combustion Hosting Company, and to say I was impressed is a vast understatement.
Here are some things that struck me as unbelievable. When the phone rings, whoever answers the phone is required to stand up to answer it and talk. After all, the sheer act of standing up requires that they're on the ball and are listening to your problems and concerns. And, you actually speak to a "real" person!
With Combustion, if you have a problem, they don't just "tell" you how to solve it, they solve it for you! Also, their services certainly aren't limited to "hosting." They can set you up with an account to where you can access the Internet through local access numbers no matter where you travel.
Their prices are extremely reasonable - much better than I had been paying previously. Plus, the "extras" I've received by going with Combustion are amazing.
But the one thing that makes Combustion shine over most Web hosting companies is their devotion to providing good customer service, and this is an area in which they truly excel.
So, if you're in the market for a new Web site, or if you aren't pleased with your current host, consider Combustion Hosting. It will be one of the smartest moves you could ever make for your Web site. http://www.combustionhosting.com/moreinfo
If you want further proof as to the benefits of using Combustion, read: http://www.techvibes.com/absolutenm/templates/template.asp?articleid=39&zoneid=2
About The Author
Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com) and is the content provider for GRSeo software (http://www.se-optimizer.com). She also teaches 2-, 3-, and 5-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).
robin@searchengineworkshops.com

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